Manipulation of Language by Gender Ideology

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Parents find it detrimental to their children’s well-being when abysmal care is sugarcoated to make it sound good to the public. Manipulation of language to use appealing or vague words that cover up a harsh reality may have started out with good intentions, but now the harm of misusing language is surpassing any positive motives in the past. Irreversible damage, particularly to children and vulnerable young adults, is now occurring in larger numbers.

Let’s begin by explaining the real meaning of words you might hear in the media—words that are purposely confusing. I’ll also share a possible paradigm shift around each idea.

Gender Affirming Care

What does it mean? This “care” facilitates converting a healthy body into the appearance of the opposite sex, using cross-sex hormones and surgically removing healthy body parts and healthy reproductive organs. These procedures occur at the child’s or young adult’s request based on the self-diagnosis of being born in the wrong body and wanting to correct this perception of mismatch.

Possible paradigm shift: Ideally, gender affirmation care helps children or young adults accept their natural bodies and natal sexes while addressing the underlying causes of their discomfort or dislike for their bodies.

Affirmation-Only Model

This medical model means no exploration, questioning, treating, waiting, or healing of the root cause of distress that led the child or young adult to declare they were trapped in the wrong body. Transactivists have removed safeguards for children and vulnerable young adults seeking drugs or body-altering surgeries because they consider these protective measures as gatekeeping and offensive. No questioning is allowed. Only affirmation is permitted.

Possible paradigm shift: Safeguards must be reinstated to protect the bodies and future health of children and young adults who may not have the maturity, mental stability, or foresight to make a decision that will impact them for life. Exploration should be valued and expected to uncover any underlying conditions or maladaptive coping mechanisms that are prompting the request for drugs and surgeries.

Hormone Therapy

This masculizing or feminizing hormone “therapy” is the administration of cross-sex hormones immediately upon request to children and adults alike. Girls are prescribed testosterone and boys are given estrogen, which immediately changes and often harms their bodies and future health, as well as making them drug-dependent and medical patients for life starting at a young age. These drugs cause a large number of adverse reactions in the body and mind, and they are also the first step toward sterilization of the youth taking them.

Possible paradigm shift: Cross-sex hormones are not an appropriate treatment for minors and children and are highly questionable for young adults as well. The adverse effects of these drugs must be presented and not minimized. Puberty is a natural part of growing up, and tampering with this process with puberty blockers should not occur unless under extreme circumstances. Informed consent is impossible for children to give because they are unable to know how they will feel about their bodies when they mature and become adults. It is impossible for children to know if they want to have children while they are still children themselves.

Gender Reassignment Surgeries

This description sounds pleasant to a non-parent/outsider, but it describes the extreme body modifications of “top and bottom” surgeries.

·      Top Surgery: This surgery is a double mastectomy, the removal of healthy breasts for girls. Mastectomies may also include the removal of nipples if the goal is a gender-nullification look.

·      Bottom Surgery: This surgery category is vast (look it up), but in a simplified version, it is castration and inversion of the penis for boys and alteration of the natural anatomy of girls’ genital appearance.

These surgeries can be riddled with complications, such as urinary incontinence and chronic infections. Plus, boys who have their genitals removed will never be able to experience an orgasm that accompanies intercourse, and girls who have their breasts removed will lose sensation there and will never be able to breastfeed their babies should they decide later in life to have a family. And if girls have a hysterectomy, they will never be able to conceive a child of their own and will have the effects of menopause at a young age. These elective surgeries have profound, lifelong consequences and often need subsequent procedures and drugs to address the unwanted adverse effects that result from them. Are children and young adults able to grasp those effects before they rush to medicalize themselves?

Proponents of “gender affirmation care” consider these drastic interventions and surgeries “lifesaving,” while many parents want their kids’ bodies left alone and don’t want their child’s gender identity medicalized. Many believe this “care” discards the Hippocratic Oath of “first, do no harm.” Most parents do not want what they perceive as their child’s self-harm to be normalized by soft, misleading linguistic alterations of language to make it sound appealing while hiding the severe consequences of tampering with the natural body.

Possible paradigm shift: These irreversible procedures should not be considered appropriate for minors. Removing healthy body parts and healthy reproductive organs is an extreme measure for vulnerable young adults as well. Safeguards and waiting periods need to be reinstated to protect both children and young adults to avoid regret and ensure they are addressing underlying comorbidities and exploring healthy coping mechanisms to distress, trauma, loss, fears, and so forth.

Confusing gender identity language

·      Trans man or transmasc is a woman who presents herself to look like a man.

·      Trans woman is a man who presents himself to look like a woman. Some trans women elect to keep their genitalia but dress like a woman, which can sometimes gain them access to female-only spaces. If they have nefarious intentions, they can endanger women. For example, “trans women” have raped women in women’s prisons. Because sex is now a matter of self-ID, being a woman is as simple as filling out a form saying you are one. So readers, what is a woman? No one seems to be able to answer that question today. Can you? This muddled situation does not seem to be a positive direction for language use, and it does not protect women.

·      Genderqueer: “An umbrella term for gender identities other than man or woman and therefore outside of the gender binary. This can include bigender (both male and female), agender (does not identify as having a particular gender), genderfluid (moving between genders), and third gender or other gendered.”

Possible paradigm shift: We must return to clear language for sex: boys and girls, women and men, male and female. Just because a theory no longer believes in sex as binary, that theory does not need to be forced upon others, especially children, vulnerable young adults, and those who do not believe in the theory and the activist agendas and profit-centered industry surrounding it.

A multitude of gender identities

Take a look at this identity list for our kids to choose from, according to Wikipedia. Do we need dozens or hundreds of identities for kids to pick from, or might this huge choice cause confusion? Are all these words progressive and helpful to society? Might these words be connected to transient feelings or more connected to personalities or youthful experimentation?

Because kids are told that their gender identity can change over time, plus maturity and life experiences can change their perspective, kids’ flowing feelings and switching of identities make it challenging for others to try to please them. Those outside of the world of gender identity ideology must walk on eggshells. Everything someone else says is subject to ridicule and correction, and the person may even be labeled as a “transphobe” if they use a word that a gender-identified person doesn’t like. Keeping all the pronoun choices and new rules straight is exhausting. Workplace policies and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are constantly changing, special trainings must be held with mandatory attendance, and everyone is being policed with every word they say or write.

Possible paradigm shift: We can still respect those with various gender identities, but we must cease revolving around those individuals and small groups of people at the expense of the whole. We can acknowledge sex-based rights, particularly the protection of girls and women who wish to have safe spaces, organizations, and communities. We need to reinstate fairness in sports instead of allowing boys and men to compete in girls’ and women’s divisions. Perhaps those who identify as trans can create a separate co-ed category of competition, but the current state of boys/men being intermingled in girls/women’s sports is not acceptable or fair.

Dilution of LGB rights and gay erasure

Many concerned gender-critical people also stand with gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals and orientations, and they ask for a halt to the ever-growing alphabet that got added on after LGB. Many in the LGB community are not happy with forced teaming. What is forced teaming? An implied connection with other entities when there may not be one. LGB describes who one is attracted to and their sexual orientation, and not all those in the LGB community want any other letters added on because those additional letters are identity-based. And the gender identity list continues to grow, with no end in sight, which dilutes gay rights and is creating gay erasure.

Possible paradigm shift: We must stop forced teaming, and honor LGB individuals as a separate group with their own needs and rights.

Dehumanization of women

Another complaint about gender identity ideology is that it dehumanizes women and divides them into labels according to bodily secretions and bodily organs in order to be inclusive of trans-presenting people or those who identify as nonbinary. Examples include:

·      People who menstruate or bleed or menstruators, also known as bleeders and breeders

·      Vagina owners (vagina may also be called a front hole or bonus hole)

·      Uterus havers

·      Ovary havers

·      Non-prostate owners

·      Child bearers

·      Birthing bodies

·      Human milk or chest feeders

·      Elimination of the word “mother” in maternity policies

·      Elimination of the word “woman” in cervical screening/pap test literature

Gender ideology lingo and linguistic gymnastics are difficult for outsiders to understand, and this is on purpose. Many word changes are blatantly offensive to women. This essay is the beginning of exposing the confusing and degrading language perpetuated on society by activists with questionable motives and incentives.

Possible paradigm shift: Return to language that honors women and mothers. The betrayal and erasure of women and mothers is unacceptable to most. Acknowledge that an activist agenda that alters language to degrade women and mothers is not acceptable.  

The politicalizing of trans issues

A critical comment: The protection of children and vulnerable young adults is currently tied to political parties in the US. None of these concepts or children themselves should be politicalized. Many democrats feel disenfranchised with their party’s view on gender ideology and feel homeless politically. Organizations are forming to help, such as DIAG, Democrats with an Informed Approach to Gender.

Possible paradigm shift: Remove politics from decisions regarding the protection of children and vulnerable young adults. Until that time, give your support to organizations such as DIAG so those on the political left who are troubled by gender ideology and the medicalization of our youth have a place to go, since the US is currently polarized politically. Cease to demonize the Republican party in its efforts to reinstate safeguards for children that should never have been removed by transactivists in the first place.

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Undoubtedly, I have blundered in my presentation of gender language because it constantly changes and is impossible to keep up with. Some advocate that misgendering should become a crime. Many are sensitive to “micro-aggressions,” and words can trigger them. Words surrounding gender ideology are becoming ridiculous and sometimes meaningless. And just because spell-check programming doesn’t recognize detransitioners as a real word doesn’t mean this group doesn’t exist.

The bottom line is that parents and many other groups are tired of this manipulation of language. It needs to stop. When can we return to sensible language? When can we protect the girls and boys who are our children, as well as girls, women, and the LGB community? Let’s start now. See this warping of language as manipulation from an activist and political agenda. It no longer, if it ever did, helps protect children and vulnerable groups, even when it pretends to do so. It is time to return to clear language that has meaning. Too many people are being hurt by vague, confusing, and purposefully altered language. And once words are manipulated, history is rewritten for the activist agenda. Is that best for humanity’s future?

Start with awareness and asking questions. Then observe, dig in, and study what is happening. You might find yourself with serious concerns, like the parents in the depths of dealing with their kids who declare they are “trans” and trying to make sense of it. We need a few more people to join us in asking if this new language, activist agenda, and gender affirmation medical care model is really a good one for our children and society’s future. Dare to challenge injustices and harmful practices.

Lisa Shultz advocates for parents’ and women’s rights. She is deeply concerned about the influence of gender ideology and the lack of comprehensive, ethical care for children and vulnerable adults.