Why Gender Ideology Doesn’t Impress Me — Part 3

Are We Ready to Look At It and Talk About It?

Photo by Rob Potter on Unsplash

This essay is Part 3 of a collection of reasons I’m not impressed (a massive understatement) with gender ideology. In some sections, I provide links to my previous essays; in others, I point to articles by other writers. It is time for an open discussion focused on common sense and then a political unification for course correction away from an ideology that has gone too far. (Read Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.)

Here are a few more of the many reasons I’m not impressed with gender ideology.

Gender ideology seems to have no moral compass

Most of the time, parents who agree to have their child undergo irreversible body modifications were misinformed, misled, and sometimes emotionally blackmailed by the unsubstantiated scare tactic of a suicide threat. But some parents enthusiastically press for medical interventions. I find it ironic that “transhausen by proxy,” a term coined for narcissistic parents who are invested in their child being the “wrong sex” and push for “transitioning” their children, are applauded while protective parents who want to preserve their child’s natural body are looked down upon.

And then there is pornography. I am disturbed to hear how prevalent porn has become within gender ideology youth followers. It seems particularly harmful for boys, as many detransitioning kids have admitted. These kids also talk about online groomers and sexual predators. Furthermore, it is common now to see pride parades with men dressed in outlandish and offensive costumes depicting the worst stereotypes of what they think a woman is and posing and prancing in lewd ways before children in attendance. Many corporate sponsors are pulling themselves out of pride events now that the parades have become spectacles for debasing women and dishonoring the gay community. And how did it become considered appropriate to encourage drag queen reading hours in libraries and kindergarten classrooms?

I don’t have school-aged children anymore, but I hear from parents in my support group about what is being taught and going on in middle and high schools regarding teaching kids about sex. I have also heard it dips down into elementary school as well. Children are taught about sex with the opposite sex, same sex, and both sexes, and they are presented with ideas for differing identities beyond being a boy or a girl. Children are told they may have been born wrong and as a result of being in the wrong body, they may need to switch their sex from boy to girl or girl to boy. Some kids even identify as animals and are called “furries,” which seems to be another way to blur the line between reality and fantasy. What may have started innocently as embracing furry fandom has gone too far for some kids. We seem to live in a culture that fails to help children stay anchored in reality, foster a secure sense of self, or maintain a moral compass.

Since kids are now taught about sex at a very early age in school, they seem to be losing the ability to traverse childhood without being sexualized. A stigma about being either heterosexual or gay seems to be growing, and some kids opt out and say they are non-binary and/or bisexual to relieve the pressure. They often add that they are polyamorous or gender fluid for good measure. Why are children told they must pick a sexual orientation and identity—sometimes before they have even kissed anyone, let alone had sex or grown up? Well, one answer is that the “Genderbread Person,” a “cute” teaching tool, is being shared with young children in schools, often without parental knowledge or consent. Learn more about what is happening in schools and to our children on Advocates for Protecting Children.

Is there any wonder why our children are so confused? Why is the educational track usurped with identity-focused, confusion-inducing instruction? So many detransitioners say they were robbed of their childhood. Why do we allow this “sexualized education” to continue? Why don’t we protect and care for our children anymore? Why have moral virtues been stripped from education, medicine, and society? What is really going on?

If you are disturbed about young children being sexualized, how about New Jersey’s hospitals asking parents of newborns to determine their baby’s sexual orientation? Parents giving birth at New Jersey hospitals are given a questionnaire asking: “Which of the following best describes your baby?” 1. Lesbian or gay, 2. Straight or heterosexual, 3. Bisexual, 4. Self-describes; please specify, 5. Questioning/unsure, 6. Prefer not to answer. This sort of overreach and breach of all common sense to sexualize newborns is beyond most people’s comprehension. That is how far we have let extreme radical ideology infiltrate every place and demographic conceivable. Will anyone stop the rampage of this unchecked ideology? If we can’t shield babies from being sexualized, what hope is there for any protection of the future generation?

Gender ideology aims to “queer” or blur and confuse everything, and as it does, precious childhood innocence is lost

A movement is underway to “queer” everything, which essentially means dismantling our “normal” societal structures. Normal is out, and weird, queer, and even deviant are in. When you take young kids and teach them about sex and pressure them to pick their sexuality and personal pronouns before they can understand it, they lose time to enjoy a carefree childhood without confusing thoughts and images in their heads. Some school systems have succumbed to this lack of common sense for protecting our children from sexual influences. Some elementary school libraries contain explicit books with a “queer” theme, including those that depict images of people engaged in sexual activity and some that encourage the normalization of altering the bodies of gender-confused children. At the same time, books that encourage accepting and loving one’s natural body have been banned.

Kids are sometimes ingesting the ideas that being straight is old-fashioned, being gay is looked down upon, and being a lesbian is out. Lesbians are even shamed and mocked as transphobes if they do not want to date or have a relationship with a male who says he is a woman. In some schools, being “trans” is in, and clusters of friends, particularly adolescent girls, all become “trans” together, suggesting a social contagion. And if “trans” isn’t palatable, some kids might opt for being non-binary so other kids leave them alone. Some kids also opt in as bisexual so they can appear to be open-minded when they really only desire the opposite sex or the same sex. Pressure to try everything, be everything, accept everything is fierce. Why not just leave the kids alone? For many, it’s too late. Also, porn is creeping into kids’ lives at younger and younger ages. It breaks the hearts of parents. Boys, in particular, have been exposed and groomed. When they share their stories, it is hard to grasp the predators’ complete lack of decency or goodness by not letting children be children instead of targets for fetishes or for capturing them into their demented worlds.

Learn more by hearing the story of Forrest and how porn can influence the decision to transition.

174 - How Porn Can Influence the Desire to Transition, with Forrest

Or listen to Shane Cole and how he healed from sissy porn and gender dysphoria.

179 - Healing From Sissy Porn and Gender Dysphoria with Shane Cole

And read Transgender’s Connection to Pornography: It’s Undeniable.

Transgender's Connection with Pornography: It's Undeniable

People can say that online communities are safe or don’t have kids in them, but they have not listened to those who were abused within these online forums.

The ideology also promotes Marxism and dislike for our country

I attend an in-person parent support group meeting in which most of the participants’ kids are under the age of eighteen, although a few are in their early twenties. During one meeting, a parent asked the others for a show of hands if their “trans”-identified kid also believed in Marxism, and all hands went up. We discussed this issue for a while. The kids also seem to have distilled the idea that our country is not good. It is disheartening that kids who haven’t even held a job yet, let alone run a business, have decided they despise capitalism. Most of the kids have never traveled abroad, yet they have been taught to think negatively about the US. So not only have they been cultivated to believe their bodies are the problem for complex issues, but they have also lumped in blaming capitalism as the problem for complex societal issues. Throw in a bit of Queers for Palestine language for good measure, and our youth seem to be very confused.

Ben Appel asked this question on Substack: Will America survive if its next generation is taught to hate it? Appel poses the question, “How is the U.S. expected to keep its citizens safe if college students are being indoctrinated to hate America and its allies?” College campuses feature slogans such as “America is built on genocide” and “America is a white supremacist nation” and “America must be decolonized.” My informal parent meeting survey indicates the indoctrination also reaches middle and high school students. Appel wonders, “Why would a country teach its best and brightest to usher forth its own demise? Isn’t this just national suicide?” And as a parent, I ask why an ideology would teach children to participate in their own self-harm. Gender ideology seems to be teaching kids to hate their bodies and their country. Why does this philosophy have anyone’s favor? I’m not a fan of dismantling one’s body or one’s country. Remind me why I should be impressed.

Will America survive if its next generation is taught to hate it?

Gender ideology does not cultivate various perspectives or diverse viewpoints

Those who fall into the gender identity trap seem incapable of deep thought and assessing how their behaviors affect others. As believers prohibit examination and discussion of the ideology they have embraced, they avoid the hard task of self-reflection and how their beliefs and actions impact their future, their parents, their families, and their society. Therapists and medical professionals who decide “affirmation only” is the only way to deal with someone who declares a new gender identity have shirked their responsibility to treat the whole person and the deeper causations of the person’s declarations and behaviors. It is the “easy” route for a medical profession and individuals to avoid the complex introspection or healing of the real issues. Just go to a gender clinic, get a prescription for cross-sex hormones, no questions asked, and remove healthy body parts upon demand.

Activists and their followers call it “gender affirmation care” despite a lack of in-depth science and sound research. The nice name camouflages the reality that comprehensive care isn’t provided. Addressing and treating the root cause of distress is hard work, and who has the time or skills to do that anymore? Instead, a quick body modification is surgically performed while ignoring the underlying and often complex conditions. The long-term mental and physical well-being of the child, the child’s family, and society aren’t considered because that is not a money-making direction. Looking decades into the future to envision life with drug dependency and complications from elective surgeries to modify sex traits of kids with “trans” ideation is discouraged in favor of the immediate “gratification” of body modification procedures.

Activists took over the Democratic party and still have a hold on some members, leading them to believe “trans” ideology is a social justice movement and it is righteous. But those of us who have lost kids to gender ideology see what is happening. Some of the parents who were Democrats have defected from the party, and many chose not to vote in the 2024 US election. They simultaneously grieved the loss of their child and the loss of their party that had meant something to them their whole lives. They saw how radical ideology corrupted their beloved party and how its leaders became pawns to the activists’ agendas. Who is running the show these days? It seems radical ideas, radical activists, and the gender industry are controlling everyone and have their tentacles in everything.

Some disillusioned Democrats did not abandon their party completely and formed the organization Democrats with an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG).

This organization says:

· Medicine should be evidence-based

· Surgery isn’t suicide prevention

· Males don’t belong in women’s prisons

· Sterilizing kids is a human rights violation

· Women are adult human females

· Sex is real, gender is regressive

· Pronoun mandates are compelled speech

· Truth matters

· Dishonesty is not kindness

· It’s time for Democrats to return to liberal principles

I wish more Democrats embraced the principles of DIAG, and I hope both parties unite in these principles.

Glimmers of hope occasionally appear. Jonah Wheeler, a young Democrat, has shown courage within his party.

Might others join him, or is the party lost beyond repair?

Believers in gender ideology have lost the ability to think critically and listen respectfully

I have observed video coverage of many school board meetings, town hall sessions, and other gatherings to discuss fairness in sports and the safety and privacy of girls, and I’ve seen too many of the sessions disturbed by “trans” activists. When a speaker is advocating for an issue the activists don’t like, such as fairness in sports for girls, the activists often distract the speaker and the board by hopping around like rabbits, doing dances like the Macarena, or making bizarre noises, humming, or singing. Sometimes, they release large quantities of bugs, such as crickets or roaches, so the room must be cleared out and cleaned. There seems to be no ability to respectfully listen, wait their turn, or consider the speaker’s words. Sometimes, the youth facing questioning has a meltdown, cries, or yells as if having a temper tantrum. Behavior and thought seem chaotic. These behaviors appear to reflect low maturity levels and a weak ideology that cannot allow any challenges without falling apart.

Will I ever be able to wrap up the growing number of reasons that gender ideology doesn’t impress me? Truth telling is becoming extinct because bullies won’t allow it, and falsehoods abound within gender ideology. A strong and healthy ideology, as well as a mature and healthy mind, welcomes discussion, debate, and diverse and varied perspectives. Gender ideology just isn’t cutting it. Most people are sick and tired of the topic of gender identity politics, but at the same time, they seem paralyzed by it and unable to say no.

We are at a pivotal point in history. We find ourselves in a cultural and spiritual war. Harmful ideologies such as gender ideology must be questioned and investigated. It is no longer responsible, if it ever was, to look the other way and hope it all works out in the end. Blind devotion to a political party or ideology is not wise. We must care for “trans” kids who have been medicalized beyond repair or return. We must question whether we should usher more children into that medicalization pathway. We must remember that sometimes, the best action a parent, doctor, or teacher can take is to say no. We must cultivate courage, critical thinking, and adaptive coping skills. We must remember our humanity and return to protecting our children again.

Dr. Roger McFillin wrote an essay entitled Reclaiming Adolescent Resilience—Beyond the Chemical Solution. (I would add “and sex-trait or body-modification surgeries” to the title.) Dr. McFillin suggests, “The medicalization of teenage life represents one of modern medicine’s most troubling developments. Normal adolescent experiences—mood fluctuations, identity exploration, social anxieties, academic stress—are now routinely pathologized and treated as disorders requiring pharmaceutical intervention.” He goes on to say, “When we prescribe drugs that induce emotional blunting, we deprive teenagers of crucial opportunities to develop emotional intelligence and coping skills. While the emotions we label as depression and anxiety may be painful, they serve important adaptive functions. They alert us to circumstances that require change, boundaries that need enforcement, or needs that are going unmet, yet this truth remains obscured by oversimplified narratives.” And as a mom, I would add, “Is removing the breasts of our young daughters the best we can do to help them?”

Reclaiming Adolescent Resilience—Beyond the Chemical Solution

My eyes are wide open. Are yours? You may not like what you see when you look below the surface of gender ideology, but we must look deeply into the core of it. We can do better. The next generation depends on it.

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