I remember the summer of 2015 very well. I was working at Whole Foods that summer & had good times & good friends there. I remember the day that SCOTUS declared that gay marriage had been legalized at a federal level, thereby allowing millions of gay & lesbian couples to finally be able to get married. It was a wonderful & exciting time to be alive & I will always remember the smiles on everyone's faces. A truly monumental & joyous occasion.
Flash forward to now, the summer of 2023, 8 long years later. The Before Times ended over 3 years ago. Now we no longer talk about LGB, now we only talk about TQIA+. Specifically, we talk about the T. A lot. At least Conservatives are. Especially on Twitter. Except for this time, the latest rainbow campaign isn't promoting sexuality & marriage equality. No, this time they are promoting trangenderism & sex changes for kids.
To be extremely clear, I have been Queer-identifying my whole life. I've identified specifically as gay, bisexual, & pansexual at varying times throughout the 4 decades of my life so far. I also have an affinity for trans women if we're being completely honest here. So I have skin in the game & a right to say something when it comes to LGBTQ issues since I've been Queer longer than a lot of these young people have even been alive.
That being said, although I do support trans people & their rights to live, love, & exist in our society, I have to draw the line at involving kids in such matters. A lot of these surgeries, procedures & treatments provided as a part of gender-affirming care are irreversible & have the potential to sterilize their recipients, as this type of care is still experimental for the most part.
There's also the "social contagion" element to all this. While I believe there is such a thing as a trans kid, I believe that "trans" is also in vogue right now amoungst our nation's youth, especially in the big cities & especially in Blue states like California. So clearly there's a social contagion element where kids just want to be cool, or fit in, or receive special attention. I was a Queer teen once & I remember feeling all that.
So I know that a lot of these so-called trans kids aren't trans at all. 4 out of 5 of them are probably just gay. But an ideology & adults with agendas pressured them into thinking that the only thing that will "fix" them is to change genders. Because then they won't have those "shameful" gay feelings anymore because they'll have transitioned genders to be straight. And that is exactly what has become so chic nowadays amoungst the youngest & most vulnerable in our society.
Bottom line: We simply must do our best to protect our kids & youth from exposure to aggressive ideological movements that seek to indoctrinate the vulnerable with all sorts of extreme ideas about gender, race, sex, sexuality, religion & so on. There are people in this world that want to harm children. They are predators & they must be stopped.
But ultimately, I would have to say that people should be placed before ideology. People matter. Trans lives do matter. Black trans lives do matter. And these are real people who exist & live & breathe the same air as every other American. We must show humanity to our fellow humans.
So I would say the answer is to support transgender adults' rights to make adult decisions about their own bodies but protect "under 18s" from potentially harmful ideologies that can oftentimes confuse & irrevocably change them, oftentimes for the worse.
I don't know how you, the reader, will receive this. Hopefully, you understand that I fully support LGBTQ, especially when it is involving consensual adults & their rights to live & love how they see fit. I'm totally down with all of that as I am a part of the Queer Community myself. And trans men & trans women should be afforded the same rights as everyone else.
But, please leave the kids out of it. Kids are under immense pressure as it is from their own culture & peers. We don't need to be further trying to influence or manipulate them or worse, *groom* them into something they are not. Let gay kids be gay. Just because a boy likes other boys that doesn't necessarily mean he's a girl. Just because a teen girl likes dressing & acting "boyish" doesn't mean she should get her breasts removed at age 15.
Let gay boys just be gay.
Let gay girls just be lesbians.
Let children grow up free from ideological influences of ALL kinds.
We were born this way, remember?
Let humans just be themselves.
Learn to live free of ideologies.
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
romaincrisis
sugurugetos
theartofmadeline