Penna Dexter

Who could miss the disturbing shift in how our society deals with gender confusion in young people? The consensus once was that it’s best to give children time for gender dysphoria to pass and — if it persists — to help them with their pain. Now medical professionals routinely agree with and affirm trans-identifying adolescents, allowing them to self-diagnose, and providing them with gender-bending drugs and surgeries. There are voices of caution and reason. The American College of Pediatricians boldly opposes this agenda and speaks the truth. So does Abigail Shrier, who writes columns for The Wall Street Journal and The Federalist. Most of her recent work sets forth her rising concern about the transgender craze among teenage girls. She spoke recently at a Hillsdale College event. An adaptation of her remarks appears in Hillsdale’s Imprimis, June/July 2021. She describes gender dysphoria as “the feeling of severe discomfort in a person’s biological sex.” This has historically begun in early childhood, between the ages of two and four, and has “usually involved a boy who insisted he was not a boy, but a girl.” Ms. Shrier points out that “in many cases, puberty seems to have helped children overcome gender dysphoria.” Now large numbers of teen girls are declaring themselves trans. Ms. Shrier says that in prior cases, “when no one intervened medically or encouraged what we today call ’social transition’ — over 70 percent of them naturally outgrew their gender dysphoria.” But we no longer leave these kids alone. They get affirmation in a new trans identity. They can have new names, new pronouns. They get hormones, even surgery. Then there’s peer influence: “teenage girls sharing and spreading their pain.” In her book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Abigail Shrier describes what she says has become a social contagion among troubled teen girls. Gender activists encourage this by lying to them, telling them: “only they know their true gender.” It’s a family-destroying, culture-killing message.