The Daily Mail has a shocking story from the UK. A whistleblowing teacher claims that vulnerable autistic children are being persuaded that they are gender dysphoric.
An astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Most of the youngsters undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a teacher there, who said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex.
The whistleblower says few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria – the medical term for someone who feels they were born in the wrong body – but are just easily influenced, latching on to the mistaken belief they are the wrong sex as a way of coping with the problems caused by autism.
This isn’t the only indication that something may be amiss:
The Mail on Sunday revealed that a third of youngsters referred to the NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children showed ‘moderate to severe autistic traits’.
It means that 150 autistic teenagers were given puberty blocker drugs which stop the body maturing.
What are the odds of that?
As to the larger question: Many, but certainly not all, pediatric medical associations support blocking puberty in kids with gender dysphoria to prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics. It’s hard to debate or seriously question this approach when those opposed are castigated with the usual epithets and ad hominem denigrations that inhibit any public discussion of controversial cultural issues these days.
Still, I can’t understand why blocking puberty isn’t considered unethical medical experimentation. What testing was done as to efficacy, safety, and necessity? What about the children who cease being gender dysphoric after they mature, as sometimes happens? Are their needs taken into account? This is all being implemented so quickly, how can we know whether there will be long-term deleterious health and emotional impacts on children whose natural puberty is artificially inhibited?
The whistleblower sure believes children are being harmed.
The teacher says she felt compelled to speak out to protect pupils, many of whom she believes could already be taking the powerful drugs and may go on to have life-changing surgery.
She believes schools and some politicians have swallowed ‘hook, line and sinker’ a politically-correct ‘fallacy’ peddled by a powerful transgender lobby.
She has asked The Mail on Sunday to conceal her identity for fear of dismissal after almost 20 years as a teacher, But in a shocking interview, the woman, who we shall call Carol, tells how:
She was advised to keep parents and other teachers in the dark if a pupil claimed to be transgender; Older pupils at her school who changed gender ‘groomed’ younger, mainly autistic students to do the same;
One autistic teenager is soon to have a double mastectomy;
Keeping parents in the dark about a crucial issue affecting their child? Outrageous.
This whole issue has the earmarks of a panic. It has come upon us so fast and furiously–and seems steeped in ideology as well as science–that I find it very hard to trust the newly minted conventional wisdoms.
I also believe that most of the people desperately trying to sound the alarm, like this teacher, are not motivated by hate for transgendered people–as is so often alleged–but love and the desire to protect the vulnerable.
The linked story is quite lengthy and alarming, and given the current atmosphere, courageous to publish. I hope y’all will take the time to read it.
This whole field needs to be examined with greater deliberation and care. The futures of children are at stake.