One Million and One?

Friend Xerxes has come out with a column on the One Million March for Kids. Of course he is in support of the transgender ideology, but shows a bit of uncertainty now. He notes that Blaine Higgs’ requirement that parents be informed if a student decides to transition sounds, superficially reasonable, but…

As someone who marched on September 20, I assure you, gentle reader, that the protest was not about getting parental consent for changing gender. It was to remove SOGI from the schools: that is, discussion of sexual orientation and gender ideology.

Simply informing parents and requiring their consent for a change of gender is not enough. Schools should not be teaching children that it is possible to change their sex—because it is not. This introduces grievous confusion about self-image and physical reality that can lead to mental illness and suicide. It is the perfect prescription for driving a child mad. Almost 50% of those experiencing “gender dysphoria” have actually attempted suicide.

Children have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. They can imagine themselves to be a dump truck, or the old woman down the street to be a witch. This should not be exploited to confuse them. They need to be taught unambiguity what is real and what is not. Otherwise you are grooming them for schizophrenia.

In addition, openly endorsing gay sexuality in schools contradicts the religious teachings of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths. Religious liberty and freedom of conscience requires that such subjects must be removed from public schools.

It also has the schools directly contradicting the moral teachings of the children’s parents and faith tradition—again introducing confusion and disorientation that is likely to lead to depression and mental illness. Which is a current emergency. Along with reckless drug use, depression is skyrocketing in our society. I believe it is up 28% over just the last two years.

What we call depression is a loss of direction and meaning in life. And this is also the cause of drug abuse. The schools are now seemingly systematically stripping children of all sense of reality and direction.

Xerxes argue, in defense of teaching children about sexuality in graphic detail and letting them decide to be the opposite sex:

“Children are neither slaves nor serfs. They have a constitutional right to make their own choices.”

If he really held this view, he could not require them to attend school in the first place. Or do what the teacher tells them once there. Few children want to. 

If you cannot agree to that, gentle reader, and to children consenting to sex or marriage too, and so forth, then to make an exception for choosing their “gender identity” is suspiciously inconsistent.

Among other things, it requires you to endorse pedophilia—and this is indeed where this all seems to be headed. It looks like grooming.

Xerxes then argues that, if kids are allowed to choose their own nicknames, they ought also to choose their own sex.

But words are not things. What you call yourself is a matter of choice. But nobody chooses whether to be a boy or a girl, any more than they choose whether to be a dump truck or a marmoset. If a child insisted their skin was green, they were made of glass, and they needed to drink blood, the same issue would arise. Endorsing and encouraging such claims would be just as damaging, especially if it led to “corrective surgery.” 

Xerxes writes, of the parent of a hypothetical boy who decides he is a girl:

            “If I were her daughter, I would be terrified of telling her that I thought I was in the wrong body.”

To say you are in the “wrong body” makes no more sense than declaring that gravity should not apply to you. You cannot dictate physical reality. To do so is insanity by definition.

If a child’s chosen sex is not honoured in their school, Xerxes warns,

            “It would be much easier to drop out of that school completely, and start a new life somewhere else.

            Except that a farmer’s daughter in rural Saskatchewan, or a lobster fisher’s son in New Brunswick, may not have any other place where they can start anew.”

Moving to a new town won’t help.

I cannot decide I am seven feet tall, 21 years old and handsome, either. And I still would not be in Saskatchewan. Which is why the gender dysphoric who undergo surgery are just as likely to kill themselves afterwards. The only cure is to treat the gender dysphoria, and the underlying disorientation. Which cure is being made illegal.

Xerxes:

            “Teachers may be better informed and more compassionate than parents.

            “Yes, some teachers are incompetent and biased. But even those teachers have years of training in dealing with adolescent growth. Few parents do.”

A teacher may indeed be better informed and more compassionate than the parents. But the odds are against it.

If it were merely a question of who knows best, governments would have the right to dictate to us in general, on the premise that they have access the best experts. That’s the way it works in China; but no human rights. 

We each have an inherent, God-given right to make our own choices. It is for this we were created—for the exercise of free will.

Adults do often know better than children what is best for the child; and children need guardianship or they may do themselves harm. The question then is, which adult has the child’s best interests at heart? Which adult knows this particular child’s needs best? The parent, or the state?

If you think it is the state, through their schools and their assigned teachers, you must also endorse the Indian residential schools. You simply want the same principle extended to the general population.

While there are bad parents, paternal instinct ensures that parents normally love their children and want the best for them. An unrelated bureaucrat, who is just doing a job for pay, does not have the same instincts for a mass of strangers.

Teachers also have no special knowledge in this area. Teachers do not have training in “adolescent growth,” by which is presumably meant psychology or child psychology, as Xerxes suggests; perhaps a course or two in teachers’ college. It is not their job. But even if they did, the fields of psychology and child psychology have established nothing; there is no consensus on anything within the field, only shifting theories. Children should not be involuntarily experimented on. That is a violation of human rights. Just teach the curriculum.

Xerxes then laments that those who want the decision left to the parents are “trapped in a hierarchical mindset. They still believe that power devolves downwards from the top.”

Here he is oddly arguing against himself. Perhaps we are actually witnessing a mind I the act of changing. He had only just claimed the teachers, the school and the state know better than the parents, and we “should be controlled by the more competent.” 

Subsidiarity means the decision should be left with the parents: at the lowest level possible, the level closest to the child.

Or, in the common slogan of the marchers, “Leave the kids alone!”