I Wish I Had Been Abused By Gender Ideology
The American College of Pediatricians announced, “Gender Ideology Harms Children.”
In fact, they labeled families who endorse it or have children who struggle with disorders that might embrace gender ideology as “abusive.”
I’m not a scholar, and I certainly do not write for the American Psychological Association, but I have some expertise in the area. If you ask me, the notion is lacking and dangerous.
As a child, I could have used some gender ideology in my home.
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome started causing hormonal imbalance by the age of eight. A disorder that medical professionals and researchers still do not know much about today; a disorder not so uncommon to those who struggle with gender identity or who fall amongst the transgender community.
So, I want to tell you about being abusive firsthand.
Abusive is when a disorder or illness is ignored because of cosmetic ideations based on social and cultural norms. Abusive is watching your child become a disfigured “woman” because medical treatments go uncovered or unattempted.
Abusive is watching your child live so uncomfortably in his/her own skin that he/she cannot look in the mirror, go to school every day, go on a date, attend prom or hang out at the mall with friends, but doing absolutely nothing to change it.
Abusive is a system so concerned with professional (and financial) acceptance that it labels those who struggle with finding themselves, those who struggle with feeling like a boy or a girl, abnormal. Freaks. Sinners. Impure.
Abusive is a system that leaves those who struggle with gender identity holding up help signs in the middle of busy streets while their screams are being ignored!
I wish I had been abused by gender ideology.
I wish I had been abused by controversial perspectives and unorthodox treatment options, instead of a mother who made me feel like a boy. I wish I had been abused by something that gave me a little hope in this darkened world! But I wasn’t.
I was, however, abused by the system. I was abused by religious culture, broken health care policies, and systematic neglect like the American College of Pediatricians just set the foundation for, and I’m writing this today, in case I never get my doctorate, to say:
We are not all the same, and many of us out there need medical professionals to remember what and who they are fighting for.
Oklahoma cited this research when writing yet another state bill to fight against coed bathrooms in schools. Oklahoma used this research to justify why it is okay that state discrimination and abuse of the transgender and LGBT community continues to go ignored.
I hold the American College of Pediatricians responsible.
Brecheen, J. (2017). SJR 36. oklegislature.gov. Retrieved 14 February 2017, from http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=sjr36
Gender Ideology Harms Children. (2016). American College of Pediatricians. Retrieved 14 February 2017, from https://www.acpeds.org/…/pos…/gender-ideology-harms-children
