I’ve got a new post up at Genspect on the role of suggestion in creating ‘trans’ kids:
If someone believes that trans identification is not an idea that can be planted in somebody’s head—that trans is not a belief about the self—they won’t understand what they’re doing when they suggest such an idea to a child. So if a therapist or a doctor or a teacher or a peer or a stranger on the Internet suggests the idea to you, it will have no effect on you unless you are ‘really trans.’ It doesn’t matter what condition you’re in when you encounter the idea. It doesn’t matter how often or how insistently you’re prompted to consider it. If you are not transgender, then this idea will not speak to you because being trans is not a belief about the self.
This is where people whose hearts are in the right place make a terrible mistake. They think raising awareness around trans is just like increasing visibility and representation for kids who are different in other ways, where visibility and representation help these kids accept themselves as they are and imagine themselves into adulthood.
Under this way of thinking, we need to teach all kids about what it means to be trans—and how you’d know if you were trans—so that the few ‘trans’ kids in the mix will know they’re not alone in the world, so that they will look out at the world and see themselves reflected back. This is what many adults think they’re providing to ‘trans’ kids. And if ‘trans’ kids were like kids with disabilities or kids with incarcerated parents or refugee kids or kids whose names nobody can pronounce or kids who will grow up to be gay, they’d be right. You don’t turn a child into a refugee by reading children a book about refugees.
But ‘trans’ is a belief about the self. Of course it can spread. Of course it can fall apart. Of course we shouldn’t inscribe it on children’s flesh.
When something is a belief about the self, raising awareness operates rather differently. Exposing kids to the concept of transgender identity creates ‘trans’ kids through suggestion.
And that’s not all. In the process of boosting representation for quote-unquote ‘trans’ kids, they are actively stripping representation and role models from girls and gender-nonconforming kids. Remarkable women are being transed—on the grounds that they were remarkable and thus could not have been women at all!
So clear, maybe the best yet on this topic of how we create "trans kids." I maxed out one friend with what I thought were great explanations, including (I think) one previous one by you, and my own, and a great one on Transgender trend. The tone of them all put her off and she really didn't like the phrase "trans kids" in quotes. She said I was discounting the experiences of these kids, which totally confused me. It finally occurred to me that she thinks we are mocking the KIDS with the scare quotes, when we are mocking nobody. We're trying to convey that society created this dangerous category, it is not an immutable or real thing. We don't wish to be insulting anyone, but we have to put it in quotes to be intellectually honest, as taking it out of quotes is a concession to an ideology we do not share and strongly oppose. Like using the term "cisgender woman" unironically just to communicate that we mean the category of human known for centuries as "woman." Maybe in a few months I can see if she would be open to this one. My friend is exceptionally intelligent and I'm thankful she is one friend I haven't lost, though she disagrees with me so strongly. It still baffles me that something so obvious cannot be seen. But maybe those who have ears may hear this one, maybe it'll get through. Thanks so much for your great work, Eliza.
Wonderful piece!
That pop tart parable is such a good example of how easy it is to manipulate and indoctrinate the young and the vulnerable.
You've explained so clearly the difference between 'trans' and other varieties of inclusion and tolerance that I'm saving this to show to those who still don't see the harm.