Gender Ideology

School districts and teachers’ unions across the country have been pushing to teach children about gender ideology in the US and the question arises that whether it is the right time for the preschoolers to know these complexities relating to gender identity and sexuality or not. Children develop at their own pace and preschool is really not the right time for them to be introduced to sex and gender differences and the complex gender ideology agenda at all. Even the preadolescent and adolescent have developmental differences in terms of emotions and psychological wellbeing. Among preadolescents many aren't psychologically or emotionally ready to discuss or think about their identity. A clinical social worker and psychoanalyst and a parent guidance expert Erica Comisar argues that before preadolescence that starts at around 9 years, they may be introduced to these concepts but very cautiously and succinctly depending upon the demand and curiosity of the child and it is preferred that these concepts are introduced at home by the parents first rather than the teachers at school. Parents can judge whether the child is ready to digest the information or puke it out. However, gender ideologists argue that kids must be taught gender ideology as early as preschool now into kindergarten and 1st grade which is unreasonably too early for them. They're not really equipped developmentally to be thinking about their identity in a way that is pushing him options to choose from whether to change his pronoun and dress like a girl or a boy or any of the more than hundred gender terms. She believed that this hasty adoption in such a way, is an indoctrinating a particular propaganda, an ideology and way of life that they want to push.

In the US, Fox News reports, the largest teachers union, the national education regulation are really pushing this agenda to teach gender ideology to preschoolers. They are releasing toolkits about sexual orientation and gender identity for their teachers. On June 7th, 2023, these regulations have been discussed for the teachers to teach gender and sexuality to the children at an early age. What are the dangers there?

The dangers include rapid on-set of gender dysphoria. As a psychologist Littman (2018) proved that parents have been facing the issues of gender dysphoria more now among adolescents and these are sudden gender dysphoria symptoms. They demand hormone therapy and transitioning. Her survey recruited 256 parents of young adults showing gender dysphoria symptoms. She hypothesized that a potential new form of gender dysphoria that has not been clinically validated was emerging and it necessitates additional research to explore the effect of social media and peer pressure in the development of gender dysphoria in this age group.

Similarly, in the New York City the dangers of liberalism are showing of in the form of two out of probably every five parents reported that their children wanted to be a different sex and then a few years later, they want to go back to their original sex, de-transition.

Remember psychologists believe children are developing with a kind of volatility and fluidity in terms of their choices, behaviours, preferences and thus identity. And the idea that their identity, emotions, preferences, choices will be fixed at such a young age is unreasonable, even not at an early adolescent that is usually 11 years old. In the US, they are allowing them to take puberty blockers knowing their identity and emotions are still quite fluid and have the tendencies of getting changed. Making permanent body changes carries risks to children that are really just very young and their personalities are really still quite unformed.

The ideology of the parents with gender non-binary arguing the feeling of isolating and bulling and suicidal ideation among their children push them for an early on open conversations is pushing the agenda way forward to giving open options to young minds to be a prey of the agenda that their kids became. They must be more compassionate for others and not expose the kids at an early age because such a choice for their child may have been because of an external social factor and who knows when does s/he decide to detransition as the movement of de-transitioning is already established. There are several cases of people transitioning after knowing that their gender dysphoria had been based on several other reasons and it has already played havoc with the body of many who transitioned medically going through surgical interventions like double mastectomies, vaginoplasty etc. Vandenbussche (2021) has surveyed a larger sample of 237 participants who have de-transitioned and proposed that they need support medically, emotionally and psychologically and the LGBTQ community disowns them once they decide to de-transition and show no concern and offer no support. The majority 70% of participants realized that their gender dysphoria was related to other issues and 43% have changed their political views and they have realized that this was an agenda pushed on them.

Thus, gender ideology is neither the need of the preschoolers nor is it the right age to introduce complex concepts like gender, identity, and sexuality. The learned choices are to wait and watch for them to be ready for absorption of such ideas. Finally, there are researchers proving that children are likely to be influenced by the lifestyles and ideologies they are exposed to. Be in charge as a parent and censor the content on social media that they are exposed to and the idea of introducing gender ideology to preschoolers is an indoctrination not the need.

References

Littman, L. (2018). Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports. / Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. [sic]. PLoS ONE, 13(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202330

Vandenbussche, E. (2021, April 30). Full article: Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2021.1919479