I think a lot of people see it as a disorder, but not as being akin to those things. People tend to attach morality to the transgender debate in a way that we don’t see with other mental illnesses. I would say it’s treated more like how we used to talk about alcoholics. I’ve never seen a state legislature propose that we shouldn’t teach our kids what bipolar and schizophrenia are. If people DID consider it to be simply a mental illness similar to many others, there wouldn’t be this outrage from people talking about it. I’ve explained the ideas of bipolar and schizophrenia to my 7 year old son when I had a conversation with him about why we see homeless people on the street, and why some people are mentally unable to maintain a home for themselves. I don’t think anyone would tell me I did a bad thing there. I also don’t think there would be mass outrage from teachers talking to young students about why homeless people have some of the problems they do. None of this seems to be the case with the transgender issue.
Here is where I WOULD say teachers cross the line: talking about the social/emotional/mental aspects of the transgender community to young children is actually fine to me. Pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t necessary. But I can acknowledge that the anecdotes we’ve read about with teachers essentially indoctrinating children and pushing the issue onto them as a choice they need to make is extraordinarily problematic, and shouldn’t happen. I think that if the Florida bill had been more oriented towards THAT issue, it would have had more support even from the moderate left. The extreme left would still cry about it, but that is a small segment of the population that does not need to be appeased.
Ben Shapiro is excellent at argument and debate, and he’s really good at making himself appear to be more intellectually honest than he is. He’s really good at supporting his opinions, to the point that they come across as facts to many people. That’s all I’ll say about him. I know there’s a lot of love for him here.
Not at all. I’m saying that this conversation need not happen with children, and that doing so is absolutely grooming kids into a lifestyle with a 40% attempted suicide rate. My daughter can learn about this stuff when she finds out who she is for herself, but I don’t need or want her second guessing things she knows as facts. There is a time and place for that, and the wisdom of 6-7 year olds is NOT that time or place.
P.S your “scientific” article is written by a very objective trans person.
But, also pretty qualified to speak on the subject, as he/she has a PhD in neural science from NYU, and is a post doctoral researcher. Certainly more qualified than anyone in this thread.
Discussing those disorders don’t put the idea into the kids’ head that maybe THEY are bipolar or schizophrenic. I mean, if your 7 year old decided they were bipolar and wanted to start taking Latuda and Welbutrin, would you let them?
And as flip and myself have said it’s not complicated to tell a child what something is without going into inappropriate detail. What did I miss that suggests it’s grooming?
And all you’ve said about the article is that someone is writing about something they are very qualified in that also means a lot to them.
I’ll read other scientific sources. I don’t know enough about this subject but I’m not joining Shapiro on mount dunning kruger with his megaphone
That’s why I made the distinction between indoctrination and discussion.
I’ve talked to my son about the concept of ‘gay’. It didn’t make him think he might be gay. I think this fear that if you even talk to kids about the concept of transgender, that they’ll suddenly think that it applies to them, is off base.
No. Nor would I allow my child to take hormones to change gender expression. But that’s not what we’re talking about.
According to the nation's leading expert on school sexual abuse, "red flag grooming behaviors" include "personal disclosure of adult sexual activity and preferences, and questions to students about their sexual lives."
not according to linked in. According to linked in, this person is a postdoctoral research fellow, which means they have already obtained their phD, by definition. POST doctoral.
And I don’t care what this person looks like.
Well fortunately for you, this person is writing for scientific publications that are clearly intended for adult consumption. So your daughter should be safe.
Disney is an easy choice for parents to make. Either let your kids watch it, or not. Public schools, not so much.
There is no long-winded scientific explanation that exists on this planet or any other planet that will get parents to agree that it is important to highlight unusual adult behaviors, private or public, to small kids.
This is about doing everything possible to ensure your child grows up to lead the kind of life that parents have in mind for their kids, not the kind of life that narrow activists want for other people’s kids.
If you want trans kids, raise them like the Disney executive is. If you don’t, it’s probably best to not implant gender confusion in their minds at a young age. This is common sense parenting stuff.
When I was in elementary school I wanted to be special too. I thought that if I took some wires with me to school and put them up my sleeve I could “accidentally” let other kids see it so they might think I was a cyborg. I think I was in 2nd grade and a weird little booger for sure.
What if my parents decided that it would be in my long-term interests to “affirm” my new cyborg identity? What if they went all-in on this weird little booger idea that popped into my rapidly forming brain?
That’s what we’re doing to kids in public school today. It’s happening, and the White House supports the notion of irreversible medical procedures being performed on kids to “affirm” whatever idea pops into their head that may or may not have been planted there by a teacher.
It’s a good thing my parents didn’t take me in to get cyborg affirming surgery, whatever that is. Besides, we’re all cyborgs now. First generation, just no neural interface yet.
I don’t think we should be enabling the popularization of gender dysphoria among our youth and that sentiment seems to be taken the wrong way. A key marker in societal collapse is the obsession with gender, rewriting of history, errosion of rights, and a waning ability to separate fact from fiction. But we can ignore this and say “it’s okay to be special”.
I’m going to see myself out of this conversation because I don’t think we will find common ground. Not angry or disinterested in conversation with you, I just don’t think we will find the middle-point in which we agree here.
This is one of those issues I can’t even imagine a common ground on. I just don’t see the need to inject any of this into young kid’s heads in public schools. Parents can raise their own kids to be as messed up as they want. We used to call that child abuse, but now it’s affirming your child’s identity, which ironically involves completely rejecting your child’s identity.
It’s about the adults seeking validation, not raising better kids.
I don’t see what others see in him. I’ve never heard him and then thought he has interesting takes on things or offering much other than logic that is self-evident, unlike Jordan Peterson who can do that here and there.
but again, this isn’t how we think about other things that are explained in school settings. There’s a difference between teaching for the sake of awareness and education, vs indoctrination, and I have clearly stated that I believe one is ok and one is not. I understand the feelings that there is a slippery slope there. But I don’t think that simply educating children on the subject will ‘popularize’ gender dysphoria. I’m confident my son will not suddenly become trans or gay just because someone, whether me or his teacher, tells him what that is.
I think the common ground we probably have is that I don’t think this stuff NEEDS to be taught in schools, by any means. I will be perfectly happy if my son never hears about anything trans-related in school from his teachers. I think we can agree that it’s BETTER for parents to address the concept, at whatever point they feel is appropriate, with their own children. I really think the only area where we are truly divided is that I don’t think we need to legislate conversation out of schools, partly because it’s really not happening often at all, and also because I have a feeling that the teachers who were already doing this will ignore the law.
I think Jordan Peterson is much less dogmatic, and is more of a truth seeker. I think he’s more likely to evolve with his opinions, which makes me value them more. I don’t think Shapiro has any room in his head for changing his mind on anything.
Clear communication and a fairly consistent conservative take on things, delivered in the time it takes me to commute to work. He does a good job of backing his opinions up as well and I don’t often catch him in egregious lies, whether by omission, mischaracterizing others or using slippery language.
I mean, with today’s Democrats, he doesn’t need to.
What should he change his mind on, but isn’t? In your opinion, of course.
Well as someone who is on the more liberal side of a lot of issues than he is, I’m sure I could come up with a long list, but that’s not actually helpful, because I’d just be saying ‘I’m liberal and he’s conservative, here is the list of things that liberal people and conservative people disagree on.’ My own opinion of his opinions is pretty irrelevant.
I don’t believe anyone is right about everything, myself included. Over the last 2 decades, I have had PLENTY of shifts in opinion on many issues. Not always 180’s, but often minor shifts left or right on things, because I am much more invested in listening than talking. I have no problem with saying ‘well, I got that one wrong’. I don’t believe Shapiro is invested in listening or personally evolving. He reminds me of my dad, who is over 70 years old, and has often said ‘Once I was 18, I was pretty much who I am now’. And he takes pride in that. I think Shapiro similarly takes pride in resistance to budging from any of his opinions. I find that to be a flawed approach to life. Plenty of people don’t.
I think that probably answers your question. It’s a philosophical difference I have with him on life, more than a particular political stance that I think he should change.
