Month: June 2021

I have quite a few friends across the broad spectrum we call Feminism. Some of them are reading this post. And I implore them not to cut me off after they “hear” what I have to say in a moment. But first let me establish my bona fides.

I call myself a “freedom-feminist.” (Yes. Men can be feminists too.)

These are its basic principles:

Freedom Feminism
>  Contemporary synthesis of egalitarian and maternal feminism
>  Stands for the moral, social, and legal equality of the sexes
>  Affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, fairness, and liberty
>  Opposes efforts to impose on women (or men) stereotypical social roles, yet recognizes that men and women will typically employ their equal freedoms in distinctive ways
>  Asserts that efforts to obliterate gender roles can be just as intolerant as efforts to maintain them
>  Establishes that differences between the sexes, under conditions of freedom, can be a sign of social well-being.  Freedom feminism is at peace, not at war, with abiding human aspiration1Freedom Feminism: It's Surprising History and Why It Matters Today (Values and Capitalism) Copyright, 2013 by Christina Hoff Sommers.

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That establishment of my feminist bona fides was a setup for what comes next. [I hope it worked!]

It may sound sexist. But hear me out. Women and men are different. I discovered this truth from living life. To bolster my claim, I’ve read a few scientific studies on the matter. And of course there are my theological commitments.

Here’s one difference, women typically process pain and stress differently than men. And they usually do it together. Unlike the lonesome cowpoke.

According to experts there is a “collective stress response” gender gap.

This explains why most “mass hysteria” outbreaks in history involve females, not males. Especially young women. (Of course, virtually all “mass murder and mayhem” outbreaks in history involve males, not females. You could call that the “collective rage response” gender gap.)

It’s not that compared to men, women are emotionally unstable. That’s the old sexist saw. Certainly “mass murder and mayhem” makes a strong claim for the label “emotionally unstable!”

Robert Bartholomew, Ph.D. in his 2017 Psychology Today article says:

"It sounds sexist, and it's sure to raise the ire of some feminists, but the literature does not lie.  Throughout history, groups of people in cohesive social units have suddenly fallen ill or exhibited strange behaviors...often all of those affected, are females.  In fact, of the 2,000+ cases in my files which date back to 1566, this pattern holds true over ninety-nine percent of the time." [emphasis mine]

Okay, I just felt a “virtual” frying pan smack the back of my skull when someone read the word “hysteria.” Or was that a Louisville Slugger?²Some of my feminist friends might suspect the use of sexist language here, the term “frying pan” suggests the “lady in the kitchen” striking out the only way she can. I hope “Louisville Slugger” restores your confidence in my bona fides.<grin>

Who did that?

Abigail get me outta here!

"the nervous disorders of the eighteenth century and the neurasthenia epidemic of the nineteenth century.3Julie Beck, “ ‘Americanitis’: The Disease of Living Too Fast,” The Atlantic, March 11, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/the-history-of-neurasthenia-or-americanitis-health-happiness-and-culture/473253/. Anorexia nervosa,4Ethan Watters, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 34. repressed memory,5Paul M. McHugh, Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash over Meaning, Memory, and Mind (New York, NY: Dana Press, 2008), 69 (noting that those with “false memory syndrome” were usually women). bulimia, and the cutting contagion in the twentieth.6Mandy Van Deven, “How We Became a Nation of Cutters,” Salon, August 19, 2011, https://www.salon.com/2011/08/19/tender_cut_interview/. 

One protagonist has led them all, notorious for magnifying and spreading her own psychic pain: the adolescent girl.7Robert Bartholomew, “Why Are Females Prone to Mass Hysteria?” Psychology Today, March 31, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/its-catching/201703/why-are-females-prone-mass-hysteria. 

Her distress is real. But her self-diagnosis, in each case, is flawed—more the result of encouragement and suggestion than psychological necessity. Three decades ago, these girls might have hankered for liposuction while their physical forms wasted away. Two decades ago, today’s trans-identified teens might have “discovered” a repressed memory of childhood trauma. Today’s diagnostic craze isn’t demonic possession—it’s “gender dysphoria.” And its “cure” is not exorcism, laxatives, or purging. It’s testosterone and “top surgery.” [emphasis mine] — Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier8Shrier is a graduate  of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School.  Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters was named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]

I think she’s right.

All this is not highlighting a female flaw. It is a feminine feature (not a bug) that we adore and need!

The empathic female enters into the pain and loneliness of others. Closing ranks with the sufferer. Pulling them in. Embracing them at the moment of crisis. Sharing their pain. She is, in a word, mom.

Is there anyone quite like her? Nope.

I’m not saying that men are incapable of empathy or that you can’t find women empathic as a green tomato. But, c’mon. You’ve noticed a difference, right? You could chock this up to socialization, a “social construct” as some say. That’s a popular phrase these days. Still, the “facts on the ground” reveal, girls cuddle great!

But here’s a problem. Our young girls with their maternal instincts tend to internalize the pain of their troubled girlfriends. Combine that with pubertal anxiety induced by changing bodies, some changes they may never like, and then toss in the unwanted attention of boys and men as they “develop.” Not to mention all those comparisons with each other. It’s a mixed up challenging time for girls. And given their tendencies, if they find someone hurting like they are hurting it can present a peer problem.

For example. Hospitals that have anorexic patients, another dysphoria, are careful not to place them in the same area. Because the girls, if they find each other, will “feed off” one another.

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A critical factor emerged a few years ago. Social group formation started to change for boys and girls. Which brings us to the largest dysphoria cafe the world has ever known, a smorgasbord ideally situated to “nourish” a peer contagion pandemic.

Social Media.

This doesn’t explain everything about our current gender-dysphoric girl crisis. But it explains a lot. Adolescents today don’t hang out like they used to. Oh they communicate, like nobody’s business. But their interactions with peers have become disembodied.

This is a problem.

Here are a few relevant bullet points.

The GOOD NEWS
< Teen pregnancy has reached multi-decade lows.
< Rates of abortion among teens have plummeted.
< Teens are more tolerant of difference.
The BAD NEWS
> Teens in the West evince record levels of anxiety and depression.

In the past, if you were hurting, you got a hug, a real hug from a friend, especially if you were a girl. And if it was really bad, you sought therapy, religious counsel with real people. Today, increasingly, you get an electronic message and a super cool emoji, and receive counsel from an every growing group of Internet “Influencers” who are there for you 24/7, well their videos at least, to coach you through your discomfort, helping you blaze a trail to a “new you.” And words, words, words flow like a river, easy words, frictionless, effortless, blissful, abbreviated words, OMG, LOL. Distant words. From across the wide world words. Echoes really of what everyone else is saying. Teens follow trends, after all. But cliches without a body attached.

This is different.

Some of these supportive, affirming words, “group hug!” “you can do this!” discourage bodily life itself. At least the body you were given. Today’s affirming storyline is really different. And it is hurting us. Especially our anxiety ridden girls. (Our boys too, but I’ll talk about them later.)

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The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) the clinician’s “bible” written in 2013 puts the expected incidence of gender dysphoria at .005-.014 percent for natal males. Much lower for natal females. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people were expected to experience this dysphoria. Until about ten years ago the overwhelming number of cases were young boys usually presenting around ages 2-4.

According to Shrier’s research:

Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. In the last decade that has changed, and dramatically. 

The numbers for this decade: Two percent of high school students now identify as “transgender,” according to a 2017 survey of teens issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).⁹ Michelle M. Johns et al., “Transgender Identity and Experiences of Violence Victimization, Substance Use, Suicide Risk, and Sexual Risk Behaviors among High School Students—19 States and Large Urban School Districts, 2017,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68, no. 3 (January 25, 2019): 67–71, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6803a3.htm.

Some have argued that the reason for the “western spike” is because we’ve finally learned how to be more tolerant and excepting of difference and people now feel free to express themselves openly, especially our women.

Why then do we not see 30, 40 and 50 year old women “coming out” as Trans? Where are they? We’ve seen (MtF)¹⁰Male to Female Caitlyn Jenner. Where are the adult women identifying as Trans-men? Now is their moment.

It’s not happening. Rather, the unexpected spike is among teenage girls.

A new chapter in our story is being written. We need to read about it now.

This is the story of the American family—decent, loving, hardworking and kind. It wants to do the right thing. But it finds itself set in a society that increasingly regards parents as obstacles, bigots, and dupes. We cheer as teenage girls with no history of dysphoria steep themselves in a radical gender ideology taught in school or found on the internet. Peers and therapists and teachers and internet heroes egg these girls on. But here, the cost of so much youthful indiscretion is not a piercing or tattoo. It’s closer to a pound of flesh. Some small proportion of the population will always be transgender. But perhaps the current craze will not always lure troubled young girls with no history of gender dysphoria, enlisting them in a lifetime of hormone dependency and disfiguring surgeries. If this is a social contagion, society—perhaps—can arrest it. No adolescent should pay this high a price for having been, briefly, a follower.  — Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier

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CHRISTIAN FIRST PRINCIPLES

Here’s where I put on my Christian hat and encourage my Christian sisters and brothers, by God’s grace, toward the Truth. (Non-Christians, give us a minute.) Although it may be difficult to apply in practice, especially in our modern context, here’s a basic principle of God’s ongoing revelation to us.

The fresh wind of God’s Spirit will never contradict God’s purposes from the beginning.

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” All things visible and invisible, as the first stanza of our Ancient Creed says. Over the years I’ve expanded my understanding of God’s bi-natured world. Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Soul and Body, Male and Female make up the vital, indispensable components of God’s Good Creation. And I believe all of God’s Good Creation was, in the beginning, created equal.

• Heaven and Earth, equal.
• Spirit and Matter, equal.
• Soul and Body, equal.
• Male and Female, equal.

Different. (We are not Pantheists.) Yet equal. And meant to harmoniously overlap and interlock. As an integrated whole. A loving Unity with Plurality. Like our Creator. Our Triune (3in1) God. Before there was any created thing, there was loving community.

I call this view of creation equal dualism.¹¹I want to clear up what may be puzzling to some. By juxtaposing Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Male and Female, Soul and Body, as I have done am I not saying that maleness corresponds with Heaven, Spirit and Soul and that femaleness corresponds with Earth, Matter and Body and isn’t that dichotomy more than slightly demeaning? Some might say, objectifying?  Well, first of all, the main point is the union of each pairing, or the complementarity of each pair and not the correspondence between the different pairings.  For example, both males and females are a mysterious unity of spirit and matter, or if you prefer, soul and body. But let me question a further assumption that many make here, an assumption made especially by disciples of Plato (It’s possible to be a disciple of Plato and not know it!). That assumption is something I’ve called, unequal dualism. Unequal dualism regards the second place position in each pairing as inferior to the first. For example, Plato linked the irrational and physical with the female sex, and the rational and spiritual with the male sex. Making males superior to females in his mind. And only in his mind! Unfortunately his was a very influential mind. Our Big Picture Story.

Here is another excerpt from the Past, Present, and Future story of a Triune Creator:

“Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’” [Matt. 19:4] - JESUS

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By 2016, Facebook, the worlds largest social media platform had 56 profile possibilities under the category: gender.

56.

to be continued….

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If you haven’t already added your email to my list, do so and I’ll let you know when the blog is updated. 

Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life

Okay, in my last post I made some important points about Freedom of Conscience. I defended an ordained minister in the Church of England who was perhaps not the most “sensitive” sermonizer. But I’m sure you agree, based on the facts as we know them, he should not have been reported to the Goverment Terrorist Watchdog, Prevent, or the British equivalent of Child Protective Services. And perhaps you agree he shouldn’t have been fired over this issue.

But he was.

If you followed the details link I gave you in that post and scrolled to the end you would have read the following from Rev Randall:

 “I was terrified. I did not sleep. What was I supposed to tell my family? Being reported as a potential terrorist, extremist and a danger to children are arguably the worst crimes you could be accused of.

“When I found out that they had reported me without telling me, my mind was blown trying to comprehend it. I had gone to such lengths in the sermon to stress that we must respect one another no matter what, even people we disagree with. I am not ashamed to say that I cried with relief when I was told that the report to Prevent was not going to be taken further.

“I was doing the job I was employed to do. I wasn’t saying anything that I should not have been able to say in any liberal secular institution. Everyone should be free to accept or reject an ideology. Isn’t that what liberal democracy means?

“I 100% see what has happened to me in Orwellian terms. Truth matters, but increasingly powerful groups in our society do not care about the truth.

“My career and life are in tatters. I believe that if this is the Cross that I have to carry to help prevent others from experiencing the same as me, I have no choice but to pursue justice.

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Let me introduce you to another sympathetic voice. Actually, more than one.

“Our girls are in trouble!” — Mothers

I was alerted to a new crisis about 9 months ago when I read an eye opening book by Abigail Shrier.

Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School.  Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters was named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]

The reviewer in the Times of London says:

“Irreversible Damage….has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts.”

Shrier first became aware of this problem when she investigated a disturbing trend and wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about the spike of young girls identifying as boys. Afterwards she was contacted by many mothers, most of whom considered themselves liberal or politically “progressive.” One mother told Shrier when her teenage daughter suddenly identified as a boy she wanted to be supportive but she remained unconvinced her daughter was a “Trans-kid.” Unfortunately the daughter, affirmed by all her online “friends,” offline friends, and Internet Influencers, not to mention school counselors and therapists, began the process of transitioning from young woman to young “man,” a process that took off in earnest once she enrolled in college. But after studying the issue, the mother just couldn’t reconcile her daughter’s belief with the daughter she raised. “I know my daughter,” she said. Her daughter “dated boys” and was always a “girly girl” who didn’t show any early signs of gender dysphoria. [Up until the last few years the research literature said that virtually all gender dysphoria presented at an early age (2-4) and was almost exclusively among boys, not girls.]

Something else was going on. So this very “progressive” mother got in touch with a journalist who began snooping around for “the bigger story.”

As Shrier’s investigation grew she tried to “farm the story out” to some top notch investigative journalists, (Shrier was an opinion journalist at the time), but nobody would touch it, she said. So she did the “gumshoe work” herself. And Irreversible Damage is the result.

For her efforts she has been called a “trans-phobe” by some. It’s a untrue slur. I’ve read her book twice and have seen her give multiple lengthy interviews. She’s not a trans-phobe. In fact, she goes to great lengths to voice support for the many transgender adults she interviewed in her research for this book. She wanted to know from adult members of the Trans community what the transitioning experience was like, and whether it had been considered successful by them. In online interviews she’s reiterated that most of these transgender adults do not identify with the ideological goals of many Transgender Activists, the vast majority of whom are not Trans.

She’s a bright, compassionate observer, chronicalling a phenomenon that is literally sweeping through the Western world. Her book was briefly “de-listed” by Target after that corporation received, according to Shrier, two critical tweets about the book. [Shows you how squeamish corporations can be about this issue]. A week after pulling the book, and receiving a lot of pushback from concerned parents who thought this story should not be censored, Target made it available for sale again.

You can still get the book on Amazon. But there is one notable book that has been “de-listed” by Amazon. I’ll be posting about that book at a later time. It’s an important work as well.

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As a journalist, Shrier had other reasons for digging into this issue. I’ll let her describe:

"You're not supposed to pick favorites among the amendments, because it's silly, but I have one, and it's the First.  My commitment to free speech led me into the world of transgender politics, through a back door.

In October 2017, my own state, California, enacted a law that threatened jail time for healthcare workers who refuse to use patients' requested gender pronouns.  New York had adopted a similar law, which applied to employers, landlords, and business owners.  Both laws are facially and thoroughly unconstitutional.  The First Amendment has long protected the right to say unpopular things without government interference.  It also guarantees our right to refuse to say things the government wants said."

I know this is a tough issue for some of my readers. But it needs to be fairly discussed, which I hope to do. We need reliable information about this phenomenon that will hopefully spur us into action.

Our girls deserve nothing less.

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My next few posts will continue this book review of Irreversible Damage. But don’t just read about it from me. You should buy this book!

A “chair” of a work-group that puts together the clinical “bible” for diagnosing mental disorders (DSM-5) says so too:

“In Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier provides a thought-provoking examination of a new clinical phenomenon mainly affecting adolescent females—what some have termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria—that has, at lightning speed, swept across North America and parts of Western Europe and Scandinavia. In so doing, Shrier does not shy away from the politics that pervade the field of gender dysphoria. It is a book that will be of great interest to parents, the general public, and mental health clinicians.”

— Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D., adolescent and child psychologist and chair of the DSM-5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders

Zucker has gotten more than a little grief for his endorsement. But as of now, he is still employed at the University of Toronto. If you search YouTube for “Zucker McGill University” you will find his talk entitled “Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria.” The follow-up Q&A is posted as well. Some in the McGill community (students and staff) wanted his talk “cancelled” and a few showed up to voice their concerns. I watched two hours full of very dry statistics and a somewhat livelier Q&A. Most of us would be left wondering about the state of higher education if a talk like this by an eminent scholar in the field could be cancelled (as some wanted) because it conflicted with the “lived experience” of others.

Increasingly that is the world we live in now. Many in both the medical and academic communities feel besieged and intimidated into capitulation or silence. (Our public school teachers too!) One Canadian scholar in particular who wanted to write truthfully about this topic but thought maybe she should wait until she got tenure to do so, was told bluntly by an older colleague, “tenure won’t protect you on this one.” She has since left the Academy and has written a very important book on the subject which I’ll blog about in the future.

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I’ll finish this post with some definitions and vital statistics gleaned from Shrier’s work and others (l’ve done a little “gumshoe work” myself in the last 9 months.)

In 2007 there was only one pediatric gender clinic in America, located in Boston. Today there are approximately 300. It seems like a great need is being met. But why all of a sudden the explosive need for these medical services? The cynical side of me suspects money may be near the root of it all. And maybe so. But, there are other important reasons too.

In the last 10 years there has been a deluge of self-diagnosing teenage girls who are convinced they are really boys. And are doing drastic irreversible damage to their bodies. In the Western world today millions are identifying as Trans. And tens of thousands are going the distance by “aligning” their bodies to match their new identity. In Oregon today a 15 year old girl can walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and without a note from a therapist or mom can walk out with doses of testosterone 40 times the natural female level. After just three months on “T” her body will be unalterably changed. It’s powerful and exhilarating stuff. This will likely start her down the path to a double mastectomy (“top surgery”) a few years later. Virtually no professional she encounters will counsel reconsideration. Nothing will be placed in her way.

What is going on?

Gender Dysphoria – a definition and some history:

“Gender dysphoria—formerly known as “gender identity disorder”—is characterized by a severe and persistent discomfort in one’s biological sex.1Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR) (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 579.

“It typically begins in early childhood—ages two to four—though it may grow more severe in adolescence. But in most cases—nearly 70 percent—childhood gender dysphoria resolves.2Kenneth J. Zucker, “The Myth of Persistence: Response to ‘A Critical Commentary on Follow-Up Studies and ‘Desistance’ Theories about Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Children’ by Temple Newhook et al. (2018),” International Journal of Transgenderism (May 2018); See also J. Ristori and T. D. Steensma, “Gender Dysphoria in Childhood,” International Review of Social Psychiatry 28, no. 1 (2016): 13–20. 

“Historically, it afflicted a tiny sliver of the population (roughly .01 percent) and almost exclusively boys. Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. In the last decade that has changed, and dramatically. 

“The Western world has seen a sudden surge of adolescents claiming to have gender dysphoria and self-identifying as “transgender.” For the first time in medical history, natal girls are not only present among those so identifying—they constitute the majority.”

Source: page xxi Introduction - Irreversible Damage

Here are some other disturbing statistics. In 2018, the UK reported a 4,400 percent rise over the previous decade in teenage girls seeking gender treatments (Testosterone & Puberty Blockers). Between 2016 and 2017 the number of gender surgeries for natal females in the U.S. quadrupled. Unlike in the past, now it was biological women suddenly accounting for 70 percent of all gender surgeries.

Again, what is going on?

Let me finish this post with an explanation “tease” from ID’s Introduction. Unlike gender dysphoria in the past…

“...the phenomenon sweeping teenage girls is different. It originates not in traditional gender dysphoria but in videos found on the internet. It represents mimicry inspired by internet gurus, a pledge taken with girlfriends—hands and breath held, eyes squeezed shut. For these girls, trans identification offers freedom from anxiety’s relentless pursuit; it satisfies the deepest need for acceptance, the thrill of transgression, the seductive lilt of belonging.”

As you see, Shrier’s a fine writer too. You probably want to get this book.

To be continued….

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If you haven’t already added your email to my list, do so and I’ll let you know when the blog is updated. 

Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life