At a recent virtual candidate forum sponsored by the New Hanover NAACP, I reiterated my position that I stand against the growing tide of Transgenderism in our schools. Of course, my Democrat opponents will try to use my position on this issue to paint me as a bigoted, transphobic, and hateful individual. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Lemmings & Legend
Lemmings are small rodent creatures (about the size of a hamster) that live in the arctic. It has been said that they are very pack-orientated and that they will participate in a “Death March” that leads them to actually jump collectively off a cliff to their deaths. When I was growing up it was a common for a teacher to tell their students “Don’t be a lemming. Don’t just follow the pack. Think for yourselves!” I still think this is good advice and is something we should be teaching our children and grandchildren today.
But where did this legend about lemmings and cliffs come from, and how did so many people come to believe it was true? While the origins of this belief probably go back a long way, what really brought it into the public consciousness was a 1958 Documentary Film callled “White Wilderness.” It was produced by Walt Disney and the film actually won an Academy Award. One of the film’s segments dealt with lemmings and you can view it below.
It was All a Lie!
What scientists know now is that lemmings aren’t that dumb! They do NOT collectively jump off cliffs to their deaths. We now know that Disney and the filmmakers staged the whole thing. The lemmings were supposedly jumping into the Arctic Ocean, but the whole thing was filmed at the Bow River in Alberta, Canada. The lemmings used for the filming were not known to migrate, and were not native to Alberta. The producers of the film literally shoved these poor creatures off the cliff and to their deaths!
Yes – there were lemmings, but the really dumb group of mammals was the American public, and not the small furry creatures! We bought the myth “hook, line, and sinker!” The public was told to “trust the experts” and never questioned whether Disney and the filmmakers had an agenda for distorting the truth. They did of course – one of gaining fame and fortune.
The Myth of Transgenderism
f you are over the age of 30 you probably learned a simple truth – that there are two genders. While society has someimes imposed unjust gender stereotypes as to the proper behavior of each gender, it was a scientific fact that gender was binary: male and female. However, over the last 15-20 years a new theory has arisen and taken root. Gender is now seen by “the experts” as something distinct from biological sex. Gender is no longer seen as binary, but as a spectrum. They preach the idea that there are biologically female souls that are somehow trapped in the bodies of males, and vice versa. They also preach the idea that gender is a choice.
Unlike the Lemmings Myth, the Myth of Transgenderism has a had very real-world effect on our schools and on our children. Education Departments in our colleges and universities are teaching the next generation of elementary, middle, and high school teachers that this myth is fact. More and more of our very young students (K-3) are not just being taught to be tolerant of “trans kids” but are actually encouraging them to question their gender identities. Historically, childhood gender dysphoria only affected about 1 in every 10,000 children. In the last decade that number has increased in the United States by 1000%, up to 1 in every 100 children!
It is All a Lie!
To be factual, there are a set of genetic intersex disorders where very occasionally a child can be born with both male and female physical characteristics. A recent example of this was Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who was born with female reproductive organs, but may also have had male chromosones in her bloodstream. However, these conditions are extremely rare, with only 1 in about 60,000 people being born this way. However, the vast majority of transgender cases are psychological, and not medical in nature. When this occurs in children it’s called pediatric gender dysphoria.
Until recently, the proper course of psychological treatment for these children was not to affirm the child’s misplaced sense of gender identity, but to give them and their family the counseling necessary to cope with these misplaced feelings. Why? Because, study after study (beginning with Steensma in 2013) have demonstrated that 70% or more of the children with gender dysphoria will revert to identifying with their biological gender once they have completed puberty. Today, the proponents of transgenderism are pushing for parents to accept their child’s misplaced gender identity, and to help them begin the process of transitioning to this desired gender identity. This can take the form of medical treatments (like puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgeries) and psychological treatments (like name changes, cross dressing, and the use of preferred pronouns). These “treatments” can cause irreversible physical damage, and psychological scarring that will persist well into adulthood.
Conclusion
From a purely scientific point of view, the transgender theory of gender is pure “snake oil.” They prey on families who are understandably distraught about their child’s gender dysphoria and tell them what they want to hear – “your child is perfectly normal. It’s society thats screwed up.” More than anyone in this race, I believe in parental rights, and the freedom of parents to raise their children as they see fit. But there are limits to parental rights. Abusing your child is not part of your parental rights, and that’s exactly what is occurring when we try to medically and psychologically transition a child to another gender, instead of giving them the time they need to grow up and figure that out for themselves.
As a school district we probably can’t stop this type of abuse from occuring at home. However, our school district should not be complicit in it either. In closing, my opposition to the Transgender Agenda in our schools has nothing to with bigotry, transphobia, or hate. Instead, it’s because I do care about these children that I will not sit idly by and see them abused in this manner.
