Daniel Peterson: "Gender Ideology Harms Children"

[Guest]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... ldren.html

I have to say I was taken aback by the amount of comments demonstrating ignorance of LGBT issues - and particularly of 'T' issues.

I tried to post a response linking to the official Church website, http://www.mormonsandgays.org, and the American Psychological Association, and the American Red Cross.

Apparently that did not go over well and my comment was deleted!

[Guest]

Hi Sky!

It's good to see you posting here.

There is a strong likelihood that Dan will read what ever comment you post here and maybe even respond using an alias. So go ahead and copy what ever you posted there, here and he will see it and be unable to delete it.

[Anonymous]

I'm all about the LGB rights part of the acronym. I will frankly admit that the T part still has me stymied. I just don't get it and I'm not comfortable with it. As far as rights, I'm all for it, but rights to what? Men with a penis and testicles but who dress up as women claiming the right to use female public restrooms, because they claim to identify as women? I'm not sure I'm down with that.

Parts of it still baffles me, with contradictions such as people claiming gender is merely a social construct, then parents defending their 6 year old boy dressing up and acting as a girl, and then fighting their school district for that child's right to use the female facilities, on the premise that he/she was born that way.

That must be a contradiction, because if gender is merely a social construct, who then socialized a 5 or 6 year old boy into wanting to dress in pink, with long hair, playing with dolls, and calling himself a girl? Ie: the boy acts out all of the social stereotypes of a girl, and we are expected to accept that he "really" is a girl on that basis, while the other half of that bandwagon is telling us that all of these stereotypes of "girlness" are merely social constructs and have nothing to do with what gender a person really is. It seems to me that they haven't figured out what their story is yet.

[_Jersey Girl]

From what I can see, Peterson uses an article "Gender Ideology Harms Children", so those aren't his words.

That said, can someone please copy/paste the blog entry, including the article, here on the thread? I cannot get the links to the article to open and I'd like to take a look at the blog entry in it's entirety before I comment.

Thanks if you're willing.

[_Sethbag]

Jersey Girl,
DCP links to, and advocates as common sense, the following blurb from the American College of Pediatricians:

Gender Ideology Harms Children

March 21, 2016 – a temporary statement with references. A full statement will be published in summer 2016.

The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex.1

2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one. No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as “feeling like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.2,3,4

3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V).5 The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.2,4,5

4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.6

5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.5

6. Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.7,8,9,10

7. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.11 What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?

8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics” where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.

Michelle A. Cretella, M.D.
President of the American College of Pediatricians

Quentin Van Meter, M.D.
Vice President of the American College of Pediatricians
Pediatric Endocrinologist

Paul McHugh, M.D.
University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital

[_Jersey Girl]

Thanks Sethbag,

I'll read through it. I need to correct myself and so does the OP. The OP is incorrect. It should read "Gender Ideology Harms Children."

Thanks, for supplying that for me.

[_Jersey Girl]

Sky,

You need to correct the OP title. It's wrong.

[Guest]

So, an ideologically driven group of physicians comes up with a document opposing ideological views on gender: contradiction?

So, is this like Focus on the Family releasing a statement opposing Planned Parenthood? Or Exxon-Mobil releasing a statement against anthropogenic climate change?

Yes.

Whom do these guys think they are fooling?

[_Jersey Girl]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/03/gender-ideology-harms-children.html

I have to say I was taken aback by the amount of comments demonstrating ignorance of LGBT issues - and particularly of 'T' issues.

I tried to post a response linking to the official Church website, http://www.mormonsandgays.org, and the American Psychological Association, and the American Red Cross.

Apparently that did not go over well and my comment was deleted!

Okay, Sky.

What do you object to in the article and blog entry?

[_Jersey Girl]

So, an ideologically driven group of physicians comes up with a document opposing ideological views on gender: contradiction?

No. I don't read the article that way at all, Kish. I read it (the article) to say that hormonal interventions in childhood/puberty are ill advised.