The American College of Pediatricians calls for an end to promoting gender ideology in schools

The progressive left is apparently intent on confusing and traumatizing children when it comes to “gender identity.” The latest example of this mission is a unicorn coloring exercise in which children are asked to color their unicorn to match the gender they “feel” is their own.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

“Gender Unicorns” that kids can color in to express their “gender identity” are now being distributed in schools across the country. A transgender advocacy group is providing schools with the cartoon of a purple unicorn who appears to be thinking about the LGBT rainbow, causing outrage from parents. . . . The group, Trans Student Educational Resources, says the Gender Unicorn is an upgrade from the “Genderbread Person,” another cartoon graphic about gender identity targeting children.

The gender unicorn coloring page:

Children being able to choose the “right” color for their unicorn is important, they claim, so they provide some handy definitions of the rainbow of gender identities.

The Washington Free Beacon continues:

The organization offers definitions for “gender identity,” “gender expression/presentation,” “sex assigned at birth,” “sexually attracted to,” and “romantically attracted to” on its informational page on the Gender Unicorn. Gender identity is defined as “one’s internal sense of being male, female, neither of these, both, or another gender(s).” “Everyone has a gender identity, including you,” the group says. “For transgender people, their sex assigned at birth and their own internal sense of gender identity are not the same. Female, woman, and girl and male, man, and boy are also NOT necessarily linked to each other but are just six common gender identities.” The group also argues against using the term “sex,” or biological status, because it is transphobic.

The absurdity of children young enough to be given coloring exercises understanding what “romantic,” let alone “sexual,” feelings are makes this effort outright perverse.

North Carolina parents are understandably outraged and protested.

The Daily Caller reports:

A protest was held Tuesday after a school district in North Carolina created a “gender unicorn” to teach staff and faculty about gender identity, gender expression and transgenderism. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), a school district in Charlotte, N.C., created a purple unicorn with two hearts to explain transgenderism in training materials for school staff, reports WCNC. The school district will use the training materials to teach staff and faculty how to best help transgender students. The North Carolina Values Coalition led a protest against CMS’ plans to let transgender students use the pronouns, name and bathroom according to their gender identity. Speakers at the protest said that new CMS policy infringes on student privacy.

North Carolina resident Franklin Graham offers his thoughts on Facebook:

The Gender Unicorn? Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina wants to try to brainwash our children into accepting that homosexuality and transgender behavior is okay—and they’re using an innocent looking Gender Unicorn to do it. Parents, watch out. They are using this unicorn to grab the imagination of children and make this seem acceptable. Their new school policy, set to go into effect August 29, includes very concerning gender neutral bathroom/locker room policies and more. The policy says staff shouldn’t use the terms “girls” and “boys,” but should use “scholars” or “students.” It says that the school will work with students to determine when parents should be involved and that the staff can’t tell parents what their gender identity is without the student’s permission. Parents should be outraged and so should we. The Communists used brainwashing in Eastern Europe and Russia, and they took the parents out of the decision-making process and the state began to make decisions about morality. This is a dangerous path.

A dangerous path indeed and not just from a socio-cultural viewpoint. When writing about Oregon’s decision to allow taxpayer-funded sex change operations for children as young as 15-years-old and without parental consent, I noted a study that shows gender reassignment surgery to be ineffective. Post-operative patients tend to remain depressed, even suicidal.

Further, according to Paul McHugh, the Oregon rule amounts to child abuse:

Paul McHugh, of Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department and himself a pioneer in gender reassignment surgery, says Oregon’s policy amounts to child abuse. He is quoted as saying, “We have a very radical and even mutilating treatment being offered to children without any evidence that the long-term outcome of this would be good.” A 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry further calls into question the wisdom of this procedure, noting as it does that “most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty.”

The American College of Pediatricians finds that this (far too early) push for children to select their “gender identity” is harmful to the point of potentially causing life-long physical damage. They also call into the question the very concept of “gender dysphoria” as an innate trait, the justification progressives use to “teach” young children about “gender identity.”

In an article entitled “Gender Dysphoria in Children,” the American College of Pediatricians’s abstract states:

Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. Currently there is a vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children. This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate, and involves pubertal suppression with gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists followed by the use of cross-sex hormones—a combination that results in the sterility of minors. A review of the current literature suggests that this protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of “First do no harm.”

The American College of Pediatricians concludes:

Gender dysphoria (GD) in children is a term used to describe a psychological condition in which a child experiences marked incongruence between his or her experienced gender and the gender associated with the child’s biological sex. Twin studies demonstrate that GD is not an innate trait. Moreover, barring pre-pubertal affirmation and hormone intervention for GD, 80 percent to 95 percent of children with GD will accept the reality of their biological sex by late adolescence. The treatment of GD in childhood with hormones effectively amounts to mass experimentation on, and sterilization of, youth who are cognitively incapable of providing informed consent. There is a serious ethical problem with allowing irreversible, life-changing procedures to be performed on minors who are too young to give valid consent themselves; adolescents cannot understand the magnitude of such decisions. Ethics alone demands an end to the use of pubertal suppression with GnRH agonists, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents. The College recommends an immediate cessation of these interventions, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies. Healthcare, school curricula and legislation must remain anchored to physical reality. Scientific research should focus upon better understanding the psychological underpinnings of this disorder, optimal family and individual therapies, as well as delineating the differences among children who resolve with watchful waiting versus those who resolve with therapy and those who persist despite therapy.

Don’t expect the self-appointed “party of science” to pay any attention to this important study, however. They’ll be too busy confusing and traumatizing our nation’s children to bother with details like that.



