One of the most glaring parts of “born this way” transactivism that rings false is the idea that there have always, always been trans people who have experienced gender dysphoria in similar ways to people today.

This is pretty clearly not the case.

Listen to the trans narratives coming out of people today, and listen IN PARTICULAR to the trans narratives coming out about children. Children who tried to cut off their own genitals, children who absolutely insist upon being treated as the opposite sex, children who scream and cry when clothing for the opposite sex is put on them (ignoring, of course, that at many points in human history, clothing for infants and young children was not gendered, that boys wore dresses, that boys wore much more pink than girls, et cetera)–now, think about this for a minute.

In all the medical and psychiatric literature of the 18th through 20th centuries, where were these children? Here are just a few examples of “trans children” who are said to have attempted self-mutilation of their genitals. Imagine, if you will, what Freud would have done with this–the field day that any psychologist of the early 20th century would have had if they’d encountered children with such significant dysphoria that they were hacking away at their body parts! There are plenty of records of various psychological and physical maladies–some real and some not-so-real–in 18th and 19th century records. Where are the children who insisted that they were the opposite sex and simply would not be moved? Doctors at those times were NOT afraid of reporting and documenting supposedly “deviant” behavior. It absolutely beggars belief that if transgenderism is inborn and manifests as children taking drastic and even mutilating steps toward their chosen gender, not one psychiatrist or psychologist or physician would have said, “wow, this is interesting, I’d better get a syndrome named after me!”

Because, see, that’s what actually happened with other types of issues that start to manifest in childhood. We have records of children with autism. We have records of children with cancer. We have records of children with major psychological and neurological problems. There was no conspiracy of silence surrounding transgender issues.

Now, had trans children started to “come out of the closet,” as it were, it’s true that they’d have

probably been subjected to all kinds of horrific medical and psychiatric interventions designed to “correct” their dysphoria. Some people will say that this means trans children stayed closeted, for their own good. But how would trans children know? No one would say to them, “by the way, if you think you’re the opposite sex, you can expect electroshock treatment to start in a couple of weeks.”

We have documentation of hundreds of medical and psychological conditions going back literally thousands of years. To cite just a couple of examples, multiple sclerosis had been thoroughly described by the mid-19th century. So had bipolar disorder (which was described by several different psychiatrists before the 20th century rolled around). Ditto schizophrenia. Autism was well-described by the mid-20th century (and had only missed out on earlier description because it was considered a form of schizophrenia). Case studies abound involving people with all kinds of incredibly unusual physical or mental workings–and yet, there was no penis-cutting epidemic, not even when children had less adult supervision and more access to cutting implements a lot more grown-up than safety scissors.

Trans activists today claim that without surgical intervention, dysphoria can be and often is fatal, because it will compel them to acts of self-harm. Trans activists also claim about half of trans people have attempted suicide because of their desire to transition. Where was this epidemic of pediatric death-wishes before doctors started telling parents that the only solution to their children’s dysphoria was expensive surgery and hormones?

Oh right–I know where it was. It didn’t exist. Listen, grownups: transition if you want, it’s very little skin off my ass. But having your children medically sterilized, delaying the onset of their puberty, feeding them enough bullshit about gender that they have a desire to chop off their organs before they even know what those organs are for? It’s Munchausen’s by proxy, and it’s child abuse.

“Born that way” makes it possible for doctors to alter little children’s genitals before they are old enough to consent, and to pump them full of drugs that have not been studied for use in pediatric patients or over the long term. To keep their newfound gender, the children in question will have to pay, and pay, and pay, for the rest of their lives, just to stay on the hormone treatments. “Born this way” transactivism isn’t just a problem because it enshrines gender as an innate human quality. It’s also a problem because it makes ordinarily perfectly sane liberal people totally fine with allowing medical procedures on children that they would never, ever allow otherwise.

The trans child phenomenon is a product of our gender-obsessed, individual performance-obsessed culture, along with parents who think it’s sure fun to parade around their child in front of news cameras so they can talk about how special their kid is and how oppressed. Munchausen’s by proxy, and the parents just SOAK UP the accolades. Well, history foils you again, parents of “trans kids.” Every shrink and doctor in the last 200 years–hell, 2000 years–would have given his or her eyeteeth to have had such a juicy disorder that it was causing little boys to chop off their penises. They’d have come up with all kinds of specious reasoning for it based on their conception of the body and mind at the time, and we’d all be saying, “wow, if only they’d known those kids were trans and could be cured with surgery and hormones!”

But that’s not what’s happening, is it? It’s all new territory, and any idea of talk therapy is immediately derided as transphobic and an erasure of trans identities. It’s surgery and hormones–or at least the possibility of surgery and hormones, delaying puberty to make these things easier–or nothing at all. This, in spite of the fact that surgery and hormones are shown to have little or no effect on the suicide rates of trans people or their levels of depression and anxiety.

Don’t end up on the wrong side of history, fifty years from now when a whole lot of these trans kids tell us what was actually going on in their homes, or when they lash out angrily at the people who altered their bodies permanently and prevented them from reproducing, all based on parental reactions to the child’s normal reactions to enforcement of gender roles.