Parents – not schools nor the state – have the primary responsibility to care for their children
The victims of trans ideology are many. As Elon Musk’s revelation Monday in an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson showed, the harms inflicted spread even beyond the children who, cruelly convinced they were born "wrong," mutilate their bodies and risk permanent infertility.
The "woke mind virus," as christened by Musk, has a horrific impact on the family members strewn apart in collateral damage. The wives who lose husbands due to self-indulgent auto-gynephilia. The children who lose fathers. The parents who lose their sons or daughters as they reinvent themselves into a different identity altogether.
Opening up about his grief following his son Xavier’s attempted "transition," Musk said:
Elon Musk called the term "gender affirming care" a "terrible euphemism." (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
"I lost my son, essentially. They call it deadnaming for a reason.
"The reason it's called deadnaming is because your son is dead. My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus."
Musk was convinced to give his son puberty blockers under the threat that preventing him would make him likely to commit suicide – a manipulative myth pedaled by gender ideologues, which has now been dispelled. Musk said it wasn't explained to him that puberty blockers are "actually just sterilization drugs" when he gave his consent for his son to undergo the treatment. He called the term "gender affirming care" a "terrible euphemism."
In a culture where self-identification has become the dogma of our day, children have been given the autonomy of adults in demanding permanent, life-altering changes to their body – while parents’ concerns are infantilized and demonized.
Even in countries where toxic "puberty blockers" are now being halted – such as England and Scotland – "conversion therapy" bills are looming, threatening to criminalize parents who prevent "social transition" – in other words, who don’t allow their 11-year-old son to attend school in sparkly heels and lipstick.
VIMEO SCRUBS 'DEAD NAME' DOCUMENTARY PROFILING FAMILIES UPENDED BY TRANSGENDER IDEOLOGY
Meanwhile, in California, last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a new bill preventing school districts from requiring staff members to disclose students’ "sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression" to their parents.
Musk has previously blamed his son Xavier’s "progressive" school for indoctrinating him into believing he was born in the wrong body.
Where kids need reassurance and affirmation, teachers guide them down a path to bodily harm. Where parents could step in with concerns and guidance, they are brushed aside as bigots. Encouraging kids to mutilate their bodies just to "be themselves" is surely the greatest crime of the 21st century.
Musk reacted to California’s new law with a simple but foreboding response: "The state will take away your kids in California." Alarmist? Not really.
One need only look to what is happening in Switzerland – the "transgender capital of the world" – to see the end result of these policies that pit parents against child.
The teenage daughter of parents living in Geneva, Switzerland, has been separated from her family for over a year by court order after they objected to her gender "transition."
Concerned that their daughter was being pushed to make hasty and potentially irreversible decisions, the parents declined "puberty blockers" and explicitly rejected her school’s attempt to "socially transition" her.
The parents wanted to support her to feel loved and confident in her own body. In clear violation of parental rights, the school set her on the path to identify as a boy anyway, and have collaborated with state authorities to remove her from the care of her family.
Now, for seeking to protect the health and well-being of their daughter, they face a legal standoff over their fundamental rights as parents to care for their child who, residing in a government shelter since April 2023, is being encouraged to pursue dangerous medical interventions.
After all, the Cass Review made clear that social transition is not a "neutral act." In fact, most children who are encouraged to socially transition head down a one-track pathway to puberty blockers and surgery.
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The tragedy of this family, torn apart by the state, has sent shock waves across the Twittersphere. If it can happen in Switzerland, it can happen anywhere. This is a timely warning against "conversion therapy" bills, such as the one posed in the King Charles III’s speech last week.
Parents, not schools nor the state, have the primary responsibility to care for their children. At a time when she needed her parents the most, Swiss authorities cooperated to block this girl from the love of her family.
Any ideology that operates in the shadows, unbeknownst to parents, should trigger massive alarm bells. The Swiss case shows how even actively involved parents can be completely shut out when powerful actors coalesce around the rabid promotion of gender ideology.
From Elon Musk, to parents in "human rights capital" Geneva, to those fearfully observing the future of the U.K. – gender ideology is claiming countless victims. While the tide turns on puberty blockers – which are being banned for children in Britain, Finland, Denmark, Norway and elsewhere – we mustn’t compromise on opposing policies that stand between loving parents and their children.
Our kids’ future – and that of their families – is at stake.
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Lois McLatchie Miller is a Scottish commentator and senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) UK. Follow her at @loismclatch.