Protecting Children From The Woke
Gender Ideology, Free Speech and Children
Gender Ideology, Free Speech and Children
Suppression of free speech comes from all directions. In some cases the pile-on is in the open public spheres of academic journals, and social & legacy media. In other cases the pile-on is by violent underground masked criminals. Canadian activist Chris Elston aka Billboard Chris has first hand experience with the latter.
The following quote should illustrate the controversial nature of Chris’ activist work:
“I have yet to meet a single gender critical individual who has any problem with gender nonconformity. What we do have a problem with is the practice of rushing children onto harmful puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. All studies show that if allowed to go through puberty, the vast majority of children will see their dysphoria go away. Yet when unethical doctors start them on puberty blockers, these children move on to cross-sex hormones virtually 100% of the time. Combined, these drugs and hormones are sterilizing children, harming healthy bodies, and turning these kids into lifelong medical patients.” -Chris Elston aka Billboard Chris
Chris is not alone in his views. It’s worth mentioning that On December 1st, 2020, the High Court in London (England) ruled that children are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo treatment with puberty-blocking drugs. All children under 16 years of age had to immediately come off of puberty blockers, and clinicians were instructed to seek court approval to treat children aged 16 and 17.
Whatever you may think or feel about trans rights, the one thing that is clear is it's a very complex and sensitive issue. But the precedent set by the High Court in London should at least convince any reasonable person that Chris Elston has the right to both hold and express the views that he does.
On March 12th, 2021 during his Eastern Canada tour, Chris was violently physically attacked by a group of seven alleged ‘black-bloc’ Antifa members, while wearing a “Children Cannot Consent To Puberty Blockers” billboard.
Chris had been having peaceful exchanges with people passing by who noticed his sign. His body cam was capturing the conversations he was having with curious citizens. The attackers broke his forearm and stole his sign and camera. They made it crystal clear their intentions were to silence him. Chris, being the warrior that he is, barely flinched. Not even seven masked cowards can keep one badass down!
In August of 2018, Dr. Lisa Littman, assistant professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, published a descriptive study in the peer-reviewed open access scientific journal PLOS One, on a phenomena she describes as a social contagion and calls Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.
According to Wikipedia
“Lisa Littman created the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria to describe surveyed parents' accounts of their teenage children suddenly manifesting symptoms of gender dysphoria and self-identifying as transgender simultaneously with other children in their peer group.”
This phenomenon has been chronicled in detail in Abigail Shrier’s 2020 book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daugthers. Surviving accusations of trans-phobic hate and calls for banning, Irreversible Damage is a thoroughly researched indictment of the unprecedented social experiment being conducted on children often without knowledge or consent from parents.
The fall-out from the publication of Dr. Littman’s ROGD paper was brutal but thankfully there were brave defenders of intellectual freedom who came to her defence. Former Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flier, criticized Brown’s removal of a press release regarding Dr. Littman’s ROGD paper. He writes:
“Increasingly, research on politically charged topics is subject to indiscriminate attack on social media, which in turn can pressure school administrators to subvert established norms regarding the protection of free academic inquiry.”
Regarding controversies of the trans-gendered type, the most contentious area deals with children. Specifically, how do we correctly handle-with-care and kindness situations where children claim feelings of gender nonconformity, or more seriously gender dysphoria?
One camp thinks a “wait-and-see” approach is best, citing evidence that suggests many gender dysphoric youth often “grow out” of the condition post-puberty, commonly becoming happy functional homosexual adults. This stance is supported by Abigail Shrier and organizations like The Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria Working Group, a group of professional clinicians and researchers.
Then we have camp “affirmative care,” supported by groups like the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Subscribing to gender affirming guidelines these groups are seen by opponents as cherry-picking the science to validate a political ideology.
I’m not going out on much of a limb by thinking that the most enthusiastic advocates for these gender affirming guidelines are often the same people and groups criticizing the validity of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria as a thing worth studying, and as follows, skeptical of “wait-and-see” approaches in general.
Activists and critics of gender ideology, like Chris Elston and Abigail Shrier are heavily focused on this youth-centric subsection of the extremely contentious moral, scientific, and public health gender controversy. Not only are we faced with the ethical questions; are the people challenging gender ideology, like Chris and Abigail right or wrong? But we must also very carefully consider weather or not they should be free to criticize the positions held by transgender activists.
The toughest question which many seem unable, or unwilling to face is this; what if Chris Elston, Abigail Shrier, and countless other parents, teachers, and gender ideology critics are correct and entirely justified in their concerns that the rush to normalize and accept trans-gendered people into society (a noble intention indeed) is harming the children caught in the cross fire of social contagion and affirmative care.
Are claims of harm (or even hurt feelings) by activists and gender nonconforming youth valid enough to suppress Chirs Elston’s or Abigail Shrier’s freedom of speech? If one percent of what Chris, Abigail, and many other gender rights advocates are raising alarms over has any merit whatsoever, does it not follow that open public discourse, free of fear of cancellation or consequences, be justified and permitted?
This is the sixth installment of “The Woke West: The Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, Radical Activism And Forbidden Knowledge Dividing The West...And What You Can Do About It!” - A book by James Pew, published serially to The Turn Substack.
Thanks for Reading! Next up, A Brief History Of Locking Up Understanding That Offends The Woke: Forbidden Knowledge, Race and Intelligence