Is that really a viewpoint? (And if it’s in the NYT piece, apologies, but I’m not a subscriber and they’re good at restricting access to non-payers.)
I have followed this topic for the better part of three years because gender identity became a near-daily topic at my kids’ school through some type of administrative “capture” of the curriculum that was never disclosed to, let alone endorsed by, the board, on which I was a member.
Over the previous decade, roughly 0.25% of the high school students were trans. That’s 1-in-400, or three students total. The board conducted an extensive audit of the topic in the curriculum. The mismatch of prevalence in the student body versus prevalence in the curriculum was stunning. The prevalence in the curriculum was underpinned by Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards, also neither disclosed to nor ratified by the board.
Among the findings, we learned that we had teachers telling 11-year-old kids they should see themselves somewhere on the gender spectrum other than their natural birth gender, the ninth-grade English class being taken to transgender Romeo & Juliet, pre-teens and teens being pressured to advertise their pronouns and quite a few other gems I can’t recall at a moment’s notice.
As the focus on gender identity intensified, I heard a lot of pushback. And I began paying much more attention to the topic as it gradually found its way into the news more frequently. However, in sync with various posts below, I have never heard anybody assert that trans doesn’t exist, that gender identity doesn’t have a place in the curriculum (albeit minor), that the trans topic is anything other than incredibly difficult for the impacted students and their families, that trans students don’t deserve all the professional help that can be mustered, that trans students shouldn’t be protected from bullying and on and on. There was actually a fairly consistent “there but by the grace of God, go I” under-current to the feedback.
Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, the trans incidence within the student body has tripled or quadrupled. Is that enough to be statistically significant? Probably not yet. But I wonder whether the prevalence of the topic in the curriculum has effectively fostered larger numbers of impacted students. And I have to imagine social media, including its algorithmic targeting, is a large contributor.
Lastly, it’s important to be aware that trans treatment is a financial honeypot for some medical providers. I have seen estimates that the lifetime trans-related medical expenses for a single individual can fall into the $1-2 million range. There will, of course, be some element of the medical community that is quite enthusiastic about promoting that revenue stream.