Gender ideology’s rapid spread among adolescents and young adults makes much more sense when you realize that it’s a form of escapism. It gives awkward and impressionable teenagers an explanation for the social and physical discomfort they naturally feel. It promises them a solution.
This promise, however, is based on a lie. It is no more possible for a girl to become a boy than it is for a white person to become black. Changing one’s clothes, pronouns, and given name will not change that reality — it will only delay the inevitable anguish that young girl is bound to experience when she realizes she’s been conned.
<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1664212073753,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017b-3108-d928-a77f-73ccd2e60000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1664212073753,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017b-3108-d928-a77f-73ccd2e60000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_64212063", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1105672"} }); ","_id":"00000183-7ac4-de66-aba3-7bd6f16c0001","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video Embed
This cannot be said enough: Gender ideologues are setting these young adults up for a lifetime of confusion and regret.
The Washington Post inadvertently made that clear in a recent story about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new rule requiring schools to attain parental consent before socially transitioning gender-confused students. The story featured a young woman named Ace Nash, who has been identifying as a boy since starting high school last year. The Post described Nash as being “broken” over the new policy, especially when she thinks about her classmates or teachers referring to her by female pronouns or her original name.
“If I had kept presenting as female, I would be dead,” Nash told the Post. “I can’t imagine being forced to be female again.”
The report continued:
<bsp-quote data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1664207893260,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1664207893260,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"quote":"Over the next several days, Ace did not learn much. He was too busy worrying a teacher would approach him about his name or pronouns, although no one did. He worried someone might stop him on the way to the boys bathroom, although no one did that either. Still, Ace began minimizing restroom trips by skipping lunch or waiting until he got home. At night he took melatonin, seeking the release of sleep. It didn’t help.
Ace’s thoughts strayed to dark places. Before this year, Ace said, he has attempted suicide three times, most recently in November, because he was miserable over the wave of anti-transgender legislation appearing across the country.","_id":"00000183-7a84-de66-aba3-7bd646380000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b92f10002"}”>Over the next several days, Ace did not learn much. He was too busy worrying a teacher would approach him about his name or pronouns, although no one did. He worried someone might stop him on the way to the boys bathroom, although no one did that either. Still, Ace began minimizing restroom trips by skipping lunch or waiting until he got home. At night he took melatonin, seeking the release of sleep. It didn’t help.
Ace’s thoughts strayed to dark places. Before this year, Ace said, he has attempted suicide three times, most recently in November, because he was miserable over the wave of anti-transgender legislation appearing across the country.Other gender-confused students who spoke with the Post shared similar fears and anxieties. From the Post:
<bsp-quote data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1664207886041,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1664207886041,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"quote":"Some who transitioned years ago are worried they will be outed to unsuspecting classmates. Others who are mid-transition, or just beginning to transition, are worried they will be outed to their parents and forced to leave home. Many wrote they are feeling angry, depressed, suicidal.
“Because of it, I’ll probably have multiple breakdowns a day, my grades will drop,” wrote a 16-year-old. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to overcome will have been for nothing.”","_id":"00000183-7a84-de66-aba3-7bd675810000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b92f10002"}”>Some who transitioned years ago are worried they will be outed to unsuspecting classmates. Others who are mid-transition, or just beginning to transition, are worried they will be outed to their parents and forced to leave home. Many wrote they are feeling angry, depressed, suicidal.
“Because of it, I’ll probably have multiple breakdowns a day, my grades will drop,” wrote a 16-year-old. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to overcome will have been for nothing.”It might be tempting to dismiss these young adults as melodramatic, but remember: They are victims. The mental turmoil from which they are suffering is only going to get worse over time. That doesn’t mean we should acquiesce to their demands that we accept and celebrate the untruths to which they’ve fallen prey. It does mean, however, that we should treat their anxieties as legitimate mental health struggles.
In the same way that a young girl struggling with anorexia needs attention and care, not validations of her eating disorder, these young adults desperately need help. They need someone, ideally a parent, to come alongside them and not only expose transgenderism for the lie that it is but shatter their will to believe it. Otherwise, they’ll spend the rest of their formative years at war with the fake identities they’ve created.
Kaylee McGhee White is the deputy editor of Restoring America for the Washington Examiner and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
