Historically, gender dysphoria afflicted at most .01% of the population. Before 2012, no scientific literature existed on girls aged 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. It was a male phenomenon. In last decade, of course, this has dramatically changed. Now, the numbers have exploded. And girls are in the majority.
Curious Schooling
I write and speak a lot about causes for this, but undoubtedly one of them is American education. The Trans education today’s public schools conduct follows a curious route. It begins in curriculums and books such as the California Board of Education recommended: Who are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity, by and policy guides such as the most common: Schools in Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools, put out by the HRC. There is a progression to the ideas they introduce and the ideology they encourage.
But this progression performs an alarming intellectual somersault. Abigail Shrier hints at this in her helpful book, Irreversible Damage, in the chapter where she describes “The Teachers” who educate the young of America. But we should be sure to grasp this two-part flip for a very important reason.
Part I
(in K-6th grade): Look in yourself and note where you don’t like to do stereotypical behaviors of your gender: Do you want to do sports (boy)? Do you want to play with trucks (boy)? Do you like pink (girl)? Or, do you think about your hair (girl)? Do you like art (girl)? How about math (boy)? Do you like dance (girl)? If you are a boy and don’t prefer these stereotypical boy things or are a girl and want to do some of these stereotypical boy activities, maybe you don’t completely fit as a girl or boy.
Part II
(middle school): Now that you have been indoctrinated with ideas that these are what gender means, notice how you don’t fit. Maybe you are not a jock, which, of course you have already learned is what being a boy is all about. Maybe you don’t measure up to other girls in what they talk about. It probably means that you are the opposite of your “gender assigned at birth.” Or, at least that you are gender fluid. And shouldn’t you rebel against the gender binary, because all it ever did was make you feel like an outsider? What’s your way of rebelling? Many teachers do not conceal their pleasure when a child gets the right answer.
(Part III, high school, is when things get very graphic. Internet porn starts to seem tame compared to some of the materials shown to high school students now as part of the curriculum. But, by this time the gender argument has already jelled.)
Note that almost every child will deviate from such gender cultural stereotypes because they are just that—stereotypes. A stereotype is an unfair characterization of someone based on a category. And these categories are unfair because boys and girls often do not fit into them. Yet, these are the very categories used to encourage the idea that you don’t fit in to cisgender-ness.
In short, the progression becomes:
Introduce and preach ideas of gender to the child which are harmful and kind of ridiculous.
Turn around and encourage rebellion against one’s body based on these harmful ideas.
So who is it who is perpetuating gender stereotypes?
The Unschooling
Why is this progression in our youth (or our youth’s friends) important to understand? So that we know how to talk to people schooled in this confusion, a boy feeling that he is queer non-binary or a girl’s friend coming out as trans. Maybe in a discussion across our own kitchen table.
If you want to help someone raised in this environment, start by agreeing. Agree to reject the ideas of gender that vary from how the Bible speaks about gender, which is about growing in relationship with your own and then the other gender. Then someone is more ready to see the beauty of the vision for Biblical gender.