How can you know the “transgender” narrative is perhaps starting to collapse?
Answer: when even hardcore liberals begin questioning it. And, well, that’s finally happening.
First there was a February 9 piece by ex-pediatric “gender” clinic worker Jamie Reed, who describes herself as “left of Bernie Sanders,” in which she warned that what such facilities visit upon kids is “morally and medically appalling.” Now a left-wing San Francisco-based filmmaker is singing a similar tune, stating that she was all in on sexual distortion treatments (SDTs, my terminology, not hers) — that is, until her own son said he wanted them.
Writing in a February 17 Dallas Morning News article under the pseudonym L.E. Dawes due to safety concerns, the filmmaker makes clear that, as was Reed, she was mugged by reality.
Dawes opens touting her left-wing credentials, mentioning that she has made a slew of documentary films “about women and children of diverse identities coping with sexual assault trauma, racism, homophobia and mental illness.” She then writes about her latest work, Affirmation Generation — which questions the MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) narrative — and says it’s replete with positions that “may be [mistakenly] characterized as conservative” (only because, well, they are!).
Telling her son’s tale, Dawes says he was a very boyish, outgoing lad until the Covid-19 lockdown hit, at which point he became withdrawn, shy, and a bit temperamental. Most of his day was spent online — then he announced he was “transgender.”
The last two clauses could represent, respectively, cause and effect. But this apparently escaped Dawes. This is despite her son knowing the whole MUSS routine: He wanted puberty blockers, then estrogen, and probably “electrolysis, voice training and facial feminizing surgery such as a tracheal shave,” the filmmaker relates. He even knew their insurance would cover all he desired. He obviously got this information somewhere.
Though Dawes and dad were shocked and confused, they’re quintessential California parents, she said, and supported their son unreservedly. One could wonder, though: Would they support him if he said his true self was a racist or an emu (and thus, being an animal, he won’t attend school)?
Whatever the case, the Daweses used the boy’s “pronouns” and preferred name, and mom offered to take him shopping for girls’ attire, do his nails, and instruct him on using makeup and shaving his legs. But he refused; he wanted physical alteration via SDTs first.
Dawes says they called a few “gender” clinics, which were so busy with new “customers” in 2021 that they didn’t even have waiting-list space. That’s when it dawned on the couple that their experiences weren’t rare, she states, that MUSS identification was now a widespread phenomenon.
How widespread? Get this: “Five of the 10 kids in our son’s closest friend group are now identifying as trans or nonbinary,” writes Dawes. “Our neighbors on both sides each have a trans kid. One of our son’s teachers told us he had so many kids with new identities … that he had to make a chart to know when to use which names and pronouns.”
“I joined a local support group with more than 100 members for parents of kids with rapid-onset [gender-identity disorder],” Dawes continues. “Hearing their stories, with so many similarities to ours, I couldn’t help but think that something other than kids finding their authentic selves was going on here.” My, one wonders:
What was her first clue?
The filmmaker then states that you’d think a psychologist could determine whether her son’s SDT plans were right for him. “But I’ve listened to enough parental accounts and interviewed enough detransitioners, doctors and therapists to now know that this is not true,” she laments.
“Therapists are not free to explore teens’ transgender self-diagnoses for fear of losing their licenses,” Dawes explains. “They, like gender clinics, operate under the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy that any kid who says they are trans is affirmed.”
Dawes then affirmed Jamie Reed’s warning about “gender” clinics: Every youth sent to one gets SDTs, assembly-line style. While “other mental illnesses are ignored, these kids are put on lifelong invasive, experimental and costly medicine,” the filmmaker writes.
The results are generally irreversible, too, with possible side effects ranging from sterility to cancer to stroke to increased psychological turmoil. It’s gross malpractice — and child abuse.
In reality, Dawes’ efforts are a positive step — but only a baby step. One thing she gets wrong, for example, is that what MUSS enablers practice isn’t “gender affirmation”; that’s a propaganda term. This isn’t just because the correct word when describing male or female status is “sex” and not “gender,” but because actual sex “affirmation” would be telling a child the truth:
1. Sex isn’t “assigned” at birth, but observed.
2. It’s impossible to change sexes.
3. Consequently, I’m going to do my best to help you live comfortably as a member of your actual sex.
Bottom line: What the MUSS activists do isn’t affirmation, but sex distortion.
Dawes also admits that SDTs do not reduce MUSS individuals’ suicide rate (they likely increase it), something The New American has long reported. She further points out that European countries such as Sweden, France, Britain, and Finland have come to realize that SDTs do more harm than good and are reversing course on them.
Note: A real-life example as to why, a California man named Brian Wagoner, appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight Thursday evening (video below).
In conclusion, a prediction: Someone in Dawes’ community very well may out her. Leftists are intolerant and merciless with dissenters.
Also, if anyone is incredulous that it took Dawes so long to put two and two together, realize that leftists are like cult members: Operating emotionally and as a hive mind, they accept doctrine on blind faith, motivated by a desire for group acceptance and self-image preservation. Dawes only awakened from wokeness a little bit because her son’s plight, hitting close to home, was emotionally jarring enough to alter her feelings and open her mind to some facts.
Nonetheless, half-measures won’t suffice here. The MUSS agenda is a lie beginning to end — and must be pulled up root and branch.
