Grooming Your Kids
By DEACON MIKE MANNO
There was a story in the Epoch Times the other week that to me encapsulates what is truly a war on our children. Over the years I have written and broadcast stories about how the progressive left, their allies in the media, politics, and academia groom your children to accept transgenderism as normal, but this story takes the cake. It deals with the transgendering of kids and doing so behind the backs of their parents. And this isn’t just about what some “wayward” faculty does out of sight. It is now being embraced by the Biden administration, the party it represents, as well as the entire left-wing of the body politic.
The story in question told about a school with a “transition closet” where an arriving student can change from the clothing of their biological sex into that of the opposite sex, change pronouns and names, behind the backs of their parents, and at the end of the day they can change back before going home. And like many other such schools, no one is allowed to talk to those actually responsible for the children, their parents and guardians.
The belief being the children are capable of understanding, if properly instructed, that the concept of biological sex is fluid and that it can be changed to the opposite sex or, for that matter, to any combination the child identifies as including no sex at all. And all with the help of a cabal of far left activists, teachers’ unions, and the dregs of our political class who now control the levers of power.
The school in question was Freemont High School of Oakland, Calif. Amare Roush, founder of the transition closet, says that they keep the existence of the closets “secret from parents” since they fear students will suffer abuse from their parents.
“The goal of the transition closet is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of, come to school and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly are,” said Thomas Martin-Edwards, Spanish teacher at the Oakland Unified School District. He sponsors the transition closet and is himself transgender and has posted videos of himself in the classroom showing off the stilettos he wears.
This, of course, is out of sight of the parents, but under the nose of the school administrators. And this is not the only school that is engaging in similar nonsense with your children. Lawsuits across the country allege similar practices in local schools, including exposing children as young as four to pornographic pictures and videos all in an effort to “groom” impressionable youngsters into the trans community.
Jay Richards, Ph.D., director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation, told my radio audience that this transgender movement is having an effect on children nationwide.
“The ideology is that our biological sex, that is our creation as male and female, that it’s not really a fundamental reality. What the fundamental reality is the subjective perceived gender identity that we all supposedly have and it is entirely independent of our bodies. That’s the philosophy behind all these weird movements that are now cropping up in places like Florida and at the school board level and that we are seeing in the national news,” he said.
It starts with what is called “gender-affirming care” in which the student’s gender identity is affirmed and ultimately ends with gender-affirming surgeries.
And, he noted, that this is not isolated to just a few renegade school boards, but is now the official policy of the United States as proclaimed by the Biden administration which has made gender-affirming care the polestar for all medical and psychological treatment of gender dysphoria cases involving children.
That gender-affirming care, which is now mandated by the government, begins with social affirmation, which starts with adopting gender-affirming hairstyles, clothing, name, pronouns, restrooms, and other facilities. This is followed by puberty blockers which stop pubertal development, and hormone therapy. Gender-affirming surgeries follow which permanently change the individual.
The Biden Justice Department has recently sent a letter to all state attorneys general warning them that if anyone, including the state or parents, interferes with a minor receiving gender-affirming care, they could be violating civil rights and other laws protecting the child. This means that a child who is still a minor, can request such treatment through a social worker, teacher, or some other adult, without the knowledge or approval of the parent. The choice, according to those who control the government, belongs to a child, even though the law considers the child incapable of any other legal choice.
Dr. Richards describes this “grooming” as almost comical. “If they are not put on this pathway, most kids who suffer gender dysphoria will grow out of it. Some 61 percent to 98 percent of these kids will naturally reconcile with their biological sex after going through puberty. In many cases puberty itself may be the cure for gender dysphoria.
“But that healing can be thwarted if a child is socially transitioned at home and school, and put on puberty blockers and then cross-sex drugs. The further kids go down this pathway, the less likely they are to turn back. And the greater is the cost for those who de-transition,” he said in an article published before his appearance.
He noted that the effect of keeping parents in the dark is to ultimately destroy the family unit. This is a “wrecking ball designed to destroy the institution of the family, which is the foundational cell of society in hope that some brand new utopia will come into play,” he told our radio listeners.
He also noted that the most susceptible children for this grooming tend to be those with other problems, such as being on the autism spectrum, having social anxiety, or even severe depression, that make for affirmative identity coaxing by trusted adults in a school setting more appealing where this activity has been normalized.
This, of course, should horrify parents or anyone who knows and loves a child, or, for that matter, anyone with a sense of right and wrong. So as I did last week with the column on post-birth abortion, we really need to take a hard look at the problem and see who is providing the impetus for this immorality.
First we must understand that this is totally immoral: It is an attack on young, innocent children for someone’s political or social gratification. The negative impact this will have on children cannot be overstated. Yet our leading politicians of the left, as well as the teachers’ unions, are all on board with this policy. We know who these people are, and, as I said last week, those who vote to continue them in office, where they can inflict this on our children, are morally complicit with this wickedness and will answer to a higher authority for their complicity in this evil.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
