(LifeSiteNews) — For several years, I have been writing about the transgender movement’s successful campaign to cut children off from their parents. Conservative media outlets (and a handful of overseas publications) have been sounding the alarm on how schools often deliberately sideline parents; teaching gender ideology; encouraging children to experiment; and then affirming them when many (predictably) decide to opt into the much-celebrated trend of identifying as anything other than “cisgender.” These stories were either ignored by the mainstream or dismissed as bigoted hysteria.
But now — shortly after publishing a report on how cross-sex hormones can cause irreversible damage — The New York Times has decided to catch up with a January 22 story titled “When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know.” Fifty people were interviewed for the story, “including parents and their children, public school officials, medical professionals and lawyers for both L.G.B.T.Q. and conservative advocacy groups.”
As Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Children, put it: “The primary function of The New York Times isn’t to inform the public. It is to inform liberals when they have the green-light to discuss an issue. If liberals jump the gun and talk about it before the NYT gives its approval, they are bigots.”
The Times’ report, which still adheres to transgender rules regarding language (“his breasts” etc.), finally recognizes the agony many parents are going through as they discover, sometimes weeks or months after the fact, that the school has begun referring to their son or daughter by a different name and a different sex. They find out that they have been cut out of important discussions about “transition,” and that they have been sidelined specifically to protect the safety of their child — that is, to protect their child from them. These situations are becoming more common, The Times noted, because the transgender teen population has at least doubled in recent years.
An excerpt:
Schools have pointed to research that shows that inclusive policies benefit all students, which is why some education experts advise schools to use students’ preferred names and pronouns. Educators have also said they feel bound by their own morality to affirm students’ gender identities, especially in cases where students don’t feel safe coming out at home.
But dozens of parents whose children have socially transitioned at school told The Times they felt villainized by educators who seemed to think that they — not the parents — knew what was best for their children. They insisted that educators should not intervene without notifying parents unless there is evidence of physical abuse at home. Although some didn’t want their children to transition at all, others said they were open to it, but felt schools forced the process to move too quickly, and that they couldn’t raise concerns without being cut out completely or having their home labeled “unsafe.”
Many advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. youth counter that parents should stop scapegoating schools and instead ask themselves why they don’t believe their children. They said ensuring that schools provide enough support for transgender students is more crucial than ever, given the rise of legislation that blocks their access to bathrooms, sports and gender-affirming care.
The Times, of course, cannot help framing this issue as yet another example of “Republicans pouncing,” framing the parent-driven debate over transgender ideology as one of cynical politicians simply taking advantage of a culture war issue for votes — but they admitted that plenty of liberal, progressive, and other non-conservative parents were also very upset by how schools were eliminating nuance and siding wholesale with the trans movement. But many schools have iron-clad policies — one teacher actually got fired for telling the father of a sixth grader that the child was identifying as the opposite sex. Many other teachers told The Times that they have a “moral responsibility” to keep parents in the dark — stating, in essence, that they care more for the children than their mothers or fathers. (One of these teachers, unsurprisingly, identifies as non-binary).
Since 2020, at least 11 lawsuits have been filed by parents against school districts. Many of them are liberal. All of them are justifiably angry.
Trans propagandists such as Jet Heer of The Nation, of course, are feeling panicky — if the Times starts publishing the sorts of stories that people like Heer have been condemning as conspiratorial bigotry for years, what if the dam breaks? What if the cultural currents start to shift? And what happens if those who have cheered on so much destruction are abandoned by publications who want to cover their rears and cover stories that are becoming too big to ignore?
“Is there any reporting on why The NY Times is leaning so hard into TERF-y coverage of the trans issue?” he asked. Well, yes, actually. But Heer has been ignoring it for years — and those he ignored are finally starting to get heard.
