Munchausen by mutilation
The dubious drive to disfigure our youth
Prior to one morning in 2012, when on my drive to work I heard of a lawsuit taking place in California about a student wanting to use the restroom designated for those of the opposite sex, I had never heard the word “transgender,” nor did I believe any sane person would consent to such a ridiculous concept as letting a boy use the girls bathroom or vice versa. I could not even apprehend the possibility that the plaintiff in such a case would win. Fast forward 10 years, and not only have many businesses and schools caved to the pressure of a very small minority of the population in order to accommodate what is rightfully diagnosed as a psychological disorder, but we are expected to accept that irreversible surgery and pharmaceutical intervention can somehow correct this mental malady.
Destigmatizing a Disease
The medical name for the cognitive cachexia popularly termed transgenderism is now, in the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases - 11th ed., published by the World Health Organization), gender incongruence (classified under conditions related to sexual health). This terminology has evolved over time, from transsexualism in the ICD-9 (classified under sexual deviations and disorders within the larger category of neurotic disorders, personality disorders and other non-psychotic mental disorders) to gender dysphoria in the ICD-10 (classified under gender identity disorders within the larger category of adult personality disorders). The updated terminology is presumably less stigmatizing, though I fail to see how accepting as normal an established psychiatric syndrome helps anyone. Recognizing the descent into destigmatization does, however, help understand why claiming to suffer this ailment has become almost faddish among children and why the name for transitional surgery has undergone a similar evolution
Much like the appellation for the affliction changed over time, so has the lingo for modification; by way of sex change operation, sex reassignment surgery, and gender reassignment surgery, we have entered the day of gender affirmation surgery. It is quite interesting, and categorically confounding, that at once we are told that gender is unrelated to the sexual organs with which one is born, while at the same time we are told that taking a scalpel to those same sexual organs with which one is born will somehow affirm that person’s gender. While evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, emerges regularly showing that these surgeries are more harmful than helpful, if an adult makes a choice to go under the knife, that is certainly his or her prerogative. Submitting minors to these procedures, however, is something else entirely.
Parental Psychosis
Parents are responsible for the protection of their kids. How have so many then fallen prey to the social pressures inducing them to mutilate their children? Make no mistake - there is now tremendous communal compulsion to participate in this preposterousness, and many parents are crumbling under the weight. However, pressure is not the only motivation; there is notoriety to be had - having a transgender child has become a social status symbol. Commence the proliferation of Munchausen by Proxy.
Munchausen by Proxy is a psychological condition in which a caregiver creates the pretense of health problems in the person for whose well-being the caregiver is responsible. This disorder often manifests in the relationship between parent and child, and it is considered child abuse. While there is no material gain involved for the custodian, there is a reward nonetheless: attention. Whether that acknowledgment manifests as sympathy, empathy, or accolade, the attention showered upon the caregiver fulfills a desire for recognition.
Under the influence of this mass psychosis, adults are now persuading impressionable young children that their bodies do not match their gender identity. Teachers take to TikTok to crow about the students they have turned. Celebrities proudly parade their gender-confused progeny as living virtue signals. Parents not only encourage their offspring to believe they were born in the wrong body, they are fighting for the right to stop them navigating the natural course of puberty. Furthermore, doctors encourage parents, based on dreadfully poor data, to administer dangerous hormone-blocking medications or acquiesce to permanent life-altering operations.
Not long ago, people were outraged at the idea of female circumcision, also termed female genital mutilation. It was denounced as uncivilized, backward, and cruel. The World Health Organization has spoken out against it. The UN dedicated a day annually to bring awareness with a goal of ending the practice by 2030. Even the U.S. Department of State officially opposes the practice under any circumstances and for any reason, calling it a “serious human rights abuse” (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/fact-sheet-on-female-genital-mutilation-or-cutting.html).
Before the growing opposition to female genital mutilation, groups like Intact America were staging demonstrations, standing on street corners wearing pants with red stains on the crotch, speaking out against male circumcision. Slate ran an article titled, “How Circumcision Broke the Internet,” discussing how anti-circumcision activists were “drowning out any discussion of facts” (https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/intactivists-online-a-fringe-group-turned-the-internet-against-circumcision.html). There are doctors who stand against circumcision on the basis that there is little evidence of any medical benefit. A group of physicians formed a Seattle-based organization named Doctors Opposing Circumcision. There are many articles to be found with a simple search which reveal a large contingent who protest the practice.
Prioritizing Public Presence, Politics, and Profit Over Patient
If these minor procedures are so demonized, how is it parents seek more radical resection for their children? There are no long-term safety studies on chemically halting the process of puberty, though even considering logically the changes that take place in the body during this time should give any sane person pause. These same medications are used to chemically castrate criminals convicted of rape. The effects cannot easily, if at all, be undone. And the surgeries? Take time to perform a brief search on the internet and you’ll find anecdote after anecdote of the physical pain and discomfort that follows. You will also learn of the people who can no longer become sexually aroused or have pain instead of pleasurable sensation, if any sensation at all, from sexual contact. Once complete, a sex change operation is irreversible. Both surgeries and hormonal interventions have been shown to result in permanent infertility. The patient is damaged for life. Is it not bad enough that adults suffering from transsexualism put themselves through this that children should also be affected for the rest of their lives? And why? Because a little boy chose to play with his sister’s Barbie doll? Or a little girl, instead of wearing dresses, thought it fun to dig in the dirt or make motor sounds while pushing around her brother’s Matchbox cars?
It doesn’t help that groups like The Trevor Project make claims that these surgeries are “life saving” for trans children because it will supposedly help prevent suicide. This is a specious claim, however, that contradicts many studies. To be sure, there are studies that claim that hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgeries improve mental health outcomes for those suffering gender dysphoria, but most are based on short-term follow-up. Longer-term studies show that, just as these mutilating measures can no more turn a boy into a girl than alchemy can turn lead to gold, as documented in an article by the Heritage Foundation (https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/sex-reassignment-doesnt-work-here-the-evidence), there is no evidence that so-called gender affirming interventions provide any benefit, and they may lead down the road to a higher incidence of suicide. Nonetheless, the mantra, “better to have a living daughter than a dead son” (or “better to have a living son than a dead daughter”) is chanted by those who champion transitioning, even in supposedly “conservative” media. Fox News this year ran a story regarding the Whittington family in California transitioning their elder daughter: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6307583800112 . The daughter, before she could talk, didn’t like wearing typical feminine clothes, so she must be a boy. If you disagree, you’re just a transphobe!
In addition to trans-affirming organizations falsely claiming that playing into the fantasy improves psychological health, there is another motivation for convincing parents to sacrifice their young on this abominable altar: money. Ethics no longer restrain money-hungry surgeons. Boston Children’s Hospital has been in the news for allegedly offering operations to modify minors. Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire recently revealed that Vanderbilt University Medical Center is committed to cutting on kids. Physicians and psychiatrists now sing the siren song for parents to come sacrifice their children to the almighty dollar. The Daily Wire published an article detailing how chest reconstruction surgeries can bring in $40,000 and “female-to-male bottom surgeries” can generate $100,000 (https://www.dailywire.com/news/transgender-surgery-poised-to-become-a-5-billion-industry). Mutilating minors is now big business.
Putting an End to the Madness
Our society is racing headlong toward a point of no return. The family is being turned upside and torn down. We are halting the process by which a culture continues by ending the ability of a generation to reproduce. People must wake up instead of being woke. We must not fear being called transphobe and speak the truth that no swipe of the scalpel can change chromosomes from one sex to another. We must help parents see it is heinous, not heroic, to mutilate their children. As with any psychological issues, there exist underlying spiritual issues. Prayer is needed, as is salvation for those involved. I cannot see another way for this insanity to end.
The left has been "normalizing" mental illness problems in our country for decades. There once was a time when the phraze 'card carrying crazy' really meant the person was a mental health patient and had an actual CARD they CARRIED around with them to show authorities if they were in public and started having an "episode" or go into trouble. It wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, it left whoever was there know exactly what they were dealing with and who they needed to call for assistance in working with the individual (doctor or counselor or what have you).
In the late 70's into the 80s there was a push to end what they dubbed the social stigma of labeling people with mental defects. The problem in my opinion wasn't so much that people were being labeled. It was more the fact that they were not getting the treatment they so desperately needed. There were not enough facilities with enough bed space to house ALL those that needed to be treated. Thus, they were turned out onto the streets with the cards to fend for themselves and many didn't have the capability of taking care of themselves, ie taking meds as prescribed, and the STIGMA was more of a FEAR.
The situation is very similar to our modern criminal (IN)justice system. Rather than build more prisons to accommodate the ever growing number of criminals they are refusing to prosecute crimes to put criminals away.
The moral compass of this country is broken beyond belief. Trying to make immoral acts OKAY is exactly what we are told about in the Bible that will happen leading up to the end days. I for one am ready for God to reclaim His Creation and to rid this world of the evil that is destroying it.
I dunno about comparing FGM to male circumcision.