A few concepts and terms to know about the gender theory debate and recommended resources for parents, teachers or other concerned citizens:

• Transgender Trend – UK based parents group questioning the lack of evidence behind the trans narrative and focused on promoting safeguarding as the first priority for children
• 4th Wave Now – a community of people concerned about the medicalization of gender non-conforming youth
• Pique Resilience Project – a support group of young women who have detransitioned

Gender Identity

Gender identity gives primacy to one’s subjective feeling of gender or masculinity/femininity. It posits that you can either identify as one or the other “sex” or as neither or a blend of the 2 and come up with your own. This philosophy is based on the idea that gender is socially constructed and that identifying with one’s biological sex as gender is an antiquated idea and “wrong” thinking.

Many people wrongly assume that gender identity applies only to trans-sexuals and that this is the reason why it has been included in the Canadian Human Rights Code. While trans-sexuals definitely face high rates of discrimination in our society, the blanket term “gender identity” applies to everyone.

Also, the use of the term transgender rather than trans-sexual removes sexual identity from the equation so that the concept can easily be applied to children. If a child does not identify as a stereotypical boy or girl, they are assumed to be more comfortable with a gender identity that is non-binary or trans (by those that have adopted this belief system).

Gender Dysphoria

The feeling that one’s emotional or psychological identity is not aligned with your biological sex. Many children experience gender dysphoria at some point and established research suggests that 65-80% will eventually identify with their biological sex. This research applies under the watchful waiting standard of care which did not immediately affirm a new identity or promote transition to the opposite sex (which is no longer the case). Experts with over 40 years of clinical and research practice have written about the different types of gender dysphoria in this excellent article Gender Dysphoria is not one thing.

ROGD – Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

This is the relatively new and rapidly growing phenomenon of mostly young adolescent girls suddenly identifying as the opposite sex. No previous identification with the opposite sex has been observed. The phenomenon is not well understood but there is some evidence from a peer-reviewed study of parent reports that social contagion, access to social media sites such as Tumblr or pre-existing issues such as social anxiety, depression or autism create vulnerability and are factors in the development of ROGD.

Affirming Care Model

This is the new standard of care for gender dysphoria, which is to immediately affirm a young person’s new identity and help them to socially transition first by adopting new pronouns, perhaps a new name. There is little emphasis placed on psychological “treatment” because gender dysphoria is no longer seen under a disability framework. Gender dysphoria is now treated as a diversity issue and clinicians are being asked to support children in being “gender creative”. If a child wants puberty blockers, for example, these can be provided under an informed consent model, similar to what one might expect if participating in a clinical trial. There doesn’t seem to be much data collection going on to understand the long term impacts of this approach, other than growing evidence that this model places children on a fast track to gender reassignment surgery.

Watchful Waiting Model

This was the previous model of care, that did not immediately affirm a child’s new identity but rather provided psychological assessment and supports in place to understand the root cause of the gender dysphoria. Should gender reassignment be the best course of action, that was taken after careful deliberation and watchful waiting to ensure that the gender dysphoria wasn’t a passing phase or related to some other vulnerability. This is sometimes referred to as gate keeping to ensure that mistakes were not made. Several trans-sexuals have started to speak out to raise concerns about a lack of gate-keeping being applied given the adoption of the new fast tracking model.

Self-identification

This is the ability to self-identify as a man, woman or other gender. No tests or proof are required that an individual has undergone a physical transition to the opposite sex. In Canada, as in the UK and many places in the USA, people are able to self-identify and access sex-segregated spaces or claim discrimination if they are denied access to resources or opportunities that others of that gender are able to access. The 2020 Olympics will feature biological men competing against women with only an arbitrary requirement around hormone levels for the past 12 months.

Biological males are able to access women’s rape crisis centres and have been housed in the same room as women, have been admitted to women’s prisons where they have raped women with a fully intact penis and have accused unsuspecting estheticians of discrimination when they did not perform a Brazilian waxing service reserved for women’s labia on their very intact male scrotums.

Erasure

I find the issue of erasure the most telling about the current state of the gender wars. On the one hand are trans activists who accuse others of “violence” for stating basic biological facts and claim that anyone who doesn’t buy into their new gender ideology is a horrible person who’s real intention is the erasure of trans people. On the other hand are people from all walks of life, transsexuals included who are starting to speak out against this new trans activism with warnings of female erasure.

Trans erasure is the concern trans people have that others don’t want them to exist or won’t acknowledge them as a distinct category in society. Trans people suffer more violence than other groups and have a greater risk of suicide.

Female erasure is the concern that the category of people most of us currently refer to as women and girls will be erased because biological males are legally gaining access to safe spaces, sex-segregated facilities, sporting competitions, programs and scholarships specifically designed for girls and women. Because there is no requirement for objective evidence that a person has transitioned and has been living as the opposite sex for a certain period of time, there are no restrictions on who can claim to be a girl or woman and claim legal protection under the guise of “gender identity”. Because there are no objective standards for gender identity, mixed-sex spaces that were previously segregated based on biological sex such as washrooms and change rooms in schools and all other public places are being co-opted by stealth with absolutely no regard for safeguarding of children.