Turning Point USA

Publicly funded news outlet PBS gave a spotlight to the parents of “transgender children” last week, highlighting their “bravery” for promoting gender-affirming care.

The host of PBS’s “Newshour” Amna Nawaz, opened the segment by explaining that conservative states are preventing healthcare providers from “offering transition-related health care for minors, even when their parents approve.” Without explaining why that might be, Nawaz moved right along with the prescribed narrative.

The segment featured multiple parents, some with children as young as seven who are already beginning the transitioning process with help from their doctors. “Our daughter is 10 years old,” Beth Clawson, a mother featured on the program said. “She started letting us know she was transgender really before she could even speak. She would do things like wear her sister‘s clothes, pretend that towels her long hair, and when she was about three years old she started to withdraw and become depressed so we started doing some research.” 

Clawson explained that for her family, gender-affirming care means using preferred pronouns and facilitating their son’s “social transition” from boy to girl. Her revelation that a three-year-old was depressed probably comes as quite a shock, given that most three-year-olds are anything but self-aware. However, some research suggests that a parent, particularly a mother, suffering from depression, anxiety, or withdrawal can cause a child to feel or mimic similar traits. This is of course, speculation on what might cause a toddler to display signs of depression, other than the blanket diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

“Seven years after being prescribed hormones, I had a psychoeducational assessment and was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and major depressive disorder. I had symptoms of post-traumatic stress. I even had a learning disability and a ‘slow processing speed.’ Despite this, my identity was, again, affirmed by professionals and not considered something to look further into.”

“Seven years after being prescribed hormones, I had a psychoeducational assessment and was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and major depressive disorder. I had symptoms of post-traumatic stress. I even had a learning disability and a ‘slow processing speed.’ Despite this, my identity was, again, affirmed by professionals and not considered something to look further into.”

Michelle Zacchigna — Detransitioner, TPUSA Live Feed

Clawson’s husband then attempted to justify their decision to place their son on puberty blockers. “She will go on puberty blockers.” He said. “That just gives her time — to — to, work things out.” This is of course not true, maturation is not able to be placed on pause, and there are severe repercussions to taking these powerful medications, including infertility, lack of bone density, underdevelopment, metabolic and cardiovascular disorders, and more. That being said, even if his premise were correct, that puberty could just be placed on pause until a later date, what is there to figure out according to these parents? They have already decided what gender their adolescent child is for him.

Another mother explained that her daughter experienced social nonconformity and depression at just ten years old, and by the time she was a teenager she figured it all out — she felt out of place because she was actually a boy. This is the same pattern so many young girls tragically fall victim to when something feels, off, but they can’t figure out what. The internet and other social networks swoop in to explain why gender dysphoria is always to blame for these feelings of social incompatibility.

One mother, Rori Picker Neiss, explained how she allowed her daughter to change her name to a more masculine one at just seven years old. “When my son transitioned at the age of seven, it was not something that was particularly eventful. It involved him changing his name, changing his pronouns. Suddenly, when I went to Target instead of going to the girls’ section, I went to the boys’ section.”

The fact that an unusual number of mothers attempt to transition their children compared to fathers has led many to theorize that this may not simply be a social contagion among adolescents, but that Munchausen by Proxy, a mental illness and form of child abuse, may play a role in early childhood transitions. This phenomenon occurs when a parent, most often a mother, “either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick.”

There is on occasion a level of sympathy that should be offered to parents who were coerced by therapists to medically transition their child, under threat of suicide. However, parents who encourage their children to explore gender fluidity at a young age and attempt to groom them into this mentality are phychologically abusing and confusing their children.

A taxpayer-funded news network should be the last place gender theory propaganda is to be seen, but the progressive ideologues will stop at nothing to spread the pervasive lie that is transgenderism.