For at least the last hundred years, youngsters have played with toys of the opposite gender. Little girls wore “dungarees” and cowboy boots that were, at the time, worn solely by boys. The girls pretended to be riding ponies while the boys pretended to play house with the girls and their dolls. Adults believed the children would quickly grow out of this experimental stage of role-playing their parents.
Before wokism changed our entire traditional culture, being a girl or boy was clearly and simply defined by the child’s anatomical structure, no matter the clothing or objects they played with. Some girls were “tomboys,” and some boys were “prissy” and more inclined to be involved with “girly” things.
Parents, grandparents, and friends understood that reinforcing normal and appropriate behavior for the individual child would help them accept their biological gender without resorting to drastic psychological and surgical measures to change their sex. Adults in the past had more faith that their child’s world would conform to their natural destiny.
Today, we are reacting to societal changes that have negative outcomes. In this woke culture, sexual deviance has supposedly become a proud and courageous frontier. If a person has inclinations towards an unusual tendency or orientation to a novel lifestyle, they deserve special status as a “protected class.” Deviancy is being pushed and celebrated as a badge of courage.
Instead of helping people overcome individual mental difficulties, we are choosing to just label the problem. This is not done to eliminate the issue but to make accommodations for it to be acceptable to others.
Labeling a condition is the first step. A person is given a label such as defiant disorder, autism, speech delayed, or many other labels. Next comes accommodations with a specialist assigned to assist the individual in accepting their disability rather than learning to overcome or solve their dysfunction. Only by helping a person read better, do math at a higher level, speed up their learning of academics, and follow instructions instead of doing their own thing can we normalize the person’s actions.
Labeling a person’s behavior does not solve or minimize the problem but creates a permanent excuse to live with the unsolved deficiency. Labeling a person’s inabilities and creating special accommodations only adds credibility to their so-called handicap. It does nothing to help them be a better functioning, independent person.
Through our schools and families, our society is finding means of passing on the difficulties to professional psychological and sociological experts who console the family members for their dysfunctional member. It does little to help the person’s limitations or solve the family issue.
Children doing weird or inappropriate behavior for their gender should be gently redirected. Parents should assure the child that their preferences should change with time. At the same time, they should encourage more gender-appropriate behavior. Once everybody is on the same page, we will realize that gender dysphoria is currently a hot topic in our woke society. As each authority agrees, the confused child will understand and accept their gender. They will understand they are not able to just transfer to the opposite sex without radical physiological or mental reorientation.
Presently, in our woke culture, gender dysphoria is in vogue. Modern parents are likely to play psychologist with their youngster. Instead of firmly stating, “You are all girl or all boy,” too many “enlightened” parents want to investigate why their child seems to have confusion. This approach opens the floodgates to even greater confusion.
Parents’ attitudes in the past were simple. You were born a boy or a girl. It was God’s will. You were born bright and into a loving family. You or no one else could change your sex except by horrible surgical procedures that will leave you the same genetic sex with different anatomical organs. The conversation should end with, “You were blessed to be born a wonderful girl or boy.” The discussion should end there. Any further discussion is futile, and there is no alternative.
Going down the road of gender dysphoria does not end well for anyone. The label “gender dysphoria” does not solve anything. It merely gives the person a unique label to hide behind.
Any person who has been given a label, no matter how interesting or “cool,” in time loses its glow, leaving the confused person to speak for himself without the label to shield them.
Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglioblogspot.com.
