"You'll need to explain this a lot more convincingly."
Think about it this way.
Megan Phelps-Roper attended her first protest with the Westboro Baptist Church when she was five years old. She was holding a sign that read "Gays are worthy of death." She spent years campaigning against gay rights, abortion rights, pretty much every bigoted v…
"You'll need to explain this a lot more convincingly."
Think about it this way.
Megan Phelps-Roper attended her first protest with the Westboro Baptist Church when she was five years old. She was holding a sign that read "Gays are worthy of death." She spent years campaigning against gay rights, abortion rights, pretty much every bigoted view you can name. She left the church 22 years later, renouncing her previous views in the process, after speaking to people online over many years who helped her see that she was wrong.
Now, did Megan *choose* to join the cult? Was she insincere in her beliefs while she held them even though they eventually changed? Did the environment she grew up in make it incredibly likely she'd take on and believe these ideas?
Megan is still responsible for her actions during that time, and you can argue that she might have been motivated, in part, by a desire to fit in or be praised by her peers, but I think it's wildly unreasonable to describe them as a choice. She was a child who was susceptible to an ideology that surrounded her and made bad decisions because of it.
A lot of these kids are in a similar situation. And they're also deeply unhappy. They're going through a notoriously difficult period of their lives. The idea that transition is some kind of a magic bullet for their problems is everywhere around them. And while I don't think a lot of these kids have the medically recognised condition of gender dysphoria, there's a kind of gender dysphoria-by-proxy being foisted on them from multiple directions. I think it's equally unreasonable as Megan's case to describe kids in that situation as attention seekers or fakers.
Again, the problem is the ideology. Not the people, and especially not the kids, who are captured by it
"You'll need to explain this a lot more convincingly."
Think about it this way.
Megan Phelps-Roper attended her first protest with the Westboro Baptist Church when she was five years old. She was holding a sign that read "Gays are worthy of death." She spent years campaigning against gay rights, abortion rights, pretty much every bigoted view you can name. She left the church 22 years later, renouncing her previous views in the process, after speaking to people online over many years who helped her see that she was wrong.
Now, did Megan *choose* to join the cult? Was she insincere in her beliefs while she held them even though they eventually changed? Did the environment she grew up in make it incredibly likely she'd take on and believe these ideas?
Megan is still responsible for her actions during that time, and you can argue that she might have been motivated, in part, by a desire to fit in or be praised by her peers, but I think it's wildly unreasonable to describe them as a choice. She was a child who was susceptible to an ideology that surrounded her and made bad decisions because of it.
A lot of these kids are in a similar situation. And they're also deeply unhappy. They're going through a notoriously difficult period of their lives. The idea that transition is some kind of a magic bullet for their problems is everywhere around them. And while I don't think a lot of these kids have the medically recognised condition of gender dysphoria, there's a kind of gender dysphoria-by-proxy being foisted on them from multiple directions. I think it's equally unreasonable as Megan's case to describe kids in that situation as attention seekers or fakers.
Again, the problem is the ideology. Not the people, and especially not the kids, who are captured by it