What is Social Transitioning?
It's the affirmation of a child's perceived gender identity. While well-intended, it can pave the way to medical transitioning, which carries significant risks. This might include treatments like tucking, binding, pubertal suppressants (historically used for chemical 'castration' of offenders), and cross-sex hormones. Parents and educators should be informed and approach this topic with care and consideration. The primary focus should always be the genuine well-being and safety of the students.
How Are Schools Involved?
While schools don't medically transition children, their influence can guide students towards it:
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Encouraging social transition without parental knowledge.
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Promoting certain gender ideologies.
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Symbol displays or mandating specific pronoun usage.
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School counsellor referrals to gender-affirming practitioners.
School's Responsibility for Student Well-being
K-12 schools have an inherent responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of their students, both legally and ethically. This responsibility is deeply rooted in the concept of 'duty of care'.
Essentially, this means that teachers and schools are legally obliged to take measures to protect students from harm. A school can be held accountable if a teacher fails in this duty.
Recently, there's been a debate surrounding the teaching of gender concepts and facilitating the social transition of students. Some advocates, often associated with the term 'gender affirming care', argue that not supporting a child's decision to transition could result in severe consequences, including the possibility of suicide. They frequently reference various statistics to bolster their case.
However, upon closer examination of these statistics (see our review of the statistics here), it's evident that these claims are overstated or inaccurate. Emerging evidence suggests instead that the risk of suicide is likely to increase after medical transition.
Physical and Medical Risks and Harms
What is becoming very clear is that the real “harm” being done to these students is medical transition, which almost always is preceded by social transitioning.
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Negative health effects from chest binding that may not show for years[ii].
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97.2% of respondents reported at least one negative outcome from binding. The most common symptoms were: 1. back pain (53.8%), 2. overheating (53.3%), 3. chest pain (48.8%), 4. shortness of breath ((46.6%), 5. itching (44.9%), 6. bad posture (40.3%), 7. shoulder pain (38.9)
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Additional symptoms include; rib fractures, rib or spine changes, shoulder joint “popping”, muscle, wasting, numbness, headache, fatigue, weakness, light-headedness/dizziness, cough, respiratory infections, heartburn, abdominal pain, digestive issues, breast changes, breast tenderness, scarring, swelling, acne, skin changes, skin infections.
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There are case studies of both infertility and testicular torsion[iv] occurring from tucking.
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Itching, rash, testicular pain, penile pain, and skin infections.
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Short term: headaches, hot flushes, weight gain, tiredness, low mood and anxiety, reduction in bone density, bone fractures, blurred vision, vision loss.
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The Karolinska Institute (Sweden) has also reported liver damage, unexplained weight gains, mental health problems, spinal fractures, osteopenia, and failure to grow.
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Increase in behavioural and emotional problems in girls, including an increase in wanting to “deliberately try to hurt or kill self.”
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Loss of fertility/sterilisation as gametes won’t develop.
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Loss of sexual function and capacity to orgasm: young people given GrNHa at tanner Stage 2 who go onto cross-sex hormones will remain ‘orgasmically naïve’ which may impact their ability to enjoy intimate relationships.
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Level of puberty resumption after GnRHa use is stopped: unknown.
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Effects on brain development: unknown. Concerns raised about negative impact on IQ, long-term spatial awareness, reaction time and missing out on a window for critical cognitive development.
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Impact on the growth of all major organs; heart, lungs etc.
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June 2022 the FDA received 60,400 reports of adverse reactions to common GnRH agonists, (puberty blockers), including over 7,900 deaths.[i] https://media.spinster.xyz/c4bf3420f2f7f427293e410453d266624b47b5d5b2490bd9d24c7a2f0837e697.pdf
Cross-Sex Hormones, Mental Health & Surgery
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Surgical removal of breasts; denying girls full sexual pleasure in adulthood, as well as the ability to breastfeed should they become mothers. In Australia, girls as young as 15 years old have had their breasts removed.
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Impaired sexual function from surgeries, puberty blockers and hormones
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Surgical removal of reproductive and sexual organs, and erogenous zones initiated for children as young as 9 to 13 years old who are not mature enough to give meaningful informed consent.
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Irreversible body modification such as facial hair, male-pattern baldness, permanently deepened voice and enlarged clitorises in women.
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Years spent suffering depression and mental health problems because comorbidities were not accurately assessed or responded to with appropriate therapies.
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Female-to-male genital reconstruction surgery that has a high negative outcome rate[ including urethral compromise and worsened mental health.
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A range of negative health outcomes from transition surgeries is outlined here and here.
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Sterilisation of LGB, autistic and troubled young people with issues of abuse, self-hate, trauma, internalised misogyny, and victims of trans-indoctrination[xii] or internalised homophobia.
A School's Breach of Duty of Care causing Loss, Injury or Damage
Schools that instruct students in gender ideology and/or allow students to socially transition during school are leading those students down a path that inevitably results in medical transition. This is due to the nature of “gender affirming care”.
There is compelling evidence suggesting that socially transitioning a child is a “conveyor belt” to medical transition (see chapter 3). Such a student, having decided that they are “trans”, will then usually seek medical advice in order to facilitate medical transition. Inexplicably, the “gender affirming care” model prohibits medical practitioners from investigating whether a patient actually has gender dysphoria. In practice, the minor tells the practitioner that they have gender dysphoria, and the practitioner merely medically facilitates the transition. There would be a strong legal argument that, in some cases, the primary cause of a child’s desire to transition is due to the introduction to gender ideology at school and/or the encouragement by the school of their social transition.
Cultivating a culture of Deceit and Parental Disrespect and removing child safeguarding
Apart from physical harm, promoting a culture of dishonesty is unacceptable. If a school encourages children to conceal or misrepresent their social transitioning to their parents, it is fostering a culture of deceit. This demonstrates a lack of respect for the family unit and presumes that the teacher is more capable of guiding the child's future than their own family. It should go without saying, schools should not encourage dishonesty or deception among staff or students.
Furthermore, there's a child protection concern when adults advise children to withhold information from their parents; typically, adults who do this are exposing children to potential harm. It's concerning, but we remain unaware of the potential damage that could result from a school encouraging individual students to disregard the biological truths and act as if they don't exist. Additionally, healthcare are uninformed about the psychological repercussions on children who are asked to assist in the social transitioning of a classmate; the impacts of this have yet to be assessed. But as per Dr. Hillary Cass's assertion, 'children are not developmentally prepared to shoulder such a responsibility, and it's not suitable to impose this upon them'.
To understand more, please review "Social Transitioning in Schools – The Risks & Harms".
Watch "Behind parents backs, Australian Schools Transitioning Children"
Watch: Tess's Story - Betrayed by the System, Rape, Gender Transition, and a Family's Heartbreak