This is great. Thank you for hosting Pear in this excellent discussion. We need the term “proto gay kids” in this battle. Obviously not all gender nonconforming kids will turn out to be gay. But since most of them are, it’s the best way we have to communicate the dangers of gender ideology on our same-sex attracted population. I don’t know how else to get the society, especially those who call themselves liberal or progressive, to wake up to how utterly sick it is to lead kids down a path of bodily harm and psychological torture in the name of “gender identity” and “trans community,” unless they see that this is literal medical experimentation and eugenics on gays and lesbians.
I just love how Pear is so grounded in his understanding of himself and human nature, even though it was hard-fought battle for him to get there. I hope to hear much more from him. He’s such a needed voice in the gender debates 🙏💕
Thank you for stating what I, as a “progressive” GenX mom have been so concerned about: the medical harm being done to kids who don’t fit the “behaviour norm” as a boy or girl.
I was born in the late 60s, a child of intellectual PhD biologist parents, and even in Ohio in the 70s, we listened to “Free to Be You and Me” as part of our public school kindergarten class. I was a tomboy as a young child; my mom kept my hair cut short (just because she didn’t want to have to take care of long hair). I wore gender-neutral clothes (popular for girls then), and intensely disliked frills, Barbie, and pink. I loved climbing trees and catching frogs. But I knew I was a girl, and I never wanted to be a boy.
I remember being enthralled by a music album called “Switched-on Bach.” My dad explained that the man who made the album had undergone surgery to become more like a woman. He cast no judgement on it, but I found it completely bizarre as a concept. My parents were friends with a gay male couple, and impressed upon me that they weren’t “just friends.” As a kid, I thought this was bizarre also, homophobia abounded in 70s popular culture (and in my social circle), but my parents were super ok with it. I tried to be, but for a young child, I do think it’s naturally difficult to sort out what’s “normal” in terms of sex. It’s not developmentally appropriate to expect them to understand.
I got mistaken for a boy sometimes, but I didn’t care. My parents didn’t care. Biology was biology. Clothes and hair were clothes and hair.
In high school, there were a couple of girls who played softball and didn’t chase boys. They got teased. Likewise the couple of boys who couldn’t hide their effeminate nature. Spoiler alert: they all grew up to be gay. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was over being a tomboy, completely infatuated with boys, and doing my level best to be an attractive, feminine girl (yet I had a very unique— weird!!— fashion sense, and got teased about it).
In college, I was often wearing men’s clothes and hats. This was popular in the 80s. I went to art school, I knew gay boys who were “out,” and there were also plenty of straight boys there (contrary to my mother’s assumptions). I got over any vestiges of homophobia. I knew precisely zero “trans kids.”
My nephew was born in 1990. He was obviously “not like the other boys.” He wanted to dress up in his sisters’ clothes and play with Barbie. The family doctor told Mom to forbid such behaviour and buy the kid tools and trucks. He was closeted until after college, came out as gay, and is now married to a man.
I’m horrified to think what might have become of him if he were born in 20 years later. What happened to gay pride? All I see is shame. And a shamefully barbaric approach to little proto-gay boys. I initially tried to get on board with accepting Jazz Jennings as an example of progress, but here’s the truth: loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications are not ethical. And certainly not for kids.
Here in BC, we have a DEI “educator” named Mischa Oak, who was featured as one of the first grooms on the TV show “My Fabulous Gay Wedding.” He gave a presentation online about SOGI for parents in my school district, and explained that puberty blockers were a mercy for “trans” kids, asserting that going through male puberty is “devastating” for a boy who wants to be a girl.
What??? “These boys are just like you were as a child,” I want to say to him. “Aren’t you glad you have your penis? Don’t you enjoy having sexual pleasure?”
Some days, I weep for the carnage being done to the effeminate little boys and body-hating adolescent girls. Thank you, from my heart, for doing the work you are doing, and hooray for the HHS review of the evidence released today!
May sanity prevail soon. Kids deserve the best possible lifelong health outcomes, to be sound in body and mind, no matter how painful and awkward it can be for them sometimes as “non-conforming” children.
Puberty is never a pathology. There is no wrong puberty. And adolescence is tough! There’s no magical medication that eradicates teen angst. Time. Maturity. Community. Hope we can return to the wisdom we once had.
I love that Pear is talking about the medicalization of children’s feelings. The environment — the adults’ ability to listen to a child who’s lonely — is sorely missing. Poor kid. I wish I could listen to 7 year old Pear and his parents…
I love that he alludes to sometime in hopefully the near future tackling the childhood over-prescription of SSRIs. Can't wait to hear him shout that, albeit very demurely, from the rooftop too!
Thank you for that book recommendation. A friend has a daughter who's been struggling, has seen multiple therapists, been checked into multiple expensive programs, and prescribed lots of different meds; and she just made her second unsuccessful attempt to kill herself last week and now lays in the hospital with a broken leg, pelvis and half her face disfigured. It is obvious that the therapy and meds have failed her . . . completely. But it seems there is so little information out there about any positive alternatives . . .
Societies need our non-normal people. This is how we shift perspectives and innovate to survive our ever-changing environments . . . The "outsider" perspective is invaluable.
Medicalization not only has emotional and physical risks , but it erases personal agency ( ironic ) and eliminates mystery and the intuitive mutable essence of childhood
This is great. Thank you for hosting Pear in this excellent discussion. We need the term “proto gay kids” in this battle. Obviously not all gender nonconforming kids will turn out to be gay. But since most of them are, it’s the best way we have to communicate the dangers of gender ideology on our same-sex attracted population. I don’t know how else to get the society, especially those who call themselves liberal or progressive, to wake up to how utterly sick it is to lead kids down a path of bodily harm and psychological torture in the name of “gender identity” and “trans community,” unless they see that this is literal medical experimentation and eugenics on gays and lesbians.
I just love how Pear is so grounded in his understanding of himself and human nature, even though it was hard-fought battle for him to get there. I hope to hear much more from him. He’s such a needed voice in the gender debates 🙏💕
Thank you for stating what I, as a “progressive” GenX mom have been so concerned about: the medical harm being done to kids who don’t fit the “behaviour norm” as a boy or girl.
I was born in the late 60s, a child of intellectual PhD biologist parents, and even in Ohio in the 70s, we listened to “Free to Be You and Me” as part of our public school kindergarten class. I was a tomboy as a young child; my mom kept my hair cut short (just because she didn’t want to have to take care of long hair). I wore gender-neutral clothes (popular for girls then), and intensely disliked frills, Barbie, and pink. I loved climbing trees and catching frogs. But I knew I was a girl, and I never wanted to be a boy.
I remember being enthralled by a music album called “Switched-on Bach.” My dad explained that the man who made the album had undergone surgery to become more like a woman. He cast no judgement on it, but I found it completely bizarre as a concept. My parents were friends with a gay male couple, and impressed upon me that they weren’t “just friends.” As a kid, I thought this was bizarre also, homophobia abounded in 70s popular culture (and in my social circle), but my parents were super ok with it. I tried to be, but for a young child, I do think it’s naturally difficult to sort out what’s “normal” in terms of sex. It’s not developmentally appropriate to expect them to understand.
I got mistaken for a boy sometimes, but I didn’t care. My parents didn’t care. Biology was biology. Clothes and hair were clothes and hair.
In high school, there were a couple of girls who played softball and didn’t chase boys. They got teased. Likewise the couple of boys who couldn’t hide their effeminate nature. Spoiler alert: they all grew up to be gay. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was over being a tomboy, completely infatuated with boys, and doing my level best to be an attractive, feminine girl (yet I had a very unique— weird!!— fashion sense, and got teased about it).
In college, I was often wearing men’s clothes and hats. This was popular in the 80s. I went to art school, I knew gay boys who were “out,” and there were also plenty of straight boys there (contrary to my mother’s assumptions). I got over any vestiges of homophobia. I knew precisely zero “trans kids.”
My nephew was born in 1990. He was obviously “not like the other boys.” He wanted to dress up in his sisters’ clothes and play with Barbie. The family doctor told Mom to forbid such behaviour and buy the kid tools and trucks. He was closeted until after college, came out as gay, and is now married to a man.
I’m horrified to think what might have become of him if he were born in 20 years later. What happened to gay pride? All I see is shame. And a shamefully barbaric approach to little proto-gay boys. I initially tried to get on board with accepting Jazz Jennings as an example of progress, but here’s the truth: loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications are not ethical. And certainly not for kids.
Here in BC, we have a DEI “educator” named Mischa Oak, who was featured as one of the first grooms on the TV show “My Fabulous Gay Wedding.” He gave a presentation online about SOGI for parents in my school district, and explained that puberty blockers were a mercy for “trans” kids, asserting that going through male puberty is “devastating” for a boy who wants to be a girl.
What??? “These boys are just like you were as a child,” I want to say to him. “Aren’t you glad you have your penis? Don’t you enjoy having sexual pleasure?”
Some days, I weep for the carnage being done to the effeminate little boys and body-hating adolescent girls. Thank you, from my heart, for doing the work you are doing, and hooray for the HHS review of the evidence released today!
May sanity prevail soon. Kids deserve the best possible lifelong health outcomes, to be sound in body and mind, no matter how painful and awkward it can be for them sometimes as “non-conforming” children.
Puberty is never a pathology. There is no wrong puberty. And adolescence is tough! There’s no magical medication that eradicates teen angst. Time. Maturity. Community. Hope we can return to the wisdom we once had.
I love that Pear is talking about the medicalization of children’s feelings. The environment — the adults’ ability to listen to a child who’s lonely — is sorely missing. Poor kid. I wish I could listen to 7 year old Pear and his parents…
I love that he alludes to sometime in hopefully the near future tackling the childhood over-prescription of SSRIs. Can't wait to hear him shout that, albeit very demurely, from the rooftop too!
Thank you for this conversation.
I am loving both of your voices and perspectives.
Beautiful and gentle conversation.
Pear & Ben, THANK YOU.
Pear should read Unshrunk by Laura Delano. A great book about therapy and psych meds and her healing from both.
Thank you for that book recommendation. A friend has a daughter who's been struggling, has seen multiple therapists, been checked into multiple expensive programs, and prescribed lots of different meds; and she just made her second unsuccessful attempt to kill herself last week and now lays in the hospital with a broken leg, pelvis and half her face disfigured. It is obvious that the therapy and meds have failed her . . . completely. But it seems there is so little information out there about any positive alternatives . . .
Listen more!!!
Societies need our non-normal people. This is how we shift perspectives and innovate to survive our ever-changing environments . . . The "outsider" perspective is invaluable.
Medicalization not only has emotional and physical risks , but it erases personal agency ( ironic ) and eliminates mystery and the intuitive mutable essence of childhood