STOP PROMOTING THE TRAVESTY OF SO-CALLED “GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” on CHILDREN! We Urge a NO Vote on California’s SB 107!
California Senator Weiner is at it again. After sponsoring SB 923 that would indoctrinate the medical profession in gender identity ideology, he is now proposing another bill, SB 107 that would turn California into a haven for the medical experimentation on gender non-conforming children, shielding those seeking these interventions from prosecution based on the laws of their state. There is nothing progressive about this bill; rather it is misogynist, homophobic, and reactionary to its core.
Gender non-conforming minor children and youth, mostly female, and many same-sex-attracted future lesbians and gay men, are being subjected to a ghastly medical experiment that will likely shock the consciences of future generations. Though covered up by euphemisms like “gender affirming care”, these children are being taught that their gender non-conformity, same sex attractions, and/or unhappiness with their sexed bodies (how many girls hate their bodies growing up under patriarchy?) mean that they were born in the “wrong” body, and they are “transgender”.
Unlike being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, transgender is usually a medicalized identity with the end goal of turning children into a facsimile of the other sex. Children must “treat” their condition not just by changing names, pronouns, and clothing choices and by denying their sex, but by taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that prevent brain and bones from developing properly, and which result in sterilization, early onset osteoporosis, undeveloped lungs and hearts, and the inability to experience sexual pleasure.
Medicalized young people are also channeled into multiple surgeries, removing or modifying healthy body parts, such as double mastectomy at ages as young as 13, often followed by genitally mutilating surgeries with frequent and severe side effects. In other words, we are destroying children in order to “save” them.
While other countries, including highly liberal, tolerant societies such as Sweden and Finland, move back from embracing this model of treating societal and emotional problems with major body modifications, California is moving full speed ahead.
As lesbians from the U.S. group, Lesbians United, stated in their recent campaign, #Save the Tomboys, “tomboys need shoes they can run in, not artificial hormones.” Since 84% of girls diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” are same-sex attracted, the fear that this is indeed an insidious form of reparative conversion therapy targeting and disappearing the next generation of lesbians is a valid one.
Feminists in Struggle, as an organization composed of radical feminists and progressives, holds that children should be free to dress as they like, play with the toys and pursue the interests that they like, and express their personalities freely without sex stereotyping, rather than be medicalized for their gender non-conformity. No one is born in the “wrong” body. Children unhappy with their bodies due to sexism, homophobia, and related traumas need psychological support, and to be allowed to grow up whole, not be put under the knife.
We therefore urge the defeat of SB 107. #Save the Tomboys.
See also: LGB Alliance’s post: SB 107: Trans Refuge Legislation and Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights’ post: California Aspires to Become a Sanctuary State for Those Who Mutilate Children for Profit
