San Diego FIST members participated in a peaceful rally of about 75 people in San Diego on May 6th at the Pediatric Endocrine Society’s Annual Conference against the medical transition of minors and for evidence-based care. The rally was sponsored by a coalition of groups, including Our Duty, a non-partisan organization of parents, which played a leadership role. https://ourduty.group. One of the central organizer of Our Duty in California, Erin Friday, a Democrat, chaired the rally. There were several female de-transitioners that gave powerful presentations about their experiences as teens being rushed into transition and suffering severe and permanent physical harms. They announced a new organization called Detrans Help. Other speakers scanned the political spectrum including several lesbians. No counter-protesters showed up.
The range of speakers and the messages presented – uniformly pro-gay and pro gender non-conformity – made it clear that this is not fundamentally a Right-wing movement. Rather, polls have shown that a majority of Americans of all political persuasions are sympathetic to these views. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3991685-majority-of-americans-oppose-gender-affirming-care-for-minors-trans-women-participating-in-sports-poll/.
Ann Menasche from FIST was one of the speakers.
Here are excerpts from Ann’s speech:
“I represent here today a small national multi-issue radical feminist organization solidly on the Left called Feminists in Struggle. I, myself, am a lesbian, a feminist, a socialist, a Green, a civil rights lawyer, and a life-long activist. I am proud to join with all of you today, parents, de-transitioners, others from the gay community, heterosexuals, people with a range of political views, to proclaim in one voice that no child is born in the wrong body! This atrocity of sterilizing and mutilating children and teens who are gender non-conforming, gay, autistic, traumatized, or otherwise different, in the name of what is euphemistically called “gender affirming care”, must end…
There is nothing wrong with these children’s bodies…that needs to be “fixed” by experimental so-called treatments like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and cosmetic surgeries – the removal or mutilation of healthy body parts. Feminine boys, and masculine girls, and same sex attracted teens are fine just as they are. Bodies & roles do not need to “match.” Allow these children to grow and develop with their bodies intact. And tell the truth to young adults that these “treatments” cause serious permanent harms and do not cure gender unhappiness or anything else.
Children of both sexes need to be freed not from their bodies, but from gender roles and stereotypes that put them into boxes based on their sex, preventing them from freely exploring their interests and expressing their personalities…Young same sex attracted people need to be freed, not from their healthy sexed bodies, but from homophobia….Girls need to be freed from sexism that demeans them and their developing bodies as sex objects, that subjects them to male sexual and physical violence, and still, even today, places obstacles in their path to following their dreams because of their sex…
For all the spirited girls out there, for all the misfits like I was, for all the tomboys, for all the future pioneers, scientists, athletes, doctors, lawyers, thinkers, writers, artists, carpenters, mechanics, engineers, leaders who were born female, for the lesbians, for all the future feminists and visionaries, for all the amazing mothers of past, present and future generations, for the memory of my own rebellious and loving tomboy mother who as a child used to run across rooftops tearing her dresses, FOR ALL OF THEM, let’s put an end to this atrocity. STOP CHILD TRANSITION! NO ONE IS BORN IN THE WRONG BODY!”
