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Carol Dansereau #transphobia caroldansereau.substack.com

Affirming Trans Identities is Harmful.
Don't do it. And don't teach children to do it either.

There’s a lot of pressure everywhere to affirm trans and nonbinary identities, including those declared by children. Affirmation is touted as kind, righteous, and even lifesaving. Many parents are committed to teaching their children to affirm, seeing it as an extension of the basic respect they want their young ones to show everyone.

But affirmation is not kind, respectful, righteous or lifesaving. It is not benign. In fact, it is extremely harmful to those who are affirmed, and those who do the affirming. This article discusses why, focusing on affirmation with respect to children.
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Affirming children hurts them.

Those who promote the affirmation of children’s trans or nonbinary identities insist that doing so is essential for the mental health of those children. They may even argue that children might kill themselves in response to not being affirmed. These assertions are based in ideology, not science.

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If not affirmed most children who reject their sex, come to accept it. In contrast, affirmation locks children into body rejection. It delivers vast numbers of children to unethical health professionals who implement invasive procedures without any credible evidentiary basis for doing so. By affirming children, you put them at risk of infertility, sexual dysfunction, and a range of other serious health problems, for no good reason.

To make matters worse, there is a good chance that the child you are affirming is among the most vulnerable of children. He or she is likely to be coping with one or more significant challenges, such as mental illness, a history of sexual abuse, and autism. He or she could also well be same-sex attracted and dealing with homophobia. By affirming trans or nonbinary identities you may well push these children towards so-called “gender affirmation medicine” and away from the help they need.

Affirmation bolsters the mystical and dangerous idea that some children are “born in the wrong body.” It ignores not only the specific challenges individual children may be facing, but also the fact that they’ve been subjected to aggressive indoctrination which promotes dissociation from the body.
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