GENDER IDEOLOGY: A True or False Quiz for Parents
GENDER IDEOLOGY TRUE-or-FALSE QUIZ for PARENTS
By Robin Steenman
Gender Ideology, as a topic, is intimidating in size and scope. The sheer volume of information can be overwhelming for the average parent with all of 60 seconds of free time each day. However, we need to understand this issue so that, armed with facts and data, we may effectively inoculate and advocate for our children against it.
In November of our “2022-2023 School Year for Parents,” this chapter focused on this critical issue in order to inform and equip parents to do just that. We hosted GENDER 101, GENDER 102, read “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier and even heard from Matt Walsh himself during a special screening of “What is a Woman?”
Well, how did we do?
Are you fully informed on this ideology? We invite you to take the end-of-course “True-False Quiz for Parents” and test your knowledge!
- The terms “sex” and “gender” mean the same thing.
FALSE. While they are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. It was not so long ago that most admissions forms and applications asked for your “sex” and gave the options “male/female.” Have you noticed that such a question is hard to find these days? Nearly every form now asks for your gender. Some give more than two options.
One of the best explanations is provided by Dr. Jay Richards in our GENDER 102 presentation, here.
Extra Credit: The first person to truly push “gender” over “sex” appears to be Dr. John Money, a professor of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins, who in 1960, advanced the idea that gender is a social construct with no real connection to biology (sex). The word “gender” is much more malleable than the word “sex.” This is the same John Money whose research the left leans on to support gender ideology. This is the same John Money who experimented with twin boys, Bruce and Brian Reimer, in the 1960’s.
When Bruce suffered catastrophic damage to his penis during circumcision, the devastated parents turned to Dr. Money for advice. Dr. Money suggested fully castrating their son and then raising him as a girl: Brenda. The parents were instructed to never tell Brenda that “she” was born a boy. Brenda never felt comfortable as girl and Dr. Money subjected both children to abusive, unethical and sexual experimentation. When Brenda was age 9, Dr. Money declared his experiment a total success. At age 13, Brenda hit puberty and started to become depressed and suicidal. The parents told Brenda her true identity, and within weeks, she changed her name to David and lived the rest of his life as his birth sex.
One would like to thing everything worked out and everyone was fine in the end. Unfortunately, Brian Reimer never recovered from the revelations involving his brother and committed suicide in 2002. David Reimer, married and stepfather to three, committed suicide 2 years later in 2004. This family was quite literally destroyed by the ideology of John Money, who never showed remorse.
- Gender Identity is a spectrum.
FALSE. There are only two gametes: Male and female. You can check out Dr. Colin Wright’s presentation on this HERE or watch him give it at GENDER 101 HERE.
- Gender Identity is fluid.
FALSE. Gender Identity (we would prefer to say “sex”) is not fluid, as you cannot change your DNA makeup. Every cell in your body has a XX chromosomes or XY chromosomes. Trans activists will actually agree with us in the case of detransitioners. When this happens, their self-serving and self-contradicting ideology does not permit for the fluidity to flow back in the “sex assigned at birth” direction.
- A child can be gender dysphoric as young as the age of two.
FALSE. In the cognitive development of a child from birth to approximately age 7, the child has almost no ability to “filter” what is going on in the environment. The infant/child’s mind is wide open, accepting everything – parent talk, caretaker talk, teacher talk, television, radio, you name it. All goes directly into the “subconscious mind,” which also permits wholesale belief in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
The “conscious mind” develops at age 7 or so. It is the thinking mind, the educated mind, the intellectual mind. It is the part of the mind we send them to school for. It can originate ideas, and has the ability to accept or reject information. That is why my 8 year old is starting to analyze the whole Santa Clause story and ask logical questions.
Children at these young ages (5 and under) also believe they’re mermaids, princesses, unicorns, superheroes, and so on. Considering these examples, it’s no wonder LGBTQ activists target young children with “Rainbow Clubs” and the “Gender Unicorn.” Oh btw, the left doesn’t believe in childhood innocence.
- The 4400% increase in “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” is a result of children feeling greater freedom to express themselves in today’s culture.
FALSE. The better explanation is “social contagion” or “peer contagion” largely facilitated by social media and aided/abetted by schools, tv shows, media, video games, children’s books, teen books, and every form of marketing that can reach your child. For instance, the latest book from American Girl Doll suggests puberty blockers to 8 year olds.
This hypothesis better fits with entire social circles of girls all becoming gender dysphoric at the same time with no prior history of gender confusion or incompatibility with their sex. Multiple moms from other states have shared this phenomenon with me: not a single girl in a friend group identifies as “normal.” Because, that’s just not the hip thing to be anymore.
- The denial of “gender affirming care” is tantamount to a death sentence for a child experiencing gender dysphoria.
FALSE. Parents are subjected to emotional blackmail with the ultimatum: “Would you rather have a live son/daughter or a dead daughter/son?”, implying that their reticence to jump onboard the transition train will result in the suicide of their child. The gender activists cite a heavily flawed, heavily skewed survey conducted by the HRC. More rigorous studies actually point to the opposite being true: trans individuals are 19 times more likely to commit suicide 3-5 years post-transition. These studies are hard to come by because 1) the dead cannot speak for themselves, 2) transitioners are not often tracked, 3) studies of this nature are certainly out-of-step with the current political climate. However, you can find these studies under “White Papers” in our Gender Ideology Toolkit.
- Puberty blockers are proven safe for children; they “pause” puberty in order for a child to be sure of their gender, and the effects can be reversed at any time by simply discontinuing the drugs (i.e. resume puberty).
FALSE. The puberty blocking drug in question is Lupron. This drug was originally designed to block the sexual urges of pedophiles. It is also used to suppress the reproductive systems of cancer patients during chemotherapy, where the risk seems justified in their fight to survive cancer. Never was it intended to block the hormonal changes of puberty in children. No clinical studies have been done on the long term effects of Lupron on children.
- Cross-gender hormones are proven safe, effective, and can be discontinued at any time, thus returning the child to their original state.
FALSE. When females take Testosterone (T), their voicebox is irrevocably affected, permanently lowering their voices. Breast development is halted, the clitoris becomes enlarged, forming a “miniature penis”, body hair becomes more prevalent, and body fat redistributes. But also… the calcium deposits in their bones are permanently affected, leading to early osteoporosis, and… To be honest, we don’t fully understand what will happen to their bodies, as this generation are effectively lab rats for any “long term” studies. Estrogen in adolescent males causes their penises to not develop in step with their growing bodies, thus resulting in a penis that is dramatically smaller than would be expected of an adult male. Both avenues can lead to sterility, an outcome that these minors are in no way able to fully comprehend.
Personal note: when I was in my 20s, I wanted a breast reduction. I was very career focused at the time, and having children was not on my radar. The doctor warned me that it could cause complications should I have children and wish to breastfeed. It just didn’t click in my head and I was ready to go through with it anyway. Luckily, I met my husband around that time, and he stopped my reckless, short-term decision making. Thank God that he did, because nursing my three children was such a special part of motherhood, never mind that it was the healthiest option for my babies. I was 28. We’re giving these decisions to children as young as 12!
- “Gender Affirming Care” has always been the standard of care for any child exhibiting signs of gender dysphoria.
FALSE. For the approximately 40 years prior to 2015, many physicians adopted the stance of “watchful waiting” when it came to minors expressing gender dysphoria. During this time, there only a handful of gender clinics in the United States. Today, there are over 400.
Extra Credit: From the mid-1980’s to 2015, there were multiple respected psychologists and physicians in the field who recommended “Watchful Waiting” for young children and minors claiming gender dysphoria. Two of them were Dr. Kenneth Zucker, head of Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) for four decades, and Dr. Paul McHugh, head of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins University for three decades. Interestingly Dr. Zucker authored the definition of gender dysphoria in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition) and helped write the 2007 standards of care for WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health). Dr. McHugh examined the long-term results of sex-reassignment surgeries that Johns Hopkins had already conducted (largely at the behest of Dr. John Money – see Question #1 Extra Credit) and decided to move away from surgical answers to what were largely psychological issues.
One morning in December 2015, Dr. Zucker was abruptly fired under the allegation of “conversion therapy.” In other words, a patient claiming gender dysphoria was not necessariy prescribed drugs and surgery. The CAMH subjected Dr. Zucker to a show trial and then the Canadian government shut down his clinic. The WPATH played a role in this debacle because it did not like something published in one of the journals he edited: a Swedish study that found substantially elevated rates of suicide and other mental health problems among transgender adults who had medically transitioned. WPATH demanded the study’s authors to retract their conclusions, but Zucker refused to permit a retraction. The mob came after him, a doctor who had transitioned dozens of gender dysphoric patients and acted with restraint towards others who were suffering from some other source of trauma. Ultimately, who lost? The kids who needed responsible care and the doctor that was giving it.
By 2018, the CAMH issued a formal apology that exonerated Dr. Zucker of any wrongdoing and agreed to a financial settlement for damages caused to his reputation. But the damage was already done.
When Dr. McHugh was promoted chief of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, he did what any scientist was supposed to do: examined the evidence. He asked a colleague to follow up on the former sex reassignment patients from years prior to ascertain how the surgical option had improved their lives. The findings: surgery did not materially change their lives. They still had emotional and psychological problems. Thus, Dr. McHugh discontinued Johns Hopkins sex reassignment procedures in the mid 1980s. His approach was to treat the psychological and emotional issues of the patients, since that appeared to be the true underlying problem.
In 2016, under pressure by the woke mob Johns Hopkins hospital announced its resumption of sex reassignment surgeries. There was no new science to spawn this policy reversal. Instead, according to LGBTQ Nation, it came about “thanks to mounting criticism against the respected medical center – and faculty member and psychiatrist Paul McHugh in particular.” The Human Rights Campaign (don’t let the name lull you to a happy place – it is a well-funded, far left, radical LGBTQ activist group) demanded Johns Hopkins publicly condemn Dr. McHugh and his associate Dr. Lawrence Mayer over a report they published in August 2016 about what science says and doesn’t say about gender ideology. The public condemnation didn’t happen, and so the following spring, of 590 institutions in the 2017 Healthcare Equality Index (HEI), a record published by the HRC of ideological compliance amongst hospitals, Johns Hopkins was the only one docked 25 points for “irresponsible citizenship.”
With these two respected voices of reason in the field of gender dysphoria effectively silenced, with their heads on respective spikes, you can guess the chilling effect it had on the remaining medical professionals. With the HRC via its HEI effectively forcing Johns Hopkins hospital into compliance, you can guess the effect that had on the remaining hospitals across the country.
The latest WPATH 2022 Standards of Care recommend placing children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as soon as possible, thus placing them on a conveyor belt towards surgical mutilation and irreversible damage.
And the medical community toes that line.
- Gender dysphoria is more prevalent in male children.
TRUE…until about 7 years ago. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), published in 2013, reported an expected incidence of gender dysphoria of .005-.014 percent for natal males and a much lower .002-.003 percent for natal females, based on the numbers of those who, a decade ago, sought medical intervention. This is an incidence of 1 in 10,000 people.
In the last decade, prevalence has increased over 1000 percent. According to a 2017 CDC survey, two percent of high school students now identify as transgender. Of course, we all know about the 4400% increase in Britain, which does a better tracking of these numbers than the United States due to its centralized health care. 75% of that increase was girls. This is a seismic shift from a majority of boys with a childhood history of gender dysphoria to a majority of girls with no history at all. In 2016, natal females accounted for 46% of all sex reassignment surgeries in the US. A year later, it was 70 percent. I wish I had the numbers for 2021-2022, as transgenderism has only become more mainstream, almost omnipresent, since then.
This account by a health worker at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital confirms this data:
“Until 2015 or so, a very small number of these boys comprised the population of pediatric gender dysphoria cases. Then, across the Western world, there began to be a dramatic increase in a new population: Teenage girls, many with no previous history of gender distress, suddenly declared they were transgender and demanded immediate treatment with testosterone.
I certainly saw this at the center. One of my jobs was to do intake for new patients and their families. When I started there were probably 10 such calls a month. When I left there were 50, and about 70 percent of the new patients were girls. Sometimes clusters of girls arrived from the same high school. “
- Schools would never push a normal child towards believing they’re gender dysphoric. Further, if the school counselors diagnosed your child with a psychological condition, they would notify the parents.
FALSE: Metro Nashville Schools presented “The Gender Unicorn” training to their employees in 2021. These slides instructed teachers and administrators to encourage a their students to come out with their trans identity, and then to hide that information in a “locked storge location” separate from the student’s “cumulative record” so that parents would not find out.
The American School Counselors Association (ASCA) have been unmasked as a radical far-left, ideological organization that treats parents as the enemy as they immerse unsuspecting students in all varieties of radical ideology. The bulk of the unmasking occurred in 2022 when the parent group “Courage is a Habit” infiltrated their 2022 “No Limits” Conference, reported on HERE. Our you can look at ASCA’s own website HERE.
Even the American Psychological Association targets parents as not worthy of knowing the psychological state of their children. Per the account of a local counselor who recently left her APA licensure for this reason: “Moms would bring their daughters in for counseling, asking me ‘what’s wrong with my daughter, please help!’ Per the APA, I was not permitted to tell them that their daughter has thoughts of being a boy.” Under fear of being classified as “conversion therapy” and thus being open to lawsuit or firing, counselors cannot probe your child to determine what the true root cause is.
Parents, think twice before paying a psychiatrist or counselor to “treat” your child. Unless it’s a grave psychological issue, chances are, you as their parent, or perhaps a pastor, has a better answer that prioritizes the well-being of your child above all else. The APA, AMA, and AAP certainly don’t fall into that category anymore. “After being a counselor and going through this process and seeing it from the inside out, I would now never allow my children to go see a therapist.” Let that sink in.
- It is your parental right (and duty) to safeguard your child from physical harm.
TRUE. But your child’s school, the CDC, the NEA, the APA, the ASCA, the DOE, the UN, and the WEF …. Disagree. These organizations often paint parents as “gate keepers” to gender affirming care. Their concern for the welfare of their children can earn them the title of “unsafe,” paving the way for CPS to remove their child from the unsafe environment of the home. Yes, this has happened in the United States and the child removed by CPS ultimately committed suicide in front of an oncoming train. A Canadian father was thrown in jail for using “misgendering pronouns” for his 13 year old daughter, who was transitioned by the state against his wishes. January Littlejohn, a Florida mother featured in our GENDER 102, also experienced this “shutting out” by the school. The “Gender Unicorn” training, administered to MNPS teachers and administrators in 2021, instructs school administrators to store student transition information in a separate location from the student’s regular school file and to withhold it from parents.
When Hillary Clinton famously stated, “It takes a village to raise a child,” she didn’t have grandparents and pastors in mind. The Left’s village is an unholy amalgamation of left-leaning activist entities and governmental organizations coopted by activist entities, to raise your child for you. Check out this graphic to understand the “village” the left has in mind: https://momsforlibertywc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/GENDER-PIPELINE-JAN-2023.pdf
This is not new. Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong also believed it took a village: their village.
We must hate – hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists. (Vladimir Lenin)
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. (Vladimir Lenin)
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands at whom it is aimed.” (Joseph Stalin)
The young people are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking. This is especially so in the era of socialism. (Mao Zedong)
We are indebted to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin for giving us a weapon. The weapon is not a machine-gun, but Marxism-Leninism. (Mao Zedong)
When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already…What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”. (Adolf Hitler)
- Your child is impervious to the influences of trans activists on social media.
FALSE. The single most common characteristic of girls experiencing “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” is its precedence by a massive amount of time on social media. Trans activists on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Tumblr have massive followings and glamorize transitioning to a degree that who wouldn’t find it enticing? Our children are young, impressionable, trusting, often isolated, and also likely going through puberty. They are easy targets. These activists tell kids to eschew their “unsupportive” parents for their online “glitter family,” even telling kids to come live with them.
- Your kid will learn the truth in biology class because science is fact based and irrefutable.
NOT NECESSARILY. Just at the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychology Association, and the American Medical Association have been co-opted into pushing this ideology, so has the National Association of Biology Teachers, National Association of Science Teachers, National Education Association, etc etc. This is what happens when adults fail to stand up to the toxic agenda of these ideologues, and the kids are the ones who pay the price. Hundreds of curriculums and supplemental classroom curriculums are available to any teacher who wants to teach biological un-truth. If you’re leaning on your biology teacher to stick to “just the facts,” then your child may be receiving daily doses of false science, the culmination of which you will not be able to overcome as a parent.
- Your kid will learn the truth in church because the Bible is the word of God and immutable.
NOT NECESSARILY. Many churches have been co-opted into this ideology (yes, even churches in Williamson County). The word “love” has been weaponized into accepting ideologies that are in direct contradiction of Biblical truth. Additionally, how can we expect an hour on Sunday to overcome 40 hours of anti-biblical teaching during the week? The answer: we can’t.
- Your college freshman is impervious to the influences of trans activist professors at the university because you raised her/him on scientific facts and Biblical truth.
NOT NECESSARILY. Even here in Williamson County, numerous parents have shared with me the heartbreak and agony of losing their child once they go to college. Our nation’s institutions of higher learning have become indoctrination camps. It’s not your child’s fault, nor is it your failing as a parent. They are lambs amongst wolves, and there’s a reason that there’s a new occupation in town: De-programmers, making $300 an hour, as written about in this Jan 2023 article. The mentioned deprogrammer, K. Yang, said it can take 7 years to deprogram a kid. If you have lost your child to woke indoctrination at college, one thing stands out to me in this article.
“…she [the daughter] credits what she calls her mother’s ongoing “relentlessness” in helping her move away from the woke values she said were instilled at Mount Holyoke.”
They are our children. Don’t give up, Mom.
- Gender-Affirming Care is proven safe and effective.
FALSE. Complications, especially for bottom surgeries in both males and females, are horrifically prevalent. Listen to Scott Newgent’s account of his phalloplasty here: https://youtu.be/1729wD_TOL8
Perhaps the most famous child transitioner, Jazz Jennings, suffered multiple vaginoplasty complications (and an ER visit): https://youtu.be/-bCVA9q3RBc
Bottom Line: The only thing modern medicine truly seems to “have down” is top surgery, and even then, a less-than-proficient doctor can permanently scar a teen for life. The bottom surgeries are harrowing, less-than-perfect, some ultimately fatal and several of these cases are covered in Abigail Schrier’s book “Irreversible Damage.”
Extra Credit:
TOP SURGERY FOR GIRLS: a double mastectomy. That’s the cutting off of healthy breasts. Some girls are naïve enough to think they can get them back. Sickeningly, a physician is seen in this video saying as much.
BOTTOM SURGERY FOR GIRLS: hysteretomy (removal of uterus), vaginectomy (removal of vagina), construction of a penis through metoidioplasty or phalloplasty with the option for scrotoplasty.
In a partial hysterectomy, a surgeon will remove only the uterus. In a total hysterectomy, they will also remove the cervix. A bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, or BSO, involves the removal of the right and left fallopian tubes and ovaries.
Metoidioplasty is the method of construction a new penis, or neopenis. t involves changing the clitoris into a penis. A person will receive hormone therapy before the surgery to enlarge the clitoris for this purpose. During the procedure, the surgeon also removes the vagina, in a vaginectomy. However, a neopenis is often too small for penetrative sex.
A phalloplasty uses grafted skin — usually from the arm, thigh, back, or abdomen — to form a neopenis. Taking skin from the forearm seems to be the most common in penile construction. Images of forearms with exposed muscle tissue are all over the internet as a result of this. Compared with a metoidioplasty, a phalloplasty results in a larger penis. However, this neopenis cannot become erect on its own and requires a penile implant. There are
Scrotoplasty — the creation of a scrotum — is an option alongside a metoidioplasty or phalloplasty. In a scrotoplasty, a surgeon hollows out and repositions the labia majora to form a scrotum and inserts silicone testicular implants.
BOTTOM SURGERY FOR BOYS: penile inversion, restosigmoid vaginoplasty, non-penile inversion.
A penile Inversion inverts the penis into the body to create a neo-vagina. Boys that have been on estrogen for a long time, such as the case was for Jazz Jennings, have a much smaller penis because it’s development was halted by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, will not have enough “raw material” to make a neo-vagina of any appreciable size. Also, this vagina is not lubricated.
Rectosigmoid vaginoplasty involves the use of intestinal tissue to form the vaginal wall. This technique is sometimes used in conjunction with penile inversion. This helps when penile and scrotal tissue is scarce.
Non-penile inversion is also known as the Suporn technique (after Dr. Suporn who invented it) or the Chonburi Flap. This method uses perforated scrotal tissue graft for the vaginal lining, and intact scrotal tissue for the labia majora (same as a penile inversion). The penile tissue is used for the labia minora and clitoral hood.
- Your child will lead a happy and fulfilling life after they have transitioned.
NOT NECESSARILY. The science and tracking of post-transition individuals is highly lacking. The most comprehensive study points to 19x more likely to commit suicide. While some transitioners go on to lead happy lives, they seem to be the first to tell you that they are a male/female leading a female/male existence (i.e. they don’t believe they have truly become the other sex). Surgical Transition also did not solve their underlying emotional and psychological problems, as discovered by Dr. Paul McHugh in the 1980s at Johns Hopkins. These individuals are also rare and generally do not enjoy the spotlight, unlike the thousands of trans activists basking in relative celebrity status on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Tumblr, and the like.
- It is possible to opt your child out of encountering Gender Ideology at their school.
FALSE. It is virtually impossible for your child to not be confronted with this ideology. If it’s not woven into the curriculum, it is likely present in the teacher’s classroom library, or definitely present in the school library, or present in classroom media such as Brainpop, present on their chromebooks through apps like Epic, presented to them via Family Life training (sex ed), pushed by woke school counselors, pushed via “anti-bullying” and “welcoming/safe schools” assemblies, made available through Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs), Prism Clubs, or Rainbow Clubs (for elementary children). I’m sorry, parents, but your child will not escape this in the public school environment, and some private school environments. Our chapter’s Gender Ideology Pipeline offers evidence to support this conclusion.
Well, how did you do? If you need study up on this ideology, be sure to visit the Gender Ideology Toolkit in our Resource Library. Thank you for taking the quiz – that makes you a super parent for simply reading up on this critical issue facing our children. Feel free to comment with questions or suggestions.