Pflugerville, TX – Recently, Hendrickson High School Newspaper ran a feature story entitled “The Cost of Transition”. The article reads more like propaganda as it devotes half a page to chest binding and a fourth of the article is devoted to characterizing anyone who attempts to protect children from irreversible harm from this ideology as “transphobes”.
The article does go into some of the costs of transitioning such as the price range for surgeries that range from $106K to $370K for FTM and MTF surgeries, respectively. That doesn’t account for having surgeries to repair the genitalia damaged from surgeries that attempt to impersonate opposite-sex genitalia or loss of work for recovery for surgeries. Also, not mentioned are the costs of lost fertility and the loss of a normal sexual function. The loss of bone density from suppressing puberty. They also fail to factor in the losses by family members and friends who will grieve the person lost to transition.
The first student interviewed in the article stated that she began her transition to present as male in 8th grade and that her transition started with hormones. The student is now a sophomore in high school and says she realized she was transgender in 7th grade. For years, gender ideology adherents said that a person was only transgender if they persistently and consistently identified as the opposite sex from early childhood. As the market for transgender procedures has grown the standards for these procedures and for who is “transgender” have been relaxed. No doubt this is for financial motives as the market for surgeries is expected to grow globally. Regret was not mentioned as a cost but there is a growing number of people who report that they regret transitioning. These people are left with irreversible changes to their bodies. Most detransitioners do not report back to their surgeons, therapists, or endocrinologists that they regret their surgeries so the number of detransitioners and those who regret transition is hard to track. The growing number of regretters is no doubt linked to the marketing of transgenderism and transition surgeries across all forms of entertainment, online and in education. In recent years, there has been a huge increase in cases of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) involving adolescent or young adult females. ROGD is a type of gender dysphoria that begins suddenly, either during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult. Parents of ROGD kids attribute the rise in girls identifying as transgender to peer influences and online influences.
The article doesn’t go into much detail about the nature of the surgeries and it certainly doesn’t go into the botched surgeries and complications of surgeries. The three students interviewed for the article are females identifying as transmen. They fail to mention the cost of time lost to dilating their neovaginas so they do not close. No doubt the costs associated with a lifetime of being a patient and impersonating the opposite sex through the use of chemicals and surgeries are high and hard to completely calculate which is why minors should not be transitioning and why students should not be reading transgender propaganda in public schools.
The second and third students interviewed both mention their feelings of being more confident in a chest binder. One stated that she had stayed at a group home for LGBTQ. At one point they state that the best place to get a binder is GC2B, which has a page devoted to safety concerns because binding is just not safe for girls. Over 97% of females in a binding study reported having at least one of 28 negative outcomes attributed to binding.
Although the article states that transgender-identifying people experience a rate of suicidal attempts of 35%, the often-quoted statistics come from surveys that are not robust and there is no evidence supporting transitioning as a cure for suicidal ideation. In fact, the rate of suicide increases in post-operative trans-identifying people. It is simply not helpful to characterize suicidality as an inevitable symptom. The rate of suicide among trans-identifying youth is similar to other populations of youth seeking mental health care.
They also say they experience bullying at school at a rate of 35%, this relies on self-reporting which can be grossly overstated. It is hard to believe that trans-identified students are bullied in schools where they are so openly celebrated, where there are clubs to support them, and where the school paper interviews them for a two-page feature.
Did the journalism teacher who helps produce and approve the content for this school paper get permission to print this piece of trans-propaganda from the district or is the environment in PFISD indifferent to the desires of parents to protect their children from harmful ideas being promoted to them at school? The journalism teacher should be fired or at a minimum investigated and reprimanded for pushing an agenda at the school.
Who is the journalism teacher and what biases might she hold?
The teacher is Kari Riemer who appears aside from being a Lego enthusiast and frequent visitor to Disney World (both cool things) is also liberal and is what one might consider an “ally” to LGBTQ. Perhaps that allyship clouded her judgment when it came to what might be good content for the school paper. This is not the first time the paper has run a story on gender identity or sexuality, but it is probably the worst. Encouraging teen girls to bind their breasts by publishing a two-page spread about girls at the school who bind might encourage other girls to also try binding to “improve their confidence” as the article suggests. It is simply reckless to promote the idea of binding to young girls. It is a terrible message to tell children they can be better by pretending to be something they aren’t. No child is born in the wrong body.
Children need safeguarding. They need safeguarding from political and sexual grooming in public schools. Grooming of children and reckless promotion of harmful, unwholesome and unhealthy behaviors in schools is being cloaked under the guise of “diversity, inclusion, equity, and allyship”. Safe spaces aren’t merely spaces where a student can avoid bullying or uncomfortable situations (as long as you aren’t a Christian) they have become places where parents aren’t privy to the grooming and indoctrination taking place by teachers and others who call themselves “allies”. The Texas Legislature needs to pass safeguarding legislation for children.
There will be a school board meeting Thursday, Dec 16th at 7 P. The Pflugerville ISD Board of Trustees will conduct their regular monthly meeting beginning at 7 p.m. in the board room of the PISD administration building located at 1401 W. Pecan St. Please show up and sign up to speak during open comments. Call 512-594-0012 and let them know you wish to speak at the board meeting regarding harmful propaganda in the school newspaper.
Concerned parents should contact the board at the following email addresses:
Renae.Mitchell@pfisd.net, Tony.Hanson@pfisd.net, Brian.Allen@pfisd.net, David.Aguirre@pfisd.net, Cindy.Gee@pfisd.net, Jean.Mayer@pfisd.net, Vernagene.Mott@pfisd.net
Tell the board that gender ideology has no place in the schools, the promotion of chest binding and other practices embraced by gender ideologists is unacceptable.
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