Frank Furedi writes at Spiked The making of an identity crisis. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
The rise of gender-confused children is nothing to celebrate.
Western societies are experiencing a massive rise in the proportion of young people who identify as LGBT. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the US.
According to a recent report, published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 25 per cent of high-school students now identify as LGBT. The CDC found that 12.2 per cent of teens self-identify as bisexual, 5.2 per cent identify as ‘questioning’, 3.2 per cent identify as gay or lesbian, and 3.9 per cent identify as ‘other’. In fact, the current percentage of American adults who do not identify as heterosexual is double what it was a decade ago.
There has been a similar transformation when it comes to gender identity. Last year, a CDC health survey showed that people aged between 13 and 25 accounted for a disproportionately large share of the people who identify as transgender. For instance, 18- to 24-year-olds make up just 11 per cent of the total population, but 24 per cent of the transgender population.
So what’s behind this transformation in young people’s sexual and gender identities?
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup argues that children today have ‘grown up in a culture where being LGBT was normal and not something that people had to be embarrassed about or tried to hide’. Similarly, those working within the LGBT sector claim that younger people simply feel more comfortable than older people in displaying their ‘authentic’ selves. Phillip Hammack, director of the Sexual and Gender Diversity Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, likens the recent rise in trans identification to the increased ‘visibility’ of young people labelling themselves gay, lesbian and bisexual in the 1990s. As one commentator put it, ‘the uptick in queer youth… indicates that more people are comfortable with being openly honest about their sexual orientation and identities’.
But this explanation is only part of the story. It is certainly true that more people in the past hid their sexualities than they do today. The gay and lesbian movement has indeed fostered a greater tolerance towards sexual minorities. But it is not as if young people are now simply left alone to draw their own conclusions about their identity. On the contrary, LGBT identities have become more prevalent because Western societies treat them as special.
Children are picking up the message that it is good to be LGBT,
and potentially problematic to be straight or ‘cis gender’.
This dynamic is especially pronounced when it comes to transgender identities. Educational and cultural institutions are playing a key role in encouraging young people to question whether their ‘gender identity’ aligns with their biological sex. What’s more, these institutions tend to present gender and sexuality as central facets of people’s lives – as the qualities that define our existence and identity.
At the same time, childhood has become far more sexualised.
Sex education is not only being offered to younger and younger pupils – its remit is also constantly expanding. Schools may once have taught students about the biological facts of sex, or how to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. But now the focus has shifted towards sexuality and gender identity. Schools today self-consciously encourage children not to take their biological identity as girls or boys for granted. Children as young as four or five are urged to reflect on their identity and to be open to the idea that they are ‘genderfluid’ or ‘nonbinary’.
All of this has had an incredibly disorienting effect on children. Young children need certainty and constant assurance about their place in the world. But they are not getting that today. Adult society has abandoned its responsibility for socialising them. Instead, children are encouraged to focus on their sexuality and gender and to explore and question who they are.
The result is an ever-growing crisis of identity among the young.
Advocates of these developments like to flatter themselves. They like to think they are fostering a climate of openness, in which young people are free to discover their true selves. Instead, they are leaving many young people disoriented and confused.
Western Attempt to Impose Sexuality on Children Resisted by Rest of the World
Little noticed was a recent failure of US and EU to convince Asia, Africa and Latin America to follow the Western grooming of school children. Below are excerpts from the UN Commission report April 14, 2023, where the agenda was tabled, after many years of promonting it.
The Commission on Population and Development ended its fifty-sixth session today, unable to adopt by consensus a draft resolution concerning the agenda item on population, education and sustainable development.
The withdrawal of that text took place amidst a heated discussion that touched on substantive and procedural matters. Several delegates objected to the reference to comprehensive sexual education in that text, while also highlighting the lack of transparency with which some of its language was circulated. However other delegates noted that this language was already agreed upon at other times and underscored the pivotal role of comprehensive sexual and reproductive education in empowering women and youth.
“Nobody is happy with this result,” the representative of Senegal said, adding that delegates come from “different horizons and realities”, and it is important to respect all cultures. Noting that certain delegations refused to yield even one comma, he said the Commission should learn from this experience so that it can avoid disunity in the future.
“We can all sense the temperature in the room at this stage,” said the representative of Philippines, expressing the widespread agreement that a consensus-based outcome on this matter is crucial.
“I see no other possibility than to withdraw this text,” Commission Chair Gheorghe Leucă (Republic of Moldova) said after several delegates raised their objections. Prior to its withdrawal, he had urged for its adoption by consensus, calling on the Commission to demonstrate that countries are united in finding pathways out of the education crisis. Noting that he circulated language yesterday that seeks to address “our last remaining differences”, he had called on delegates to demonstrate maximum flexibility, “on behalf of the hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide who lack access to quality education”.
Pakistan’s delegate said coming up with a new paragraph when the adoption is 11 hours away undermines the processes of the multilateral system. Speaking after the withdrawal, she reminded delegates of the 263 million children who are deprived of education. While comprehensive sexuality education may be a priority in some countries, it is regrettable that delegates of those States promoted that priority as if there was nothing else to be discussed on this resolution.
What prevents the international community from achieving Goal 4 is not the lack of sexuality education, but the lack of schools and books and water, she stressed.
Iran’s delegate said terms such as sexual and reproductive education are not acceptable to her country, while Nigeria’s delegate expressed concern about the deletion of language regarding the parents’ responsibility and right to guide the religious and moral education of their children, as well as other language relating to women’s and girls’ critical contributions to their families and children.
The representative of Ethiopia said she was not able to get guidance from her capital because of the late hour at which the new language was circulated. She said operative paragraphs 16 and 17 represent a red line that countries such as hers will not cross.
However, the representative of Sweden, speaking for the European Union, commended the text for its language focusing on ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive health-care services. The reference to evidence-based comprehensive education on human sexuality is language that has been previously agreed by the Commission, she said. Expressing regret that, despite her delegation’s flexibility, an outcome could not be reached, she said it is frustrating that a small number of countries prevented an outcome. She reiterated every individual’s right to quality and affordable sexual and reproductive education.
The speaker for Ghana said comprehensive sexuality education aims to equip children and young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to make choices, just like any education. In her country, it helps prevent teenage pregnancies and child marriages while serving as a reminder that access to water in schools is a right. Comprehensive sexuality education helps people choose life over death and good over bad. “My mind goes back to Africa,” she said, adding that information is power. Later, she clarified that she was not speaking on behalf of African countries.
She also underscored that she was talking of reproductive health
education and services, as based on country norms,
and not on comprehensive sexuality education.
What is Comprehensive Sexuality Education?
By now you’re aware that CSE is a loaded term and wondering what it means. Here’s a video and a website that provides answers to that question. All you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.
Ten minute video here: http://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/act-now-2/stop-cse-petition/
via Science Matters
May 8, 2023 at 10:18AM
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