It’s the lie that convinced a thousand parents — and, increasingly, politicians across America.
As a psychologist specializing in child-behavioral issues, I frequently talk with parents misled into believing their child will commit suicide unless allowed to transition genders.
Suicide fears have led medical professionals to threaten to call Child Protective Services if parents don’t affirm their child’s chosen gender identity.
Governors and lawmakers have given in to the same fear.
The mere mention of suicide stops them from enacting laws that protect children from undergoing unproven and experimental medical procedures.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed such a bill, saying it could lead children to kill themselves.
The Legislature overrode his veto Wednesday.
Good thing, too.
Those who use the threat of suicide to encourage children to go down a transgender path either don’t understand the research or are being deliberately manipulative.
Worse, they may be encouraging the very suicide they want to prevent.
It’s obvious why suicide is front and center here.
It horrifies every decent person, especially the suicide of a child.
Parents have likely heard some variation of “Better a live son than a dead daughter,” and for years, activists and their allies have flogged reports that large percentages of children who identify as transgender are suicidal — more than 50%, according to the Trevor Project.
President Biden has repeated this statistic, and as states have banned medical treatments for trans-identified minors, it has been aired more than ever to prevent reforms.
But this narrative is false.
R&i – Link added – tp