A small percentage of the population will always meet clinical criteria for gender dysphoria as defined in the DSM-V. The symptoms and emotions of gender dysphoria are real. Historically roughly .01% of the population were afflicted; nearly all cases were boys. But in most childhood gender dysphoria cases, 70% resolved to accept their gender assigned at birth (Zucker, 2018). There has been a drastic shift in the last decade of adolescents suddenly claiming gender dysphoria and self-identifying as transgender or something other than their biological gender. Perhaps just as significant is the sex-ratio shift in gender dysphoria with adolescent girls now being the majority who claim affliction with this diagnosis. It is concerning and alarming.
Gender dysphoria, formerly known as “gender identity disorder” is a mental health diagnosis and considered a medical condition. Individuals who live with this hardship receive protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and are afforded the protection in areas of employment, transportation, communications, and opportunities across community life (to list a few). They have protections to meet their basic human rights.
Protect My Innocence (PMI) committee is petitioning for legislation that protects unconsenting minors and adults from gender expression that impedes on environments designed to be family friendly. Furthermore, PMI would also support legislation to remove “Gender Identity” from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Anyone who truly needs protection against forms of discrimination are afforded these protections under the ADA. Communities across Iowa have been exploited by minors and adults that identify as something other than their biological sex due to how they choose to express their gender identity. Gender expression is a CHOICE. Their choices are bulldozing the rights of privacy and manipulating communities into compliance out of fear of litigation. The equality the LGBTQ demands is not possible because it condones primary and secondary sex organs of the opposite sex exposed to non-consenting children and adults. That is not equality. This is exploitation.
Their choices cost public pools thousands of dollars this past summer. Their actions cost parent’s summer pool activities with their children. Pools across Iowa no longer were family friendly because primary and secondary sex organs were exposed in front of non-consenting minor children (and adults) in public spaces, locker rooms, and bathrooms. It cost lifeguards and pool staff their jobs because of the blatant, power-trip of individuals who demand to express their gender and expose sex organs. The Iowa law is FORCING children to see and feel the world through the lens of adults. Their brains are not scientifically developed to process and carry this load our culture is trying to enforce.
Our children’s innocence is worth protecting and fighting for.
1 Kenneth J. Zucker, “The Myth of Persistence: Response to ‘A Critical Commentary on Follow-Up Studies and “Desistance’ Theories about Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Children’ by Temple Newhook et al. (2018),” International Journal of Transgenderism (May 2018); See also J. Ristori and T.D. Steensma, “Gender Dysphoria in Childhood,” International Review of Social Psychiatry28, no.1 (2016); 13-20.