The latest in the Safe Schools program saga is that a Year 4 primary school student is “transitioning,” that is undergoing a gender transition, all with the help of the Safe Schools coalition. (The Australian, September 9, 2016, p. 7) A workshop will be held at the pupil’s class, and then the pupil plans to change to their new gender. It reminds me of some sort of frantic religious revivalist movement, or of the metaphorosis of insects. And it makes as much sense, since a child in Year 4, is in no position to be making such decisions.
This ideology, as has been noted in these pages, has been criticised by the American College of Pediatricians, claiming that the “Gender Ideology Harms Children”. We can add in the present context an important quote that was not noted previously, and which supports my remarks made above:
“A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.”