Dear Rose: I absolutely do not understand this transgender thing. I don’t have a hard time with being gay. I AM gay. Being gay does not involve operations, pills, hormones, recovery time, and a brand-new wardrobe.
According to my son (he’s a turkey-baster baby, and I’m the donor), gays no longer rank as special. Some kids at least claim to be trans to get noticed. If school officials go along with it, parents can be kept in the dark. Sometimes the parents are shamed into allowing hormone disruption.
I think we have to have some respect for Nature. If you’re a female who feels masculine, be a “butch” lesbian. If you’re a male who feels feminine, be a fem homosexual. But don’t subject yourself or your children to risky operations they might live to regret. What’s your take on this? – Trans Objector
Dear Objector: I had a question about transgender teens before. I wrote a long-winded answer based on studies I have read but deleted it because opinions are very conflicting. We do know that kids can latch onto trends, and some people think the trans “thing” is one of the more ridiculous ones.
I definitely agree that irreversible sexual changes should not be made when kids are pre-puberty or in puberty. The teen years are fraught with confusion, pimples and hard-ons. Teens almost automatically reject what their parents want but, mysteriously, grow into copies of their parents.
We know that teens are anxious to risk a lot of things that mature people think are bad. Why can’t we conclude conservatively that changing one’s sexual identity is not a good idea until the person is an adult? Even then, I think doctors should not proceed without requiring the patient to undergo psychological therapy first. There’s a risk in everything. Some say the risk for denying trans operations is suicide. But operations carry a higher risk of death. And some statistics say that post-trans people commit suicide at higher rates after surgery, probably because they discover they are still the same ol’ person inside.
Now (February 2025) President Trump has made it official that one’s sex will be based on what is written on our birth certificates. Official documents, public institutions and sports organizations will have to abide by this ruling or sacrifice funding. It will be harder to be a trans activist when the law establishes gender identity.
I suspect we won’t be talking much about transgender issues in 10 years. Nobody will care. We will all be struggling to pay the mortgage — just like always.
