TransActive Executive Director Responds to Pat LaBarbera
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4/14/2008
Dear Family, Friends & Allies:
We recently learned of a blog post by Mr. Pat LaBarbera, the President
of an organization entitled "Americans For Truth About Homosexuality"
http://americansfortruth.com/ in which he made derogatory,
innacurate and inflamatory comments about an eight-year old girl in
Colorado and about an adolescent young man and his mother, with whom I
happened to have been close friends at one time.
In a post entitled "->-bleeped-<- Insanity At CNN"
http://americansfortruth.com/page/7 , he demonstrated both a lack of
common human decency towards these children and their families, but
continued to display his organization's ignorance of the challenges
faced by our gender non-conforming and transgender children and youth.
It is my goal as Executive Director of TransActive to always take the
high road in any dispute that affects the lives of these children.
This holds true even when I and those with whom I'm privileged to work
are repulsed by the actions of those who not only wish to deny our
children the freedom to be themselves, but who, through their words
and actions put our beautiful children and youth in danger. We need
only look at the tragic murder of Lawrence King in Oxnard, California
to understand that intolerant attitudes too often lead to
intolerance-inspired violence.
With that in mind, I have sent this response to Mr. LaBarbera in the
slim hope of opening a dialogue that will best serve the needs of our
children and their families. In the absence of dialogue, it is our
intention to let Mr. LaBarbera and his supporters know that we will
stand with and if need be, on the front lines of those advocating and
educating on behalf of these amazing and beautiful children, youth and
their loving families.
Please join us in supporting these children by writing directly to Mr.
LaBarbera at the link provided above with a respectful email
expressing your feelings and opinion regarding his misguided
commentary regarding these children, youth and their families.
And if you endorse the work of TransActive, please consider making a
tax-deductible donation of any amount either by mail or through PayPal
at our website
http://www.transactiveonline.org/ . Your support
means the world to these children and their families.
Yours In Peace & Unity,
Jenn Burleton
Executive Director
TransActive Education & Advocacy
Mr. LaBarbera,
In my role as Executive Director of an organization that works to
educate schools, social service agencies, healthcare providers, the
legal profession and the general public on the challenges faced by
transgender and gender non-conforming children, youth and their
families I feel compelled to respond to your factually inaccurate,
socially irresponsible and morally questionable blog post,
pejoratively entitled; "->-bleeped-<- Insanity At CNN".
It appears to me that you have gone out of your way to not simply
inform your constituency of a media-related event with which you take
issue, but to denigrate and ridicule not only the loving parents who
support their children, but the children themselves. While you
certainly have the right to disagree with how others may parent their
children (a right I share and exercise frequently), I believe you
cross the line when your disagreement, on ANY level, becomes an
egregious public display of rudeness, disrespect and ridicule directed
at the child or, in this case, the children.
You wrote:
"Interestingly, the mother (CNN caption: "parent of transgender
child"), BOLD NAME OF PARENT, describes how her daughter "pretty much
lived like a boy growing up ..."
You chose to emphasize the name of the parent who appeared on CNN by
using a boldfaced font. What was the purpose of that? Was it in the
hope of drawing further negative attention to that particular family
from your constituency? Did you believe that by emphasizing the name
that, somehow, your readers would become even more motivated to
contact this family directly? If so ...to what end?
If I have misjudged your intentions with regards to that bold
emphasis, then I apologize and look forward to a clarification of your
reasoning.
You continued your quote of the mother's comments:
"He [editor: she] was just ... all around very masculine, and I didn't
discourage that. I just let him [editor: her] — I just went with it.
And so he [she] didn't have a lot of discomfort around it because he
[she] was freely expressing himself. It wasn't until his [her] body
started changing that he [she] started having a lot of difficulty."
With these editorial insertions you clearly and repetitiously go out
of your way to disrespect the gender identity expression of a youth
whom you have never personally met. You did the same thing further on
in your blog response with your references to the 8-year old Colorado
girl.
I have tried, in good faith, to find a journalistic, moral or
respectful rationale for this and have failed. You obviously (very
obviously) made the editorial choice to disrespect this young man (and
the young child) at every turn solely for the purpose of serving your
personal convictions, be they religiously and/or politically
motivated.
If you had encountered this young man or the 8-year old on the street,
in a store, at the mall or in church I know for a fact that you would
not only treat them with courtesy and respect, but you would have no
question regarding their gender identity ...nor should you have.
In virtually every interaction we have with other human beings we
practice the socially respectful custom (in most cases) of accepting
and acknowledging their gender identity based solely on how they
present themselves to us and we all expect the same in return. This
respect extends to virtually all aspects of our lives, the significant
exceptions being situations in which people are most likely to be
nude, such as showers and/or locker rooms.
Do you know for a fact that everyone with whom you interact
professionally, socially and casually has genitalia that matches the
gender identity they express? Of course not...how could you?
Unless we all begin wearing transparent clothing or submit to strip
searches by 'The Gender Police' before leaving our homes each day, we
are going to need to continue extending each other this measure of
respect...as we have already done for hundreds, if not thousands of
years. And yet, simply because you believe you 'know' an anatomical
truth about these two children, you choose to suspend this traditional
value and instead substitute ridicule for respect.
Again, to what end?
I happen to know the young man you referred to as "she" and I can
assure you, there is nothing about him that would, in any way, disrupt
or disturb the masculine social order. In fact, he would be a fine
role model for other young men. Furthermore, the anatomical realities
(whatever those may be) regarding his body have no relevance
whatsoever to the quality of his character or the depth of his
spiritual and humanistic beliefs.
You asked the question, albeit sarcastically and in boldface font:
"Could it be that permissive parenting plays a major role in
encouraging a gender-confused identity in a child?"
The most succinct response is; No. There is, in fact, ample scientific
and medical evidence that everyone's gender identity is hard-wired
during prenatal development. In most cases, that gender identity
matches, to one degree or another, the child's genitally defined and
assigned sex and birth ...but not always.
No child is a cookie cut-out of any other child or parent.
Children of parents who are tone-deaf can be talented musicians; Male
children of U.S. Marine drill sergeants can be ballet dancers;
Children of Evangelical ministers can be socially-progressive
humanists; Children of Rhodes Scholars can be developmentally
disabled. And children of cisgender (anyone who's gender identity
matches their anatomy ...presumably you) people can be transgender.
Since gender identity is unrelated to sexual orientation, why do you
and others choose to single out, disrespect and ridicule these
children and their families and leave the other examples cited above
alone? It's illogical, ill-mannered and cruelly arbitrary.
You wrote:
(The mother) "...says she felt "relief" on hearing that her daughter
claimed to have a male identity. Relief? A wiser parent might have
sought professional help from someone not beholden to "transgender"
activist ideology — to guide the troubled girl into accepting the
wonderful body and sex that God gave her."
You selectively quoted the mother's comments to serve your own
purposes. The full quote from her interview follows:
"It was kind of a relief to me to get that information because I knew
that my child was struggling, I knew that my child was depressed. I
knew that he was, umm ...pretty much disappearing before my eyes as a
person. Emotionally disappearing. And so when he told me I felt relief
because I felt if I knew what we were dealing with then maybe there
was something I could do to help him."
I think, when viewed in its entirety, the quote reflects the feelings
that ANY loving parent might experience under the circumstances. You
may certainly choose to disagree with her response and support of her
child's transgender identity , but to selectively use the word
"relief" out of context in service of your personal agenda is, at the
very least, immoral.
You also assume that whatever professional help the family may have
sought was, and I quote you, "beholden to 'transgender' activist
ideology" ...again only to serve your political and/or religious
agenda. Unless you know much more about this child and this family
than I do, which I seriously doubt, you are, at the very least,
bearing false witness against these fine people.
When you suggested that the "troubled (child) accept the wonderful
body and sex that God gave (the child)", I wonder if you would give
that same advice to a child born with a club foot or a cleft palate or
ambiguous genitalia or with damaged (but reparable) hearing or
eyesight. Or do you just draw the line when it's something that you
personally are unable to understand?
You wrote:
"...to what future are the politically correct adults — parents and
school authorities included — consigning him with their "caring"
embrace of deviance? Could a body-mutilating "sex change" operation be
down the road — funded by the taxpayers if the "GLBT" Lobby gets its
way? In a saner era, it would be clear to all that the child — not
society — has the problem. But what do we know? We're just
"trans-phobes"."
Sarcastic question, by sarcastic question, I will attempt to answer you.
The future that lies ahead of this child will be one of her choosing,
with the love and support of her parents & family, other caring adults
and child-centric focused school and community officials. For you to
accuse this CHILD of "deviance" (in the most pejorative sense of that
word) shows not only a complete lack of understanding regarding gender
non-conforming identity in children and youth, but a highly disturbing
mean-spiritedness towards the most vulnerable of all people, our
children.
I do not believe Jesus Christ would, for one moment, stand silent
while one of his followers falsely judged a child to be guilty of
"deviance" and furthermore accused the parents of "embracing" the
child's alleged "deviance".
As to your prejudicial question, "Could a body-mutilating 'sex change'
operation be down the road?", the answer is: Any surgical options that
help bring that young adult or adults body into congruence with their
gender identity will be their decision when they feel the time is
right. No one can or WILL make that decision but them and they will do
so having received the loving and expert counsel of their family,
friends and professionals in various fields.
Your statement that "the child not — not society — has the problem"
harkens back to a time when people believed that developmentally
disabled children should be 'sent away' or 'hidden' so that neither
the family nor the community be made uncomfortable by the presence of
someone who doesn't meet their present-day definition of 'normal'.
I have a question for you: What if the parents of both children
followed the path that YOU would choose for them in responding to
their child's gender identity and, after a year or two or three
or...whatever, the children still self-identified as a gender that did
not match their anatomy? What would you then do with those children?
What would you do if that were your child?
The reality of the situation is that gender non-conforming &
transgender children who do not receive the support of their families
and others ideate suicide at a rate higher than 50%. Tragically, far
too many of them go beyond ideation and take their own lives. And the
reason they do so most often has little or nothing to do with their
own gender identity. It has to do with the pain of living and growing
up in a culture filled with people who ridicule them, disrespect them
and perpetuate roadblocks to living their lives in a gender role they
feel comfortable and safe in expressing.
You should thank God that, most likely, the Colorado 8-year old and
the young man who's mother appeared on CNN will never suffer that
fate, thanks to the love and support of their parents, families,
friends and community, including the school officials.
Our organization works every day with children and families like these
and I can say, beyond any doubt, that not a single one of these
children or youth is not 100% better off when they are supported,
nurtured and respected for expressing their true gender identity. They
do better in school, show improved health, less anxiety and stress and
are, in virtually ever measurable way, happier children than they were
before.
We have facilitated these gender transitions in schools throughout the
K-12 spectrum and in most cases, it goes completely smoothly and
without the media and social upheaval that has occurred in this case,
primarily due to the divisive and destructive actions of organizations
like yours.
Please realize that there are real people, real children and real
lives that are affected by your words and the even more radical voices
of people who are fueled by your words.
If you are, indeed, an American For Truth, then stop equating issues
affecting transgender and gender non-conforming children with your
religious objections related to sexual orientation.
Please consult with our organization in the future with regard to
issues of gender non-conforming identity in children and adolescents
if you want to formulate a well-informed editorial opinion to share
with your constituency.
These are suffering children, youth and families. You can choose to
either be part of the solution, or continue to be part of the problem.
The decision is yours.
Respectfully Yours In Peace & Unity,
Jenn Burleton
Executive Director
TransActive Education & Advocacy
