Susan Bradley: How trans activists are unethically influencing autistic children to change genders

The trans movement is crossing ethical lines with a vulnerable subset of youth struggling with issues of gender identity, writes child psychiatrist Susan Bradley.

Has the transgender movement gone too far?

It began, commendably, as activism for the rights of that very small number of people who experience persisting discomfort with their biological gender. But it has evolved into an ideological movement to normalize the practice of changing genders — and in the process is crossing ethical lines with a particularly vulnerable subset of young people struggling with issues of gender identity.

A recent article by Elise Ehrhard in Crisis Magazine, a Catholic periodical, addresses the aggressive approach by adult trans activists in recruiting adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome or other types of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to their cause.

Ehrhard has Asperger’s. As is typical among Asperger’s girls in their adolescence, she preferred the company of boys, with whom she identified cerebrally, a tendency encouraged by the bullying she experienced from other girls.

Ehrhard is not transgender — she doesn’t see herself as a male — but, citing a social media campaign featuring the hashtag #AutisticTransPride, she can see why Asperger’s and other ASD adolescents nowadays come to believe they are. This disturbs her. Adolescents struggling to deal with their quirky cerebral wiring do not need to be told they are “a girl trapped in a boy’s body” or vice versa, she says. Nevertheless, Ehrhard notes, many parents are buying into this completely unscientific hypothesis. Continue reading here

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