It’s not that many kids sign up for bottom surgery; on the contrary, those numbers remain extremely small. But trans and “gender questioning” minors have been joining a little-understood revolution in striking numbers. The “gender journey,” the search for one’s “authentic” gender identity, is reshaping the biographies of the susceptible young into a radical and damaging new form. The crusade has been urged on by social and corporate media and their celebrity representatives, endorsed by a shockingly complicit medical establishment, promoted by educators, advanced by judges, and applauded by politicians at the highest levels. (“Incredibly brave transgender children,” is President Biden’s characterization.) Whether they realize it or not, supporters are showing a willful ignorance about child nature and endorsing views completely at odds with child psychology and legal and cultural traditions. In the process, they are undermining children’s understanding of, and parental confidence in, the most basic human realities.

Children like Jazz who are profoundly alienated from their own sexed body and try to take on a new identity as the opposite sex are not new. They have, however, been few and far between. Wanting to fit in with other kids of their new sex, they tended to keep their transition on the down low. They approached their desire with a foreign mind-set from today. The point of the transition was not to live as “trans” but to “pass” as their chosen sex.

“Gender identity,” part of a recently hatched belief system, is changing that.

[That’s because the “gender identity” movement’s targeting of children has been cooked up by adult seeking validation for themselves. In some cases, it’s to argue that they’re normal and that children have been suppressed until this Era of Enlightenment. In other cases, parents have sought social validation and fame for themselves through their children. It’s despicable, and it does untold damage — and Jazz Jennings is hardly the only casualty. — Ed]