Interesting article and I agree with 98% of it. I don't necessary agree with some of the more minute concerns. I think the point she was making was that the younger end of the drop-in center clients might be exposed to the more overtly sexual exploration of the older clients. It's just a more conservative "kids should be exposed to sex before puberty" concern in my mind. More that 11 year olds and 22 year olds don't have much in common and should probably be housed in separate spaces. Though I'd imagine with a drop-in centre, you aren't always dealing with best-case scenario. And the following point, about "sexual exploration", I think she would make the same point with a straight-child. For instance, no child-welfare agency would take your child away because you told your daughter she couldn't sleep with her boyfriend. But if you told your daughter she couldn't sleep with her girlfriend, well, that could be spun as homophobic by the child and that could involve child-services. I believe that is what she meant by sexual exploration. Not stopping a child from exploring their sexual identity. Anyway, always a pleasure to read your writing.
I don’t believe she’s homophobic at all and certainly not someone who approves of conversion therapy. Much of her book is a strong and passionate defense of young lesbians.
She is so smart, and I like listening her speak to her conservative audiences! But she gets things wrong, not the least of which is that she sees the lesbians and gay men who've transed themselves due to internalized and external homophobia and who "pass," as "true trans." IDT she sees how medicalization is woke homophobia and conversion therapy. Maybe she thinks that some people are so gay that they're halfway there anyway and might as well just finish the job be the opposite sex. But this is from her recent piece in the WSJ about males in women's prisons and what I am personally angry about: "Several of the women made a point of saying they’d have no problem sharing a cell with natal males who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery." Let's see Shrier be locked inside a prison cell with an exposed toilet with one of these guys. Or maybe more than one. Let's see Shrier claim to be willing to do this herself. It's bizarre, her denial.
"Among both homeless and non-homeless clients, 30% identified as gay or lesbian and 9% identified as bisexual. "
I believe the correct reading of this sentence would be: that of those who are homeless 39% are LGB - AND of those who are NOT homeless also 39% are LGB. And in both cases 1% are trans or whatever QI stands for.
In which case Abigail Shrier is not misquoting anything, and you are wrong to suggest she is. If the sentence was meant to convey that the collective total of youth users of the agencies' services who are LGBTQ regardless of whether or not they are homeless is 40%, then it's a badly formulated and misleading sentence, which needs to be re- thought, and AS cannot be held responsible for that.
That "The study shows that the vast majority of ‘homeless LGBTQIA+ teens’ are in fact LGB." shouldn't of course surprise anyone when we know that the ratio is approximately 39:1.
Again Shrier is not incorrect if she is insinuating that we can't automatically conclude that this statistic implies that LGB kids are getting kicked out of their parental homes. Much more likely is the scenario that the kids and parents start to row over things can't see eye to eye, the kids defy the parents and say they'll leave, the parents defy their kids and call their bluff, the kids take offence and consolidate their defiance and actually leave. It's part of a normal and basically healthy independence process, but if the kids aren't truly mature enough to start an independent life they may exaggerate what happened at home and make claims of parental negligence to win sympathy. Of course there are some who literally get kicked out, but probably far from them all.
AS has a genuine concern about the transing of young people, - particularly teenage girls who may have lesbian tendencies - and I don't accept that that makes her a conservative homophobe as you seem to want to portray her. Basically you're kicking in an open door since you and AS are on the same side and (rightly) concerned about the same phenomenon of a politically, ideologically and commercially motivated trans agenda which is attempting to convert LGB kids to trans identities.
I think if you talk to AS you'll find she's a solid ally and every bit as concerned over the trans attempt to erase same sex attraction as you are. This isn't a ghost you need to chase.
Also; "variety of limits a parent might place on the gender or sexual exploration of a minor"
seems straightforward enough to me. If my thirteen year old was engaged in a dodgy social media platform where she was being encouraged to send nude pictures and I had pretty good reason to suspect that some of the profiles on the platform were not genuine teenagers then I too would be quite anxious to set limits on the use of that platform, as any responsible parent would. I'm pretty sure this is what Shrier has in mind here not the suppressing of the normal desire to express one's developing sexuality
Interesting article and I agree with 98% of it. I don't necessary agree with some of the more minute concerns. I think the point she was making was that the younger end of the drop-in center clients might be exposed to the more overtly sexual exploration of the older clients. It's just a more conservative "kids should be exposed to sex before puberty" concern in my mind. More that 11 year olds and 22 year olds don't have much in common and should probably be housed in separate spaces. Though I'd imagine with a drop-in centre, you aren't always dealing with best-case scenario. And the following point, about "sexual exploration", I think she would make the same point with a straight-child. For instance, no child-welfare agency would take your child away because you told your daughter she couldn't sleep with her boyfriend. But if you told your daughter she couldn't sleep with her girlfriend, well, that could be spun as homophobic by the child and that could involve child-services. I believe that is what she meant by sexual exploration. Not stopping a child from exploring their sexual identity. Anyway, always a pleasure to read your writing.
I don’t believe she’s homophobic at all and certainly not someone who approves of conversion therapy. Much of her book is a strong and passionate defense of young lesbians.
She is so smart, and I like listening her speak to her conservative audiences! But she gets things wrong, not the least of which is that she sees the lesbians and gay men who've transed themselves due to internalized and external homophobia and who "pass," as "true trans." IDT she sees how medicalization is woke homophobia and conversion therapy. Maybe she thinks that some people are so gay that they're halfway there anyway and might as well just finish the job be the opposite sex. But this is from her recent piece in the WSJ about males in women's prisons and what I am personally angry about: "Several of the women made a point of saying they’d have no problem sharing a cell with natal males who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery." Let's see Shrier be locked inside a prison cell with an exposed toilet with one of these guys. Or maybe more than one. Let's see Shrier claim to be willing to do this herself. It's bizarre, her denial.
"Among both homeless and non-homeless clients, 30% identified as gay or lesbian and 9% identified as bisexual. "
I believe the correct reading of this sentence would be: that of those who are homeless 39% are LGB - AND of those who are NOT homeless also 39% are LGB. And in both cases 1% are trans or whatever QI stands for.
In which case Abigail Shrier is not misquoting anything, and you are wrong to suggest she is. If the sentence was meant to convey that the collective total of youth users of the agencies' services who are LGBTQ regardless of whether or not they are homeless is 40%, then it's a badly formulated and misleading sentence, which needs to be re- thought, and AS cannot be held responsible for that.
That "The study shows that the vast majority of ‘homeless LGBTQIA+ teens’ are in fact LGB." shouldn't of course surprise anyone when we know that the ratio is approximately 39:1.
Again Shrier is not incorrect if she is insinuating that we can't automatically conclude that this statistic implies that LGB kids are getting kicked out of their parental homes. Much more likely is the scenario that the kids and parents start to row over things can't see eye to eye, the kids defy the parents and say they'll leave, the parents defy their kids and call their bluff, the kids take offence and consolidate their defiance and actually leave. It's part of a normal and basically healthy independence process, but if the kids aren't truly mature enough to start an independent life they may exaggerate what happened at home and make claims of parental negligence to win sympathy. Of course there are some who literally get kicked out, but probably far from them all.
AS has a genuine concern about the transing of young people, - particularly teenage girls who may have lesbian tendencies - and I don't accept that that makes her a conservative homophobe as you seem to want to portray her. Basically you're kicking in an open door since you and AS are on the same side and (rightly) concerned about the same phenomenon of a politically, ideologically and commercially motivated trans agenda which is attempting to convert LGB kids to trans identities.
I think if you talk to AS you'll find she's a solid ally and every bit as concerned over the trans attempt to erase same sex attraction as you are. This isn't a ghost you need to chase.
What rubbish
Also; "variety of limits a parent might place on the gender or sexual exploration of a minor"
seems straightforward enough to me. If my thirteen year old was engaged in a dodgy social media platform where she was being encouraged to send nude pictures and I had pretty good reason to suspect that some of the profiles on the platform were not genuine teenagers then I too would be quite anxious to set limits on the use of that platform, as any responsible parent would. I'm pretty sure this is what Shrier has in mind here not the suppressing of the normal desire to express one's developing sexuality