This post is not going to go over well for some but someone has to step up and be the voice of reason… as unlikely as it may be, it seems as though I am already in the minority. How on earth can this be? Let me tell you a story about some seriously disturbed people…
Now up front, I will tell you that we are NOT going to get into a discussion about the transgender thing… I really don’t care what you feel about it right now because at this moment in time I am infuriated by the selfishness and irresponsibility of a mother in my home town of Edmonton, Alberta. You can read up on the whole story in two quick articles if you want but here is the breakdown…
- A 7 year old boy thinks he is a girl (yes, I said seven)
- the mother complains to the Catholic School Board that her kid feels uncomfortable in the boys bathroom (no shit eh?)
- the school places a gender-neutral bathroom in every school for this child (this shocked me)
- the child wants to go to the girls bathroom to feel more like a girl (this shocked me even more)
- the school board says no, go to the bathroom we built for you (yay for common sense)
- the mother goes bat-shit crazy, accuses the school board of discrimination and files complaints with the Human Rights Commission (goodbye to common sense)
- one irresponsible liberal housewife (Patricia Grell, a school board trustee) takes up the fight (you knew one of these people had to be involved in the post eh?)
- the school board allows this youth to now use the girls bathroom (you had to know this blog post was coming now…)
My wife tries not to read my blogs but considering some of the friends we have she has probably going to be asked to comment on this post. I am sure I am already infuriating these individuals, but let me reiterate, I do not care about the whole, your boy is not a girl discussion. This discussion today is about these 8 points but I don’t have the inclination to talk about all of them so here is the abridged version of my opinions…
1. A 7 year old boy thinks he is a girl
This is easy to understand whether you agree or not. This is something that has been going on for a while and is getting much more popular, especially with the psycho liberal housewife movement building steam.
3. School board builds gender-neutral bathrooms
While I think it is a little nuts that a school has to do this, I accept that there are kids that are messed up and think they need this. My acceptance will allow me to quite easily understand this.
4. A boy feels like a girl and wants to go to the girl’s bathroom
I don’t get this but I have to believe that some of it comes from parents. I suppose that if I can accept a 7 year old boy dressing like a girl I can absolutely understand that boy in a dress feeling uncomfortable in a boys bathroom. But let’s get real. This child is going to have problems everywhere in life, and as messed up as the child is, the bathroom in grade two should not be such a life altering conflict. I mean this grade 2 boy is wearing a dress to school and a bathroom choice will solve anything in their life? Seriously?
5. The school says use the bathroom we built for you
Well they built a gender-neutral bathroom so that a boy in a dress wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Wow, they are very accepting, especially for a Catholic-based school board.
8. The school board changes it’s mind
When I first heard that the School Board caved, I thought they meant #3, that they built the gender-neutral bathrooms. I thought, hey, that is old news. I knew that already. Then I was told the grade 2 boy in a dress was going to be able to use the girls bathroom because the kid felt more like a girl in the girl’s bathroom.
Now most of us don’t go to the bathroom to feel more like an anything. Most of us go as a form of weight loss… we come out lighter than we went in and that is the only purpose for the room and it’s furniture. While I get not wanting to walk into a bathroom filled with grade-school boys in a dress but what on earth could a room filled with girls do to help? In the grand scheme of things, a school has let a boy into a girl’s bathroom. I think this is nuts, ludicrous and absolutely insane. Hell, I think it verges on criminal!
If I had a daughter in that school I would be losing my shit right now! Hell, if I was in a wheelchair in that school right now I would be losing my shit. If your son can wear a dress and get to go to the girl’s bathroom even though there is a gender-neutral bathroom, why can’t my wheelchair-bound body as well? Then the school would say, look at the nice “accessible” bathroom we built for you and your wheelchair. What if I went and told the school that I wanted them to allow me to go to the regular bathroom after spending millions of dollars to upgrade them all to accommodate me and my wheelchair because it would make me feel less handicapped to be in a bathroom with all the other youth? I would feel better if I was trying to get from the bathroom to the toilet paper
They would probably start the work but I would have to sue them and accuse them of discrimination. This is absolutely nuts and I am stunned that we have leaped so fast from acceptance to bend-over-backwards-for-no-reason. Let me say this again, your son wears a dress to school and you are so mentally challenged that you think your child would be more comfortable dressing like a girl in the girl’s bathroom than in a gender-neutral one where the child would be all alone for the 3 minute visit.
I will say again that we are destroying our nation and family values not by accepting these changes, but by celebrating them. I do not want to celebrate this young child, nor do I want to celebrate the mother or her discouraging ideas. I want to live in a world where they would both be happy that I accept them as they are. Why do these people insist on my celebration and the conversion of all other youth at that school to their way of thinking?
Why can this kid not be happy with a bathroom where they can do what needs to be done in private? Why isn’t the perfect solution, the one the school board offered, enough for this family? There is only one reason that I can think of, this family wants to extend their pain and suffering through their struggles to the school system and to all the other students. One of the reasons our society is falling apart is because too many people think they are owed something. This family is trying to collect on a debt that is imagined. It is not real. They got a just solution and they pushed, and are still pushing, for rights they do not deserve nor do they even exist. Who is going to stand up to the people like this and Patricia Grell and say “Enough is Enough!”?
A2Z with ADHD 
The issue of the bathroom is important because I can give the example of some women who have suffered violence and who do not enter unisex bathrooms. The reason? You can understand it very well. A woman who has been subjected to violence and finds herself alone in a bathroom with a man is afraid, she is terrified, she needs to have a safe space in which not to have a man’s eyes on him. So the bathroom issue is not just an excuse but it is the question of a space in which certain intimate things must be done in a way that makes the child or person feel comfortable and not uncomfortable.
I have never had a problem with a guy in a dress using a girls bathroom, unless he is doing it to spy on girls. The idea that I must do something to make a child or a person feel comfortable is way past anything I am willing to agree with though. I would never expect someone to go out of their way to make me comfortable. I know what I need for comfort so I go and I make it happen. If someone helps, then great on them. But sometimes, in my search for comfort, I find that I wanted something else all along.
If someone just provided it for me at the beginning I would not have learned anything from the journey, and I would not appreciate what I was given because I didn’t work for it.
It is this mentality that is the root cause of much pain and suffering because we think we must always DO for others who are going through ‘stuff’ to make them comfortable but by taking away their journey we rob them of the learning and growth. I am in favor of helping people if they ask for it, but even then, my help isn’t always just doing it, sometimes its handing them a better tool.
When I was attending the Italian university of geology, none of my colleagues knew that I had been a victim of violence. Each of them was amazed that I didn’t want to be alone in a room with any of them. I couldn’t explain to him what had happened to me because it was a recent injury and I didn’t want to talk about my private life. So when I had to study with someone it was a real torture for me and I could never concentrate. I expected one of them to choke or beat me at any moment. I hadn’t told any of them what I had experienced. But if I had done that, I’m sure all of them would have understood and understood my terror and my discomfort. It’s not nice to be terrified of others. You can’t imagine it but even now if I go to a place where there is only one bathroom for men and women I prefer not to enter. And do you know why? I am terrified. Yes, I still have the dread of men in the same room alone with me. This discomfort no one can take away from me and I do not expect everyone to understand those things that have happened to me but if there is a way to make people feel better then I thank those who try to do something. Unfortunately, violence cannot be eliminated from the world, but a woman can be made to feel a little safer. Just as you can make sure that someone does not feel uncomfortable or that he avoids entering a bathroom because he will feel uncomfortable. I don’t claim to have any reason but when I say that certain little things make a difference, okay, maybe it’s nothing for you but for me or for a child it means a lot.
You may never have needed to avoid someone or not relive a situation. But it does happen to some people and even to children. It’s not just a gender issue.
40 years ago there were boys who said they wanted to play with dolls. And what did the parents do? They beat them. They beat and beat. Until the child resigned himself. But then he grew up with rancor, with hatred towards his parents, with a sense of revenge against them. Parents who beat up their children are not very good parents. But 40 years ago it was considered normal. 40 years ago it was considered normal for older males to torture young girls to prepare them for marriage. And this was granted by the parents. In fact, women were married when they were still girls and were given to old men, obviously pedophiles. But this was considered normal. So many children, who today are dead or suicidal or sadistic or depressed parents, were unhappy children because they were unable to express their needs. In psychology there is a lot of attention to the expression of one’s needs especially in childhood, a period in which a child needs to explore the world and himself. So he wants to play, discover, discover himself, and do whatever he feels like doing. If obstacles are put to him, if his needs are denied, this child will grow up pathological. Maybe at that moment he will accept everything but inside he will feel killed, betrayed, denied. I’m talking about 40 years ago, when there was no gender fashion, when I played with those children, when we played in the courtyards and not at the play station.
So this need to express oneself is not a fashion but simply a freedom that is now granted while it was punished many years ago. There are Catholic mothers who see these things as demonic things (I have worked in many schools) and while they condemn these behaviors their husbands have sex with gays and trans people in this area. So what is right? What is truly demonic? Repressing is pathological but common morality forces many people to repress themselves. These families are based on lies and horrible things often happen because no one gives the true freedom that love requires. Therefore children must not be hindered in their need to express themselves. For example, when I was in high school I dressed like a boy, I was a tomboy, and I was discovering my identity. This then allowed me to be after a loving, affectionate mother, and I had a very smart son who now works and has his own life of his own.
So some things can also be transient needs, periods of experimentation, and mothers who don’t understand these things would do well to be educated by some psychologist about these childhood and adolescent needs. If freedom of expression is denied, it becomes pathology. I then became an art therapist because there are so many people who have repressed so many desires and so many needs and are unable to live happily. We need to think carefully about certain things and ask for help from those who know the stages of life and know the needs of children well.
This was a great read… you should write some blog posts for us…
“But 40 years ago it was considered normal”
Beating a child has NEVER been considered normal. What you call ‘beating’ we used to call discipline, or spanking. Beating is a whole new world of abuse and it has been illegal for longer than I have been alive.
“it was considered normal for older males to torture young girls to prepare them for marriage.”
WTF? I have no idea what you are referring to. 40 years ago I was taught to respect women. If I ever hit a girl, forget torture, my mother would beat me… not discipline.
“women were married when they were still girls and were given to old men, obviously pedophiles. But this was considered normal”
This is still normal in some countries. Why would you chastise people from two generations ago for doing something that a billion people still deem as acceptable?
I agree with a lot of what you speak… and so do many others.
I was born and live in Italy. In Italy children were beaten in schools, for discipline, children were beaten at home, for education, children were always beaten, to vent their anger or frustration. It was considered normal. And women were also beaten, daughters or mothers, it didn’t matter, wives or lovers, all were beaten. It was considered perfectly normal. Even now, in many families, beating is considered normal because many grew up with the only language of beating.
Even sons and daughters of age are beaten and do not rebel. I know it may sound very strange but in society many things have remained hidden. We are in a modern civilization, in an advanced society, but I assure you that there are still many people and children who are beaten, perhaps in secret but this still happens here.
I was lucky to never get even a slap in the face from any of my parents. But in other houses there was always hell. The less money they had, the more blows they took. There was a difference in social class. The poor always beat their children because they had to vent their frustration at being poor. If the children did not do well in school they beat them. They all found a thousand reasons to beat children. The girls always had to stay at home, if they stepped out the door they were beaten by their father and the mother could not say anything. Why doesn’t anyone make these films about the true story of children? Why do they only show supereoi? Even today, in many families, the barrel is used to communicate and it is not considered strange.
I have to be honest, this sounds like a small problem and a large stereotyping… stress can cause family issues but “beating” of children has just never been that commonplace in Canada.
“And women were also beaten, daughters or mothers, it didn’t matter, wives or lovers, all were beaten. It was considered perfectly normal.”
This was absolutely never considered normal, though people definitely resisted offering help or calling police as quickly as they do today.
“The poor always beat their children”
This is the stereotyping that I just can’t agree with… “always”? Really?
“Even today, in many families, the barrel is used to communicate and it is not considered strange.”
What do you mean by the barrel?
I was talking about italian families in the years ’50-’60. I was talking about a reality that you don’t know but most of these traditions are showed in many ancient italian movies. Barrel is a wrong word. Google translator made a mistake. Sorry.
I thank you very much for appreciating what I write. I would be very happy to help you by writing something for you. But are you more authors here in the blog?
you are welcome to submit anything to the following email… writers at a2zwithadhd dot com
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I have worked with Gender identity Children and Adults. While I agree with some of the comments I do not agree with all. We all know what a bathroom is used for. There has never been a legal problem with this. The Child or Adult should use the washroom thay identify with. Also it should be mentioned that we watch and monitor those with identity issues let’s try to be a little understanding on this. I know some of you will jump on me and some my have quistions . But please do not feel all those who have a gender problem are just going though a faze and will get over it please show some compassion. Cindy Roberts P.hd.
This comment was from 2016 and I just saw it today… sorry…
“There has never been a legal problem with this”
You recognize that, mostly due to social justice warriors, there is a legal problem now with public bathroom usage right?
I would never assume that “all those who have a gender problem” but would you, as a PhD, recognize that not all people with gender ‘problems’ are free of mental health issues?
I don’t care if a boy wants to cut his parts off and get implants… but I do care when he wants to compete in female sports. We have a lot of growing to do as a society with this topic but it all has to be tempered with balance.
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I totally agree with ya!!! Well said!
Thanks for the vote of confidence…
Amen!!!! I completely agree with you!
Brave girl… bringing religion into the discussion… I will get on board with you…
Thank you! You are not alone!!
Thanks… I feel very alone sometimes… even with 6 kids left at home. My wife is not a fan of my vocal un-political correctness.
Let the uncomfortable student use the staff washroom, for his own safety, but don’t imposed any more stress on those poor young female students who are experiencing natural hormonal changes, among other things, who don’t need to wonder if the person in the stall beside her can hear the tampon wrappers being removed. Growing up is uncomfortable enough and I would be worried about what other changes will be demanded and complied with. What happens when these boys or girls decide they would be more comfortable in the girls\boys shower after gym classes in high school? At what point do we stop bending over backwards to accommodate an individual, and ignore the rights of the majority? I think I’d be opting for home schooling.
I hear you loud and clear… and have loved home schooling for the past 15 years.
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I would be losing my shit! Considering this boy’s mom was losing her shit, I’m thinking she may be the one needing the help… perhaps she wanted a girl all along and has been brainwashing this poor kid since birth 😛
I doubt it but would not be surprised. I have a 4 year old girl that plays with cars and trucks and loves to wrestle with her older brothers… like many young girls do… of course mine is doing it in a Disney princess dress or a tutu. There seems to be nothing I could do to make this little princess feel like a boy, but making her want to use the boys bathroom just seems so alien to where I am at right now. I really can’t imagine how I would feel at that point if something like that happened.
I would like to think that I would accept her wanting to be a boy but at the same time, I sure hope I would still have the common sense to not allow her in the boys bathroom… and convince her (him) how insane it would be to think of something so crazy.