When I first learned about female genital mutilation, it was sometime in the 90’s. I went to an art installation. I later read about it through Planned Parenthood’s international newsletter. I saw terrible photos of little girls in kitchens with a person wielding some sort of machete, I think it was. Those images disturbed me to no end. Children should have rights. The rights of their parents to protect and safeguard their well-being. They should be listened to and respected, but the parents should be the adults, who teach right from wrong. Parents should be teaching values, educating the child, providing them with their basic needs.
As a psychotherapist and a person who was a social worker for Children’s Protective Services (in CA). I became equally disturbed to hear that teachers – yes teachers – were gender grooming children in classrooms. I thought, at first, it might be a conspiracy theory. Surely, teachers were more focused on giving their students and education. A curriculum that the state has requested that they teach. Math, Science, Reading, Social Studies, etc… I believe they need to pass tests now, don’t they? I had more respect for the teachers, than the stories I was hearing people crop up with on social media. Then I listened to a child psychiatrist from California who told me about a book written about this topic. I began to see news articles, from around the country, of parents speaking out about their children’s lives being taken advantage of at a school that was meant to protect them. Suddenly parents were being told they had no right to look at a child’s file. I heard also of young people getting away with acting like cats in school. What happened to education? What happened to teachers and parents working together? What happened to PTA?
Children are removed for abuse and neglect. Of course, I have learned now that each state has their own skewed definition of what this means. Ohio thinks that corporal punishment is acceptable for children, California removes children for this very reason. Maryland will put a child behind bars if they put something in their hand to assault another child. Not a juvenile hall mind you, but an adult prison, for as young as 14 years old. I had a client there (2003) who supposedly used the bottom of their jacket (still on) to hit someone with. Of course, another child did pick up a baseball bat – big difference though.
Sexual harassment is when you are involved or engaged in some type of sexual discussion with a child that is inappropriate. It is talking about sex to a child, flirting with them in some way – that engages sexual innuendos (or eventually acts). Gender harassment is sending confusing and mixed messages to a child about what gender they would like to be. A child’s brain doesn’t fully develop until they are in their early 20’s. A child isn’t even able to discern something more than concrete thinking until they hit puberty and can begin to see there is more to the picture than just what is in front of them. Why are these school systems (some schools), deciding to deter from an education to be so strongly focused on sexualizing little children, pre-pubescent and teenagers?
Prior to this, teachers had already begun to “get out of their own lane” by telling parents a child “needed to be on medication.” Many times they would offer suggestions for medications as well. All of which are out of their scope of practice, since none of them are licensed psychology professionals. Parents would often be talked into these things because they did not know better. While I am a psychology professional, I am not a doctor (i.e,. medical doctor) and can make a diagnosis or suggest ruling one out, but I can not prescribe medication. I make this very clear on my informed consent. When I am suggesting things to clients, I talk to them about getting a medication evaluation. This is because, at this point, they are at their wits end with depression or anxiety. It is when I see them collapsed on the chair and barely able to get to my office. Or, when they are asking to go on disability because they cannot function in the workplace. If I tell them “I have heard,” about a medication, I will also say “but ask your doctor to see what they think,” because the bottom line is that it is up to them, not me. I even tell my clients, taking medication is up to them, not to me, I am just offering them education and suggestions. I am not going to stop seeing someone if they don’t take my suggestion. This would be unethical.
For teachers to go from prescribing and diagnosing children to “gender grooming,” this is unethical and out of their lane. It is sexually harassing children and it needs to stop. Gender grooming is talking to children about sexuality when they don’t even know what sex is. The teachers have no right to even engage in a discussion of such a topic to children who need to be focused on education and their future. I call out the police department to do investigations of these teachers, (I have not yet read of the police being involved at all) as this would be their job. Children’s Protective Services can only deal with what goes on inside the home and if parents are in league with these teachers then the children should be removed from the home. No child should have to be living with parents who are not protecting them and are in alignment with teachers who are grooming them to “pick your sexuality.”
Having said this, it has gone so far as to have doctors performing surgeries on children who are under 18 years of age to change their identity. Currently there is a hospital in England that has 1000 family members who have come forward to an attorney to sue this institution for doing just this. I have also heard of a story, elsewhere in Europe where an adult is now suing their doctor for gender changing surgery when they were a child. While these doctors may not be operating with a machete on a butcher’s block in some remote African village, they are performing genital mutilation nonetheless. A child should not be making decisions about surgery to change their body whether it is their breasts or their penises. They are children. We have child labor laws because we wanted to protect the rights of children being taken advantage of in jobs that abused them. Then, of course, we sent jobs to China and other third world countries because we don’t give a damn about children in “those” countries.
Genital mutilation is wrong to do to a child. It doesn’t matter whether it is Africa or America. Obviously if it is wrong in Africa and so many American liberals are yelling out and demanding for laws to protect “those” children (ironically and hypocritically), why are they staying “mum” about children in America? Why is it that parents and teachers or teachers and school districts are focused on children’s sexuality? What happened to people during the pandemic that their minds became so absorbed in sexual switching of children? Why did adults suddenly become children and expect children to become adults? Why are we allowing children to focus on something else besides an education in school? What will become of their future? What is wrong with us as adults? What is wrong with society?
And may I add, that I have been reading that my own fellow licensed psychotherapists are also colluding with these situations too. It is all wrong and it needs to stop. We are ruining our children. We are not allowing them to be children. We are destroying their minds. Stop the sexualization of children. Stop Sexually Harassing Children. Law Enforcement take control of these situations and investigate these teachers. Children’s Protective Services, remove these children from homes where parents are colluding with these teachers. Protect our lovely children and stop destroying their lives!
Jeannine Vegh 