Inventing the Indian ‘Transgender Child’

A sweet little boy of about 8 years old appears disinterested, whilst the rest of the family fly kites on the terrace. He refuses to participate even when his mother asks him to join in. He skulks away, arriving at a corner where a mirror is hung above a dresser. Owing to his tiny stature, he climbs onto a stool to look at his reflection.  He moves his slightly grown out hair. Indian women have a habit of sticking bindis on the mirror, the boy picks one off and purposefully places it in the middle of his forehead before applying some lipstick. He picks up a large red scarf and drapes it over his head like women from certain northern parts of India do. The kite festival is replete with loud music and vibrant celebrations. The boy joyfully mimics the traditional female folk dancers. His mother catches him in the act and he braces himself for the beating of his life; instead, she puts the scarf back on his head, smiles and dances with him.

I think the celebration of nonconformity in children needs wider discussion; and was happy to see a positive video where the mother didn’t brandish a cane to punish this sweet kid for his perceived transgressions. But, of course, nothing is quite so straightforward when ideas of gender nonconformity are being propagated by the United Nations’ ministry of ‘woke’. UNAIDS (a UN programme set up to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030) has launched a campaign called ‘unbox me’ along with FCB India (an ad agency) to “sensitise larger communities on the rights of transgender children (sic).” The little nonconforming boy dancing with his mother provides the synopsis of a film that launched in the lead-up to the ‘International Transgender Day of visibility’ on March 31st. And so one can assume, to ‘unbox’ a gender nonconforming child, according to gender ideologues, is in fact to put them into the correct gender ‘box’- a boy in a dress goes in the girl box. The egregious motive of this campaign and the kind of future they envision for Indian children as young as TWO has mortified me.

The UNAIDS has based its entire campaign on a study by the ‘Journal for psychological medicine’ which claims that “31% of transgender persons in India end their life by committing suicide, and 50% of them have attempted suicide at least once before their 20th birthday.” Upon further scrutiny, I deduced that this “study” is but a gross misrepresentation of facts and shockingly alarmist, stemming from a propagandist viewpoint devoid of any legitimate source.

‘Unbox Me’ campaign makes wildly inaccurate claims

The study claims to conclude that 50% deaths of ‘transgender’ people in the sample happen to die by suicide before age 20. There is no mention of the sample size, let alone the rationale with which such conclusions were drawn. The methodology adopted was apparently from ‘grey literature’ or “consultation with experts” and the first 7 sources used in the study are either irrelevant or mischaracterised. Almost all the sources cited by the authors alluding to the suicides of ‘transgender’ people are in fact studies conducted on Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals, where there isn’t as much a mention of T. There are also sources that point to the violence faced by Hijras, Kothis etc., their poor quality of life and the stigma and social exclusions they face – literally none of which proves prevalence of suicides among such men. Additionally, there is no means to deduce the age of their sample size even based on their extraneous sources.

As of 2017, India had 2.1 million people living with HIV. The incidence is higher among men than women. While it is extremely clear that this should indeed be a target group for UNAIDS attention, why are they spending government money and energy on targeting young prepubescent nonconforming children?

As per the data on their website, in 2020 alone, UNAIDS raised US$ 269.8 million; US$ 257.8 million of which was contributed by 28 governments; US$ 6.3 million from UNAIDS Cosponsors; and US$ 3.9 million received from intergovernmental organisations, other United Nations Organisations, institutions, as well as the private sector. Since the core work of UNAIDS is to “end AIDS by 2030,” how do they justify campaigns such as ‘unbox me’ which relies on unscientific, alarmist data that obsesses over ‘transgender children?’ If elimination of AIDS is the end goal – an extremely important, commendable target – why do organisations like the UN branch out to discuss concepts like ‘gender identity’, seeking to impart them upon children?

As of 2017, India has the third largest HIV epidemic in the world, with 2.1 million people living with the disease. HIV incidence is higher among men than women, and this is due to prevalence among key populations including men who have sex with men (MSM), migrant workers, truck drivers and men who use drugs. Within the MSM demographic are the trans-indentifying men, almost all of whose livelihoods depend upon prostitution. The proportion of trans-identifying men who prostitute themselves is estimated at around 90% in India, and they are 49 times more at risk of living with HIV than the general population. While it is extremely clear that this should indeed be a target group for UNAIDS attention, why are they spending government money and energy on targeting young prepubescent nonconforming children? Is it that they view them not as the children they are, but as potentially trans-identifying men?

Raising awareness among adults about AIDS with campaigns to normalise homosexuality, legalising gay marriages, promotion of safe sex etc. have taken a backseat.  But the rigour with which huge inter-government bodies like the UN and swathes of fringe organisations all over the world are unanimously channelling their energy towards this phenomenon of ‘trans kids’ is disconcerting.

The UNAIDS campaign states that children choose their ‘gender identity’ at the age of TWO!

“Transgender kids (sic) feel discomfort with their gender from an early age – as early as two years…” – what a wildly outlandish claim? This is a common narrative peddled by the TRA lobby who bombard you with “data and facts”- in doing so point to the absolute claptrap confabulated by the likes of Diane Ehrensaft. She is well known for her ridiculous analysis concerning ‘trans children’. In a ‘gender’ conference, she calls the act of a little girl throwing barrettes out of her hair as a ‘pre-verbal gender message’ and asks parents to instantly affirm it. If that were true, I must have been the poster child for the ‘trans community’; not only did I hate conventionally feminine accessories, I shaved my head well up till secondary school. But thank f*ck, UNAIDS didn’t ‘unbox me’!

This absolute poppycock is not limited to this campaign; Indian mental health professionals openly advocate for affirmation and make puberty seem like a disease. A normal part of growing up is to feel all sorts of psychological upheaval during the time bodies go through puberty. These experiences are made to seem like a crisis that requires instant clinical intervention, coupled with halting said bodily changes. A large majority of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria will have resolution of their distressed feelings, if they are allowed to go through normal puberty. Halting puberty, however, interferes with the natural developmental process which enables children to physically mature into adulthood and gain acceptance of their bodies.

Growing pains are not a new phenomenon. Children have grown up to be perfectly healthy young adults despite having a tumultuous journey through puberty. The best approach to this would be to just let the kids be, while offering a safe environment for them to experience such changes. Puberty is not a disease, it is, infact, the solution to most ‘gender’ sickness that our society is busy inflicting on its children. But parents are shamed if they don’t accept the new ‘logic’ and get in line with the ‘trans’ agenda. Part 1 of my film Dysphoric explores puberty in some depth; experts elaborate on what happens to a child’s body during puberty and what the best course of action is.

Puberty blockers to children promoted in Indian schools, media compares it to ‘Antidepressants’

In January this year, I wrote about the TRA lobby producing a training manual for teachers with mentions of puberty blockers, hormones and surgical interventions as solutions to ‘gender dysphoria.’ The manual, however, had no warnings or reference to the life changing irreversible damages caused by such interventions. Indian media too, glorifies the use of puberty blockers to children and condemns anyone that doesn’t extol immediate clinical intervention. Calling them ‘doubters’, this article from a popular media house peddles the same alarmist suicide myth and irresponsibly compares puberty blockers to antidepressants. Firstly, there is no comparison to be made here, and secondly it should be noted that there is evidence that antidepressants can cause adverse affects, such as increased incidence of suicidal ideation in that age group.

Puberty blockers are a class of synthetic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH). The GnRH analogues were first licensed for use as end-stage prostate cancer drugs in 1985 and are used for that purpose even today. They are also prescribed to chemically castrate the most violent, serial sex offenders. The exact same drugs have since been used ‘off-label’ to delay puberty in children with gender dysphoria in the UK. Similarly, in the US, the same drug with the label name ‘Lupron’ has been licensed for children with precocious puberty since 1993 (lately for gender dysphoria). The irreversible harm caused by this drug is documented in this article with testimonies from children who used them.

Puberty blockers are a class of synthetic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH). These analogues were first licensed for use as end-stage prostate cancer drugs in 1985 and are used even today. They are also prescribed to chemically castrate the most violent, serial sex offenders.

Michael Biggs, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor in Sociology made an excellent video analysing puberty blockers. He wrote about a UK study conducted in 2011 by the Gender Identity Development Centre (GIDS) that lowered the age to twelve from sixteen, and subsequently, by 2014, to any child who had reached Tanner Stage 2 of puberty. This meant that children as young as ten could be given blockers. The drugs were deemed “effective, safe and fully reversible” with absolutely no evidence to back it up.  GIDS later (discreetly) changed the wording on their website to say “Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.” Puberty blockers are given at a stage when children have not reached sexual maturity, and effectively leave them with no ability to experience orgasm in their lives, ever.

The dangerous sexual paraphilia of men that concern children

Castration fetish, forced feminisation, pedophilia, gynandromorphophilia (GAMP) are just some of the depraved paraphilias that have a foothold on the ‘transgender’lobby. Rather than serve as a warning, John Money’s experiments on the Reimer brothers have been fetishised and serve to crystallise these paraphilias for many within the transgender community.  Kiwi sexologist Money suggested a ‘gender reassignment’ surgery for David Reimer in 1966, and his family brought him up as a ‘girl’. As part of his ‘research’, David and his twin brother were forced to engage in sexual intercourse. David suffered from severe depression throughout his life, which culminated in his suicide at thirty-eight years old

In a longform article, Genevieve Gluck explains the connection between transgenderism (especially the lobby directed at children) and male sexual paraphilia. She draws attention to a community of fetishists that interact with each other on forums in The Eunuch Archive. In a recent announcement, WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) released a document stating their ‘Standards of Care’ now include ‘eunuchs’ as part of the broader transgender umbrella. The document itself links ‘The Eunuch Archive’ fetishistic website as a resource where stories of forced castration of young boys are categorised as ‘erotica’.

“A search for the seemingly innocuous terms “trans” and “transgender” in Discord’s server directory link immediately to hardcore pornography servers, including those in the catgories BDSM, nudes, kink, femboy, trap, femdom, age play, furry, and slave.”

There is an entire genre of pornography directed at males to ‘sissify’ themselves for the pleasure of other men. Rather than accept themselves as effeminate males, suitably ‘sissified’ individuals claim a ‘lesbian gender identity’. “Pornography is currently being used to groom children into gender identity ideology, although it is not clear how often this occurs because there is no modern research available on the phenomenon. Other barriers to understanding this very real crisis include the inaccessibility of discussions taking place on private, data-encrypted platforms such as Discord, WhatsApp, and Telegram. A search for the seemingly innocuous terms “trans” and “transgender” in Discord’s server directory link immediately to hardcore pornography servers, including those in the catgories BDSM, nudes, kink, femboy, trap, femdom, age play, furry, and slave,” writes Gluck.

It is also concerning, but not surprising that one of the authors of the training manual meant for Indian schools (mentioned above), a trans-identifying man by the name Vikramaditya Sahai, is himself heavily entrenched in this particular brand of pornography. In his (now private) Instagram account, he posts pictures of himself completely naked and talks about gender and expression and fluidity among other things. He is also a member of a subreddit called ‘IndianSissies’ where he posts pictures of himself with the caption “still a slut.” In last week’s ezine, I wrote about another popular TRA who glorifies porn and writes articles claiming that “porn told [him] it was okay to be a girl.” 

The overwhelming push from powerful organisations and lobby groups towards legitimising the ‘trans child’ is horrifying. It should set all the red flags waving in the minds of teachers and parents, for it removes all avenues of child safeguarding. Yet, several groups have cropped up seemingly unopposed in many cities to teach students at schools, colleges and universities about ‘gender identity’. In a nutshell, the sole focus of such training has been to paint biological sex as invalid.  Something akin to the ‘genderbread person’ or the Mermaids’ Barbie to GI Joe spectrum chart is used to illustrate their tenet that people can identify as whatever they want, and  ‘transgender’ children must be loved, supported, and accepted (as the opposite sex).

The overwhelming push from powerful organisations and lobby groups towards legitimising the ‘trans child’ is horrifying. It should set all the red flags waving in the minds of teachers and parents, for it removes all avenues of child safeguarding.Yet, several groups have cropped up seemingly unopposed in many cities to teach students at schools, colleges and universities about ‘gender identity’

None of this training material is adept at defining ‘gender’ without resorting to logical fallacies. They seem incapable of making a case for normalising gender nonconformity and accepting that some girls don’t like pink and a boy in a dress can be a boy in a dress. Without adequate exploration of gender nonconformity, it is no wonder that many children who fall under that description feel somewhat confused by enforced gender norms, and find themselves seduced by concepts like the ‘Genderbread Person.’  Given that there is a market for ‘transgenderism’ and identity politics, these groups are making a living upholding traditional gender roles rather than seeking to abolish the antiquated notion altogether.  They sell neatly packaged ‘woke’ cliches that further shove these children into regressive hypersexualized feminine/toxic masculine boxes.

What about the crimes of trafficking/ child sexual abuse?

Indian law has endeavoured to provide protections for ‘transgender’ persons, however they should not be seen to be above the law. Yet, in some cases that is exactly what appears to be happening.  For example in 2020, Tamil Nadu Police refused to file complaint of assault of minor by a transgender group. This is despite the child reporting to the police that he was raped, forced to drink alcohol and sent away to other men as a ‘sex worker’. 

The following recent incidents of child exploitation, abuse and infanticide illustrate the dark underbelly of gender ideology and where it can lead. Last year, a 13-year-old boy in Delhi was forced to undergo sex change surgery and raped multiple times. The accused repeatedly abused the boy and “forced him to beg at traffic signals as a transgender,” according to the Delhi Commission for Women. Sometime in June 2021, police busted a human trafficking racket where forced castration and trafficking of young boys was led by 6 trans-identified males. A month later, a trans-identifying man and his aide were arrested for kidnapping, raping and murdering a 3 month old baby in Mumbai. A few months after that, a trans-identifying man was arrested for raping a 14 year old boy.

The ‘trans child’ is created either by way of seduction, or abduction.  But who reaps the benefits of inventing the ‘trans child’? Certainly not the irrevocably damaged minors coming to terms with sterility and a medicalised future.

Khairati Lai Bhola of All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha (AIHKS), formed in 1984 to protect the rights of the community states that men don’t became Hijras so willingly: “Young and addicted boys are abducted and then introduced to homosexuality by the agents of eunuch’s guru. Castrations are clandestinely forced on them and ironically, very few people gather the courage to retaliate. The hijra mafia that controls the castrations operates secretly throughout the country. They have a network of hijra mandis where a newly castrated eunuch is auctioned to the highest bidder. The auction is conducted with claps – a single clap means Rs 1,000. Fair, clean-limbed boys who can earn more, attract the highest bids. Victims are threatened with death if they break silence.” Several children who were abducted or trafficked into this have no choice but to live the rest of their lives as a castrated adults, prostituting themselves to men for survival. I highly doubt the postmodern queer theory that glorifies the ‘Hijra’ culture means diddly-squat to them.

A Frankenstein-like future

The ‘trans child’ is created either by way of seduction, or abduction.  But who reaps the benefits of inventing the ‘trans child’? Certainly not the irrevocably damaged minors coming to terms with sterility and a medicalised future.  A large majority of these children, if left alone, would probably become homosexual adults with functional bodies enabling them to experience physical intimacy and love. While it is true that nonconforming children are sometimes rejected by their families, or informally given away for ‘adoption’, it is not always the case, and they needn’t become ‘trans’ kids. The use of these children in the wild experiments of adults – like John Money, or the online groomers on social media today – is perhaps the most barbaric, homophobic practice ever devised and deployed by human beings.

The ‘born this way’ allegory asserts that the existence of a transgender adult necessitates the invention of a transgender child. The transgender child becomes a totem for an ideology that serves the desires of adults. For a start, ‘born this way’ is a slogan of self acceptance, not one which rejects the sexed body one is born with as ‘wrong’.

To equate transgenderism with the gay liberation movement’s slogan ‘born this way’ is bunkum. For a start, ‘born this way’ is a slogan of self acceptance, not one which rejects the sexed body one is born with as ‘wrong’.  I will concede that if adults opt to mutilate their bodies, regardless of the motivation behind it (internalised homophobia being one, especially in India where gay marriage isn’t legal), that is their business. It stops being just their business though when masochistic adults seek to legitimise their choices with this ‘born this way’ trope.  For this allegory asserts that the existence of a transgender adult necessitates the invention of a transgender child. The transgender child becomes a totem for an ideology that serves the desires of adults.

Thus, it becomes unavoidably obvious that there exists an industry which does not feed our children, but feasts on them. The masochistic men who drive this market use gender doctrine as a veneer for their deep seated fetishes and seek to destigmatize harmful paraphilia. To do this effectively it has become the prerogative to uphold the myth of the ‘trans child’. Rather than ‘unboxing’ adolescents, setting them free to develop along their own trajectory, this belief system seeks to confuse them, to stunt them, to ‘block’ them, and in doing so denies them a childhood they are entitled to. Are we are going to allow an industry profiteering from child abuse to dictate the future of our children? If so we not only steal their youth, but simultaneously desecrate their adulthood.  I, for one will not be complicit; and we must all organise to tear down this morally bankrupt edifice brick by brick. Will you join me?