A likable Israeli couple occupied the seats next to me on the plane about to take off for America. They were busy passing their baby daughter from one to another, anxious to calm her down so that she wouldn't disturb the other passengers.
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"Relax, kids don't bother me," I told the father. Both he and his wife apparently belong to the New York high-tech scene. The baby was just four months old, and her parents had attached an electronic dream sock monitor to her foot. "This is an app that checks her vitals, monitoring parameters such as blood pressure, oxygen, and heart rate. It also alerts us if our daughter is crying or has woken up. This helps us to be constantly aware of what is going on with her. A permanent babysitter," the guy next to me explained.
This was all new to me, but admittedly, quite refreshingly so. What really bowled me over; however, was the alarm that the sock had sent the previous day. "We received a request to select her gender – boy or girl or trans or other," the guy told me. "We were deliberating whether or not to comply with it, but after all, she is only four months old. It does appear to be rather excessive," he added.
At my request and to my astonishment, he showed me the precise wording of the notice he had received. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would definitely not have believed it. Lo and behold, a notice offering the parents the chance to select the gender of their four-month-old baby, with multiple options ranging from "male" to "female".
A woman is always a woman?
Only a few days earlier, by chance, I came across the movie "What is a Woman?" made by American journalist, Matt Walsh. This documentary exposed me to a whole world I had previously not been aware of, and which might easily be called the gender madness industry that is sweeping across America.
The first part of What is a Woman? is mainly entertaining. In the movie, Walsh presents a whole series of interviews with physicians, experts, philosophers, and politicians, who either cannot, refuse to, or are afraid of answering the seemingly straightforward question: What is a Woman?
Any sane individual would say that a woman is a person with female organs, that is how she was born and how she lives. But the progressive discourse that has taken over America will not allow people to voice this one simple truth. The extent of the madness that has struck our greatest ally is astonishing, so much so that certain experts explicitly state: "Yes, a woman can have male genitalia, and a man can have female genitalia." When Walsh gently confronts them with the sophisticated thesis – they get tangled up, annoyed, offensive or abandon the interview with a display of anger. "The emperor has no clothes," literally.
Up to this point, the movie is even quite amusing. But, as it progresses, Walsh sheds light on the identity-related darkness that is fast becoming the young generation in the US. He brings together dozens of relatively smaller phenomena, which usually would hardly even make the headlines on the innermost pages of the newspaper. For example, boys who "feel like women" and thus undress in the girl students bathroom and even attack them, but the victims of such violence are kept quiet; five hospitals and an unknown number of private clinics that carry out sex-change operations for children across America; young girls who are being sidelined from sports and beauty competitions because boys "who feel like girls" take part; a Canadian father who was sent to jail(!) because he insisted on calling his 14-year old daughter "she"; and the latest incident, which could not be verified: children who cry out "meow" instead of answering questions because they "discovered" that they are really cats (their teachers are of course prohibited from saying anything to them).
The most heartbreaking moments in the movie are reserved for Scott (Kellie) Newgent, who underwent medical transition, changing his sex from a woman to a man. In a broken voice, he shows the camera the scars on his contorted arm, and he laments his lost life. "Nobody warned me of the consequences, it is forbidden to talk about them. We are butchering a generation of children because nobody is willing to talk about anything," he tells. It is virtually impossible to avoid crying together with him.
"It will be knocking at your doorstep too"
In his search for someone to explain to him what is happening to America, Walsh came to Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, and one of the few in America who dares to open her mouth and go against the establishment. Following Walsh, I too went to meet Dr. Grossman in New Jersey.
"I am going to tell you things that are not easy to talk about. You'll probably think that I am exaggerating and over-dramatic, but I promise you that is not the case," she says in a hushed tone, at the start of our talk. "Every day I speak with parents and children who are the victims of this movement. I wish to stress from the outset that I am not leveling any criticism at the transgenders themselves, but rather those who generate the transgender phenomenon. It is they who cause enormous, indescribable suffering, both in terms of scope and intensity. You really must publish this as now it is happening here, and in no time at all it will be knocking at your doorstep too."
Q: What is going on? What is this phenomenon?
"I have been working in sex and gender education for many years. What has been occurring in recent years is an epidemic."
Q: An epidemic?
"Yes, there are simply huge numbers of people and families dealing with what is going on. In the past, these were only rare cases. In 35 years of work, I came across only one such case. Until what is currently going on, we knew of two groups of people contending with gender identity issues: one of extremely young children, from the age of three and above, usually boys, who would say 'I want to be a girl.' This is a familiar phenomenon that has been studied and documented. The known practice was to wait, and in most cases, they would live at peace with their body, without taking medication. Most of them would continue to develop through adolescence and retain their gender; the second group, which is also a rare one, was of adults, usually males, who would enjoy wearing women's clothing or appearing as women. What is commonly known as 'drag'.
"What has happened in recent years is that a third group has emerged from nowhere, mainly of teenagers, who on reaching adolescence, without having ever said this previously, suddenly announce: 'I am a transgender, I want to change my sex.' I don't have precise statistics, but the numbers are enormous."
Q: What is the explanation for this wave?
"The figure who formulated the sixties' theory that a person's biology – his body and his chromosomes – are completely separate from his subjective feeling as to whether he is male or female, was a professor of medical psychology named John Money. His research was eventually shown to be a failure and it was scientifically proven that the opposite was true. Nevertheless, the ideas of Money – who was later deemed to have sexually abused children – were adopted by the worlds of medicine, mental health, and psychiatry in the USA, and later on the education system too. Today, from kindergarten age, children already learn that their body might not necessarily reflect their gender." She is quoting a survey published in the New York Times, according to which more than 60% of those questioned in the 30-plus category said they believe that a person's sex is defined by his biological sex at birth. In contrast, 61% of those questioned in the 18-29 age group said they believe that their gender identity is separate from their biological sex.
"The difference between the younger and the older groups stems from the propagation of gender ideology. Children until the age of five undergo indoctrination at school. The result is a social phenomenon of young boys and girls who want to make the change, and on occasion even come to do it together as a group trend. In many cases, these are children who in any event are on the autistic spectrum or suffer from negative social attitudes, so that joining this trend provides them with the attention that they so dearly crave.
"The phenomenon is subject to broad coverage and immense popularity on social media. You might be taken by surprise, but in 2007 there was one clinic throughout the entire USA providing treatment for minors under the age of 18, who were contending with the issue of gender identity. Today, as far as I know, there are 300 of them. And here is one more statistic – the number of mastectomies carried out for gender reassignment more than tripled between 2016-2019. These are data provided by Vanderbilt University in Nashville."
Q: Do you have first-hand experience with this outbreak?
"Of course. I see these cases on a daily basis at my work. I see the suffering of the parents. They are desperate, to the point of suicide. I see families falling apart, parents who know that something is wrong with their child, but they are unable to tell their sons or daughters the most elementary thing: 'The guidance you are receiving at school and from the health establishment is incorrect.' I see girls and boys entering into the gender reassignment process and they don't have an inkling as to what it entails. They do not understand the risks involved, that they might never be able to have children, or enjoy the pleasure of sexual satisfaction, that they are likely to have to undergo an infinite series of surgical procedures, and that their body will experience phenomena that they simply cannot imagine."
Q: Can you tell me about cases that you have treated?
"Yes, but I must warn you that we will need to talk about cases and aspects that are really not pleasant to discuss in public. Recently, a 17-year-old girl came to me who wanted to have her breasts removed and become a boy. I talked with her family and learned that at the onset of adolescence, this girl's grandmother died of breast cancer after a considerable degree of suffering, and that she was very close to her grandmother. It appears that the trauma of watching her beloved grandmother dying had an impact on the way in which she perceives a woman's body. I talked with her about this, and her situation improved. But you should understand that this girl could easily have undergone hormone treatment or had a mastectomy and might even have ended up becoming childless."
Q: Let me play devil's advocate and say that they may argue that science is on their side and that medical transition surgery is the solution to the problem.
"To tell a young boy or girl that they can change their sex is a pure lie. There is nothing positive, good, or supportive in that message. We need to teach children how to live the reality, as denying reality has a price. An individual cannot change his or her sex. The most that a person can do is to become a synthetic persona of the other sex, which is probably not exactly what they dreamed of.
Secondly, it is most unlikely that such an intimate and sensitive issue that is so deeply connected to that child or young person's very soul should have a generic solution, a sort of magic formula able to easily solving an individual's innermost feelings during adolescence, which is known to be an extremely challenging period for everybody. Thirdly, the medical procedure itself is so difficult, involving such harsh implications, but frequently both the children and their parents are not aware of the irreversible results of this process. They too refrain from examining the question of whether minors are equipped to make such life-changing decisions on their own. On top of everything, the fact is that science is not on their side. There are no studies indicating that such surgical procedures are capable of solving these problems. On the contrary, there are countless cases of damage and complications."
Q: Such as?
"The first thing is the fact that the child is being led to believe things that simply are not correct. Secondly, it is important to understand that each such case is extremely complex. In each and every case, we genuinely need to talk with the child, to understand what he or she is going through and to provide a solution that is personally tailored for that specific individual. Instead, we tell him 'You might well be a girl trapped in a boy's body,' or 'the fact that you have male organs, and that they told your mother at birth that you are a boy – is an issue of pure, random chance. The doctor or the midwife should never have said that. They don't know what your gender is.' Such statements undermine a child's psyche, and research has long since established that a child needs stability. Stability is a prerequisite for the upbringing of healthy people.
"There is a new language here, which did not exist ten years ago. For example, a young man came to see me and said that he has a new friend, and I am prohibited from asking whether that friend is a boy or girl. As far as today's youth see things, the very act of asking such a question is both gender discrimination and generalization. You see? They have indoctrinated an entire generation."
Q: Apart from the difference between sex and gender, and from the prohibition of asking whether somebody is a boy or a girl, what other components make up this language?
"The term they use in relation to someone who raises questions as to their sexual identity is 'gender-affirming treatment'. The meaning of this term is that everything that the child tells us in relation to his/her identity, we as caregivers have to accept and affirm, and the attitude we display must be in accordance with this. But this approach in itself is in effect an experiment on humans, on their body and soul, and people pay a very high price for these medical experiments."
No way back
In order to validate her claim that this involves experiments on humans, Grossman refers me to things said recently by Dr. Marci Bowers, a biological man who underwent gender reassignment surgery to become a woman and today serves as a leading physician in the field of medical transitioning in the US. According to Bowers, she and her associates work using a trial-and-error method: "Anybody who underwent surgery as a child and received 'blockers' [tablets to suppress the hormones responsible for sexual development] will never have testosterone (the key hormone in sexual development). So that we do not know if they will ever experience sexual satisfaction... I know that the feeling of proximity and intimacy is extremely important, so that a lack of this raised a red flag for me. We need to keep our eyes open and talk about this... Let's see what will occur... There are questions that do not have an answer... Is it possible to prevent the processes of puberty and then attain good results as adults? How can we guarantee that they will have a sexual response? Maybe we need to remove the blockers at a certain stage? Perhaps, to delay a little bit, here and there? Perhaps." By the way, Bowers visited Israel several years ago to provide instruction for physicians here how to conduct the gender reassignment surgery.
Q: Let's go back to the course of treatment they offer. What happens after they tell that boy or young man "Yes, you might really be a girl"?
"The second stage is the 'blockers'. These children are given 'blockers'. On occasions, we are talking about children who are extremely young teenagers. In other words, if this involves a boy seeking to transition to a girl, he will not develop muscles, facial hair or pubic hair, his voice will remain high and his skin will be smooth, as that of a child. The most important thing of all – his male genitalia will not develop and so neither will he develop sperm. For his entire life. The implication of this is that he will never be able to have children. He will often be making this fateful decision regarding his life as a very young teenager. If his parents are opposed to this and warn him, the establishment will tell them that they do not understand him and do not have his best interests at heart – allegations that youth of this age find it very convenient to accept."
Q: And let's suppose that he wants to continue with the process and undergo surgery, what happens then?
"These are terrifying issues, and I don't know just how much graphic detail to go into. In order for a boy to transition into a girl, he needs to be castrated, and on many occasions, this can lead to severe difficulties in the ability to urinate, repeat inflammations and an endless series of surgical procedures to 'correct' the problems.
"In order to build a male organ for a woman, skin is grafted from the arms and from additional locations on the body, which leaves behind terrible scars. As the skin is taken from the arm, on which hair grows, then often inside the male organ being specially constructed, hairs tend to grow inwards, inside the male organ – causing serious infection and indescribable suffering. Of course, both the men and the women seeking to undergo such procedures are required to take medication for the duration of their entire life to suppress their biological sex. They either do not say any of this or they say it in the most minimalist manner to these poor children and their families."
Q: They claim that the gender reassignment surgery saves lives, as otherwise those young boys and girls would commit suicide.
"As far as we know, the opposite is true, as there are no studies on suicidal tendencies among young people who have had the surgery. In contrast, the suicide rate among adults who have had these operations is 19 times higher than within the overall population."
By the way, other studies have found that adult transgenders who have had surgery are 4.9 times more likely to attempt suicide. The suicide rate among transgenders who have transitioned from a man to a woman, and who are receiving hormonal treatment, is 51% higher than that of the overall population. Another related statistic is that 129 patients who medically transitioned from man to woman reported 281 complications, requiring 142 surgical corrections. One study found a rate of 70% complications in penile construction surgery, while a further study noted reports of 64% complications related to the urinary system.
The concern shared by Grossman and others is that financial interests combined with a radically progressive agenda are the driving force behind the wave of transgenderism that is sweeping across America. According to this assumption, the drug companies are promoting this gender confusion or "dysphoria" as it is termed in the professional jargon, as this generates mass dependency on their products, often for life.
"This is not the situation everywhere in the West. In London, the authorities closed down a clinic treating gender problems due to concern that it was providing inappropriate treatment for children. In Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, and other countries too, they are no longer prescribing blockers as there is no research data to prove that their use is safe. It is important to remember that from the outset, the blockers were never actually developed for use in gender reassignment."
Just before we part company, Grossman gives me several books she has written, including "You're Teaching My Child What?" and she also puts me in contact with a number of women in Israel who are trying to stem this tidal wave. Only two of them – Roni Sassover and Alix Aharon – are prepared to come forward and do so while being named. The rest prefer to remain anonymous.
As Grossman anticipated, this wave is indeed on its way to Israel. The Minister of Education, Yifat Shasha-Biton, has recently published guidelines relating to transgender students at school. In essence, the guidelines stipulate that a student should be treated according to his or her declared gender, and this of course also relates to sleeping arrangements in boarding schools, access to toilets, sports lessons, etc. According to the new guidelines, the parents might not necessarily be a part of this overall process. Outgoing Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, has welcomed this move.
Grossman: "The most important thing that Israelis need to know, is that those people promoting this agenda will intentionally approach children with a view to the long-term outcomes entailed in this process. When parents discover that their children have been brainwashed, it is already too late to do anything. Consequently, I say to anybody reading this article: please keep an eye on your children.
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