California: Where Physical Exams should have “Trigger Warnings”
An 11-year old boy questioned about gender identity, sex preferences.
The delicate flowers at Georgetown who demanded “Trigger Warnings” for Christina Hoff Sommer’s talk really should come to California.
Here they will experience a political San Andreas fault, where progressive theory collides with daily reality….and Californians are hit with the falling debris.
Bruce Jenner’s public reveal has brought transgender issues into the national conversation, despite a myriad of urgent matters that could really use more attention. However, California has been enacting gender identification polices for years (to the point we have to have ballot measures demanding bathroom privacy rights).
In preparation for life under Obamacare, I want to offer this example of what happens when public health care gets coupled with personal politics. It features a single mom, Cindy K., who recently took her 11-year old son for a simple physical exam required for middle school entry.
After taking her son’s vitals, she reports the doctor began to ask some really troubling questions about gender and sexual identity:
…The doctor then proceeded to ask…”do you know what your gender identity is?” I looked at the doctor and said, “What are you asking my son?” She proceeded to explain to me that sometimes kids don’t know and they like to help explain it to them. My son asked what the doctor was asking him and I said, “She wants to know if you are a boy or a girl?” My son looked at me funny and said, “I’m a boy”, with a look of bewilderment on his face. The doctor then proceeded to ask if my 11 year old son new what his sexual identity is?”
At this point I stopped again and said, “Why are you asking these questions?” The doctor’s response was that not all parents have these conversations with their kids, so they want to be the one’s to explain it to the kids. Again, my son asked me what the doctor was asking him. I said, “Well, the doctor wants to know if you would prefer to kiss boys or girls.” My son had a look of disgust on his face and said, “A girl, of course”.
Where do I start with what is wrong with this whole scenario? Did I mention that the doctor was typing all the answers to these questions into her little computer? None of these questions have anything at all to do with my son’s physical health. Second, at what point did the job of raising kids and educating them become the responsibility of the health community and not the parents?…
Cindy’s college degree is in Child and Adolescent Studies, and she asserts that figuring out one’s identity is a normal part of adolescence and these struggles help kids actually transition into adulthood. Scenarios such as this create more conflict and identity crises for children. Cindy notes that without the right support, some young people may start questioning themselves in areas that would never had troubled them before.
Tammy Bruce concurs. During a recent interview on the subject of the elementary school in Maine reading a book about a “transgendered child”, the conservative talk show host and another guest (a psychologist) discussed the appropriateness of presenting this sort of information to small children.
The psychologist and I agreed: This sort of information has no business being taught to small children in the school system, and certainly not without the express approval of their parents.
I expect people to disagree with me on certain issues, including about how adults handle issues of sex and identity, but dignity demands that we leave the 5-year-olds out of it.
Cindy also indicated that the physician questioned the boy on other controversial subjects, such as whether there were guns in the household. But, perhaps the scariest part of her report was this:
[The doctor] explained to me that she would be asking my son a series of questions and that since this was the first time she would let me sit it on the questioning, but in the future they ask the parents to wait outside while they speak with the kids. I asked why that was, and the doctor stated that the kids feel more comfortable talking when the parents aren’t in the room.
Welcome to life under our new healthcare system, comrades!
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Comments
Time to find another doctor, Cindy.
Beat me to it…let the socialists have their own nosy doctors and exercise your remaining right of choice to send your son outside and yell her face off for her insane practices.
Finding another doctor won’t help. They’re just asking the questions required by the school system.
If she’s serious about avoiding this sort of stuff, find a different school system. Or home school.
Oh my gosh! I thought it, and they’re doing it:
Cash-friendly doctors, who don’t bow to Government/Insurance companies:
http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/direct_payment_cash_friendly_practices/
AAPS is the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, an outfit that sued over Hillary Care and ObamaCAre!
http://www.AAPSonline.Org
NOYDB (none of your d*** business) needs to become a standardized response to many of these questions, especially when the only purpose they serve is bowing down to special interests and increasing government control.
I’ve actually said that to a couple of doctors. It was not appreciated by them. We found new doctors afterwards.
Especially since so many doctors seem to suffer from a hyper-inflated opinion of their own importance.
You need to cultivate a relationship with a physician who holds your values. I have.
Now, what that may mean is that you opt out of ObamaDoggle. I have.
You simply cannot put up with the perversions of the doctor-patient relationship that ObamaDoggle is DESIGNED to impose.
Not and hold the values of a conservative.
I’m not sure how to find out, but if a doctor is a member of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (they’ve brought lawsuits against HillaryCare and ObamaCare, and other medically-related issues), I promise you’ll have an ally.
It’s web address is:
http://www.AAPSonline.Org
If you’re not a physician, you can join for free! I’ve joined and I’ve attended one of their conferences.
Wait a minute, according to Mike Huckabee and other “traditional marriage” types, the state has a “compelling interest” in how our kids are raised. Why does it raise your hackles that doctors (scary Obamacare types?) are asking these types of questions?
On a more sane note, sexual health and identity play a role in physical health and well-being. The doctor can ask the kid a simple question about whether or not he is a boy, and the child can usually easily answer said question. If the child finds it hard to answer the question, then maybe the parent would like to know that? It’s not like the doctor was telling the boy “no, you’re a girl now”…
He/She is a physician…physicians tend to be pretty smart but they have limits.
Physicians are not sociologists or child psychologists. They aren’t qualified for this job and, again, a parent or guardian should not consent to this kind of “interview” of their child just by going in for a physical exam. It’s false advertising (not legally speaking but you get the point) and co-opting a necessary part of public health to gather private info on young patients.
A primary care doctor isn’t qualified in any specialty, but they can ask questions and provide referrals. For instance, a primary care MD might not be a dietician, but they can ask about your diet and refer you to a specialist.
This is pediatrics, not your garden variety GP; it’s a completely different branch of medicine.
Now back to your hole.
You won’t find many fans of Mike Hucksterby ’round here, lying SOS. Most of us think hes’ a BIG GOVERNMENT “populist”.
But please provide a quote where he says that “the state has a compelling interest in how kids are raised”.
Because we know you lie, assoNY.
I’m glad we agree about Huckabee. On the compelling interest theme, just go read some of the briefs from the “traditional marriage” side of today’s Supreme Court case. The backbone of the anti-gay marriage argument is the idea that children will be harmed, which is the same as saying that society (through the government, since it is the entity that would prohibit marriages) has an interest in children being raised a certain way.
Needless to say, only idiots find those arguments compelling, which is why Obergefell is going to be decided correctly…
ANNNNNnnnndda, we again see you cannot tell the truth about anything.
You can’t support your original lie here.
Next you mischaracterize the ENTIRE marriage issue. NOBODY is “prohibiting” marriage. First, MARRIAGE has ALWAYS been a PERMISSIVE rite. Everywhere. All through history. Second, a same-sex union CANNOT be a “marriage”.
The question is not about “the right to love someone”. THAT is ALSO a lie. Nobody can possibly prevent you from loving someone. Or some horse.
Society CAN establish essential cultural norms, and it ALWAYS HAS. And you can’t sweep them away with your lies, you SOS.
I – and Kings Solomon and David – vote for polygamy.
You left out Mohammad, smart ass. Wonder why?
But you can live polygamy. You just can’t hold yourself out as “married” in Western culture.
“Second, a same-sex union CANNOT be a “marriage”. Society CAN establish essential cultural norms, and it ALWAYS HAS. And you can’t sweep them away with your lies, you SOS.””
See you in June for the Obergefell decision party!
Well, we’ve established you are a liar once more.
Now you’re pretending that a decision by the Supremes changes reality.
So we’ve demonstrated you are just a Collectivist bung-sucker.
Again.
Thanks for your help!
Rags, you are lying if you say that society’s “cultural norms” have never changed.
See, inter alia, women’s right to vote and own property, dowry laws, restrictions on marriage of first cousins, abolition of slavery, abolition of Jim Crow (although I admit this one is ongoing), criminalization and subsequent decriminalization of marijuana (in some jurisdictions), contraction and subsequent expansion of the right to bear arms, interracial marriage, pre-marital co-habitation, smoking cigarettes, wearing hats outdoors, wearing full suits of clothes, women wearing short skirts, tolerance of left-handed writing, etc etc.
Well, you really INSIST on showing your ass here, so I’ll spank you.
“…you are lying if you say that society’s “’cultural norms’” have never changed.”
Which is why I would never make a statement like that. You stupid, FLUCKING, moron.
“See, inter alia, women’s right to vote and own property, dowry laws…”
Was that an essential cultural norm? Oh, and WHO supported the franchise for wimmins? Learn some history, ya moron. (Hint: which states were the pioneers?)
“…restrictions on marriage of first cousins…”
Look up the plague of birth defects in England among Pakistani immigrants, you stupid, people-hating bastard.
“…abolition of slavery, abolition of Jim Crow (although I admit this one is ongoing)…”
Chalk that up for MY ideological peeeples. Capitalists were FOR treating everyone equally. YOUR BIG GOVERNMENT types were the authors of Jim Crow, you lying SOS.
“…criminalization and subsequent decriminalization of marijuana (in some jurisdictions), contraction and subsequent expansion of the right to bear arms…”
Both historically PROGRESSIVE issues that have been going back and forth. NOT “cultural norms”, you moron. Just trends in what society considered worth legislation.
“…interracial marriage…”
Again, YOUR BIG GOVERNMENT at work.
“pre-marital co-habitation, smoking cigarettes, wearing hats outdoors, wearing full suits of clothes, women wearing short skirts, tolerance of left-handed writing, etc etc.”
You’re too stupid…or dishonest…to distinguish between an “essential cultural norm” and fads, vogues, and trends.
But I’ve never found you intelligent, informed, or honest.
It’s been fun, punk.
The aim of those questions is to start creating confusion on matters where very few kids have any confusion at all, and on matters that most children haven’t thought about and don’t need to think about yet.
If a child has transgender feelings or homosexual inclinations, those will emerge when the time is right for the child.
It’s one thing for the state to have a “compelling interest” in how children are raised. It’s another thing for agents of the state to impose on young children an ideological agenda (gender fluidity, hostility to self-defense, etc.) that most of their parents oppose.
“The aim of those questions is to start creating confusion on matters where very few kids have any confusion at all, and on matters that most children haven’t thought about and don’t need to think about yet.”
I’m glad you have gotten into the mind of every child in the country! I understand that you think that the bad doctor is trying to turn the kid gay by asking if he is a girl, but most would just say the doctor is trying to identify any unusual emotional developments that might require counseling (through referral to a licensed counselor, of course). Hell, the doctor might even be a conservative trying to get counseling for a child she thinks is going over to the “dark side”, so to speak…
If the child is experiencing “unusual emotional developments,” that will be evident to the parents, who are around the child every day. The parents also care far more about their child than the doctor does, so attending to the child’s emotional needs is THEIR bailiwick, not that of the physician who is supposed to be examining physical health.
Throughout human existence, children have naturally developed a sense of their sexuality in their own good time, and for almost all of them the matter of what gender they are is simply not an issue. If it is an issue, that will have become quite obvious to the parents.
Now, the government-controlled schools and the government-controlled physicians are forcefully turning a child’s natural development into a complicated and confusing issue at an early age. Clearly the boy in this story found it confusing that things so obvious (“I’m a boy! I’d rather kiss girls!”) were being thrown into doubt.
Because a tiny part of the population falls out of the norm in these areas, leftists want to make them confusing for everyone — for children as young as five years old.
They also want the government — not the parents who really care about their children — to decide how the issues will be handled, and to do so while the parents are out of the room and out of the loop. The government will hold you responsible for supporting your children and will hold you accountable if your children misbehave, but the government will not allow you to make fundamental decisions about your child’s education and moral or emotional development.
Welcome to totalitarian statism. Enjoy the ride.
I agree with almost everything you said. It’s wrong to introduce these topics to kids who are developing normally and showing no signs of problems along these lines. ONly a very small percentage of children will have these kinds of problems, and it is confusing to a child who has no problems to introduce the topics so prematurely.
The one disagreement I have is this: I have known of three or four situations where parents were either unaware of problems, or the parent was “powerless” to help despite knowledge, or actually the parent abused the child. The problems were not so much along the sexual identify confusion line, so much as sheer, raw abuse that was not discovered or abused.
That said, if the abuse is sexual and severe, most young children simply will not tell, even if asked. They simply don’t understand the world enough to know of their own innocence, and that the criminal will be punished, and not them. I know this because of discussions I’ve had with those who were abused.
Also, in one case, the abuser threatened to kill the child and his family.
So, I completely agree these questions are completely inappropriate, the fact is, I know some children will be left alone and hurting because there can be no utopia.
If a doctor had done that to my kid I would have been out of there in a heartbeat. Screw the
progressivesregressives and their agenda ~Saying sexual things to a child is child abuse, pure and simple. ANd discussing genders is all about your sexual preferences, or else why would there be any genders more than one?
Doctors better not ask about my kids genitalia, then!
As disturbing as the discussions on “gender confusion” are, I am equally distressed by recent examples of “part of speech confusion”.
An example from the post: “Bruce Jenner’s public reveal…”.
When did the verb “reveal” become a noun? Has “revelation” been stricken from the lexicon?
Some additional irksome example include the use of “read” as a noun (e.g., A good read), and “gift” as a verb (e.g., “Gift a book to my nephew).
I feel better now.
Me, too. I’m glad that I’m not the only one.
That’s an old, well-established Hollywood usage.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/reveal
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reveal
Language, unlike the Constitution, is a living, evolving thing.
Yes, reveal is a noun describing a type of event.
The big reveal in a story is the event that shocks you or surprises you or has you going “hmmmm, yeah, I see where that came from”
Well, it’s true that English is being pummeled viciously, but you picked the wrong examples.
Both “reveal” and “read” can be used as nouns too. You could have looked that up in a dictionary before posting.
The same happens with gift. I found it’s definition as a verb in at least three different dictionaries.
Don’t believe me. Look it up.
Actually, I’d suggest that you instead look up “arrogant pedant” before posting. And I don’t mean that in a positive way.
arrogant
adjective
1.
making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud:
an arrogant public official.
2.
characterized by or proceeding from arrogance, or a sense of superiority, self-importance, or entitlement:
————————————
I don’t know you.
Maybe you are the nicest person in the whole world, but your little tantrum fits the above definition.
IMO
If you go around pretending to possess superior knowledge when in fact you don’t, somebody will point it to you. The humble thing to do is to verify/admit that you indeed made a mistake. Then we all move on.
Insulting those who correct your mistakes: a sign of arrogance.
And yes, I can be a tad pedant sometimes.
You know, when the mistakes are too obvious…can’t help myself.
Oh!
By the way, I meant everything in a positive way.
In spite of…
And the misuse of “concerning”!! What don’t they understand about the word “concerned”?
Language devolves to the lowest constant denominator, rather than the former trend of evolving with more words for more specific meanings. English is being dumbed down.
Caring parents should keep children in the dark about guns, drugs, explosives, etc. in the home so as not to put them in the uncomfortable position of having to lie to doctors, teachers, and other agents of the state.
Caring parents should teach children that the state should always be lied to when necessary.
This doctor sounds like the pervert pilot parodied by actor Peter Graves in the comedy ‘Airplane.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2A194yTWoQ
Only this is no joke. We can only wonder what would happen next with a doctor like this, if the boy’s mother wasn’t in the room.
These people are trolling for vulnerable kids, and they are going to do hideous damage to some of them.
My college-age kid and his friends are all under the impression that people who call themselves transgender should be treated as they wish, which includes hormone treatment and surgery. They think the drugs and surgery will make a transgender person happy.
When I pointed out that this course of action requires lifelong drug treatment, they blithely accepted it, as well as the notion of this very consequential surgery.
They don’t have the experience to know that those drugs are mind-altering, that they cannot be applied in the appropriate minute-to-minute doses, and can drive a person crazy. They do not understand that the surgery disrupts nerve function and creates permanent scars, as well as nasty things called adhesions.
They just do not see this “treatment” as the butchery and cruel delusion that it is.
I understand that if an adult human being wants cosmetic surgery, that person has the right to pay for it and get it done. I do not see how any doctor can square such barbaric “treatment” with the Hypocratic Oath.
But our betters are telling us that society needs to pay for the surgery and lifetime drugs.
Did anyone actually think we could let the State take control of the 1/6th of our economy that is healthcare, without ceding control of what used to be private family health & well-being issues?
“He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Unless you have opted to go direct-pay, the State is paying the piper. Unless you have opted to go direct-pay, the State gets to call the tunes.
Find a direct pay physician who does not participate in the Obamacare EHR/EMR systems. That’s my only advice.
That “look of disgust” will have the poor kid labeled a homophobe in the federal government’s database.
That’s probably enough to gets Mom & Dad’s weapons (which the doctor also would have asked about and recorded in the EMR) confiscated…
Parents can’t have it both ways: they love all the kiddie benefits they get from Social Security to Obamacare and CHIP and EITC and tax deductions. But they don’t want to submit to indirect control by us childfree taxpayers who are footing the bill for all this kiddie socialism.
Well, I for one will enjoy seeing them suffer until we childfree taxpayers are relieved from having to support them.
You want to increase property taxes to support schools? Fuggetaboutit.
You want to make streets safer for the kids to walk to the park? Fuggetaboutit.
What we need to support is the return of the Pied Piper. “The piper must be paid.”
In the doctor/patient relationship, the patient or guardian holds all the power. That’s the way it has always been and will always be, because it will collapse if it changes.
Doctors who don’t like patients may refer them to another doctor. Patients and or guardians who don’t like their doctor may seek out another.
Do NOT let anyone frame this as a categorical question. It is an individual question within the relationship between doctor and patient. Nobody outside that relationship gets a vote in what will or will not occur within. Patient/guardian controls that.
“None of these questions have anything at all to do with my son’s physical health.”
Actually, they do. If your son would prefer to kiss a boy than a girl he is more likely to get involved in drug abuse, more likely to commit suicide, more likely to contract an STD, hepatitis or AIDS, and more likely to develop structural problems with his rectum.
Of course, your leftist moron of a doctor doesn’t see any problem with any of that.