Fox News on Friday highlighted the story of a biological girl whose family encouraged her to identify as a boy as part of its “America Together: LGBTQ+ Pride Month” series.
The segment aired as conservatives across the nation have rallied against chemical and surgical sex-change treatments for children.
“Fourteen-year-old Ryland Whittington is a typical southern California teenager,” reporter Bryan Llenas said, introducing the segment. “And the Whittingtons along with his mom, dad, and sister are a typical family. The only difference, in Ryland’s eyes, is what this family can mean to the tens of thousands of kids under 18 who identify as transgender.”
Llenas praises Ryland for having the “extraordinary courage” to share the story, “particularly at a time when trans gender issues have been politicized.”
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer when my conservative news outlets don’t encourage parents to trans their little children. pic.twitter.com/1U84xx3ww3
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) June 10, 2022
Ryland’s mother, Hillary, claimed that her biological daughter claimed to be a boy while still an infant.
“Before Ryland could speak he managed to tell his parents that he is a boy,” she said. “I could see it. It wasn’t him trying to be a brat. It was like, painful. It was painful for him to have to wear feminine clothing and for us constantly telling him that you are a girl.”
Llenas describes how Ryland “came out at age 5.” Ryland’s parents initially pushed back, trying to “understand this.”
“We were confused like most people are,” Hillary Whittington said. “We thought gender and sexuality were the same thing. It took us a while to figure out those two things are different and children actually do recognize their gender identity very young. Some of them, not all.”
The Whittingtons claimed their Christian faith helped them facilitate their biological daughter’s sex change. When a man in a support group told them Ryland had gender dysphoria, “we didn’t listen and pushed back,” Ryland’s father, Jeff Whittington, told Fox News.
Both the Whittington family and Llenas cited disputed claims that not allowing children confused about their gender to take puberty blockers or even more drastic chemical or surgical can lead to self-harm and suicide.
Trans man Scott Newgent, who founded TReVoices, an organization dedicated to protecting children from being steered into dangerous transitions, says just the opposite is true.
“Parents, medical transition is not for children; it’s creating an illusion of the opposite gender for comfort,” Newgent, who transitioned six years ago at age 42, wrote on the site’s home page. “Adults have the right to choose, but it doesn’t cure anything; it’s experimental, and it is not safe.”
As of press time, Fox News had not responded to The Daily Wire’s media inquiry about the segment.