Can girls get erections? A co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ newest guide to puberty not only says yes they can but that such occurrences are completely normal. In response to these claims, some pro-family groups are slamming the “gender diverse” book as “insanity.”
On April 19, the AAP issued a new guide titled “You-ology: A Puberty Guide for Every Body” targeted toward children ages nine through 13 years old. One pediatrician who helped write the book explained in a radio interview that the group of professional doctors wanted to purposefully include chapters explaining radical gender ideology to children.
“With this book, we’re trying to change that language to be more inclusive,” Dr. Kathryn Lowe told NPR.
“With traditional puberty education, whether it’s in schools or in books, we talk about how girls get their periods and boys get erections,” she claimed. “But some girls – for example, transgender girls – might not get their periods. They need to understand about erections and those changes in their bodies. So we wanted to fill this void in puberty education so that kids, regardless of their gender, can see themselves in a book and learn about their bodies.”
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, rebuked the NPR for promoting the book as well as the AAP’s indoctrination of radical gender ideology.
“Only a few years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room for saying that men can have babies,” Schilling said. “Now, our national media are enthusiastically promoting doctors teaching this to children.”
The group’s original goal was to have the trans-inclusive book in every school in the country. Due to conservative states crafting new legislation that limits or outrights these sorts of concepts in the classroom, that goal is no longer a possibility another doctor behind the book lamented to NPR.
Dr. Trish Hutchison, a pediatrician, told the taxpayer-funded radio station that the group “wanted this book to be in every school in the country, so that any kid could pick it up and see themselves and their peers.”
Now, “there are certain states out there where you can’t even say [some] of these words,” Hutchison added.
The book includes imaginary conversations between pre-pubescent children at sleepovers discussing gender ideology.
One character finds the urge to tell a friend they are trans — according to the book’s authors — after being embarrassed by not having breasts at a sleepover:
I finish putting on my pajamas and then take a deep breath. “My body will never grow breasts on its own because I’m trans,” I say, looking at Nancy until she meets my eyes. “But it’s something that I have I have options for and that I talk with my doctor about.”
“You-ology” also breaks down terms like “assigned sex,” “cis-,” and “trans.”
“If a baby is born with a penis, their sex assigned at birth is male. If a baby is born with a vulva, their sex assigned at birth is female,” the book claimed.
“Most babies who are born with a penis grow up feeling like a boy on the inside too. That’s called being cisgender (cis- means ‘same),” the book added. “But there are some babies born with a penis who grow up feeling like a girl on the inside. That’s called being transgender (trans- means ‘cross’ or ‘opposite’).”
“Similarly, if a baby born with a vulva grows up feeling like a girl, she is a cisgender girl,” the doctors claimed matter of factly. “If that baby grows up knowing he is a boy, then he is a transgender boy.”
Nicole Neily, President and Founder of Parents Defending Education, blasted the group for even attempting to normalize any of this.
“The authors’ stated goal is to ‘normalize’ these conversations, which is a problem in and of itself,” Neily said. “Many Americans do not believe that these concepts are ‘normal,’ and they do not want such ideas planted in their children’s heads.”
Schilling was a bit more blunt in his reaction.
“This is insanity,” the pro-family activist said.
“Indoctrinating kids into believing that biology has no bearing on whether they are a boy or a girl is not just wrong, it’s dangerous,” he warned. “These falsehoods will have lasting negative impacts on our children, potentially leading them to make decisions that they will regret for the rest of their lives.”
Schilling, who also heads Big Family, a lobbying arm of the APP on behalf of families, also noted that radical gender ideology should be kept far away from schools.
“Parents largely reject this warped ideology, and at the very least, books like this — as well as teachers who would use them — should be nowhere near our schools,” he added.
Polling published by the APP from states like Indiana indicates that Schilling is correct. Despite that, the doctors behind the controversial puberty guide plan to push ahead with their claims.
“Regardless of what’s going on in state capitals, our jobs are to be pediatricians, and that means educating kids about their bodies and how to be healthy and how to take care of themselves; teaching them about anatomy and physiology,” Lowe told NPR in defense of the book. “This is what we’ve trained for and what we’ve been doing for many years.”