Do I really wish I was three again knowing what I know now?

It’s a question I have asked myself often lately. The news today is rife with stories of teachers, well-meaning or not, encouraging children as young as five or six years old to express a gender identity different from their biological sex. To begin with, I don’t for a minute believe that any teacher should be making those decisions for any child. That is for the parents and the parents alone to address.

But just how do I feel when I consider what my life would have been like if the knowledge, I have today was available when I was five years old?

To begin with, that is virtually impossible for me to imagine, but I can be reasonably certain that I would have been totally confused and bewildered. I simply did not have the mental capacity to even begin to navigate the emotional minefield that one is confronted with, when the mere thought that one’s emotional configuration does not match the physical configuration of one’s body. I had trouble enough as a young adult trying to understand all the implications of what I was feeling. There was no way that I could have dealt with the confusion at the age of five.

So, what age is the right age to begin to deal with gender dysphoria? Short answer … there is no universal answer to that question. The simple fact is that for me, the right age was somewhere in my mid-fifties. Do I think that is the right age for everyone? Of course not. Are there periods of my life that I would like to re-live as Georgia; periods I would like to switch places with George? Absolutely!

But I need to ask this question: would I be better off today if Mrs. Baldwin, my first-grade teacher had taken it upon herself to decide that Georgie would be happier as Georgia and proceeded to implant that idea in my undeveloped brain without my parents’ knowledge? Oh, hell no!! She would have robbed me of experiences and memories that I have of George’s life that no amount of therapy could replace. She would have robbed me of experiences that could only have been available to George but that I can benefit from.

She would have made uneducated assumptions about me, about Georgie that she had no right to make. I don’t even think a lot of parents today have the background or the knowledge to make those decisions for their children. But that is exactly what way too many teachers, who are being goaded by the teachers’ unions (aka NEA and affiliates), are doing without parents’ knowledge much less their approval.

In my presentations to college classes, I preface everything with the statement that when I discuss gender identity there are very few and far between facts and that what I have to say in that regard is strictly my personal opinion. I have been saying that for twenty years and I say it still today. It’s for that reason that I find it terribly wrong for any teacher to take it on themselves to encourage any child to take on a persona that does not match their birth gender.

In a study done in the late 1990s it was discovered that the suicide rate among gender variant individuals was nearly eleven times that of normal individuals. There have been numerous studies done in recent years which points to possibly higher rates than previously thought. A quick review of the subject on Google lists a considerable number of studies on the subject but none address the actual number of actual completed suicides.

Obviously gender identity is becoming a more common topic of discussion, but it seems that it is being affected by a failure to address the need for extreme caution in guiding the young people in our education system toward irreversible actions. I have addressed the irreversible issue in my own life by referencing that decision to Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon. It cannot not be undone.

And if I have not made myself clear … No teacher has the right to encourage at the least or to facilitate at most, any gender variant behavior in any child with or without a parent’s approval. Teachers simply do not have the training nor the experience to involve themselves in such a critical issue in a child’s life. That is an irreversible procedure.

So, do I really wish I was three again, knowing what I know now? Nope! Not a bit! The joy I find in life now is the result of a life lived in two genders … two worlds, and guided by God’s impeccable timing.