Executives at Netflix, the uber-liberal entertainment company, have launched a new ideological offensive aimed at young, unsuspecting children. An episode of the “TV-G” rated show “Babysitter’s Club” surprised children with the introduction of a new character the producers present as “transgender.” To make the appearance all the more authentic, the character is played by a 9-year old actor who himself claims to be a “transgender girl.”
The Babysitters Club airs on platforms intended for children and features five middle-school girls who launch a babysitting business. In the episode in question, the character Bailey is being babysat by one of the club members, Mary Anne. The two have a pretend tea party in Bailey’s room when the child accidentally spills water and needs fresh clothes. Mary Anne opens the child’s closet and is met with boys clothing. “Those are my old clothes,” Bailey explains to a surprised Mary Anne. Turning to address the audience, the babysitter provides more information for all the unsuspecting kids who no doubt are confused: “That’s when I understood: Bailey was a little girl and her new clothes help people see it.”
In fact, of course, Bailey is not a little girl but a little boy who apparently suffers from a serious medical condition called gender dysphoria. Because presenting the actual scientific facts of the matter does not fit their storyline, Netflix simply ignores the facts and proceeds with the stated storyline advanced by LGBT lobby groups that Bailey is a girl, period. But buying into this fiction is dangerous, for Bailey and for society as a whole. In fact, one of the leading pediatric medical groups in the United States, the American College of Pediatricians, warns that promoting transgender ideology produces child abuse.
Ironically, as the episode advances and Bailey becomes ill and is taken to the hospital, one of the serious concerns about transgenderism is revealed, although not as producers intend. Hospital personnel pull up Bailey’s medical records and see that he is a boy. Mary Anne forcefully intercedes to correct them: “Bailey is not a boy, and by treating her like one, you are completely ignoring who she is.”
Mary Anne wants to support her new friend’s “gender identity” – something that every good progressive must do in today’s culture – but in doing so she is actually endangering Bailey’s health. Bailey is physically a boy. Every cell in his body is a male cell. His skeletal structure is male. His muscular structure is male, as are his reproductive organs. His brain is a male brain and he processes information as a male. And science tells us that his state of being as a male can significantly impact how his body responds to illness and disease.
Perhaps Bailey has gone to the hospital because of indigestion and back pain. Women who display these symptoms may be experiencing a heart attack. But Bailey isn’t a woman, so likely is experiencing something else. Perhaps Bailey is experiencing a shortness of breath. This can be a sign of any number of physical problems including COVID-19, which impacts men disproportionately than women. Whatever the diagnosis, Bailey will metabolize medications as a male differently than a female will.
By asserting that Bailey is a female and not a male, Mary Anne (and all the children who follow her lead) will be part of a cultural movement that will push Bailey toward a life-altering, physically debilitating path. In virtually every other aspect of life, a person who insists that he or she is experiencing something contrary to physical reality – say a female teen suffering from anorexia who still insists she is fat – would be physically and psychologically treated for the condition. The anorexic will be supported with nutrition, counseling and other medical interventions. She certainly will not be encouraged to diet. But because transgenderism is now a powerful part of progressive ideology, Bailey will not enjoy such societal care and treatment. In fact, in many US states it is now illegal to counsel Bailey against affirming a transgender lifestyle. Instead, as a nine-year old, the child will be encouraged to continue her “transition” from boy to girl. Around age 11, Bailey will begin to take puberty suppression drugs, followed by the use of cross-sex hormones. This combination will likely leave the child sterile. A Dutch study found that no adolescent who began puberty suppression withdrew from the treatment and all progressed to cross-sex hormone treatment. If Bailey has her mother’s permission – the same person who has encouraged the child to dress and appear as a girl – Bailey can have “top surgery” as a teenager to create the appearance of female breasts. By age 18, Bailey will likely undergo “bottom surgery” – the attempt to remake his male sex organs to create female genitalia.
For the rest of Bailey’s life, he will have to take powerful medications and hormones in his quest to maintain a female appearance. Even then, there is no guarantee that he will convincingly “present” as a female or instead exhibit telltale physical signs strongly suggesting to the observer that he is a male. The daily conflict that he will have to endure – the never-ending struggle to reconcile the biological maleness of his physical being with the psychological desire to be a female will very likely take an emotional toll. The rates of suicide among transgender individuals is shocking. One study found that 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide. Completing the process of medical transition does not seem to help. A study out of Sweden found that the rate of suicide among post-operative transgender adults was nearly twenty times greater than that of the general population.
If you want to be supportive of children like Bailey who express a disconnect between the sex they identify with and their physical bodies, the best approach is to treat them with love and empathy and to explain that these feelings will go away as they mature. Medical studies show that as many as 95 percent of children who experience symptoms of gender dysphoria will come to accept their biological sex by the time they go through puberty.
Of course, a show about how to help children avoid the devastating trap of transgender ideology is not likely to be a ratings hit, so Netflix would never consider it even if they could get past their own liberal bias. Sparing children from puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatments generate no revenue for pharmaceutical companies. And avoiding needless transgender surgeries produces no money for gender clinics.
Given the progressive bent of Netflix and their pursuit of what they believe is culturally popular, it’s probably too much to hope for a change of heart. Still, wouldn’t it be nice to see a future episode of Babysitter Club with Mary Anne explaining to Bailey that God made him perfectly as a boy, and that the feelings he’s experiencing will not last forever?! It won’t happen, I realize, but it sure would spare him a lot of problems if it did. That would be a healthy, genuine expression of meaningful love for Bailey, something much better for his well-being than what Netflix has in store for the character, and countless gender-confused children like him.
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