A mother from California whose daughter was “socially transitioned” to a boy without her consent recently spoke out against an opinion piece published in the New York Times. The mom’s name is Jessica Konen.
She and Mark Trammell, the executive director of the Center for American Liberty, joined FOX & Friends to talk about how they feel about the article. Columnist Lydia Polgreen penned the article “Born This Way? Born Which Way?”
In it, she supported gender transition and talked about how it is important to let children make mistakes. Even if it is one, they may come to regret it eventually. Polgreen wrote: “The possibility that children might make irreversible decisions on this particular question that they later regret is, for many people, simply intolerable.”
“So what are we saying, really, when we worry that a child will regret this particular decision, the decision to transition?” the piece reads. “And how is it different, really, from the decision I made to quit competitive swimming?”
Konen was not in favor of the argument. She said: “To be super honest, that’s stupidity at its finest. You cannot compare a swim team to our poor children.”
“In their lives, they regret things; of course, we all make mistakes. But it’s our job as parents to love them, to guide them, direct them from making those poor mistakes,” she added. “Of course, we want our kids to have freedom, but they have enough freedom as children. Let them be children.”
Polgreen also argued in her column that at first glance, many major identity categories “seem absolute and immovable.” However, she says if you “dig a little deeper,” you’ll quickly realize how “malleable and mutable they are.”
Polgreen disagrees that gender identity is fundamentally different. Nor does she think that a child altering their body to better align with their gender identity is a drastic step.
In response to the column, Konen said: “A mistake is an action that is misguided. It’s not adequate information. They don’t have enough knowledge about things. They should not be making adult choices and comparing it to quitting a swim team versus sexually transitioning or cutting off body parts. These are our children.”
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Konen added the type of freedom that Polgreen expresses in her article: “harming our children.” On the subject matter, Konen knows better than anyone else just how dangerous Polgreen’s ideologies are.
In August, Konen won her case against the Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County. The case, a landmark victory for parental rights, was settled for $100,000.
Konen became a plaintiff after her 11-year-old daughter, Alicia, started learning too much from school. Her school told her she may be upset because she didn’t know who she “truly was inside.”
The school went as far as letting her use the boy’s bathroom. They also let her use male pronouns to refer to herself as part of her “social transition.” It was not an easy experience for Konen and her daughter.
She said: “I personally experienced a lot of secrecy. I experienced a troubled child, and I feel like our schools have thought that they could possibly parent better.”
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“They decided to make adult choices with my child; there was a lot of hush and a lot of behind the parents’ back,” she added. “It’s emotionally traumatizing to our children. They are doing things that are inappropriate, and I feel that my child was one of the survivors of this horrible mess that’s happening.”
Konen believes that children have a right to make mistakes innocently. However, she argues that a gender transition is not just a mistake. She thinks it is like a “life choice” that leads to mental health issues, such as depression.
Konen’s daughter has moved past what happened, and her mother says she is now doing better.
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