Speaking Out Against Self-ID At A “Identity Affirming” Parent Workshop
Identity, Women’s Language, and Discombobulated Libfems
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been a foster and now adoptive resource parent since 2015. The uninitiated will say many inaccurate things about the foster system and about foster parents, but what no one can say is that we aren’t schooled the most on how to parent! In order to get licensed to foster kids in their home, resource parents have to take a series of classes and must continue to earn 8 class credits each year to keep the license. I have never met biological parents who care enough or are curious enough to take parenting classes to help their naughty children behave properly or to treat trauma in the home, have you? Not until child protective services gets involved, that is. If children get removed from troubled biological families you can at least be assured that they will go to homes where people know a thing or two about containing bad behaviors for the sake of offering a safer refuge. One of the things said about foster parents that is true, however, is that we are overworked and underpaid sitters and we don’t get enough credit for being effective trauma-behavior mitigators. I am not exactly glorifying foster parents here, either, I know and have come face to face with some terrible specimens, however, in most foster networks that I’ve been a part of, the bad ones have been the exception and not the rule.
Me, I love going to the parent meetings, support groups, and classes, and particularly enjoy the smaller, more leadership-focused workshops offered to foster parent mentors and liaisons, especially the trainings that can meet the “social awareness” requirements for our care licenses. No shame in my TERF game, I will choose workshops on social justice and identity politics because I’m a TERF, yes, but I’m also Latina, former foster youth, a mother, a lesbian, and a former dysphoric so I’ve got quite a few personal stakes in the false claims dispensed among a general audience at these things. Not everyone is into politics and not many normies know that these issues are even going on, so it’s always worthwhile to speak up in as many places as possible, you might be educating people on something they were simply unaware of.
Rewind to last year, September 2022: a workshop worth 5 credits had been announced, Affirming Children's Identities, and with the quickness I signed up to take it. It was a collaborative workshop between the California Foster Network and the North American Council on Adoptable Children with enrollments for the training maxed out by mostly advocates of note from many different counties in California. After a brief introduction, I learned that the topic was largely centered on racial and cultural identities as they relate to children of color who are placed in White homes but that did not take away from the fact that an audience of mostly liberal, seemingly well-meaning social justice types were in attendance and these are just the right kinds of people that need a more thorough understanding of the gender issue at hand. Check out a video compilation of my offerings for that day:
The pro-reality position is usually well-received if one is being direct and assertive, even if there are gender mystics within earshot who will, of course, never miss an opportunity to derail a normal conversation in order to Thought Police you with the cult’s message in some way. The Liberal-leaning woman who attempted to police me with incredibly lax authority went into the zoom chat brave-like after that exchange to wag her finger about the way we are “talking to our kids”…
Swear that I was writing a quick FB post at this very moment and had begun my post with “Patriarchy Everywhere” and somehow I cut/pasted that shiat into the zoom chat by total mistake, not even joking!…but lo’ it’s still so damn apt.
After having just sat through a portion of the workshop that discussed the many different kinds of implicit and explicit ways in which “white folk can abuse their privilege” (some of which were ridiculous examples but having little patience and time left before the session ended) I replied back to this gal in the chat and told her to please stop exerting her privilege on me (with this explicit sexist policing of the nature of my sexuality and the way in which I choose to speak about my lesbian and female experience!, mean wench!). She tried to get sassy and last-wordy, so I again used the woke’s favorite tactic available that they know will quickly shut down all arguments quite fast, the lazy-ass race card. I’ll expound after the jump…
Some may find this racist in itself and counterproductive and it’d be a valid argument, but I still find this Leftist method useful and even poignant because the fact remains that the only color of people who have wanted for my social (and probably physical) detriment because of my adherence to logical reality have been White affluent people with a lot of social privilege, typical Tallulahs. She tried to get me for my twansfauxbeuh but I made a streamline to her ‘white privilege’ because I couldn’t get her for her obvious sexism because technically she should be in support of me here but she’s too busy being MRA now and everyone is confused anyway! I never said I was here to play nice when I’ve been sitting in my rage about Self-ID for years and I’ve been waiting to play dirty using a dialogue that my opposition value. Idiots like her come in all colors, cultures, and classes, but the ones that proliferate this lie and benefit the most from it have been and will continue to be White Men like the million-dollar trans project that is Dylan Mulvaney. You’re not hip for supporting this Tallulah, check yourself, sis.
Before the session closed, a fellow participant private messaged me to say she agreed with my stance and I was grateful for this sister reaching out in solidarity at that moment. Affirming someone’s firm grip on reality when everyone else’s gone bonkers is important work, too, and letting a pro-reality advocate know that their words resonate with you is also an act of brave advocacy and support towards this cause.
In the aftermath of the workshop, I reached out to Nathan Ross of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the workshop speaker, to see if we can have an extended conversation on the topic since some of the material included a light covering of ‘LGBTQIA+++ identities’ that thankfully were not addressed to any extent during the training. Nathan never replied back and my two voice messages were not returned, either. I get it, Nathan, there are many inconvenient truths to absorb in this loaded topic and the bureaucracy that surrounds any mention of ‘gender identity’ or ‘gender affirmation’ in the state of California is still incredibly testy.
The only way we are going to deconstruct the bad science and horrible ethics that protect Self-ID laws in even the most liberal of states like California is by speaking up about this every chance we get. Be the bridge, the educator, in each and every room you occupy, and be very assertive. They’ll have to make room at the table for the pro-reality stance one way or another as the Truth slowly makes its way through the masses.
Thank you!!!!! I am in the Bay Area and we need your voice! I speak up every chance I get - I am a public school teacher and every year it gets worse in our field. Scott Wiener just got Sacramento to pass a foster care affirmation only law so that foster care parents are forced to comply with the trans religion. Please enjoy your summer, and also, reach out to me - I have gotten myself into some good trouble recently with a bunch of other feminists fighting this crap in our state.
Luv the tactful way you got them to dance around the subject because it was clear none of them where in any position to debate you or even ready to truthfully think about the nonsense that they been repeating. Though that was their impulse to do. MB said it best to be rude then a lair and we really should not allow misrepresenting “threats of suicide “ or any other form of emotional blackmail to get in the way of clearly communicating the reality of sex or sexuality especially to kids that even confused so easily. Your voice of clarity is obviously much needed from within the foster system.