One of the more frustrating aspects of cultural progressivism is that it is increasingly difficult to know whether it’s pranking you. The recent college campus protests were a prime example of this. It was hard to know whether the protesters were sincere in their insanity or whether they were just putting on a comical over-the-top caricature of genuine academic leftism. It’s sometimes tricky to know who is laughing at whom.
Sometimes it’s not so funny, though—as with Daniel McFadyen in Strathspey, Scotland. A few years ago Daniel’s mother, Kerry, came across then-three-year-old Master McFadyen attempting to cut his own genitals off with a pair of scissors “so he could be a girl.” Appropriately concerned, the parents of this young man took their son to a medical doctor, who diagnosed the boy with “gender dysphoria,” which Daniel—now six years old—describes as “[having] a girl’s head and a boy’s body.”
Daniel’s parents plan to give him hormone blockers when he starts puberty, “until she [sic] is truly old enough to decide whether she [sic] wants to transition aged 16.”
Unlike the childish insanity found on our college campuses, there are no laughs to be found here. There is simply sadness, and a kind of solemn horror at the wholesale dereliction of authority regarding this young man.
Get a Grip Before You Destroy a Child
At best, a boy’s desire to cut off his penis and testicles might be met with stern disapproval and a serious lesson in sharp objects. Likely the more appropriate action would have been to take young Daniel to a doctor—an actual doctor, as opposed to the charlatans who convinced his parents of this fantasy.
Daniel’s parents surely deserve some of the blame, though in the end their actions might be understood, if not approved. Most parents will do anything to alleviate the suffering and discomfort of their children, and one assumes the McFadyens are simply following medical advice from what they believe to be competent authorities. In this regard, surely any parent can sympathize with them to a certain degree.
That being said, you would think they would be able to see through the absurdity of it all. The doctors told the family “it would help to let Daniel live as a girl, so long as he knew he could change his mind.” This would strike any reasonable person as a demonstrably insane “medical” opinion, and one wonders why Daniel’s parents did not seek a second or a third opinion, or a fiftieth one, if that’s what it took.
But they did no such thing. Apparently they simply went with it. “My daughter is so happy now,” Kerry McFadyen says, “and a completely different child.” These are objectively false statements. Mrs. McFadyen has a son, one who has been approximated to resemble a daughter but who nonetheless remains male. Daniel’s treatment represents little more than an abandonment of both medical and ultimately parental responsibility. He is, by any reasonable metric, a victim.
Perhaps Daniel will “change his mind,” at which point he may ask his parents why they indulged this misinformed fixation for so long. Or maybe he will decide to “transition” when he turns 16. In either case, the young man will have been taken advantage of and used by a medical industry and a culture that increasingly values fantasy over reality at the expense of people who desperately need help.
