Monday

October 6th, 2025

Insight

Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion

 Dan McCarthy

By Dan McCarthy

Published Aug. 26, 2025

Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion

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Before Robin Westman murdered two children and wounded many more at Minneapolis's Annunciation Catholic School, Robin was Robert, a troubled teenager whose mother worked for the parish.

Robert's mother approved the name change, but after Robert became Robin in 2020, the teen's psychological problems obviously didn't go away — they led, five years later, to carnage.

A serious discussion of transgenderism, mental illness and violence is long overdue.

Earlier this year, the "Zizians," a cult notable for the transgenderism of its leader and many members, made headlines for their alleged involvement in a series of homicides, including the January slaying of U.S. Border Patrol agent David Christopher Maland.

Violent symbolism has lately claimed a prominent place in transgender political discourse:

The June 19 issue of Oregon's Eugene Weekly featured a trans cover star cradling an AR-15-style rifle, with blurbs proclaiming, "Some queer folks are armed and ready to bash back" and asking, "Are you triggered?"

In the state where Westman would later open fire on schoolchildren, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a Democrat, two years ago made a public appearance in a shirt emblazoned with a knife and the legend, "Protect trans children."

No one can say Westman didn't receive enough protection — the trans killer's victims are another matter.

One thing even liberals who broadly support transgender protections should consider is that blatant warning signs might get downplayed or ignored in cases like Westman's for fear that noticing them would be politically incorrect.

The liberal urge to defend anyone who claims to be transgender can turn into making excuses for disturbing behavior of all kinds that may or may not have anything to do with gender dysphoria.

All children are deserving of protection — which includes protecting them from adults who have a reckless drive to affirm any doubts a minor has about his or her identity.

The dangerous situation children face today has come about because too much abnormality and political radicalism has been accepted for the sake of being polite.

Shortly before Westman's rampage, I encountered an illustration of this.

A libertarian scholar at a college in a red state griped on Facebook about a Florida school district that terminated the contract of a teacher who used a student's "preferred" name — that is, a name signaling a change in sex.

This was a scholar I thought of as middle-of-the-road or slightly conservative, so I was shocked by the argument, which came down to the contention that calling a child by any name he or she wanted to be known by should never be controversial: that it's just like using a nickname.

As if calling William "Billy" is the same as calling him "Barbara."

Florida's law is actually quite liberal — it allows transgender-affirming names as long as parents provide explicit permission for the change.

The Brevard County teacher in question flouted the law and seized a role only parents are supposed to have.

Minors are minors precisely because they cannot make the most important decisions for themselves: they have to be under an adult's tutelage, mainly their parents'.

Yet even a red-state libertarian scholar, who should have been against a public-school teacher's usurping of parental rights under any scenario, believed this class of government employee should have more power over a child's identity than parents — and need not be accountable to the law.

This is wrong on every level.

For a teacher to encourage a child in adopting a new sex is at least as heavy an intrusion into that child's development as a teacher urging him or her to change religion.

If liberals and libertarians want to keep the state out of a child's religious formation, how can they say it's OK for state employees to get involved in deciding a child's sex?

And it's an invitation to grooming if a teacher can lead a minor down this path just by claiming the minor took the step.

The radicalism of the idea didn't surprise me: I expect the far left to advocate such things.

But this Facebook thread taught me I had seriously underestimated the extent to which far-left ideas had seeped into everyday liberal assumptions.

What was even more striking was the way this scholar tried to smuggle through the acceptance of an extreme idea — letting teachers regender minors on their own authority — under the cover of something as banal as calling anyone by the name they prefer.

Every state in the Union should have laws like Florida's.

Parents can certainly be too liberal, but safeguarding their rights is the first step to safeguarding children.

And parents themselves should be watchful — not only for signs a teenager's troubles run deeper than pronouns but for signs adults are contributing to a psychological crisis.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print

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