Althouse

[D]ozens of parents whose children have socially transitioned at school told The Times they felt villainized by educators who seemed to think that they — not the parents — knew what was best for their children.... Although some didn’t want their children to transition at all, others said they were open to it, but felt schools forced the process to move too quickly, and that they couldn’t raise concerns without being cut out completely or having their home labeled “unsafe.”... 

One mother in California shared messages that her teenager’s teacher had sent through the school’s web portal encouraging the student to obtain medical care, housing and legal advice without the parents’ knowledge. A lawsuit filed against a school district in Wisconsin included a photo of a teacher’s flyer posted at school that stated: “If your parents aren’t accepting of your identity, I’m your mom now.”

The top-rated comment over there — from someone called "It’s Wrong" — is:

I teach at a middle school in Bergen County, NJ. This year, the teachers in my school were specifically instructed not to tell parents if their kids start using a new name or ask to be referred to with non-sex-based pronouns or use the opposite-sex bathroom. After 15 years of never having a trans-identified kid in my classroom, I’ve had several just in the last couple of years. All were girls and all had serious mental health issues. 

I have a background in psychology. I can read and understand scientific literature. So my opinions on this issue are informed by data, not politics. I am certain that these girls’ mental health issues are the cause of their trans identities, not the effect. The number of trans-identifying kids has exploded. If trans people were simply coming out in greater numbers now because it’s now safer, we’d see kids of both sexes coming out, not mainly girls. And we’d see people of all ages coming out, not mainly teens and pre-teens. Social contagion of psychological symptoms among adolescent girls is a real phenomenon — DID and Tourette’s on TikTok today, bulimia and anorexia in the 80s and 90s, Beatlemania-style fainting in the 1960s, “hysterical” disorders of the early 20th century— all the way back to the supposed possession of the Salem witch trials.

We teachers are hiding important information about kids’ mental health from their parents. That’s wrong. Parents have a right to know. 

Second highest rated, from "Reasonable Person":

I’ve been a teacher for quite a while. Teaching has always been loosely aligned with liberal values, but I never felt like I was part of an explicit political organization until the last few years. The zeal with which school systems have pursued and advocated for left-wing identity politics no longer feels like being “supportive,” it feels like we’re being persuasive: join us, children, as we dismantle the evil systems (systemic racism! the patriarchy! the gender binary!) that your parents have wrought.

It’s frankly a little bit creepy and cultish at times, and it needs to stop.

"The ruling is one of the most consequential judgments since the 27-nation bloc, home to roughly 450 million people, enacted a landmark data-privacy law aimed at restricting the ability of Facebook and other companies from collecting information about users without their prior consent.... The company includes language in its terms of service agreement, the very lengthy statement that users must accept before accessing services like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, that effectively means users must allow their data to be used for personalized ads or stop using Meta’s social media services altogether."

From "Meta’s Ad Practices Ruled Illegal Under E.U. Law/The decision is one of the most consequential issued under the E.U.’s landmark data-protection law and creates a new business headwind for the social media giant" (NYT).

"... Carl Rogers, Frederick Perls, and Albert Ellis. The film was produced and narrated by the psychologist Everett L. Shostrum, who was Szymanski’s personal therapist and who recruited her for this starring role.... 'He told Gloria that the films would only be used in schools and colleges to teach psychology students so imagine her surprise then when making her breakfast pancakes a year or so later to see her interview with Dr. Perls on TV and then she found out that the films were going to be shown in full in movie theatres all over the country.'... She talks, with frankness and charm, about her daddy issues and her pinings for smart, authoritative men. If not for the clinical setting and the disapproving gaze of the therapists, her desires would seem normal—which, of course, they are...."

From "Gender Critique Meets Lewd Spectacle in 'The Patient Gloria'/Gina Moxley’s play examines the sexual and behavioral strictures on women through the lens of psychotherapy circa 1964" (The New Yorker).

Even as disease could be perceived as health — see the first post of today — health could be perceived as disease.

ADDED: I believe it is a terrible invasion of privacy, but nevertheless, I found the original film on YouTube, so I present it here: 

Bork kept talking about originalist jurisprudence, neutral principles of Constitutional Reasoning, the bankruptcy of the theory of penumbral emanations... while Biden talked about cops in our bedrooms!

And now it's FBI agents! In Melania's wardrobe!  

The feds instructed Trump’s representatives to switch off the security cameras but they refused.

Unlike Biden's cops in the bedroom, it's not just a vivid mental image of something we're made to fear could happen. It really happened, and there will be video. Perhaps the video will make the FBI agents seem respectful and professional and it will calm us. Maybe our imagination makes it worse.  FBI agents! In Melania's wardrobe!  

From "With higher inflation, living with your parents makes economic sense/Let’s stop joking about young adults living in their parents’ basement/Financial independence doesn’t have to come with a monthly rent payment" by Michelle Singletary (WaPo).

Singletary is a personal finance columnist. She has virtually nothing to say about the social development of young adults, and her son and daughter — in their 20s — seems to be diligently working and squirreling away money. Presumably, they behave within a range that fits the parents' conventions, and the financial boom would be lowered if they did not. But, she says, her son is "lovely" and he walks the dog. There's no adjective like "lovely" attached to the daughter, perhaps because it's presumed that daughters will be docile, perhaps because mom wanted to elbow her toward increased loveliness.

Singletary assures us that kids in this phase are not suffering from "arrested development," but who knows how they'd develop if they lived outside of the surveillance of their parents? But, sure, privacy and independence may pale in comparison to painful economic need. And now I'm picturing devious politicians swarming in the backroom, celebrating these economic hard times.