At a therapeutic farm in Georgia, troubled teens are possessed by demons, depressed because of technology—and allegedly mistreated by their caretakers.

This is the first in a two-part series examining the therapeutic Christian boarding school Shepherd’s Hill Academy. Read the second part here.

O n August 22, 2014, Trace Embry, executive director and founder of the therapeutic Christian boarding school Shepherd’s Hill Academy (SHA), wrote in the school’s monthly newsletter:

“It’s been awhile since we’ve dealt with anything overtly demonic here at SHA, but it appears ‘Old Dark Eyes’ has paid us another visit.”

Embry was referring to two boys arriving to SHA on the same day who, he said, brought with them “baggage from the dark side.” He solicited prayers so the team at SHA could properly minister to these boys, as “mere counseling and psychology will fall short.”

Little did they likely know that in coming to SHA, those boys would be relinquishing their basic human rights — and that no one would be around to defend them.

SHA, formerly known as Shepherd’s Hill Farm, provides year-long residential care for kids grades 7-12 on an 86-acre farm in Martin, Georgia. According to a December 2016 episode of SHA’s weekly podcast License to Parent (L2P), which is co-hosted by Embry, tuition is $88,900 per student per year. Licensed for a capacity of no more than 36 students, SHA is intended for teens who are “troubled,” the word the academy uses to describe those with ADD, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, reactive attachment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, Asperger’s syndrome, anger management, and generally rebellious behavior.

Embry believes the demonic forces operating within contemporary video games and pop music, and in the media at large, are the root cause of many of the mental and behavioral health issues affecting today’s teenagers. Students at the academy are intentionally isolated from society and undergo a mandatory media and technology fast. They begin their first 10 months in the Outdoor Therapy Program, where they live in “structurally sound rustic cabins” without any electricity or running water. They are only allowed access to shower facilities, a cafeteria, and classrooms on the main campus. As Embry told Katherine Albrecht last November, when participating in this outdoor therapy program, the teens “don’t have access to technology. No electricity whatsoever except in the classroom from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.”

Students at Shepherd’s Hill Academy are intentionally isolated from society and undergo a mandatory media and technology fast.
Click To Tweet

The boys and girls remain separated and under constant staff supervision throughout their stay, even after the intensive 10-month wilderness program. During this time, the boys “contribute to the maintenance, repair, and/or construction of” the campsites, while the girls cultivate a garden, learn beekeeping, sewing and quilting, and take care of the academy’s barn. Each student also takes part in the Equine Therapy Program. After the period of rustic living is over, the students graduate into the Next Step Program, where they live in houses on the main campus, designed to mimic the environment they will return to when they go home.

Established in 1994 by Trace and his wife Beth, Shepherd’s Hill didn’t begin enrolling teens in crisis until 2001, and it operated unlicensed for 10 years. It was not until September 2010 that Georgia’s Department of Human Services was made aware of the wilderness camp’s existence, when a social worker filed a complaint concerning SHA’s illegal operation. It took another 15 months for the school to become officially licensed; it stayed open and operating that entire time.

SHA is now fully licensed by the state of Georgia, but it has surfaced several ethical concerns, including the lack of appropriate care for teens with mental health issues, abusive treatment, and anti-LGBTQ practices similar to those practiced at conversion camps.

The Devil In The Details

Like many schools that specialize in care for troubled teens, SHA provides a checklist on its website for parents to consider while searching for help for their child. Among the more credible warning signs mentioned — like threats to self or others, drug addiction, and violent tendencies — are attributes of typical adolescent behavior, like opposition to the belief system of the family, not wanting to participate in family activities, defending peers, and general disobedience.

The Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment (ASTART) — a volunteer organization that works to protect children from abuse and neglect in residential programs—warns parents against relying on checklists like this. The organization also stresses the importance of considering all possible factors that may be contributing to a child’s change in behavior.

“If you are very worried, frustrated, angry, confused, or emotional in other ways, you may see behaviors as more extreme than they really are,” the alliance writes. Removing a child from their home environment and sending them away can amplify “strong resentments in your child,” and impair an already capricious parent-child relationship.

What Hateful Sermons Taught Me About Love

SHA’s vaguely defined parameters for removal from the home also enable parents to punish their children for religious disobedience. If a teen no longer wishes to participate in church activities, or begins to openly question their faith and their family’s biblical principles, a parent or guardian could label that behavior as rebellion and subsequently send their child to a place like SHA. If the teen also began spending more time with friends who don’t share their parents’ belief system and started to act out at home in response to the unyielding and volatile environment, a parent could be convinced after consulting SHA’s website that their child needs a Christian wilderness atmosphere to return them to the path God has chosen for them.

If any of this sounds like an overreach, consider Embry’s own words.

During a three-part series on L2P, Embry and his podcast co-host Rich Roszel said that reading the Bible is foundational to healing the students at Shepherd’s Hill. When asked about the most important and effective method of therapy used at the farm, Embry said, “It’s the knowledge of, and a healthy submitted and committed relationship with the God who created them, through Jesus Christ.” He then boasted that the pastor from the pulpit of his church “said the best kids on the planet would do well having a year at SHA. It’s really a discipleship clinic.”

In its reliance on religion and technology-fasting to treat “troubled kids,” SHA has advanced dangerous ideas about mental health.

Embry has specifically written and spoken often about anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure that’s a common symptom of many mental illnesses — most notably, depression. According to Embry, most students who come to SHA, whether they were formally diagnosed beforehand or not, are struggling with anhedonia due to being overly dependent on modern technology, and the medication their doctor prescribed is, as he’s put it, “making it worse.”

Embry focuses on technology as a cause for mental health issues in teens, and Bible study as a treatment, despite scientific evidence contradicting his stance.
Click To Tweet

In August 2013, Embry stated in his podcast, “Anhedonia is not ADD, ADHD, or even depression, although the symptoms are very similar. Anhedonia is a destruction of the pleasure center in the brain, which comes from unbridled multitasking on today’s popular electronic gadgets.”

The source for Embry’s views on anhedonia is Dr. Archibald Hart, former dean of Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Psychology. In an appearance on L2P in July 2010, Embry asked Dr. Hart what he thought of anhedonia being misdiagnosed by doctors. Dr. Hart replied, “Oh, 100 percent. They might call it depression, put you on an antidepressant, which is the last thing you should do.” Hart added, “There is no medication for anhedonia. It’s a lifestyle change.”

Unsurprisingly, the science doesn’t support Embry or Dr. Hart.

Dr. Jean Kim, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University (GWU), confirms that anhedonia “isn’t anything accepted or recognized by the general medical community as an official illness. [Embry] seems to be misappropriating aspects of neuroscience that are partly accurate to serve his own pitch.” Dr. Ronald Pies, professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, seconds this: “We know that serious psychiatric illnesses, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, long before ‘technology’ came about.”

Embry’s views on anhedonia, though discredited by science, are fundamental to how SHA operates. In 2010, he wrote, “We at [Shepherd’s Hill] understand that if an anhedonic troubled teen cannot think critically, constructively, or creatively . . . God becomes an abstract too difficult and boring for the anhedonic brain to conceive or desire.” He earnestly believes the effects of anhedonia are preventing today’s youth from comprehending Christianity, and is the primary reason these teens are put under his care in the first place, because “culturally-induced (i.e. technology) stimuli is affecting our teens through anhedonia.”

This is why Embry has also openly advocated for religion as a substitute for professional mental health treatment. He proudly advertised on his blog that 70% of the students at Shepherd’s Hill are weaned off their medication. In 2010, he wrote:

“Stimulating a kid with the love, training, nurture, discipline, and truth of God’s Word, will, over time, transform a troubled teen far more efficiently and effectively than medications . . . This is why so many kids who come to Shepherd’s Hill Farm on bushel loads of medication can leave medication-free at the end of a year.”

Again, Embry’s assertions contradict scientific evidence. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), “the results of a comprehensive review of pediatric trials conducted between 1988 and 2006 suggested that the benefits of antidepressant medications likely outweigh their risks to children and adolescents with major depression and anxiety disorders.” The experts at NIMH go on to stress that once a medication treatment is started, it “should not be abruptly stopped. Although they are not habit-forming or addictive, abruptly ending an antidepressant can cause withdrawal symptoms or lead to a relapse.”

Dr. Kim at GWU also warned of the potential harm that can occur from the methods used at Shepherd’s Hill:

“[Embry’s] advice/methods seem potentially harmful insofar as they don’t seem based in any sort of formal scientific or clinical evidence, or known medical-psychiatric neuroscience. Some general aspects of his treatment may still be helpful for some, but if it isn’t grounded in evidence-based research or scientific knowledge, it will be easy for him to veer into pseudoscience and even dangerous or harmful practices (like not giving someone with a serious psychiatric disorder who actually needs medication an appropriate diagnosis or treatment).”

While these views on mental health treatment are dangerous, Dr. Kim notes, “if [Embry] had a licensed professional screen clients and triage them for appropriateness into his program, that would be less worrisome.”

It’s troubling, then, that there are no clinical psychologists or psychiatrists on staff at Shepherd’s Hill; all personnel listed on the website under the Therapeutic Team are counselors, and it wasn’t until late last year that they all held a professional license by the state of Georgia.

Staff members oversee children with behavioral and mental health problems deemed severe enough to warrant year-round residential treatment with 24/7 supervision, but of the 21 members on the residential teams, according to their bios on the SHA website, fewer than one-quarter of them have completed educational programs related to mental or behavioral health.

More troubling than this lack of qualification, though, is SHA’s record of abusing its students.

Abuse Allegations

As part of its treatment plan, SHA has been accused of engaging in multiple forms of abuse. Kids who “act out” or defy God may be subject to physical punishment, humiliation, food restrictions, and more.

Angela Smith is the national coordinator for HEAL, an organization that works to expose abusive facilities designed to treat teenagers with behavioral problems. She confirmed via email that, “HEAL received a signed, under penalty of perjury document from a survivor of Shepherd’s Hill Farm.” The author of the statement has not returned our request for comment, but the full account is published anonymously on HEAL’s site. Within the testimony of the former student are specific allegations of abuse, the use of which Trace Embry has justified repeatedly, on his radio program, in newsletters to SHA’s community, and on the school’s website. All parents or guardians are required to sign a power of attorney document, essentially giving up their own rights as parents, upon enrolling their child at SHA.

Here are some of the abuses allegedly suffered by those who have attended the academy.

Corporal Punishment

In the statement, the survivor alleges that he was hit with a paddle by Trace Embry in front of other classmates for being disrespectful, an act of discipline for which Embry has openly advocated.

On L2P, Embry repeatedly dives into the topic of corporal punishment. For instance, on an episode dated September 18, 2012, he said parents should urge their local school boards to bring back paddling: “The [paddle] applied to the [posterior] of a disruptive and rebellious few, occasionally, might just make a better learning environment for the majority.”

A month later, Embry said, “I don’t feel it’s healthy, or wise, that a teen should feel that [corporal punishment] is ever out of the realm of possibility . . . There may be a circumstance that requires a parent to physically intervene in order to bring justice to a situation at home.”

Then, in April 2014, Embry stated, “Nowhere in Scripture is spanking, at any age when appropriately administered by a loving parent, ever condemned.” And in June 2015, he and his co-host Roszel interviewed psychologist and author John Rosemond on the topic of spanking; all three men advised parents to spank their children in private, where no one else can see them, so they do not have to worry about the Department of Human Services accusing them of abuse.

My Mother And The Ambiguity Of Abuse

On February 6, 2016, Embry declared spanking “an effective tool against foolishness and rebellion.” A week later, he argued that not considering corporal punishment as a form discipline is abusive, and because of Proverbs 23:13-14, punishing a child with a rod will save their soul from death. (Corporal punishment is technically legal in Georgia schools with parental consent, but it is in violation of the state’s Outdoor Child Caring Program [OCCP] licensure rules.)

Indoctrination

The survivor also claims in his statement to have interrupted a Bible lesson taught by Embry. “[He] raised [his] hand and said, ‘You are brainwashing us.’ Embry smiled and replied, ‘Yes we are! We are brainwashing you in the blood of the lamb!’”

In February 2014, Embry exclaimed, “It’s not uncommon for Christian parents to be accused of indoctrinating their own kids with dangerous ideologies and beliefs.” He then boasted that if training your children with biblical principles is considered brainwashing, “then I’m all for it.” On the December 29, 2014 episode of L2P, co-host Rich Roszel said, “[Shepherd’s Hill Academy] is a place where you can have kids’ brains reset to their original factory setting.” Embry replied, “I like that statement, too.”

On July 15, 2015, Trace Embry was a guest on Dr. Michael Brown’s radio program, The Line of Fire with Dr. Brown, where he said, “We brainwash [our students] with Jesus.”

Escort Service

During a school break at home, the survivor declared to his father that he did not want to go back to the farm; the next morning, “two very large men” came into his room. According to his account, they said, “We are bounty hunters to take you back to Shepherds [sic] Hill Farm.”

SHA advertises the use of a transport service to bring teens to the farm, using SafePassage Adolescent Services. The company writes on its website, “It is our experience at SafePassage that it is always better to wait until our Professional Transport Team is with you at your home to deliver the news through intervention that you have chosen to add a therapeutic component to their education.” To make sure the child remains unaware, the company advises parents to password protect their email and computer access, delete all cache history, and provide a phone number where a voicemail can be left without the child hearing.

Using these private “escort” or “transport” services is considered a warning sign for future abuse by the residential program by ASTART, which explains:

“The company typically sends two or more physically intimidating bodyguards to wake the child in the middle of the night, and force them from their bed into a waiting SUV — often in pajamas and handcuffs — while the parents look on…This is how the child learns [they] will be leaving home…This is a scene filled with tears and pleading and promises and begging. This is what many residential programs consider the first step in ‘healing family relationships.’”

This is “trauma, not therapy,” ASTART insists. This is harm, not healing. ASTART goes on to describe the trauma of those who have been escorted to a residential program:

“They experience years of nightmares, flashbacks, emotional ‘numbing,’ inability to concentrate, angry outbursts, difficulty sleeping or other symptoms — primarily, survivors say, because of the trauma of being forcibly taken against their will, by strangers, to a completely unfamiliar place, and kidnapped with the knowledge and permission of their parents — parents who are supposed to be the child’s trusted protectors.”

Special Meals And Clothing

On October 6, 2015, Embry released a video in which he argues, “One of the consequences we’ve found at Shepherd’s Hill Academy to be quite effective when a major offense takes place — is what we call a ‘special meal.’” He goes onto say it consists of unseasoned beans and greens and stresses, “There’s nothing mandating your child’s right to a gourmet meal every time he comes to the table.” He used the same script in a daily feature from May 2014 and then again, in December 2015.

In his statement, the survivor said he was put on “‘special meals’ for a month and a half.” These meals consisted of a can of beans or a can of vegetables, bread, a piece of fruit, and water.

Nobody Told Me My Son’s Camp Counselor Was Accused Of A Sex Offense

Dr. Kim expressed concern for this form of punishment, saying, “any sort of punitive or aversive conditioning isn’t a good thing for children or teens. And any sort of controlled meddling with dietary behaviors (other than something obviously medical, like a food allergy) can potentially exacerbate or worsen eating disorders.”

Over the years, a handful of former students have spoken out about abusive practices at SHA on various comment threads and blogs, most of which are no longer maintained. A young man by the name of K. Hicks told a similar story in 2010. (I reached out to Hicks, but he has not replied.) He claims to have enrolled in SHA in May 2005, during which time he and another student ran away. The local police department and Embry caught them and returned them to the farm. They were punished with “three weeks of orange jumpsuits, two weeks of sandals, and a week and a half of shackles.” They were also given “two weeks of special meals.”

Forcing students to wear these special clothes, rather than their own, is another form of punishment. In a newsletter from October 2015, Embry recounted an incident concerning a student who had run away while at home visiting his parents over a weekend. The local police department picked up the boy at a “restaurant after hours of hiding in a wooded area. He was then promptly returned to SHA, where he is now donning a bright orange jumpsuit.”

Physical Restraints

In June 2014, Embry wrote of a student in the SHA newsletter who “went berserk when the student couldn’t convince the parents that going home was the best option.” As a consequence of this episode, he said, some of the counselors were punched and scratched, and, “The wavering parents were a tick away from taking Junior home; but, were strongly advised to buck up and stand their ground.”

After the parents were encouraged to not allow the student to return home with them, Embry wrote, “An insightful parent understands that rebellion like this is a carnal desire fueled by succumbing to a spiritual battle — albeit an unholy spiritual victory.” He went onto say, “This student had to be physically restrained. It wasn’t comfortable; but, knowing that outbursts like this weren’t going to be tolerated, it sent a message of love to this student’s spirit that, in due time, is likely to be articulated in the flesh.” He later writes, “The real problem in most cases is not that parents take things too far; but that, often, they don’t take them far enough…”

In November 2015, Embry recounted an incident that occurred a month prior. During a chapel service, a boy who had only been in the program a few days was “triggered by something.” A counselor then escorted the student out, where Embry joined them.

“After the three of us exited the chapel, that’s when the boy began to shout a litany of profanities and other scary threats. When it looked like the boy was going to get physical, Frank was quick to secure everyone’s safety. That’s when the intensity and the volume of the boy’s displeasure increased…After talking the young man down, I put my hands on him and prayed for him as other staff arrived. Though I had already told him that we would meet him at every turn — and for as long as we needed to — I could feel his body go soft as I was praying.”

Embry has, not surprisingly, refuted claims of abuse; on SHA’s website, he states that the school is accountable to God, SHA’s board directors, and to state and federal regulators, and says allegations of abuse are false.

Conversion Therapy

SHA doesn’t just seek to mistreat kids with mental illnesses and non-religious beliefs; it has also targeted those who are LGBTQ via conversion therapy practices. On SHA’s application for admission, administrators specifically ask parents to, “Select the sexual orientation your child claims.” Included in the list among homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual are the options of “transgender” and “currently sexually active.”

The term “conversion therapy” often conjures stark images of forced institutionalization, castration, and electroconvulsive shock treatments being administered to helpless individuals. While these methods were more prevalent in the past than they are today, all forms of reparative therapies are incredibly harmful.

According to Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel—a publication endorsed by the American Psychological Association (APA), American Counseling Association (ACA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and 10 other prominent organizations — “reparative therapy and sexual orientation conversion therapy refer to counseling and psychotherapy aimed at eliminating or suppressing homosexuality. The most important fact about these ‘therapies’ is that they are based on a view of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major mental health professions.”

According to guidelines from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), methods of reparative therapies deemed favorable in these conversion programs include medication, hypnosis, sex therapies, and behavior and cognitive therapies. But these methods can produce dangerous effects — especially on adolescents who face rejection from their families. As noted by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), “Research shows that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were more than eight times more likely to report having attempted suicide, [and] more than five times more likely to report high levels of depression…”

Despite the evidence to the contrary, Embry regularly discusses the immorality and sinfulness of LGBTQ people on License to Parent, often interviewing “doctors” who rely on pseudoscience to make their case against any sexuality and gender identity that rejects a cisgender, heterosexual criterion. Oregon, California, Illinois, and New Jersey have laws that ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors. In 2016, Embry interviewed David Pickup, a supporter and practitioner of conversion therapy and the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that sought to overturn California’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. In 2015, he talked with Christopher Doyle, director of the International Healing Foundation, a non-profit that’s “dedicated to helping people in their struggles with sexual orientation,” who Embry called a “key figure in the conversion therapy movement.”

Embry invites these anti-LGBTQ activists to the school as well, such as in May 2016, when he invited Ciara Leilani to speak to the students at Shepherd’s Hill. Leilani says on her blog that she “lived as a lesbian in a homosexual lifestyle for 20 years. A lifestyle of choices that kept [her] further from [God’s] truth.” Now she is a Christian blogger and founder of the religious non-profit Kingdom Asylum Ministries.

On an episode of L2P that aired after she spoke to SHA students, Leilani said that not long after she promised she would abstain from sex with a man outside of marriage, a “lesbian encounter” took her by surprise. She discussed her “radical deliverance” when she turned 34 and explained she “knew [God] was tangibly in the room” with her. When asked about the supernatural deliverance she referenced, she recalled, “I know I had many demonic spirits that occupied my body, my soul, and I had no control. I was set free from lust and perversion immediately.”

7 Bizarre Theories On What ‘Causes’ Lesbianism

This isn’t the first time students were exposed to sexual orientation fear-mongering—and exposure to the extreme views of guest speakers is the least of it. Embry has, on more than one occasion, publicly stated that he practices a form of conversion therapy at Shepherd’s Hill.

In a newsletter from August 2015, Embry wrote about a three-week series he did with SHA students on homosexuality. After this series, he wrote, three students approached him. “The result was that all three kids, two girls and one boy, renounced any future plans to pursue that lifestyle!” He stressed that despite what “liberal-minded people may imagine,” all he did was “share the truth in love” about the topic. “I never coerced or used shame or fear tactics to invoke these renunciations,” he continues. “There’s so much confusion about this topic; unfortunately, much of it comes from those who would call themselves ‘trained professionals’ and now unfortunately, from our own American lawmakers.”

He then writes about mental and behavioral health conferences he attended, where, according to his views, political correctness, lack of common sense, junk science, and the “spirit of the enemy” confound LGBTQ issues. He proudly deadnames and misgenders Caitlyn Jenner, writing, “After [Caitlyn] Jenner was hailed as a hero, I finally had to speak up. The Emperor’s New Clothes was exposed by little ole me. I asked why a conference full of well-educated people are now defining heroes and taking their mental health cues from an individual who is emotionally disturbed and on suicide-watch as I spoke?”

Ending the newsletter, he insists that the Supreme Court ruling that brought marriage equality to all 50 states has made it harder for SHA to do the work that they’re doing. “Already, secular associations are strong-arming SHA to agree to unbiblical policies in this area.” Finally, while referencing a now-debunked 23-year-old study that falsely predicted a shorter lifespan for gay Americans, Embry fears, “Without some drastic and immediate action, SHA may never be allowed to steer another kid out of a lifestyle” that is “proven” to be more detrimental to a person’s life expectancy than cigarettes.

Students have been exposed to sexual orientation fear-mongering, and Embry has publicly stated that he practices a form of reparative therapy at Shepherd’s Hill.
Click To Tweet

A month after writing about his three-week series that convinced three students to renounce their queer identity, Embry raved about another student making the same commitment, writing, “[A]nother SHA student renounced any further pursuit of that lifestyle, making her the fourth student in two months to do so.” Two months later, Embry wrote, “While several students have renounced their homosexuality in recent months, yet another did so in October. This same student, along with many others, have come to Christ also.”

Students at SHA are persistently encouraged to renounce any part of themselves that does not align with a cisgender heteronormative identity. Current technology, the media at large, and the ways in which teenagers interact with their peers in the 21st-century are seen as demonically influenced and the root cause of the “troubled” students at the farm. Pseudoscience and the “experts” that propagate these dangerous concepts are exalted due to their claimed biblical origins, and religious indoctrination is seen as the most important and effective method of therapy. Meanwhile, allegations of abuse mount.

Most distressingly, all of this has been given the stamp of approval by the state of Georgia — and SHA is, in having its dangerous practices sanctioned, far from an anomaly.

In the excerpt from her forthcoming book, Autism Uncensored, that was recently published in The Washington Post, Whitney Ellenby tells us about the time she physically restrained and dragged her 5-year-old autistic son to see Elmo perform at a “Sesame Street Live!” show. She describes fighting off his fists, pinning him down, and inching — her son shrieking and flailing, trapped between her legs — toward the auditorium’s entrance, an effort, she claims, “to save him from a life entrapped by autistic phobias.”

While some parents of autistic children have celebrated the article for showing them that they are not alone, the response from autistic adults to the violent actions in the piece and her book more broadly, has been, deservedly, negative. As Eb, an autistic writer, tweeted, “Meltdowns like the one described in this article aren’t ‘problems to solve.’ They’re communication.” Through his, Ellenby’s son was communicating something important to his mother — and her response was to push him, literally, into doing something he didn’t want to do, completely disregarding his autonomy.

Sadly, this is merely the most recent high-profile example of an allistic (non-autistic) parent, disrespecting and dehumanizing their autistic child then exploiting them by publishing very private, personal details about their life. Judith Newman, author of To Siri with Love — a collection of supposedly humorous stories about her then-13-year-old autistic son — received similar backlash from actually autistic adults last year. Among her various repugnant views, she asserts that her son is unfit to become a parent because he is autistic, detailing her desire to have him sterilized. “I am still deeply worried about the idea that he could get someone pregnant and yet could never be a real father — which is why I will insist on having medical power of attorney, so that I will be able to make the decision about a vasectomy for him after he turns 18.”

As may already be clear, while these types of books and articles may be about autistic people (mostly children who cannot consent), they are not for them. Instead, they are authored by and for parents and other allistic adults — at the expense of the vulnerable and marginalized community they claim to be advocating for.

And this trend keeps repeating. On smaller scales, as with Jill Escher, president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area, who wrote a cringe-worthy account of the financial and superficial costs her autistic son is causing her. Or larger ones like, Amy Lutz, author and outspoken critic of the neurodiversity movement who said that writing about her autistic son without his permission isn’t exploitation because he’s incapable of providing consent. There are “very few costs” to publicly writing about his life because he “will never go to college, seek competitive employment, or get married.”

Autistic writer Sarah Kurchak refers to this subgenre of writing as the “Autism Parent memoir,” which often overlaps with the realm of Autism Warrior Parents (AWPs) — a term that it is both embraced and rejected by parents of autistic children. AWPs, as Shannon Rosa wrote, “insist on supporting their autistic kids either by trying to cure them, or by imposing non-autistic-oriented goals on them — rather than by trying to understand how their kids are wired, and how that wiring affects their life experience.”

If that sounds like an exaggeration, take Marcia Hinds, whose author biostates that she and “her family survived their war against autism.” According to a review of her book, I Know You’re In There: Winning Our War Against Autism, “She openly writes what we have all felt at one time or another. We love our children, but we do not love the autism.”

Rather than unconditionally accepting her son and seeking to better understand his needs, Hinds believed an autism diagnosis meant “there was no hope” and, diving headfirst into the realm of pseudo-science and conspiracy theories, that “by treating hidden viruses and infection,” autism can be cured. For her, in order for there to be hope for her family and her autistic son, his autism needed to be destroyed.

How ‘Autism Warrior Parents’ Harm Autistic Kids
theestablishment.co

Terrifyingly, this is far from an obscure movement. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy have helped bring these harmful conspiracies into the mainstream.

The cumulative result is that many, many autistic children grow up in environments rife with physical confrontations like the one that occurred in Ellenby’s article, or in homes that reject basic, peer-reviewed medical science, or with parents who demonstrate a complete and utter disregard for their autistic children’s autonomy — and all of it is framed as love.

But it is not love; it is abuse.

When I read Whitney Ellenby’s piece, the parallels between her and my psychologically abusive mother were too great to ignore. Just as Ellenby misinterpreted her son’s reluctance, disinterest, and outright refusal to engage in an activity as some sort of phobia to be overcome, my mother forced me into conquering my so-called fears — “for my own good.” She saw the way I interacted with the world as different from other children, and deemed that difference the enemy.

It has taken years to unravel and untie the clutter of psychological knots and trauma she left me with — and there are, no doubt, more waiting in the wings — but I can say with absolute certainty there’s a stark difference between a professed love and real, unconditional love. Failing to accept and trying to change or attempting to “fix” someone who is not broken — no matter the intent — is not the same as loving them. As writer and disability rights advocate Lydia Brown wrote to Judith Newman, “You may believe you love your son. But we, autistic people, hear what you have actually said, which is that you hate him. You love a version of him that does not exist.”

While I’ve not published a single piece of writing in almost a year due to hyper-empathy and burnout, I have been discovering and healing, coming to terms with the fact that I am autistic, and, contrary to the dangerous message AWPs continually insinuate, that it is nothing that should bring me shame or fear.

Memory and trauma are a mindfuck, but scenes flash before my mind’s eye — having my hands restrained at my desk in grade school, or instead having inside-out gym socks taped to my hands so I couldn’t fidget or distract others, but could still hold a pencil to do schoolwork. And now I’m angry, again, at my mother and all of her enablers for shaming and punishing me for things I couldn’t control or understand. I’m livid at her and my teachers for forcing me to put gross tasting things in my mouth whenever I did something that society deemed weird and unacceptable. I’m angry as fuck for crying and crying while telling the damn truth about not understanding something, not being able to stop doing something, or not being able to adequately articulate why I did something… And then being disciplined for my “rebellious attitude,” for disobedience, or for not trusting God enough because that asshole doesn’t give you any more than you can handle.

And I believed the lies, I believed it was my fault, I believed I was unworthy and failing God and my family every day — so I punished myself and stopped trusting those who professed their love for me and worked diligently to change myself.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In the wake of Ellenby’s piece, Sarah Kurchak interviewed her allistic mother, Jane, to get her take on this spate of high-profile Autism Parent memoirs. The interview highlights a wholly different model of autism and parental love. Where Ellenby described her exploitative book as “one woman’s story, my truth and my love letter to my beloved son,” Jane focuses on her daughter’s well-being in a world that too often punishes neurodivergent people for being who they are, advocating that she not read Ellenby’s work: “I see you try to function in a pull-up-your-bootstraps neurotypical world. And I know if you read this book, it will crush you. … So it’s a selfish motive because I don’t want you to hurt.”

Later Jane says to her daughter, “I have always said to you, to anybody that will listen to me, I have learned more about life in the world from you than from anyone or anything else… Watch your child and learn from them. Take your cues from your child.” For her, the relationship she has with her daughter goes both ways. “Just because I’m your parent doesn’t make me right… My reality is that my life is a better life because of you. And I just want you to know that I’m proud.”

Reading Jane and Sarah’s conversation brought me to tears and offered up a glimmer of much-needed hope. Without ever saying the words “I love you,” Jane demonstrated how very much she respects, accepts, and loves her daughter merely in the way she talks about her — and how they’ve navigated their life together, as a team.

By contrast, the only “uncensored truth” Ellenby reveals in her writing is that she sincerely believes her abusive actions are loving ones. But how do things change if the abusers, their apologists, and the exploitive industry that profits off of them, refuse to stop — let alone acknowledge that they are harming others?

We need to be able to speak for ourselves, but instead, #ActuallyAutisticvoices are too often shunned and silenced, while the voices of allistic parents raising autistic children are lifted up and praised. A common retort to the autistic adults who condemn this genre of writing and alleged advocacy is that our viewpoint is inconsequential because we aren’t autistic enough. Our needs don’t compare to the mountain of needs their children require because we are able to raise our voices and organize, and by doing so, we are making things harder for autistic people — like their children — who require more care.

Ellenby herself made this argument in response to the backlash her article caused, writing, “You adults with Autism who are reaching out to me in brilliantly worded protest, you who are capable of self-advocating, organizing, who have children of your own — you in no way resemble Zack.”

This is not a new argument. Amy Lutz wrote in 2013, “So what happens to neurodiversity if its lower-functioning supporters are discredited? The movement is exposed for what it is: a group of high-functioning individuals opposed to medical research that, as Singer puts it ‘they don’t need, but my daughter does. If she were able to function at their level, I would consider her cured.’”

When Allies Say Tragedy Is The Only ‘True’ Representation Of Autism
theestablishment.co

Dr. Jennifer Sarrett, Lecturer at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health, carelessly pontificated that broadening the definition of autism, “could divert attention and resources from the people who need it the most — the significantly disabled.” But this mindset only makes it harder forall autistic people, and further stigmatizes many of us as being not “autistic enough,” while doing nothing to counter the ableism we confront every day.

Whether we were diagnosed early and our guardians taught us how to hideour autistic traits (or force them out of us) through harmful applied behavioral analysis techniques, or we learned the concept of masking or practiced self-degradation on our own as a way to “appear normal” to everyone else — existing as an autistic person in a world that hates us is physically and emotionally debilitating.

And this is why the themes apparent within the ever-rising tide of Autism Memoirs are so infuriating. Autistic children are given little to no autonomy. Instead of being treated as living, breathing, beautiful, and complex human beings — they’re reduced to a plot device, a mechanism for their parents to exploit and profit from. And even worse, such memoirs frame autism as the thing that needs to be battled — rather than the unjust, ableist world we live in. These narratives center the parents, attempt to sever an important component of their child’s identity, and, instead of making the world a better place for them, force their children to change for the world.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Existing as an autistic person in a world that hates us is physically and emotionally debilitating.
Click To Tweet

I believe that these allistic parents do love their children, just as I believe my parents loved me. But despite what they say, their actions are not those of love, which, by definition, requires respect and acknowledgment of another’s autonomy. I was told that I was loved every day, and yet I sincerely believed there were parts of me that I needed to destroy in order to be worthy of that love — and so I tried, and failed, and grew up traumatized, without ever understanding what healthy love looks like.

Now I’m almost 35 years-old and still recovering and unlearning the destructive messages I grew up with, as the effects of trauma don’t just disappear when you leave the traumatic environment. Those of us who have survived and are voicing our anger to these parents and their enablers aren’t “internet bullies.” We are survivors who don’t want autistic children of any age to be abused. Listen to us. Believe us. Your child does not need to be cured, they need to be respected, listened to, and above all, loved — truly loved.

In the excerpt from her forthcoming book, Autism Uncensored, that was recently published in The Washington Post, Whitney Ellenby tells us about the time she physically restrained and dragged her 5-year-old autistic son to see Elmo perform at a “Sesame Street Live!” show. She describes fighting off his fists, pinning him down, and inching — her son shrieking and flailing, trapped between her legs — toward the auditorium’s entrance, an effort, she claims, “to save him from a life entrapped by autistic phobias.”

While some parents of autistic children have celebrated the article for showing them that they are not alone, the response from autistic adults to the violent actions in the piece and her book more broadly, has been, deservedly, negative. As Eb, an autistic writer, tweeted, “Meltdowns like the one described in this article aren’t ‘problems to solve.’ They’re communication.” Through his, Ellenby’s son was communicating something important to his mother — and her response was to push him, literally, into doing something he didn’t want to do, completely disregarding his autonomy.

Sadly, this is merely the most recent high-profile example of an allistic (non-autistic) parent, disrespecting and dehumanizing their autistic child then exploiting them by publishing very private, personal details about their life. Judith Newman, author of To Siri with Love — a collection of supposedly humorous stories about her then-13-year-old autistic son — received similar backlash from actually autistic adults last year. Among her various repugnant views, she asserts that her son is unfit to become a parent because he is autistic, detailing her desire to have him sterilized. “I am still deeply worried about the idea that he could get someone pregnant and yet could never be a real father — which is why I will insist on having medical power of attorney, so that I will be able to make the decision about a vasectomy for him after he turns 18.”

As may already be clear, while these types of books and articles may be about autistic people (mostly children who cannot consent), they are not for them. Instead, they are authored by and for parents and other allistic adults — at the expense of the vulnerable and marginalized community they claim to be advocating for.

These books are authored by and for parents and other allistic adults — at the expense of the vulnerable and marginalized community they claim to be advocating for.
Click To Tweet

And this trend keeps repeating. On smaller scales, as with Jill Escher, president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area, who wrote a cringe-worthy account of the financial and superficial costs her autistic son is causing her. Or larger ones like, Amy Lutz, author and outspoken critic of the neurodiversity movement who said that writing about her autistic son without his permission isn’t exploitation because he’s incapable of providing consent. There are “very few costs” to publicly writing about his life because he “will never go to college, seek competitive employment, or get married.”

Autistic writer Sarah Kurchak refers to this subgenre of writing as the “Autism Parent memoir,” which often overlaps with the realm of Autism Warrior Parents (AWPs) — a term that it is both embraced and rejected by parents of autistic children. AWPs, as Shannon Rosa wrote, “insist on supporting their autistic kids either by trying to cure them, or by imposing non-autistic-oriented goals on them — rather than by trying to understand how their kids are wired, and how that wiring affects their life experience.”

If that sounds like an exaggeration, take Marcia Hinds, whose author bio states that she and “her family survived their war against autism.” According to a review of her book, I Know You’re In There: Winning Our War Against Autism, “She openly writes what we have all felt at one time or another. We love our children, but we do not love the autism.”

Rather than unconditionally accepting her son and seeking to better understand his needs, Hinds believed an autism diagnosis meant “there was no hope” and, diving headfirst into the realm of pseudo-science and conspiracy theories, that “by treating hidden viruses and infection,” autism can be cured. For her, in order for there to be hope for her family and her autistic son, his autism needed to be destroyed.

How ‘Autism Warrior Parents’ Harm Autistic Kids

And Hinds isn’t the only parent latching onto harmful medically disproven theories linking vaccines to autism. Mary Cavanaugh, author and parent of an autistic child, states on her website, “I now know all three of my children have been vaccine injured.” She is a member of The Thinking Moms’ Revolution, an online community and book, where mothers share tales of fighting to rescue their children from autism. “Suspecting that some of the main causes may be overused medicines, vaccinations, environmental toxins, and processed foods,” the book’s synopsis states, “they began a mission to help reverse the effects.”

Terrifyingly, this is far from an obscure movement. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy have helped bring these harmful conspiracies into the mainstream.

The cumulative result is that many, many autistic children grow up in environments rife with physical confrontations like the one that occurred in Ellenby’s article, or in homes that reject basic, peer-reviewed medical science, or with parents who demonstrate a complete and utter disregard for their autistic children’s autonomy — and all of it is framed as love.

But it is not love; it is abuse.

When I read Whitney Ellenby’s piece, the parallels between her and my psychologically abusive mother were too great to ignore. Just as Ellenby misinterpreted her son’s reluctance, disinterest, and outright refusal to engage in an activity as some sort of phobia to be overcome, my mother forced me into conquering my so-called fears — “for my own good.” She saw the way I interacted with the world as different from other children, and deemed that difference the enemy.

It has taken years to unravel and untie the clutter of psychological knots and trauma she left me with — and there are, no doubt, more waiting in the wings — but I can say with absolute certainty there’s a stark difference between a professed love and real, unconditional love. Failing to accept and trying to change or attempting to “fix” someone who is not broken — no matter the intent — is not the same as loving them. As writer and disability rights advocate Lydia Brown wrote to Judith Newman, “You may believe you love your son. But we, autistic people, hear what you have actually said, which is that you hate him. You love a version of him that does not exist.”

While I’ve not published a single piece of writing in almost a year due to hyper-empathy and burnout, I have been discovering and healing, coming to terms with the fact that I am autistic, and, contrary to the dangerous message AWPs continually insinuate, that it is nothing that should bring me shame or fear.

Memory and trauma are a mindfuck, but scenes flash before my mind’s eye — having my hands restrained at my desk in grade school, or instead having inside-out gym socks taped to my hands so I couldn’t fidget or distract others, but could still hold a pencil to do schoolwork. And now I’m angry, again, at my mother and all of her enablers for shaming and punishing me for things I couldn’t control or understand. I’m livid at her and my teachers for forcing me to put gross tasting things in my mouth whenever I did something that society deemed weird and unacceptable. I’m angry as fuck for crying and crying while telling the damn truth about not understanding something, not being able to stop doing something, or not being able to adequately articulate why I did something… And then being disciplined for my “rebellious attitude,” for disobedience, or for not trusting God enough because that asshole doesn’t give you any more than you can handle.

And I believed the lies, I believed it was my fault, I believed I was unworthy and failing God and my family every day — so I punished myself and stopped trusting those who professed their love for me and worked diligently to change myself.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In the wake of Ellenby’s piece, Sarah Kurchak interviewed her allistic mother, Jane, to get her take on this spate of high-profile Autism Parent memoirs. The interview highlights a wholly different model of autism and parental love. Where Ellenby described her exploitative book as “one woman’s story, my truth and my love letter to my beloved son,” Jane focuses on her daughter’s well-being in a world that too often punishes neurodivergent people for being who they are, advocating that she not read Ellenby’s work: “I see you try to function in a pull-up-your-bootstraps neurotypical world. And I know if you read this book, it will crush you. … So it’s a selfish motive because I don’t want you to hurt.”

Later Jane says to her daughter, “I have always said to you, to anybody that will listen to me, I have learned more about life in the world from you than from anyone or anything else… Watch your child and learn from them. Take your cues from your child.” For her, the relationship she has with her daughter goes both ways. “Just because I’m your parent doesn’t make me right… My reality is that my life is a better life because of you. And I just want you to know that I’m proud.”

Reading Jane and Sarah’s conversation brought me to tears and offered up a glimmer of much-needed hope. Without ever saying the words “I love you,” Jane demonstrated how very much she respects, accepts, and loves her daughter merely in the way she talks about her — and how they’ve navigated their life together, as a team.

By contrast, the only “uncensored truth” Ellenby reveals in her writing is that she sincerely believes her abusive actions are loving ones. But how do things change if the abusers, their apologists, and the exploitive industry that profits off of them, refuse to stop — let alone acknowledge that they are harming others?

We need to be able to speak for ourselves, but instead, #ActuallyAutistic voices are too often shunned and silenced, while the voices of allistic parents raising autistic children are lifted up and praised. A common retort to the autistic adults who condemn this genre of writing and alleged advocacy is that our viewpoint is inconsequential because we aren’t autistic enough. Our needs don’t compare to the mountain of needs their children require because we are able to raise our voices and organize, and by doing so, we are making things harder for autistic people — like their children — who require more care.

Ellenby herself made this argument in response to the backlash her article caused, writing, “You adults with Autism who are reaching out to me in brilliantly worded protest, you who are capable of self-advocating, organizing, who have children of your own — you in no way resemble Zack.”

This is not a new argument. Amy Lutz wrote in 2013, “So what happens to neurodiversity if its lower-functioning supporters are discredited? The movement is exposed for what it is: a group of high-functioning individuals opposed to medical research that, as Singer puts it ‘they don’t need, but my daughter does. If she were able to function at their level, I would consider her cured.’”

When Allies Say Tragedy Is The Only ‘True’ Representation Of Autism

Dr. Jennifer Sarrett, Lecturer at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health, carelessly pontificated that broadening the definition of autism, “could divert attention and resources from the people who need it the most — the significantly disabled.” But this mindset only makes it harder for all autistic people, and further stigmatizes many of us as being not “autistic enough,” while doing nothing to counter the ableism we confront every day.

Whether we were diagnosed early and our guardians taught us how to hide our autistic traits (or force them out of us) through harmful applied behavioral analysis techniques, or we learned the concept of masking or practiced self-degradation on our own as a way to “appear normal” to everyone else — existing as an autistic person in a world that hates us is physically and emotionally debilitating.

And this is why the themes apparent within the ever-rising tide of Autism Memoirs are so infuriating. Autistic children are given little to no autonomy. Instead of being treated as living, breathing, beautiful, and complex human beings — they’re reduced to a plot device, a mechanism for their parents to exploit and profit from. And even worse, such memoirs frame autism as the thing that needs to be battled — rather than the unjust, ableist world we live in. These narratives center the parents, attempt to sever an important component of their child’s identity, and, instead of making the world a better place for them, force their children to change for the world.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Existing as an autistic person in a world that hates us is physically and emotionally debilitating.
Click To Tweet

I believe that these allistic parents do love their children, just as I believe my parents loved me. But despite what they say, their actions are not those of love, which, by definition, requires respect and acknowledgment of another’s autonomy. I was told that I was loved every day, and yet I sincerely believed there were parts of me that I needed to destroy in order to be worthy of that love — and so I tried, and failed, and grew up traumatized, without ever understanding what healthy love looks like.

Now I’m almost 35 years-old and still recovering and unlearning the destructive messages I grew up with, as the effects of trauma don’t just disappear when you leave the traumatic environment. Those of us who have survived and are voicing our anger to these parents and their enablers aren’t “internet bullies.” We are survivors who don’t want autistic children of any age to be abused. Listen to us. Believe us. Your child does not need to be cured, they need to be respected, listened to, and above all, loved — truly loved.

The world had been sad since Tuesday.

This is how Gabriel García Márquez begins his story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” And never has a sentence felt so prophetic, so precise.

Márquez writes of a seaside town in a dreamlike state where a family must daily battle the crabs inundating their home seeking refuge from a days-long rainstorm.

“The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish.”

It was in this light that Pelayo crossed his courtyard to throw the crabs into the sea. Upon his return, he discovered a wondrous being, a very old man with fantastical features.

“He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.”

In this story, Márquez, a master of magical realism, which pirouettes between the physical and the fantastical, satirizes our attempt to familiarize the extraordinary. Pelayo gets his wife to show her the man in their courtyard, who Márquez describes as a nightmare with not only huge buzzard wings, but a bald skull and a nearly toothless mouth.

“They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.”

Like all great stories, Márquez’s is open to interpretation; the old man could be seen as so many things. But in the wake of our current surreal reality, it led me to wonder: Has the strange beast of hate and bigotry become normalized as well? And if so, how do we resist this familiarity breeding dangerous inaction?

There isn’t time to accept indifference, because the world has been sad since Tuesday and we must channel this universal despair into something greater, into our future.

But first we must get one thing clear. We must continue to hate oppression; we must continue to hate the oppressor. Hate cannot be loved into submission. Hate must be hated. And we cannot require or expect anyone to forgive the hatred that brought us here.

If you’re not fully invested in the most vulnerable among us, then you’re standing in the way of progress and deserve every particle of shame that it is humanly possible to feel. Those of us fighting do not have an iota of energy to spare for bruised egos. There is no time nor room left for meaningless slogans. “Love Trumps Hate” is now and has always been a lie. If standing up against hate with all the rage, contempt, and horrified anger that can be mustered is an act of hate in and of itself — we must embrace it.

We must denounce the lie of White Supremacy that if we “refuse to hate,” then the ugliness in the world will somehow go away. This isn’t a fairytale, a game, or an alternate reality — this is real life. We cannot lovingly call someone in from the darkness. No, we scream at the top of our lungs, “You’re killing us!” We can no longer stand there and cower, unable to act due to shock or fear.

Those of us fighting do not have an iota of energy to spare for bruised egos.
Click To Tweet

In order to conquer the ugliness in this world, we have to defeat the ugliness within — the defensive tone, the hurt feelings, the endless amount of excuses we make so as not to take responsibility for the pain caused to someone else. But too many see things differently and are clinging to the lies that brought this darkness upon us.

A week before the election, Colby Itkowitz authored a piece for The Washington Post entitled, “What is this election missing? Empathy for Trump voters,” in which he interviewed sociology professor and author Arlie Russell Hochschild. When asked about what Trump is tapping into, she stated, “There are fundamental differences, but there are yet more fundamental commonalities. He speaks to their underlying feeling of invisibility and being disparaged.” Hochschild later argues, “Progressives have to get out of their corner and reach out . . . Extreme blame-pinning rhetoric tends to extinguish empathy toward the ‘other’.”

After the election, Michael Lerner demanded on the New York Times opinion pages that we “Stop Shaming Trump Supporters.” He writes that shame played a role in Trump’s victory. “Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed.” He concludes, “The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear, [and] if the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base.”

The myth of two sides states that two contrasting points of view, by virtue of opposition, are equally valid and worthy of consideration. When this untruth is accepted as matter of fact, we see anyone who challenges anyone else as the perpetrator of undue shame . . . when in fact, if one group is having its very livelihood and welfare threatened by another group, it should have every right to react with anger.

Daniel Sznycer, coauthor of “Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures,” published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: “The function of shame is to prevent us from damaging our social relationships, or to motivate us to repair them.” Coauthor Leda Cosmides added, “When people devalue you, they put less weight on your welfare. They help you less and harm you more. This makes any information that would lead others to devalue you a threat to your welfare.”

The lie of two sides needs to die a fiery death before it consumes us all and there is nothing and no one left. Michael Lerner wrote, “The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable . . . because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing).” We know the supposed threat to their welfare is based on a racist, sexist, hateful lie, and whether they do or not is irrelevant. Their actions have deadly consequences on the most vulnerable in our society.

Causing them to feel shame isn’t the problem; the bigotry they accepted as a means of self-protection is.

The Brown, Queer, And Poor Are Not The Ones Holding The Left Back
theestablishment.co

There is no escape from the world now that the era of “Hope and Change” is over. The bigots are emboldened. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in the first five days following the election, there have been more than 400 documented incidents of harassment and intimidation Suicide prevention hotlines have been bombarded with calls. Black university students are being threatened with racist violence. Literal symbols of hate have been scrawled onto buildings. Muslim Americans are being attacked. Pride flags have been burned. Our friends, neighbors, and relatives tell us stories of abuse they experienced in school, at the gas station, on their way to work, doing nothing differently than they did on Monday — if you haven’t heard those stories, either no one feels safe telling you, or your circle is filled with the bland, cishet, white men and women that brought this painful era upon us.

Now the monsters have taken off their masks and feel safe. They should never feel safe.

The bigots are in the streets unafraid of repercussion for their violent actions, and we’re supposed to listen to what they have to say? Because if we don’t, their feelings will be hurt? The bruised ego that shame may cause will never be equivalent to the physical, psychological, and spiritual violence that racism, transphobia, queerphobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, sexism, ableism, and every other form of bigotry enacts on the marginalized every damn day.

In Márquez’s story, Pelayo and Elisenda overcame their surprise and found the wondrous being, hunched in the mud before them, familiar. The horror they first felt was extinguished. How familiar has bigotry become in our eyes?

As I wrote before:

“When a professional abuser is uncritically profiled in a magazine, or a president of a hate-group is presented as an opposing expert in a reported piece, it perpetuates a cycle of violence on our psyches and our bodies and maintains the status-quo of discrimination, inequity, and inequality.”

Now a transphobic, abusive, ableist, White Supremacist, KKK-endorsed, sexual predator has been elected President of the United States and he’s filling his cabinet with like-minded individuals whom the media has always presented as “just another side to consider.” And we’re supposed to empathize and refuse to shame those who put him in office? FUCK. NO. That request is an act of violence, and those who refuse to hate the hatred that brought us here are perpetuating the very thing they profess to stand against.

Now the monsters have taken off their masks and feel safe. They should never feel safe.
Click To Tweet

The most privileged among us keep murmuring that it’s all going to be okay. No, it’ll be okay for them, but the rest of us have to fight because those that don’t have to will never fight hard enough — their survival does not depend on it. As I wrote before, “Living with trauma means learning how to cope and few people will ever approve of how you cope because empathy is the enemy of capitalism.”

There’s going to be more people than there ever were before who are going to have to learn how to cope. And if you cannot fight — if you’re too tired, too drained, too overwhelmed from the world kicking you over and over again — we’ll take care of you. We, those of us fighting alongside you, will clear a path for you, get you to safety, protect you. And when you’re rested, and renewed and able, ask one of us if we need a break. Don’t believe us when we say we’re fine.

We have to look out for each other now because the world has been sad since Tuesday, and we must do everything in our power to make it better for all those grieving.

“Why does it matter, saying ‘women’ instead of ‘people’ when we talk about abortion or contraception or pregnancy? It matters for the same reason we have the word ‘feminist’ at all — because it picks out the fact that women are treated as an inferior caste, whose bodies don’t fully belong to them.”

Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, according to her website, is a political philosopher in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. She describes herself as “a once liberal, now increasingly radical, feminist.” She is authoring a book about sex, gender, and identity; recently gave a talk at a crowded pub entitled “Critically Examining the Doctrine of Gender Identity”; and has a sold-out speaking engagement on the same topic taking place this May. Reilly-Cooper opens this talk by stating, “I raise these questions, not out of prejudice or bigotry, but out of a sincere belief that this doctrine about the nature of gender is false and damaging to everybody.”

Like many other avowed feminists, Reilly-Cooper is bent on “proving” the absurdity of trans identity. More than that, she seeks to reveal how cis, white women like herself are actively harmed by policies and laws which aim to protect transgender individuals from discrimination and ensure their equal access to services.

Never mind that this view is completely ignorant of the facts. Never mind the damage this narrative does.

In 2014, Transgender Europe (TGEU) contributed to the OSCE Hate Crime Report, which stated that there were 69 recorded hate crimes and incidents from 10 different countries. According to a report by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC), in 2015 “at least 21 transgender people have been victims of fatal violence in the United States, more killings of transgender people than any other year on record. More transgender people were killed in the first six months of [2015] than in all of 2014.”

This year, HRC released a report stating that there are 44 anti-transgender bills filed in 16 states so far, 23 of which target children. Currently, there are nine states with active bills that aim to prevent transgender individuals from using public restrooms that match their gender identity. It is difficult to pin down the exact numbers due to irregular reporting, inaccurate police reports, and an apathetic media, but as of the writing of this piece, there have been at least seven reported murders of trans individuals in the U.S. so far this year.

As these statistics show, trans individuals, especially trans women of color, are being targeted simply for existing and living their truths. Their suffering is real; the idea that cis women are being harmed by their identity is not.

Cis women aren’t being murdered because trans and gender non-conforming individuals exist and, in some locations, receive protection under the law. Cis women are not being denied entrance or access to restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms because trans and gender non-conforming people exist and need access to those same spaces for the same reason cis women need them. Cis women aren’t being thrown into the streets because trans and gender non-conforming people need shelters, too. Trans inclusion does not, has not, and will not result in the exclusion of cis women.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

People are in need, and an awfully vocal group of white cis women has decided that they come first — no matter what. Binary transgender, the lack of gender, the fluidity of gender, and the rejection of the binary has existed for centuries. Then Western culture manufactured and inculcated the gender binary. For example, the indigenous peoples of North America now use the term, Two Spirit, to identify individuals who “cross social gender roles, gender expression, and sexual orientation.” Mae Louise Campbell, an Ojibwa/Métis from Kississing Lake in northern Manitoba and the elder in residence at Red River College in Winnipeg, told CBC News that it was “an honor to have a child that was two-spirited to be born in the community. . . . Because they carry both [energies], many of them became leaders in the community, leaders in the elder capacity. People went to them because they were revered.”

As more people come out and express to the world their true selves, despite the psychological, emotional, and physical danger this openness invites, women like Reilly-Cooper believe it must be some kind of conspiracy to further oppress “real” women.

Why are the lived experiences of trans and gender non-conforming people not held as high as the opinions of cis women on trans people? Why do their feelings trump our actual lives?

Ophelia Benson is a feminist author, blogger, editor, and columnist at the Freethinker and Free Inquiry. In an interview with Vanessa Urquhart for Slate last summer, she said she considers herself to be an ally to the trans community. She later expanded on this by saying, “That means being aware of what it means to be trans, it means taking [trans people] at their word when they talk about their experience, and it means standing up for them if you hear someone attack them.” But Benson’s actions do not support these hollow sentiments. She regularly ridicules transgender individuals and promotes anti-trans voices.

My essay, published here last December — “Trans-Exclusionary Feminists Cannot Exclude My Humanity” — was reposted on her website for the purpose of derision. She concluded, “It’s as painful to read as tearing off a strip of skin would be.” She took a very real, very honest depiction of what gender dysphoria sometimes feels like, and mocked it.

In March, Benson caught wind of Katie Klabusich’s piece — “Inside The ‘Fetal Assault Law’ Sending Pregnant People To Prison” — and complained about Klabusich’s trans-inclusive language. Benson later wrote in a separate piece:

What such rhetoric fails to acknowledge is that the inclusion of another marginalized group does not make your marginalization any less important or real. Cisgender women are not the only people who can become pregnant, and acknowledging this indisputable fact doesn’t erase anyone; it includes those who were previously erased. Moreover, trans and gender non-conforming people, as well as cis women, are “treated as an inferior caste, whose bodies don’t fully belong to them.” Why play a game of oppression Olympics, rather than advocating for inclusivity?

Journalist Michelle Goldberg also repeatedly and voluntarily puts herself in the middle of trans debates. She’s given credence to damaging purity tests where trans people are measured by the extent of their surgeries, and pontificated over what makes a woman a woman. Then there’s bioethicist and author, Alice Dreger, who often positions herself as a trans ally, but who is quoted by the The Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group, the Family Research Council (FRC), in the extremely transphobic and damaging report, “Understanding and Responding to the Transgender Movement.” According to writer, performer, and biologist, Julia Serano, “[Dreger] has a vendetta against transgender activism,” stating:

“She repeatedly positions herself as an ‘expert on’ or ‘friend of’ trans people, while at the same time completely ignoring or undermining the perspectives of the trans community at large. As someone who is both a scientist and knowledgeable about transgender people and issues, I feel compelled to set the record straight on these matters.”

Women like feminist writer and speaker, Germaine Greer, or poet, essayist and critic, Katha Pollitt, cry persecution the minute someone disagrees with their assessment of gender identity. Yet last I checked, they still write, speak, and get booked on television or published in prominent outlets. And their persistent views contribute to the needless death of so many trans individuals across the globe — suicide, neglect, and murder.

It is chilling to recognize that the two groups working most fiercely to strip gender-identity protection from the books, and to stop new legislation from passing, are conservative religious men — and progressive, feminist, cisgender women. These women are not literally pointing a weapon at transgender individuals, but they are plastering the airwaves with bigotry and transantagonism; they are contributing to their deaths, while crying, “I’m the real victim!”

This is where we go back to Rebecca Reilly-Cooper’s talk, where she is dismayed that she cannot experience gender identity in the way so many trans individuals do. “I don’t think I have this thing,” she states 29 minutes into her lecture. “I don’t have a deep, internal, personal sense of myself as a woman. I call myself a woman. It’s true. I think I’m a woman, but it’s not because in some sense, deep down, I feel like one. I call myself a woman because I am female. I have a body that has female sex characteristics. I have a uterus and ovaries; I have breasts and a vagina.” She goes on to say, “I am told that my biology and my physiology are irrelevant to the fact that I am a woman whether or not that I accept that. It’s an act of cisgender privilege, an act of oppression, for me to deny that I do.”

In a beautiful essay for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts entitled, “Fighting Against Ghosthood,” Gabrielle Bellot wrote, “But trans women remain marginal. To many people, we not only aren’t women; we are abominations, too, something that is wrong. Ugly, the thought of it, across many literatures, many minds.” Trans-exclusionary feminists often say trans women cannot know what it’s like to be a “real” woman. But here we have a cis woman complaining about the supposed “doctrine” of gender identity and how she can’t experience it or know what it feels like. Her entire talk is based around the premise that her inability to know what it feels like must mean it’s not real. If it’s not real for her, then it’s not real enough to be inscribed into laws and policies.

Rebecca Reilly-Cooper may not be holding the gun, but she is espousing ignorance and bigotry — it just looks nicer, sounds prettier. What struck me most while watching her lecture was how calm, friendly, and personable she was. How with such ease, one could spend an hour vilifying people like myself with a smile on her face.

Progressive, socially liberal women who increasingly and persistently attack, dehumanize, and slander trans and gender non-conforming people, are — in my eyes — more dangerous than religious zealots who do the same. The zealots’ views are harmful and put people in danger, there is no question there, but they can be spotted a mile away. They stand tall, proud, and anchored in their religious conviction; there is no deceit or mask. Their views are unabashedly conservative as they answer to a higher power.

These zealots don’t claim to be progressive; they are not fighting for progress and justice. They want to limit the rights and ignore the autonomy of large swaths of the population because of differences they refuse to accept. These women, on the other hand, claim progressive and feminist values. They fight for the autonomy and agency of individuals, and they vehemently oppose any and all restrictions placed upon women because of their gender. These so-called progressive feminists, who know precisely how reprehensible it is to vilify, attack, and discriminate against a person based on their gender, are doing exactly what has been done to them, all the while claiming to be the victim.

These women have a range of titles and backgrounds: journalist, author, activist, lecturer, scientist, feminist. They are all cisgender, and they all want to debate the identity of transgender people. If you’re like Reilly-Cooper, it’s because our myriad of identities are somehow harming her own. If you’re like Pollitt, it’s in the name of fairness. If you’re like Greer, it’s in the name of dismantling patriarchy. If you’re like Benson, it’s in the name of truth. If you’re like Dreger, it’s in the name of science. If you’re like Goldberg, it’s because all sides are valid in the name of true objectivity. In each case, the terms of the debate are not set by trans people, but by cisgender white women.

Reilly-Cooper concludes her talk by stating:

“If we take gender identity entirely subjectively, there becomes no way, either in principle or practice, to determine men from women. So, you could find yourself, say, in a room with all the people that are here today and be absolutely incapable of knowing who in this room is a man and who is a woman. There would be no way in determining it. . . . As soon as that happens men and women as a political class disappear; men and women can no longer exist if you define gender entirely subjectively.”

Her fearmongering about the elimination of cisgender men and cisgender women is identical to the fearmongering religious zealots use against gay marriage — if marriage isn’t confined to one man and one woman, then the word becomes irrelevant. Ryan T. Anderson, a research fellow at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, wrote last summer after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling:

“Redefining marriage to make it a genderless institution fundamentally changes marriage: It makes the relationship more about the desires of adults than about the needs — or rights — of children. It teaches the lie that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. Indeed, the judicial redefinition of marriage to exclude the marital norm of male-female sexual complementarity raises the question of what other marital norms may be excluded.”

In the Q&A after her lecture, Reilly-Cooper expressed how troubling she finds it that there are “very young, vulnerable, distressed people going online and find[ing] this [gender identity] doctrine.” You see, it’s about the children, the poor, vulnerable children. The same children Anderson is concerned about; the same children supporters of Prop 8 were concerned about. These tactics are the same: make the claim that inclusion and equality will somehow lead to the complete and utter breakdown of society. If the social norms we invented are changed in any way, society will suffer. And if that doesn’t convince you — think about the children.

Reilly-Cooper, and others like her, are worried that if you cannot determine a person’s gender by observation, then “men and women can no longer exist.” In case you didn’t know, you already can’t go into a room full of people and determine their gender by looking at them; this has always been true.

This is important, because what she did was erase my existence, and the existence of many others who are neither man nor woman. Her fear is our lived existence, yet our realities aren’t real enough for her to grasp.

Looking For A Comments Section? We Don’t Have One.

]]>