About 100 people attended a live, online presentation with detransitioning expert Walt Heyer, informing parents concerned about transgender ideology and its impact on their school-age children.
The event was sponsored by Vermont Parents’ Rights in Education, which offers free memberships and help in organizing local chapters. Twice the number of attendees assembled on a grassy circle outside the school entrance to protest the event.
While the event was free, those attending were asked to provide their name and email address to organizers. Police presence was significant. The protest was peaceful and the presentation was not disrupted.
The protest was preceded by an unsuccessful effort to get the Vergennes school superintendent to cancel the event.
“A major point of concern is that Vergennes is populated by a high percentage of Trump supporters who have protested Pride Month and other ‘woke and liberal left’ issues,” Pride supporter Miguel Brett Thompson said on his public Facebook page. “Soule is fanning hot embers. The fire she creates could be dangerous. Telling anti-LGBTQ radicals that they’re right in their hateful bigotry only emboldens them to increase their efforts.”
Heyer, 83, who has been speaking out for 33 years in an effort to educate others on the dangers of attempting to transition from one God-ordained sex – male or female – to another so-called “gender identity.”
Heyer said he regrets his so-called “bottom surgery” among other aspects of his experience. More information is available at Heyer’s website, www.sexchangeregret.com. He recommended his book, Trans Life Survivors.
Heyer pointed out that such an effort to “transition” is futile because it’s not truly possible. He has made it his mission in life to support others who, like him, have “detransitioned” to the gender consistent with their biological sex.
Heyer also supports parents and groups to combat false messaging fostered by transgender ideology. When asked about the seminal change which seems to have spurred, at least in part, the growth of transgender ideology, Heyer points to a 2013 change to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) whereby the affliction previously known as “gender disorder” became instead “gender dysphoria.” The difference is that in order to warrant treatment for dysphoria, the person afflicted must be diagnosed with an underlying disorder. Before, the affliction itself was designated a disorder warranting treatment.
Heyer says fully two-thirds of those afflicted with gender dysphoria suffer from multiple underlying disorders, including depression, phobia and social adjustment disorder. He said everyone should be aware of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which produce trauma and disorders likely underlying gender dysphoria.
Perhaps most significantly, Heyer noted that at least five nations previously seen as leading proponents and supporters of Transgender Ideology have recently pulled back that support. Heyer mentioned the UK (pediatric gender clinic shut down), Sweden, Finland, France and Norway.
Heyer says lawsuits are pending, particularly in California, which will likely lead to class-action suits against medical providers and others for the damage done by hormone therapy and surgery. An article on Heyer’s website says, “Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.” – Contributed by attendee