Kiss member Paul Stanley has — for some reason — made a statement on Twitter about his stance on kids’ gender identities and the parents who are “normalizing and even encouraging participation” in embracing them, calling it a “sad and dangerous fad.”
“There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents in some cases allow it,” he wrote in an unsolicited “My Thoughts On What I’m Seeing” statement on Sunday.
He added, “There ARE individuals who as adults may decide reassignment is their needed choice but turning this into a game or parents normalizing it as some sort of natural alternative or believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister’s clothes or a girl in her brother’s, we should lead them steps further down a path that’s far from the innocence of what they are doing.
“With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the ‘fun’ of using pronouns and saying what they identify as, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those truly affected and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad,” he concluded.
It’s unclear what specifically prompted Stanley to make the statement, but what is clear is Stanley has conflated sexuality and gender identity, which develop independently. “People communicate their gender to others through gender expression. This may be done through mannerisms, clothing and hairstyles,” per the Mayo Clinic. “Gender identity develops separately from sexual orientation. People’s sexual orientation is related to whom they’re attracted to on a physical, emotional and romantic basis.”
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In fact, most children between 18 and 24 months recognize and can label gender groups, identifying others as girls, women, and feminine; and boys, men and masculine. “Most also label their own gender by the time they reach age 3,” according to Mayo Clinic.
Stanley’s statement comes in the wake of a slew of anti-trans legislation taking root nationwide, including in Virginia, South Dakota, Texas, and Tennessee. Last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s new law new law banning gender-affirming treatments for minors, one of several bills targeting the state’s LGBTQ+ community, arguing that SB1 violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by denying “necessary medical care to youth” based on transgender status.
