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Celebrity children identify as trans and non-binary at unbelievable rates. Charlize Theron, Cynthia Nixon, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony — whose 18-year-old recently debuted a new name, changing from Emme to Oskar — are just a few of the stars with children who aren’t living as their birth sex.
There’s nothing wrong with being trans. But such an unlikely concentration in a particular community should be cause for pause — especially when so many of these kids began playing with gender at shockingly young ages.
In a geography where having a trans child has a tinge of chicness to it, one has to wonder: Is this partially due to social contagion? And, if so, don’t parents have a duty to their children to approach the issue of gender with compassionate skepticism?
Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dwyane Wade, Mel B, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty — I could go on. The list seems endless and, at a certain point, just starts feeling statistically improbable.
Megan Fox may be the most alarming case. She has not one, not two, but three sons — ages 9 to 13 — who have been photographed out and about with her about with her sporting long pink hair, dresses and shirts with messages about “Strong girls.”
When her eldest started wearing dresses at the ripe age of 2, “I bought a bunch of books that… addressed a full spectrum,” Fox said in a 2022 interview with Glamour UK. “Some of the books are written by transgender children, some of the books are just about how you can be a boy and wear a dress.”
There’s nothing wrong with a child wearing what they please. But when one child becomes three, it’s worth asking if social contagion may well be at play — and whether the parental influence is one of neutral compassion or enthusiastic encouragement.
Certainly, a 2-year-old’s clothing preferences are benign on their own. The situation becomes gravely serious when, sometimes, that’s the first step in a journey to hormone injections and irreversible surgery.
It’s not something to be taken lightly.
Dr. Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping children with gender identity issues and who is transgender herself, has said as much. She believes that celebrities — many of whom live in a comfortable bubble of privilege — are too likely to unquestioningly go along with trans identity in their kids.
“I don’t think that billionaires’ kids are necessarily more prone to being trans,” she told The Post. “Many in the entertainment industry are creatives, they’re freethinkers, they’re out of the box thinkers … and so, the idea that someone isn’t conventional is kind of part and parcel of how they move through the world.”
Anderson said she’s had celebrity clients who move in an environment where “the prevailing politics are extremely progressive — more than liberal, like progressive.” For this reason, she says, “they don’t feel safe to question an asserted identity by one of their children.
“As someone who has [provided therapy for] three generations of cohorts of adolescents and has been a parent myself — [I say,] well, yeah, believe your kids. But, like, maybe don’t bank on it,” Anderson said. “Maybe they’ll change their mind … but particularly if you’re talking about a kid going on hormones, you’re not walking that back.”
She’s especially concerned about certain famous figures who have publicly celebrated — not just privately accepted — their children’s transitions.
“There are some celebrity parents who are very careful about not exposing their children to unnecessary public scrutiny,” Anderson explained. “But there are some parents who forget that their life as a celebrity adult is not what is good for their child.”
She’s right. Being foisted into the public spotlight by your overly eager progressive parent because you’re wearing a dress before you can even articulate the difference between male and female is a tough fate that seems to seal itself.
This is not an argument for parents to stigmatize or disbelieve their children; but it is an argument for parents being the adults in the room — and asking challenging questions not to stigmatize but to protect their children.
“The job of parents is to gradually allow kids to make more significant choices but to have in mind, no matter what their age, that it is part of your job as a parent to prevent kids from making really bad choices,” Anderson added.
She’s not a transphobe or a bigot. She’s a transgender person who knows through experience the gravity of the decision that celebrity parents are so publicly flirting with.
That’s because questioning gender identity is a serious thing in today’s day and age — one that can end in hormone injections and irreversible surgery.
Anywhere that it seems like a “trend” must be scrutinized for the sake of the well being of the children involved.
English (US)