A while back, I blogged about a case in Canada, where a father was imprisoned for objecting to the forced transgendering of his child by the schools, hospitals, lawyers and judges. The people pushing for the transgendering were all feminists and LGBT activists. That case was quite disturbing, and I was wondering when this would come to America. Then I found an article by Abigail Shrier in City Journal.
The father, Ted, is a senior software engineer with Apple. He is comfortable living in San Francisco. His wife Christine is an executive at BlackRock, the firm that is always buying up people’s houses and then renting them out. They also champion ESG, which is a social credit system for businesses, that leads to socialism.
Things started to go wrong for Ted when his wife moved to the East coast with the two boys for family reasons:
Ted was then fully preoccupied with a grueling six-week project for Apple… On a Saturday in August 2019, shortly after returning from upstate New York with the boys, Christine walked into Ted’s home office and announced both that she was leaving and that their son Drew was transgender… Christine walked out, taking the kids to stay with her at a neighbor’s house.
Most women who go along with transgendering do so because they want their children to like them, and they want to be seen as compassionate and tolerant by their peers.
But the father did research on the risks to his child:
While trying to keep an open mind about Drew’s gender, Ted was adamant to the judge that he did not want Drew to begin medical transition. In the 312 days since he had last seen his boy, Ted had done a lot of research on medical transition and gender dysphoria. He begged the court to consider research that suggested puberty blockers could impair cognition and diminish bone density. He knew that Drew, if administered puberty blockers along with estrogen, would be at high risk of permanent infertility. He wasn’t even sure that his son had gender dysphoria. He wanted to see his son—and he wanted this bullet train to slow down.
The San Francisco judge awarded full custody of Drew to his wife:
On June 24, 2020… Judge Joni Hiramoto granted Christine sole legal custody of Drew on a temporary basis and approved the shared legal and physical custody arrangement of their younger son. She assured Ted that her order was not yet permanent. Judge Hiramoto had decided to order the appointment of a minor’s counsel to investigate how the boys were faring before making any permanent decisions. She already had the perfect person in mind. “I actually know of one who was previously appointed by the court, by a different judge, on a case involving children that were allegedly transgender,” she said. That minor’s counsel was attorney Daniel Harkins.
Harkins decided that Ted’s hesitance to drug therapy and sex change surgery was a sign that Ted was not a fit parent:
Based on the lengthy minor’s counsel report, Harkins gave Ted’s parenting a failing grade: “Father has not been accepting of [Drew’s] status as transgender. He has been quite clear that he does not accept that [Drew] is in fact transgender.”
[…]Harkins’s judgment was swift and ironclad: mom should retain full legal custody on a permanent basis and provide Ted updates, at her discretion, regarding matters that affect Drew’s health, education, and welfare. Drew would commence hormone therapy, as directed by USCF. Judge Hiramoto made all this official. The only right that Ted seems to have retained is the power to prevent Drew from undergoing “any gender identity related surgery” before he turns 18, absent agreement of both parties.
Without Ted’s knowledge or permission, Drew got a puberty-blocking implant, and Ted had to pay:
In October 2021, Ted was stunned by a $209,820.34 charge on his insurance statement. When he wrote to Christine, she confirmed that a puberty-blocking implant had been inserted in Drew’s arm months earlier and that Drew had begun a course of cross-sex hormones. The combination—if not soon stopped—would likely sterilize Drew. No one had asked Ted’s permission for the procedure or even informed Ted of what had been done.
This part is interesting, especially for men who are considering marriage and having children today.
Read it carefully:
Ted responded to this news with a flurry of e-mails to Christine’s attorney. He told Christine’s lawyer that the medical procedure was in violation of a court order, and Christine was risking being held in contempt of court. A day later, Christine’s lawyer filed a request for a Domestic Violence Restraining Order against Ted, alleging that he had spoken to his ex-wife “menacingly” at their younger son’s football games. Ted was served with the temporary restraining order; California law now required him to relinquish all his firearms within 24 hours or potentially face felony charges. He quickly complied.
Ted was informed about the long-term consequences of the decision, because he had looked at evidence. But how did his ex-wife respond to his evidence? By charging him with domestic violence. Not actual violence, but just words of disagreement which caused her to feel unhappy.
Ted made the decision to let people at his Silicon Valley company know what was happening in a company Slack channel. Slack is software used to allow employees to communicate with each other in a chat format. People in the channel were offended, and reported him to Human Resources:
Ted joined the Apple Slack channel devoted to “trans kid parenting” and shared his outrage and concern about his son’s medical transition and the risks involved. The other members chastised him and reported Ted to “Employee Relations,” known everywhere else as “HR.” Ted now worries for his job.
The details of Ted’s divorce were not revealed in the article, but if he is supposed to pay child support and alimony to his wife, and he lost his job, he probably would still have come up with the same amount of money, or go to prison for not paying his debts. That’s how the divorce courts work.
And here is how the story ended for with Harkins:
Within just a few months, the court would definitively end Ted’s parental relationship. He would have no right to see Drew, no right to talk to him, no right to demand that Drew attend therapy with him, and absolutely no right to stop a medical transition already planned by the Child and Adolescent Gender Center of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
And now I want to say something about what this means to me as a Christian man, who is frequently urged to go to church and get married and have children by church-attending women and pastors.
The denial of male headship
The overriding of male leadership of the home that you saw from the judge and the attorney is universal… even among conservative evangelical Christian women who claim to be social conservatives. One evangelical Christian social conservative woman told me that “Masculinity means that men use their strength to protect and provide for women”. Another one told me that male headship does not exist in the Bible, and that men have no authority in marriages – only responsibilities. She also said that when women divorce, it is ALWAYS the fault of their husbands for not meeting the wife’s emotional needs.
Even many evangelical Christian socially conservative women don’t think that men have a distinct role to confront evil, protect their children, or lead their homes. They would side with the divorcing wife and the female judge against the mean, excluding, judgmental, father Ted. They would say that men’s role in marriage is to be compassionate, tolerant, and to make their wives happy.
Marriage and child-bearing exposes you to the state
To Christian men who are considering marriage and child-raising, you need to choose women who form their views on morality, policy, etc. through reason and evidence. If she isn’t interested in truth, then understand that her views will be formed by her feelings and peer-approval. You will not be able to change her mind by appealing to reason and evidence. Look for women who have the demonstrated ability to defend their theological and moral views against the secular left culture. For example, the issue of male headship in marriage. Otherwise, you can expect the treatment that Ted got at the hands of his ex-wife, the judge, etc. Divorce is a nightmare for men. The feminist state will overpower you. You will lose your freedom, your savings and your children. You will become a slave.
Read 2 Tim 2:4 and consider whether you want to use your freedom and finances to serve God, or whether you want to be controlled by the secular left state. As a Christian man, you already have a Boss. A woman’s role is to help you serve your Boss. Beware of women who want to take the place of your Boss. Beware of women who think that marriage is about you making them happy. Beware of women who scorn your moral leadership. Beware of women who demand that you show compassion, tolerance and approval for whatever is popular in the secular left culture.
