Elon Musk is the richest person in the world but it’s clear that money can’t always buy happiness. The X/ Twitter owner spoke movingly of his family, in particular his eldest surviving child, during an emotional interview with Jordan Peterson. ‘My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus’, the father-of-12 lamented.
Musk claimed that he had been ‘tricked’ into allowing one of his children who transitioned from male to female to take puberty blockers after hearing that the child might otherwise be at risk from suicide.
The billionaire now appears to regret that decision bitterly and has vowed to ‘destroy the woke mind virus’. Whatever it’s called, the fantasy that human beings can be detached from the harsh reality of biological sex has taken root, especially among the liberal elites of California and elsewhere. Gender identity might be an unprovable and unfalsifiable idea, but it has been lapped up by politicians and policy makers who should have asked more questions and been far more sceptical.
After California became the first US state to bar schools from having to tell parents when children change their gender, Musk pledged to move the headquarters of both SpaceX and X from California to Texas. This is a man on a mission. But for Musk, and countless other families, the transgender phenomenon has been so much more than a curiosity on social media.
Gender identity ideology has the potential to tear countries apart; the impact on families, though, perhaps matters even more in some ways. Xavier is now know as Vivian Jenna Wilson (the maternal surname) and, according to reports, no longer wishes to be related to Musk ‘in any way’.
Other parents might have taken a different approach to children who expressed a wish to change gender. Some will have said ‘no’ from the outset; some will have gone along with it somewhere on a spectrum between reluctance and enthusiasm. Most worryingly of all, a few might have made the decision for their child, perhaps to deal with their own distaste of gender non-conforming behaviour.
But whatever path parents and children go down. evidence is mounting that some young people have been the victims of a medical and social scandal facilitated by doctors and promoted by politicians.
In her review of paediatric gender identity services, Dr Hilary Cass was scathing of the approach taken by the Tavistock clinic, which was also known as the Gender and Identity Development Service (Gids):
‘The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown. … Clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity.’
Hilary cass / Cass Report overview
Last week, Professor Louis Appleby – chair of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group – rejected the suicide myth, the idea that there had been a rise in suicide rates since puberty-blocking drugs were restricted at the Tavistock in 2020. Appleby concluded that the data does not support such claims and found that ‘the way this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide’.
My own experience as a transsexual who decided to make the change as an adult, has shown me that transition might be an answer to some issues – at least for those with the maturity to consent to the consequences. However, it is certainly not an elixir for every problem, and it leads to new challenges and difficulties in life. Unfortunately this has not always been made clear to children, and their parents, who were sold a dream that can never be realised, however much it was packaged up with rainbows and sparkles.
But for the parents who signed up to gender identity ideology, unfulfilled fantasy worlds will not end with a change of mind. The consequences of those decisions – halted development puberty, changed bodes and poor mental health – will be ongoing. For some it might be easier to maintain the fantasy than live with the knowledge of just what they did to their children. Like those Japanese soldiers who held out in the jungle long after 1945, their battle with the truth will not finish any time soon.
Ultimately, however, these parents were mere customers – and perhaps shouldn’t be blamed. For those who peddled the product, Musk was in no doubt, ‘the people who have been promoting this should go to prison’. When the lives of children are involved, that is what it might take to finally bring this scandal to an end.
Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.
Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum
* This article was first published by The Spectator on 24 July 2024: What Elon Musk gets right about the plight of trans kids.
Debbie Hayton 
4 replies on “What Elon Musk gets right about the plight of trans kids”
I think it’s important not to praise Musk too much. Like many Republicans, he is wrong on 80% of the issues, with the trans issue being one of the few that he gets right. He is also Trump-like in many ways. He is a narcissistic loudmouth whose actions are capricious, and whose public pronouncements are controversial. Regarding his trans daughter: Given that he has 11 living children (I think), it seems he could accept one of them as trans without rejecting her outright. Indeed, my own mother had six boys, so felt that she could spare one of them to homosexuality (me) without complaining about it.
So “skeptical” is spelled “sceptical” in Britain, how interesting. I assume, however, that you pronounce the “c” like a “k”. You don’t say “sep-tik-al”, do you?
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That’s right, Caleb, we say it the same way, we just spell it correctly too! hehe.
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We use both spellings – skeptic and sceptic – but pronounce them the same way (the c is hard as in scalp). I also wory about Musk.
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Wow, so Musk isn’t an entire waste of carbon after all. However powerful he is, I doubt he’ll destroy the woke mind virus, although perhaps civil war might, which, ironically, seems more “inevitable” in the USA right now than in Blighty, where the far-right don’t make up whole counties and carry automatic weapons. Still, it’s great he’s expressed such strong gender-critical views, and they probably carry more weight than if they came from anyone else I can think of.
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