Sociologists Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook define cisgender as a label for "individuals who have a match between the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender

I thought I'd start with the above quote. Now I read this several times, trying to find something in there. All I could come up with really is that I am in fact cisgender because I was born a female I have a female body and yeah, I 'identify' as a female? So I have a label apparently. Well I have several, as it turns out:

I am cisgender, (because of the above) I am straight (I like blokes), I am lithromantic (because I might see a stranger down the street and feel attracted to him but would not necessarily have sex with him if the situation arose) I am demisexual (I like to have sex with men I form a bond with first) I am allosexual (because I might meet someone and after learning a little more about them I wouldn't mind having sex with them)...

I am also a demi-guy because I like to wear boy clothes (like my sons' shorts?) Throw ecosexual in there because I love nature and androsexual because I like men who are men... and of course celibate for those times I don't feel like having sex with anyone at all.

I thought I was just your basic woman - you know - attracted to guys sometimes, other times not, wanting sex sometimes, other times not... I thought I was 'normal'? Apparently not so?

There's a new spectrum see, with MALE on one side and FEMALE on the other, and in-between.... well there's the spectrum. Used to be you were one or the other... or infrequently 'transitioning' because of biological or physical or even emotional issues...

Now? Take your average 13 year old kid and really, they have so much choice! I have included 'some' of the choices on offer here... to include them all would just be a book-length write. So in alphabetical order - and please, please stay with me as I will eventually get to some point, I present the following:

Agender: This is a person who cannot identify with any gender in the spectrum.

Afab: this is a person who was assigned female at birth, but who may not necessarily remain female... (Assigned meaning appointed/authorised/designated)

Amab: this is a person who was assigned male at birth, but who may not necessarily remain male... (Assigned meaning appointed/authorised/designated)

Cafab: This is a person who was coerced into being assigned female at birth. (Coerced meaning repressed/suppressed/bullied)

Camab: This is a person who was coerced into being assigned male at birth. (Coerced meaning repressed/suppressed/bullied)

Cis(cisgender): This is when a person identifies with the sex/gender they were assigned at birth e.g. they were assigned female; they look female and feel female. (I know, I know, most of us would just say they're a man or a woman...)

Dfab: This is a person 'designated' female at birth. (designated meaning labelled)

Dmab: This is a person 'designated' male at birth. (designated meaning labelled)

Demigirl: This is when a female feels partially female and partially some other sort of gender.

Demiguy: This is when a male feels partially male and partially some other sort of gender.

Neutrois: This is someone who has a neutral approach in the gender spectrum.

Nonbinary: a gender experience which stands outside the binary genders of 'man' and 'woman'. They may feel like neither men nor women, or both men and women, or any combination at the same time, or some of these 'things' some of the time. (Again, one would call that 'normal' in the normal course of an average life...)

Pangender: This is a person who may be composed of multiple or possibly all genders in the spectrum.

Skoliosexual: This is a person attracted to other individuals that don't identify as cisgender or fit into any genders in the spectrum.

Trans(transgender):  This is a person who identifies themselves as something other than the sex/gender combination they were 'assigned' at birth.

Alia or aliagender: A gender which is "other", or stands outside of the existing gender spectrum. (So even despite the plethora of choices, there maybe some who fit none of the above, so there's a 'gender-type for those also...)

Then I lookedat the word 'gender' itself - rather its most current definition:

Gender identity: whatever arises from growing up in a society in which gender is a thing.

Gender is not 'a thing' in and of itself apparently, and so can be influenced or in turn influence the way a person presents their body type, their 'assigned sex', choice of clothing, sexual orientation, race, religion and whatever else. Now given that we are all human (alien conspiracies aside), we are all growing up in the same 'human' society. So gender is 'a thing' we ALL share, no matter the number of other things dividing us...

Okay, enough new-age mumbo-jumbo. Enough of this 'spectrum' suddenly appearing on the scene and really, causing chaos and ruining young lives where none should exist and no lives should be affected?

I said to Dylan yesterday, running this past him as I do everything I write - never mind he reads none of it - that when I was a teen, there were girls and there were boys. One time, standing on the top floor in High School, one of my not so close friends approached and put her hand on mine, as we were both staring out of the window. I moved my hand away and that was the end of it... I didn't realise she was 'gay' until I was several years older...

I told Dyls this, to try and explain how all this stuff has appeared now or at least within my lifetime... Boys were boys 'in my youth', they dressed like boys, they acted like boys, and there were no discernible differences from one boy to the next. Girls were the same. They were just girls... And we mixed, the boys and the girls and there were no identity crises and no cutting and no suicides and no anorexia and no attention seeking and no 'feeling isolated'... no dramas really except for the one or two teenage pregnancies and some pot-smoking in the toilets.

That was the 70's.

Now in 2016 I am writing about 'gender spectrum' and gender spectrum 'disorders'... because of course one accompanies the other?

I said to @bayaBlue a couple of days ago, "Where are the parents in all this?" I mean not all these teens caught up in the confusion are street-kids or from 'dysfunctional' families or from 'single-mum syndrome' households or - hell, most are your typical teens! Living in a home surrounded by immediate family and extended family and a small or large network of friends... Dylan did correct me on the 'parent' part, said I should ask instead, "Where are the 'guardians' in all this?"

So I ask now. You the guardians entrusted with these precious lives, where are you? Guardians right? Standing between these precious lives and any dangers rising... So where are the conversations that should be taking place? Like there are only two sexes, male and female... Like don't buy into all this manufactured bullshit by psycho-babblers intending to confuse you to the point where you need medication, intervention or therapy? Like you don't need to be burdened with all these labels - especially during a time when hormones are kicking in - and forced to find 'your gender' within someone's thesis or someone else's paid-for skewed conclusions?

We have taken something natural and tried to do to it the same thing we have done to everything else in this screwed-up world... because we have too many scientists in too many labs and too much money thrust at them from Big Corporations to find new ways to 'treat' new disorders and keep the whole confusion cycle going so the income generated returns a tidy sum to investors?

There is no gender spectrum! It's a buzz word folks, wake up! See the dollar signs behind it; see the gladhanding and back-slapping in high-rise offices and 'think-tanks'! Help your children to understand and navigate the manufactured reality presented to them as 'choice' and as the new 'reality'!

You have a girl or a boy (physiological issues aside)... You have a son or a daughter. Help them see this as the only reality. I am not talking sexual orientation here; I am talking gender for fuck's sake! Distinctly different things.

Yeah I'm angry, because I've had 48 hours of my life taken up by this gender spectrum lunacy. And I can't unlearn the bullshit in my head; I can't pretend I know nothing about it or that it doesn't exist. It not only exists, it has 'infected' millions of victims whose lives have been perhaps irreversibly affected?

Because see, I wandered through WP as well, and I came across book after book full of sexual confusion and gender questioning... and I saw the results... The 11 year old cutting and keeping a suicide diary... the 13year old boy struggling to 'fit' within the spectrum of genders... identifying himself as 'Non-binary' - this being the new buzz word for those not able to identify with ANY of these new labels...

So there's disorders produced by all these choices... Like what if I feel attracted to guys most of the time but sometimes I think about what it would be like to kiss a girl... or I don't like wearing dresses, so does this make me... or I like this guy but I don't necessarily want to get physical with him so does this mean...

NORMAL teenage thoughts, fuelled by hormones and sexual awakening! NORMAL!!! I don't know how else I can stress this? Our kids, your kids, they are normal, they don't belong in any spectrum, they are teenage boys and girls... having normal teenage boy and girl thoughts...

So where are you, their guardians? Do you speak to these teens? Do you notice their confusion? Do you discuss the absurdity of the world they have been born into and the forced reality pressuring them within this world?

Do you not see your troubled teen? Are you facing an unknown fear - yet another by-product of this new 'reality'? Do you feel helplessly left behind and confused by all this fancy jargon and do you doubt your own parenting? Are you feeling guilty because you think YOU have made your kid this way?

Wake up! Help as a guardian should. Defend your precious ward from all these assaults on their life and their sanity! You are so busy protecting their 'physical' safety from predators and the environment you are failing to see the 'real' predator in your family. You are failing to protect them from the psychobabble in every message reaching them; in every meme and film and advertisement and Social media experiment they are unwittingly a part of.

I am no 'super mum' or 'batmom' or anything different from you. I just question. I question the validity of every 'great new thing' and the purpose behind it. I take note of how every new buzzword or 'presented finding' will impact my boys... Mostly, I just discuss stuff with them. I am in their present.

This I think is where most 'guardians' fail. They perceive their children as being in their present. They do not take steps to ensure they are informed about the changes taking place and impacting the minds of their children. Their present is full of other manufactured fears - I say manufactured because it keeps them busy see: Safety, lack of socialisation, stranger-danger, blah blah... How does an 11 year old cut themselves (with photos) because they are struggling to 'fit in' and their guardian remain unaware? How???

And you teens, who might stumble across these words... Wake up! See the world not as it is presented to you but as it really is. You are boys and girls, nothing else. There is no in-between 'spectrum' to try and 'fit' into or 'identify' with... Your inner questions and your sometime doubts and your at times 'weird feelings' are a normal part of growing up! Don't let social experiments by paid 'scientists' in lab-coats and financial decisions made in Board-rooms define and label you! Read, learn, see the game being played - one where you are the unfortunate pawns!

I don't know how to end this. My heart aches and my mind is screaming... We are losing our children, metaphorically and at times tragically right under our very noses; they are being stolen and mis-labelled and turned into these diluted beings... and this is the future, these are tomorrow's leaders and role models and yeah... parents - although if this persists much longer, children will become a rarity... by that I mean children who are products of a 'straight' male and a 'straight' female bond...