Letters

Mark Twain said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” Twain’s pithy maxim occurred to me while reading a recent letter [“Promoting Confusion,” July 13]. I generally skip letters containing phrases like “the rapidly advancing gender dysphoria that is gripping our youth today,” but I plunged on at my peril.

First, children do not need encouragement to question their sexuality. Most children go through periods of gender exploration early in their development. Should we return to the Victorian Era, when such things were not discussed, and leave children to wander in the wilderness? Or do we provide them a safe environment to express themselves without fear of rejection?

I took the time to dig into the books that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis deemed pornographic and unfit for children. To my surprise, they’re not intended for children. They are recommended for young people 16 and older (the same age at which girls in certain states are forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term).

A quick stroll through the internet has already provided eighth-graders with far more explicit material than they will find in “Flamer,” a book about bullying at a Boy Scout camp (the book’s central theme is suicide prevention). Another, “Gender Queer,” is banned because of its explicit nature. The only difference between that book and its counterparts in the school library is sexual orientation.

Let’s be clear about what is going on here. Florida’s inflation rate is double the national average, and insurance companies are fleeing the state. At the same time, its governor crisscrosses the country, desperate to take his war with Mickey Mouse to the Oval Office. He’s ginning up votes by frightening the bejeezus out of parents who fear their children’s sexuality will be hijacked by “insidious lefties who are plotting to turn America gay.”

To those parents, I say this: Virtually every LGBT individual has been groomed to marry a member of the opposite sex and procreate. We were force-fed that diet at home, in school, socially, and in the cinema. How well did that go? Because it is easier to alter one’s height than to change one’s sexual orientation.

I think John Porta ought to know that there have been female astronauts for 60 years. And there have been male nurses for just as long. As well as young girls who imagine themselves sitting at the Resolute Desk, and boys practicing for the New York City Ballet.

There are so many among us whose journey would have been easier if, as 10-year-olds, there was someone to whom we could confide our “terrible secret,” someone who would assure us that we were not alone.

I wish that for every child.

Peter Acocella

Sag Harbor