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ASU professor asks trans teens to share experiences online
Arizona State University sponsors an “Empowerment Lab” with a class that teaches parents how to help their gender dysphoric teens go through medical transition.
The lab is dedicated to “Empowering trans and nonbinary voices in psychology” through “community based research,” according to its website.
It is currently hosting a 12-week “LGBTQ-Affirmative [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy] Training” for “mental health providers, students, and trainees,” according to a post on Instagram.
One of the training instructors is ASU Assistant Professor Em Matsuno, who teaches counseling and studies “trans and nonbinary minority stress and resilience.”
In a video posted to the lab’s Instagram, Matsuno asked teens to share their experiences navigating challenges as a trans or nonbinary person.
Conservative Professor Owen Anderson, who teaches philosophy and religious studies at ASU, expressed his concern about the video in an interview with The College Fix.
“I’ve never seen an ASU professor ask to have teenagers reach out to talk about sexual identity and possible trans surgeries before so it was startling,” he said.
“I don’t think the communities that ASU serves know that ASU professors are asking for contact with teens to talk about this,” Anderson said.
He also said that initiatives like the Empowerment Lab are inappropriate for a public research university to sponsor.
“Higher education that receives state and federal funding should not engage in ideologically driven sexual theories,” he said. “We don’t see ASU teaching the biblical view of marriage and gender as the truth of the matter.”
The Empowerment Lab also offers a Parent Support Program with three modules that teach parents to provide “supportive” responses to their children struggling with gender dysphoria.
It aims to increase “parental support among parents and caregivers of transgender and nonbinary youth,” according to its website.
The coursework is based on “psychological research conducted on the common experiences of parents of [transgender and nonbinary] youth and psychological theories of change.”
The training asks parents to journal about their stresses and introduces them to trans theory. It also features testimonials from parents of children who have “transitioned.”
One mother wrote, “I think of it a little like a butterfly. I had a caterpillar and now I have a butterfly…Intellectually I know this is necessary and important but emotionally I still feel kind of sad about losing my son.”
The Parent Support Program claims that gender and sex are separate concepts, that there are more than two genders, and that transgender and nonbinary people have existed in every history and culture.
It also points to the term “two-spirit” as evidence of how indigenous cultures “view being trans or gender diverse as a natural part of human diversity.”
“Not every culture looks down on TNB people,” it states.
Professor Anderson told The Fix this is false. “The two spirit fabrication was invented in 1990 at the Third Annual Intertribal Native American/First Nations Gay and Lesbian Conference near Winnipeg, Canada.” It was adopted by the conference as an “umbrella term” for indigenous LGBTQ identities.
Anderson said that this “is an example of cultural appropriation,” as “It was not a Native American religious belief.”
The PSP also claims that the sudden increase in young people identifying as transgender and nonbinary is due to youth feeling safer and having “more visibility” through social media. It claims that just like the phenomenon of left-handedness, more people are identifying as trans because it’s now socially acceptable.
Further, it encourages parents to seek permission from their child before asking questions about his or her experience with gender. It’s “important not to pressure or force them to share things about their gender journey that they aren’t ready or comfortable sharing,” the training states.
Janice Williams, chair of the UK organization OBJECT, told The College Fix that parents should instead ask themselves if they are “colluding in something that will later harm [their] child.”
OBJECT is a feminist organization that rejects gender ideology, according to its website.
Williams said that transgenderism is a “fake solution” which makes things worse for patients experiencing gender dysphoria.
“The medical industries are making a fortune out of people who think that transitioning is real. You can never change your body to that extent,” she said.
“I’ve got more respect for the parent that says look I can’t go along with this,” Janice said. “The most vulnerable person in all of this is the child and we have a duty to protect our children as best we can.”
The Empowerment Lab and ASU Media Relations did not respond to multiple requests for their responses to these criticisms.
