In a compelling video, Matt Walsh reads aloud a book published expressly to introduce young children to transgenderism. One of the most striking things about the book is that it is even more gender-stereotyped than the books children used to read in the 1950s and before.

Walsh reads 2019’s It Feels Good To Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity, by Theresa Thorn and Noah Grigni. The first half of the title suggests teaching children to follow their passions (painting, building, medicine, etc.) but, as the second half of the title shows, this book is about kids affirming or denying what they see when they look in their underpants.

The book is marketed for grades 1-2 and reading levels 4-8. The highlighted reviews all rave about the book:

“This expansive, straightforward framing of gender emphasizes curiosity, joy, and positive self-expression . . . . Exceptional.” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“The spirit of free expression and creativity infuses every spread of this inclusive exploration.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

“As the song has it, we’re living in a big, wide wonderful world. And this book is a welcome addition to it.” ―Booklist, starred review

The author, Theresa Thorn, is a humorist who writes about parenting. According to her website, “She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jesse, their three children, and two scruffy dogs.” If you check out the webpage, not only does she look like a woman, her pronoun is “she.” I’m thinking…let me make sure I get this word right…she’s “cisgender.”

The illustrator (and the pictures are charmingly done even if you don’t like the message) is described as “a non-binary transgender illustrator, writer, and organizer whose bold and playful art has appeared in The Gender Identity Workbook for Kids by Kelly Storck and We're Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology.” In other words, I’m guessing Noah is biologically male and dedicates his entire life to justifying the mental struggle he has with the hardware in his underwear.

This is not an obscure book. In February, for Black History Month, the Los Angeles Unified School District put on its website a five-page graphic talking about what kids should be learning during a “week of action” for “black lives matter at schools.” The transgender page explicitly promoted It Feels Good to Be Yourself:

As Walsh reads the book, he inserts comments about how the gentle tone and cute pictures nevertheless promote scientific, cultural, and emotional madness. I found especially insightful what he said about the incredibly narrow, stereotyped way in which the transgendered movement views children and biological sex:

The real irony here is they say there are so many different ways to be a boy or a girl, right? Too many ways to fit in a book.

Well, that’s correct but they are making it so that there are not so many ways to be a boy or a girl. They are the ones…gender identity…left-wing gender theory…this is the rigid constricting thing that confines boys and girls.

Because it used to be that you could be a girl and still wear short hair if you want, and play rough and tumble sports, and play with play in the mud with toy trucks, and we will call you a tomboy. And we would say “That’s a valid way to be a girl.  That’s fine.” If you wanted to be a girl that way you could be a girl that way.

But now we’ve taken that away from girls and we’ve said, “Well, if you act like that, you’re probably a boy.” So, in the name of opening everything up and being open-minded, we’ve actually constricted it and made it so that there’s one particular way to be a boy or a girl, and if you go outside of that then you become the other gender or other sex.

I’m deeply sorry for those poor souls whose unhappy childhoods or brain chemistry left them feeling at odds with their bodies. However, I am equally deeply opposed to our culture taking children’s normal feelings of occasional disconnection as their bodies change and pushing them into the direction of the for-profit industry of sex change and the hard left desire to weaken people by breaking the bond between body and mind. And I’m really opposed to what Walsh smartly pointed out, which is the way the leftists are forcing children to conform to gender stereotypes, even if they have to be drugged and mutilated to do it.

IMAGE: Matt Walsh. YouTube screengrab.