Terrified parents are beside themselves as they try to understand why their beautiful young daughter has suddenly declared she's really a boy, or why their once-masculine son has not only started wearing dresses and makeup, but also wants them to buy him bras. Parents of young female athletes are waking up to find biological men trouncing the females and snatching their trophies and scholarships.

Not As Sudden As It Seems

All this otherworldly transgender stuff seems sudden, but it isn't. For the few of us who were paying attention, it wasn't that hard to see it coming. I don't condemn those who didn't pay attention. Modern life can become busy, filled with distractions that appear to be far more important than monitoring cultural trends that seem to be way out on the fringe.

But transgenderism is no longer on the cultural fringe. Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner proved that. If it can happen to a cultural icon--a macho Olympic gold-medal winner--then it must not be quite as strange as we thought. Even so, many were shocked by Jenner's transition. But most still found it easy and comfortable to shrug off the growing phenomenon, because it hadn't touched anyone close to them.

Something else was happening, though. Jenner's transition seems to have given implicit permission for society not only to embrace transgenderism, but also to actively promote it. In response, adolescents--already inherently plagued by hormonal confusion and now encouraged by progressives--are increasingly jumping onto the transgender shuttle pod. So parents are finally starting to spot the metaphorical mother ship. It's in their homes, and it has implanted alien DNA in their children's bloodstream.

"What happened to my baby?" "How did this happen?" "I didn't see this coming!"

They weren't watching.

Alfred Kinsey and the Sexual Revolution

Alfred Kinsey planted the sexual-revolution seed when his book, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," was published in 1948. The book caused quite a stir back then. Although the majority of the men Kinsey surveyed for his study were prison inmates whose sexual proclivities didn't accurately represent the overall male population, the book gained support and propelled the culture in a decidedly permissive direction.

Then, when the first birth-control pill hit the market in 1960, the sexual revolution hit the fast track. Within a few years, rates of premarital and extramarital sex skyrocketed. "Sex is natural and fun," people said. "Why confine it to heterosexual sex within marriage?"

In the 1950s, prior to the introduction of contraceptive pills, 60 percent of women were still virgins on their wedding day. By the late '70s, that figure had dropped to 20 percent. In a matter of a few decades, premarital and extramarital sexual activity went from relatively rare to commonplace.

But extramarital heterosexual sex wasn't enough for the newly liberated. So the push for homosexual normalization began. Prior to the late '60s, those who engaged in homosexual activity understood they were on the fringe, recognizing that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't accept their activities. So they kept their behaviors quiet and hidden.

Then, following the Stonewall rebellion in 1969, homosexuals began to "come out of the closet," and increasingly pushed for the normalization of their way of life. By 2000, only those viewed as religious zealots held out against the push for legitimization of homosexual practices and homosexual marriage. With that battle won, the sexual libertines moved on to conquer the next sexual frontier: transgenderism.

Transgenderism: The New Frontier

In the early '50s, George William Jorgensen Jr., an American man, flew to Denmark, where medical specialists surgically altered him. Jorgensen returned to America as Christine, and when the story hit American news outlets, most Americans were shocked and dismayed.

Aiming to temper the average American's dismay, physician Harry Benjamin published "The Transsexual Phenomenon" in 1966. Eleven years later, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Renee Richards, a transgender woman who played professional tennis, was eligible to play at the 1977 United States Open as a woman. The normalization of another long-held taboo was by then well underway. By 2002, the Transgender Law Center opened its first office in San Francisco, and there was no turning back.

So here we are, in 2016, looking at our gender-confused children and asking what happened and what can we do. Before we consider what to do about it, first let's try to get a handle on how prevalent it is.

In "How Frequently Does Transsexualism Occur?" Lynn Conway states, "In this report we found that the prevalence of SRS [sex-reassignment surgery] in the U.S. is at least on the order of 1:2500, and may be as much as twice that value." If Conway is correct, then at least 127,000 Americans have had sex-reassignment surgery, and the number could be as high as a quarter million. But that only represents those who have been physically altered through costly surgeries.

Actual current numbers of adolescents who report feelings of transgenderism are not readily available. One study, dating back to 1992, found that "25.9 percent of 12-year-old students" felt uncertain about their sexual orientation. That figure is likely to have risen dramatically since then. A much more recent study in the United Kingdom found "a 930% increase in the number of children referred to NHS gender clinics between 2009 and 2016." The phenomenon has become so prevalent that some people are referring to it as a fad or even a cult (see "The Cult Of Transgender" and "'Transgenderism' Is Mass Hysteria Similar To 1980s-Era Junk Science").

What Can I Do About It?

You've already taken the first step by becoming aware of the issue. If you are a parent of young children, the next step is to build a firm foundation in them. Help them to know who they are. Provide the kind of loving-but-disciplined family atmosphere that gives them a sense of security. Also, as harsh and archaic as it might sound, shield them from the progressive influences that lead to uncertainties.