Insert Foot has some thoughts on statements by Dee Snider and Paul Stanley.

It’s sort of weird that two guys who made their careers out of wearing makeup and heels might be on the outs of the LGBTQ community.

Paul Stanley of KISS said something out loud with which many people agree: Children shouldn’t have access to gender-affirming care. The same ones we make go to school and don’t trust to get tattoos until they’re 18. Then we don’t trust them to drink for three more years.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Stanley called it a “sad and dangerous fad.” On social media. It was patronizing and typical old guy bullshit directed to the same age group as the ones who made him a millionaire 50 years ago.

Stanley used to stick up for those kids’ rights to have sex with older people, drink, smoke and drive like idiots in his not very-Shakespearean lyrics. So … shut up, Paul. You finally sound as old as you are. How someone identifies themself isn’t a “fad.”

He also wrote “There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing — and even encouraging — participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents, in some cases, allow it.”

Uh …

pic.twitter.com/5Gvz6v5HUi

— Paul Stanley (@PaulStanleyLive) April 30, 2023

Stanley then wrote he knows some “individuals who as adults may decide reassignment is their needed choice,” children should not be among them.” Dee Snider of Twisted Sister chimed in by writing on social media “You know what? There was a time where I ‘felt pretty’ too. Glad my parents didn’t jump to any rash conclusions! Well said,  @PaulStanleyLive.”

Well, thanks, Dee. I think you completely whiffed on the point with the “pretty” thing. But nice try.

Snider was supposed to serve as grand marshal of this year’s Pride Parade in San Francisco, an invitation that has now been rescinded (they called it a “mutual decision,” but …) Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to take It,” was supposed to be this year’s parade anthem, but I guess that’s not allowed now, either.

Stanley then walked back his remarks, writing “I support those struggling with their sexual identity while enduring constant hostility and those whose path leads them to reassignment surgery.”

I’m a white male hetero suburbanite dad who fully believes he’s privileged and have no doubt much of any social standing I’ve had comes from that. But Paul Stanley and Dee Snider have both been allies to the queer community for years.

I think anyone should be whomever they say they are (unless it’s Donald Trump saying he’s president). I think the anti-LQBTQ hatred from Republicans is Nazi behavior and masks the fact that they have no ideas to change anything for the better, so they bully people. But I don’t know that children need gender affirming surgery until they’re done being children. I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary. I’m all for teens dressing how they want, changing their name, identifying how they wish, loving who they want, all of it.

I also know it’s historically horrible what adults have done to LGBTQ kids. It’s fascist. It’s hatred. It’s un-Christian in the truest sense and it’s frankly something, again, done by Nazis, who we all agree it’s OK to kill in movies.

But one of a parent’s jobs is to not let kids do things they may not be able to undo later.

However, the concept of gender affirming care isn’t as permanent as many believe. We think of surgery, but there’s also therapy (which most of us probably need one way or another anyway). There’s also hormone therapy, which can be reversed by not taking the hormones anymore.

Instead of relying on hysterics, look at research from The Trevor Project, released in December 2021, showing that transgender on non-binary youth under 18 who received gender-affirming hormone therapy had nearly a 40-percent lower chance of depression and nearly the same reduced chances of attempted suicide as those denied the same care. Suicide … a parent’s worst nightmare. What could possibly be worth taking that much of a chance?

The surgery is closer to permanent. This is trivializing it, but I’ll say it: One of my daughters wanted a tattoo. “Nope,” I said. Then, on her 18th birthday, I drove her there and paid for it. Not because everything magically changed overnight. But – and I used the law as an excuse – she was in a better position to make that decision at 18 than at 14.

I have two better anecdotes. I’ve had many daughters and stepdaughters. One of whom identified with being male literally her entire childhood. She wouldn’t wear dresses as a toddler. She wore boys’ clothes to school and in the pool. She wore suits to weddings. No one told her to, but no one told her not to. When she came out as a teenager to her mother and I, it was most anti-climactic coming out in history. I think one of us literally said, “And?”

She dated girls in high school. Then she became an adult and dated a guy for three or four years, which isn’t to say she grew out of it or got wiser. Her choice just changed. It may again … I don’t know. I don’t care.

But had we encouraged her to re-assign, we could’ve made, at the very least, a short-term mistake. And parents already make too many mistakes.

I’ll use another quick anecdote to (kind of) support Stanley’s point. Another daughter was basically peer-pressured into deciding whether she liked boys or girls by other kids who were already changing their identities and back again.

My daughter had just turned 12.

She was still into catching bugs and lizards. She hadn’t even transitioned into high school yet; she was only transitioning into middle school. And she was being emotionally torn up by having to decide what gender she liked romantically?

I shudder at the decisions I thought I could make, and did make, at 12.

There may be cases where it’s emotionally or physically necessary to transition earlier. I just don’t know. I won’t go DeSantis and say everyone should live by the same rules. But I do think, as much as I dislike the extreme of the right-wing anti-LGBTQ crowd, I think the opposite extreme can also be dangerous.

Maybe they should wait until they’re at least 18 to make these decisions at least as far as surgery, if we’ve decided they can’t exercise enough judgment to vote.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.