Radical Gender Ideology Gives Us a 10-Year-Old ‘Trans’ Fashion Model
Nicole Russell /
A 10-year-old named Noella McMaher has become the youngest transgender model ever to open and close a runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Noella was born a boy, but dresses in girls’ clothing.
This is yet another example of an entire community—from this child’s parents, to the fashion industry, to LGBTQ organizations—pushing radical gender theory as both normal and acceptable among children who aren’t yet out of elementary school.
The fact that this happened at all, let alone was trumpeted across news sites and social media as a positive event for a child, is a travesty.
Multiple news outlets covered this story and heralded it as a positive. Several problematic ideas spring from just one article distributed by the Reuters news agency—from pushing a child to activism, to advertising a transgender child in a fashion show as normal, to the fact that Noella has been dressing and behaving like a girl since he was a preschooler.
In a video interview with Reuters accompanying the article, Noella, who is from Chicago, is reminded that this is a “first” in industry history.
The child replies: “It’s cool to have that title. It shows that I’m showing other people and kids that being transgender isn’t bad.”
Noella shouldn’t feel the pressure of being a transgender “mascot” or an advocate for a cause such as this, one that is fraught with complexity and nuance.
“What is normal?” Noella asks in the same interview. “It’s 2022, nobody knows what normal is at this point.”
A Reuters tweet echoes the sentiment and says this 10-year-old child is “redefining normal.”
The news agency and Noella are right about that, however stunning and abnormal the fact may be. Parading a 10-year-old biological male as a female in a fashion show seems about as far from normal—or a normal childhood—as could be. It isn’t normal, and I’d argue it isn’t healthy: What’s wrong with normal and healthy these days?
More Americans should wonder aloud and ask LGBT activists this vital question: Why does everything have to push the envelope, even the activities of 10-year-old children?
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Noella McMaher is an “ambassador” for “LGBTQ and ALL,” which is an online group. In a profile there, Noella explains:
Hello! My name is Noella, and I am 10 years old and I live in Chicago, IL. I am transgender and I use pronouns she, her, and hers. I am in 4th grade, I love going to gymnastics twice a week, dancing, and having fun with my friends. I have younger 2 siblings, a cis brother, and a theybie. I also have a dog, two cats, and a bearded dragon. I socially transitioned at 4 years old, legally at 6 years old and I am being monitored and hoping to get hormone blockers soon! Both of my parents are trans-masculine. We are one big queer family!
Another sentence in the Reuters story says Noella has believed he is a girl, despite being born a boy, since the age of 2.
Both passages are key to understanding Noella’s transgender existence and this entire story about a 10-year-old child making transgender history at New York Fashion Week, which ended Sept.14.
Anyone who has had children—or knows children through friends, family, or work—knows that at 2 years old, children can’t do anything solo. They need help eating, sleeping, bathing, and dressing. At 2, children just barely are beginning to construct short, simple, sentences.
Even at 4 years old, children are dependent on their parents for survival. For most children, the concepts of sex or gender are entirely absent: They can’t even survive without an adult, let alone contemplate their own gender, or anyone else’s.
In the profile, Noella mentions that both parents are “trans-masculine.” I’ve been covering this issue for years, and I had to look that up. Trans-masculine individuals apparently are girls or women who want to identify as masculine.
Noella also says one sibling is a “cis brother” and one is a “theybie”—meaning an undetermined gender. I’m no brilliant child psychologist, but something tells me Noella got all these ideas about gender fluidity and being “transgender” from two mothers who dress like men.
Forcing a toddler or preschooler to believe he or she is the wrong gender, dressing him or her in the clothes of the opposite sex, and then encouraging a legal, social, and medical transition is so harmful.
Ratcheting up this entire charade a notch and parading said child on a runway during New York Fashion Week to set some kind of landmark record for transgenderism is a prime example of progressive, radical gender theory indoctrination at its worst.
Parents, beware.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.