Paul Stanley: Youth Gender Reassignment 'Dangerous Fad'

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley weighed in on the debate on gender-affirming care.

Taking to social media, the 71-year-old rock n' roll icon said parents are confusing their children about sexuality and gender identity.

"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," Stanley wrote in his statement shared on Twitter. 

Stanley added that while "there ARE individuals who as adults may decide reassignment is their needed choice," he criticized "turning this into a game or parents normalizing it as some sort of natural alternative." 

Stanley cautioned that "believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister's clothes or a girl in her brother's, we should lead them steps further down a path that's far from the innocence of what they are doing."

"With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the 'fun' of using pronouns and saying what they identify as, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those truly affected and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad," he added. 

The response to Stanley's post was divided. While some applauded him, others called him out, including Keith Olbermann and The Offspring guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman.

"It's not a 'game,' you a**hole," Olbermann tweeted in response to Stanley's post. "What you do is a GAME. What they face — internally and now externally due to stupid panicky fascists like you, externally — is an excruciating ordeal."

Wrote Wasserman: "This is a very disappointing take, especially from someone who wore high-heels, makeup, & teased up hair his whole career. As a young kid your band helped teach me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I guess it was just gimmickry after all."

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