Jennifer Stallone has come under fire for her theory on the alleged 'rise' in transgender children in Hollywood.
The 57-year-old wife of actor Sylvester Stallone - with whom she shares three daughters - made an appearance on the Katie Miller Podcast.
In an excerpt obtained by Fox News Digital, Stallone was asked if there's 'something in the water' in entertainment circles, with Miller makes a claim about the amount of children of A-list stars who identify with something other than their birth gender.
Those included in this list are the children of Robert De Niro, Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, Charlize Theron, Cynthia Nixon, Cher, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Sade, Rosie O'Donnell, Marlon Wayans, Michelle Visage, Jennifer Lopez and Sigourney Weaver.
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"Why do you think it is that so many kids in Hollywood now and kids of, you know, celebrity parents are transgender?" Miller demanded.
Following a brief pause, the former model confessed: "I just think Hollywood is, you know, it’s all about expression."
Stallone went on to explain: "So, you know, however you want to express yourself. If you feel like a cat today, you’re a cat. And it’s so loosey-goosey.
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"I don’t think that we’re really understanding that these kids are not our accessories."
The mother-of-three went on to insist: "They’re little human beings that need structure. And structure is really important for them because it helps their brain organise everything.
"I think, growing up in a Hollywood home, there's really no structure - you've got this thing going, you've got private planes, giant homes with chefs and secretaries and assistants and housekeepers and nannies."
Stallone added that there's 'too much of everything', claiming this can get 'confusing for a little person'.
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"It's okay what you decide to be as an adult," she continued. "But raise them just with good common sense."
The businesswoman went on to describe her own daughters - Sophia, now 29, Sistine, 27, and Scarlet, 23, as 'tomboys' as they grew up.
"They'd prefer to wear pants than dresses, they love sport - but I never said, 'Oh, you're a boy now'. I just said, 'Let's play sports, you love to hang out with boys, that’s awesome,'" Stallone went on.
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Unsurprisingly, her remarks haven't gone down too well with a number of pro-trans social media users, who have questioned why the star felt the need to insert herself into a narrative in which she holds no personal stakes.
"She’s clearly never lived with a transgender person," they hit out. "Sad she can make these statements about a topic she knows nothing about.
"It’s pure opinion."
Another agreed, adding: "Newsflash!!!! There’s a lot more transgenders that exist outside of celebrity culture. Worry about your own household."
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A third pointed out that transgenderism as an identity has been a choice long before the film and TV business set itself up in downtown Los Angeles.
"Spotlights make shadows look bigger, but trans youth live in every zip code, not just Hollywood," they pointed out.
"Identity is widespread while visibility clusters around fame. Acceptance and timely support link to better mental health outcomes. The driver of harm is stigma, not screen time."
Such is also the belief of gender, sexuality and women’s studies professor Jules Gill-Peterson who finds the belief that transgender children are something of a 'new phenomena' laughable, with decades-old evidence of trans youth in the US being well documented.
"What I uncovered in the research is that children and youth have been finding access to trans medicine and transition as long as there has been medical transition – as far back as the 1930s and 40s," she previously told The Guardian.
"But even prior to that, children certainly lived trans lives where they would socially transition in childhood. I found evidence in the US that families and communities would accept children as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth, let them go to school, use the correct bathroom, all of the things that are being fought over now.
"We can see that 70 or 80 years ago, we were actually in a more progressive place in some areas."
Hitting back at Stallone's theory that the glitz and glam of Hollywood culture has triggered an 'increase' in the amount of transgender children, Professor Gill-Peterson went on to explain: "Rightwing conservatives have been recycling the same language that we saw 15 to 20 years ago around gays and lesbians – the language of 'child endangerment', 'grooming', 'pedophilia', the need to 'protect children' and 'protect schools' through really restrictive laws.
"The focus on children is part of a coordinated effort and it’s not just in the US. We see it in the UK where there is no real access to gender-affirming treatments if you’re under 18."
She added: "There’s a media campaign to shift the discourse to focusing on children’s transitions with all sorts of moral panics.
"It’s a really disturbing coalition, because you’ve got rightwing white supremacist evangelicals, but you also have politicians in the mainstream and people on the left who are trans-exclusionary and claim to be feminists. It’s a perfect storm."
Topics: Celebrity, LGBTQ, US News, Social Media, Podcasts
Rhianna Benson