This is a must read article from a mother of a detransitioned trans teen

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

4thwavenow.com/2016/12/17/a-mums-voyage-through-transtopia-helps-her-daughter-desist/

I think this could make the issues very clear to a lot of people who haven't thought about this much. I admire the mother concerned enormously. It's very long but it needs to be. Her daughter comments at the end.

(I see it was actually first posted some months ago, so apologies if it's been linked before, but I hadn't seen it before today.)

[GeorgeTheHamster]

That's the best article I have ever seen on this topic. One of my son's 18 year old friends has just started to take T in order to transition into a man. I really really hope it isn't a decision they come to regret.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Jessie was fortunate to have a brave and tireless mother looking out for her best interests.

[Lottapianos]

'Here’s the thing – teenagers are dysphoric. Dysphoria is defined as ‘a state of unease or generalised dissatisfaction with life’ and that just about sums up being a teenager for a lot of kids. Many teenagers feel they aren’t in the right place, the right life, the right time. It is not such a huge leap, especially for a lesbian girl, to conclude that she is in the wrong body. Transkids call the name their parents gave them at birth their ‘deadname’. The appeal is clear. Society demands such impossible things from our youth. Our boychildren are expected to be tough, to ‘man up’, to scorn women yet acquire them, to value money and power above everything else. Is it any wonder if they shirk from what they are told is manhood? And if it is hard for them, it is so much worse for our girls. '

Wow. That's probably the most clear-headed, helpful comment I've ever read about the trans issue. I will be sticking that in my back pocket for the next time I need it. What an incredibly brave article. The eagerness she describes from certain adults online to start directing young people towards chest binders and 'top surgery' and particular types of underwear and eventually 'transitioning' is downright weird and creepy. And if you challenge any of it, you are threatened with ending up with blood on your hands. Its bloody terrifying.

[olderthanyouthink]

Brilliant article

The whole feel like a boy thing does my head in. I don't know what it feels like to be a boy because I've never been one, never grew up as one m, never been treated as one. I also don't know what it feels like to be a girl because I've only experienced my life, a girl in Sweden would have had a different experience and a girl in Iran another completely different one.

Gender is make up, you want long hair, short hair, a dress, make up, motorbikes, wear heels, to be a construction worker go for it. Non of those things require a beard, penis, boobs, vulva, vagina etc.

There's some stuff you just can't have, I can't be 6 foot tall because I didn't grow that way. No amount of telling people I am and demanding that I be allowed to be a runway model is going to make me actually 6 foot tall.

Women (generally) can't grow beards and men (generally) can't have functioning breast. You can't always have what you want. Your supposed to learn that growing up.

[ghostlyghoulie]

It's encouraging to read such a common sense account of how one mother dealt with her daughter saying she was a boy. I found this a really helpful article, with so many useful links - it should be on every PSHE school teacher's reading list.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Yes, instead of which they may be using the CPS pack that says girls could be at risk of prosecution for hate crimes if they don't want a boy in the changing room with them.

[PineQueen]

What a refreshing article to read and what an amazing mother.

[Ineedacupofteadesperately]

This is really good, "There seemed to be no space for question, no one out there to tell these kids they might be ok as they are – that it was society’s expectations of what makes a man or a woman that should change not them" and "To claim that being a woman is no more than a feeling is to instigate the erasure of women. The idea that we should buy into the myth that our young people are ‘born in the wrong body’ because they do not want to conform to contemporary gender stereotypes is doublespeak worthy of an Orwellian dystopia. "

The more I read about this, the more I worry for my daughters. It's bad enough that society/ the media promotes this image of thin, plastic, airbrushed women but now it seems if you don't conform to that you might be told to transition. I've always directed DD to engineering and science toys and told her she can wear what she wants but this gives me pause....if I challenge sex role stereotypes too much am I risking this? DH says I'm overreacting but am I?

[Prawnofthepatriarchy]

Powerful stuff.

[FannyFifer]

This really is an excellent read.

[OlennasWimple]

Great article, especially with input from Jessie as well as her mother

As a slight riposte to the "no one ever questions the desire to transition", I've been lurking a bit on Reddit ask_transgender recently, and most of the responses to posters asking whether they should transition are reasonably balanced and do flag up the downsides of things like hormone therapy and the risk of losing friends. It's not completely unthinking "you go girl"

(I have come across some disturbing AGP posts, including a poster who openly admit that being dressed as a women is the biggest turn on he has ever had, but they are the minority)

[qumquat]

I read this a while ago and I agree it's fantastic. Lily Maynard is very active on Twitter as well.

[WipeYourFeet]

Thanks for posting that OP. I've saved that for future reference. My 11yo DD only today started a chat with me about Trans & how "silly it is". She told me if a girl likes doing "boy" stuff, so what? It doesn't mean she's a boy. And vice Versa

[ghostlyghoulie]

WipeYourFeet it sounds like your daughter doesn't need the article and I hope she never does!

[BearFoxBear]

Thanks for sharing this, it's spot on.

[Blossomdeary]

Good for Mum.

I sincerely believe that there have not been tens of thousands of people trapped in the wrong body over hundreds of years whose modern day equivalents are being given the freedom to transition. I really do think it is a fad rather than a positive progression, like accepting gay people and recognising their rights.

I would have thought that our more "enlightened" society would recognise the rights of folk to behave in a "male" or "female" way without them having to state that they are one gender when they so clearly are not.

I fear for these young people who are having their delusions endorsed - they only get one crack at life and are condemning themselves to living a lie on the periphery of society. How very very sad.

I have a friend who transitioned from male to female - the whole hog - major surgery. But he is still a man - he is about 6 foot four, with huge hands and feet and a balding head. No-one would remotely imagine that he is female. Frankly he looks like a pantomime dame. What a tragedy. If he had been allowed to behave in a "female" way without that being frowned on, then maybe all this could have been avoided.

I wait to be flamed!

[Prawnofthepatriarchy]

You won't get flamed for common sense, Blossom, not here anyway.

[BearFoxBear]

Nah Blossom you are welcome

[GuardianLions]

Welcome to the Oasis of Sanity Blossom

[newtlover]

I just checked out some of the links in the article-
one to an interview with the man who claims he is 'expanding the bandwidth' of what being a woman means (he dresses 'as a woman' but has a beard)- it's quite interesting as he explains he first grew the beard to avoid homophobic bullying. He identified as straight. Now he says he gets positive interest fro women- 'I awaken their inner lesbian'
that's because you are a MAN you idiot
what's happening there is straight women sometimes fancy men who aren't especially butch.
I honestly sometimes think these people are wilfully stupid
OR
they are engaging in some thought experiment- pushing the limits of what people will accept under the guise of 'trans' until we have all peaked.

[Marmalade85]

Excellent article

[PlymouthMaid1]

Brilliant article. Thank you for posting the link.

[shinynewusername]

In contrast, I found this article in the Guardian genuinely chilling. This is
a gay guy whose "effeminate" behaviour is so socially unacceptable that his family keep in prisoner in his own home (supposedly for his protection) until- hey presto- he decides he's a girl (which not all the family love either but at least he's allowed out).

So gay guy socially pressured into denying his sexuality and the Guardian presents this as progressive?

And of course all the BTL comments are fawning approval because you can be sure any dissenting voices have been censored.