This book, “My Trans Teen Misadventure for Children. WTF???

Online it says the age rating is 14 - 18 years. As long as it doesn’t reach your kid before that age and before a conversation with them about identity and the power of media in a person’s psyche, it’s not that awful in a sea of social media showing equally as graphic things

I don't think it's normal to have that level of hatred I think this author had that level of hatred. Which is why they chose the language and images they did for this book.

Having character say that is advocating for it though, even if the author didn't do it?

And your teenage self sounds like a lot of our teenage selves, luckily for us we didn't have comic books telling us that our normal adolescent feelings were a sign of needing to medicate or surgically modify our bodies, or that doing so would make us happy or make us our true selves.

Most gender questioning teens grow out of it, if left alone to complete puberty. If you read desisters and detransitioners stories they didn't have the extreme level of body hatred you seem to think is normal for gender questioning children, they felt like you did. For that matter, stories of those who persisted in their trans identity, such as those in Hannah Barnes' Time To Think, also don't describe extreme body hatred. Children were funnelled down a path that damaged them, and books like this, that suggests that adolescent unhappiness can be solved with drugs and surgery, are part of the jigsaw of how that happened and is happening. Children with normal struggles and feelings having unnecessary unevidenced medical interventions which harmed them.

But this author didn't take puberty blockers, they were leaving college when they got their appointment to a gender clinic.

I have already mentioned their language choices above.

I don't have body dysmorphia I am a fat middle aged mum of three with mental and physical health issues and I own that.

But if my current self was writing about my teenage self, that teenager was a sad mess, she would have quite liked lots of "fatty lumps" to be gone. She would have understood hatred of periods when she started them at 9 and bled threw everything multiple times a day for half the month. She understood feeling different or weird and judged but she never got past severe dislike for her body, never hated it or felt it wasn't hers. But she wouldn't have understood at all a level of hatred that took a bottle/pills to drown it out, that sparked an eating disorder, or prompted self harm. Most people don't.

Having a character describe puberty blockers, an off label drug regimen which has no evidence of helping gender questioning children and some evidence of harming them, as 'best thing I ever did', and describing breasts as 'fatty lumps that need to be gone' if not advocacy for transition, is pretty irresponsible.

Thank you for this post

They looked in the mirror and saw a distorted view of themselves, and they hated who they were. It's not a typical "I hate my body" it's a deep loathing

Yes that's what I felt aged 14 when i was teetering on the brink of anorexia. I loathed my body. My breasts especially.

i fell all the way in and the next ten years were hellish. Both my 18th and 21st birthdays were spent in hospital due to anorexia. I don't have the happy memories of my 18th and 21st like others do, I missed out on all that.

At least I was eventually able to recover and thank god my delusions of my body being 'all wrong' were not affirmed by weight loss drugs and surgery.

Teen girls are so vulnerable to all types of body dysmorphia and I think we as parents really need to protect them from that and try to keep them away from material that could affirm their dislike of their bodies.

Fine for adults to read such a book but not girls.

Oh and also pointing out this author doesn't advocate for transitioning, they mention it only right at the end when they said that they got an appointment for a gender clinic with I think one brief mention about looking forward to being given access to "the key". I think there was two brief references to not liking a binder and their Mum adapting something and not feeling the need to use a "packer".

The author might be happy having persisted, but most young people who are gender questioning don't persist. So this book isn't appropriate for the majority of gender questioning young people, because the authors 'happy ever after' won't be theirs.

This book is a work of fiction for 14+ – it is not on a curriculum, presenting as non fiction, educational, informative or being 'pushed' on children.

Book publishing is a business. They will follow the trends to make profit. The end.

Think you missed the part where I said I have read this book.

The page you are referencing is about them listing all the ways they viewed themselves and why they were not comfortable with being touched. It was at a point after the author had hated themselves into an eating disorder, frequent binge drinking and had stopped having periods and if I remember correctly before they developed an addiction to exercise in an attempt to develop a more masculine body.

They looked in the mirror and saw a distorted view of themselves, and they hated who they were. It's not a typical "I hate my body" it's a deep loathing.

Do you know what else the author does, talks to their teenage self from the other side, tells them that they understand better now than they did then. It's hindsight of an awful time with an understanding that only comes from getting out the other side. They also include other people's points of views something their teenage self would never have been capable of. The language is harsh because that was the degree of the authors feeling at the time. Just the same as most teenagers end up being mortified when they are in their 20s that they used to scream that they hated their parents.

If you want some other recommendations that might help you understand try Nothing Ever Happens Here by Sarah Haggar Holt, And Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker

What if, for the majority of gender questioning children, 'being transgender' is the exact kind of normal self consciousness you describe though? Just seen through the lens of 'if I'm not 100% on board with puberty and the stereotypes of my sex don't 100% fit me, I must not truly be my sex'?

Most if left alone will not persist in identifying as trans post puberty. And neither GIDS nor any other gender service has ever claimed to be able to tell which will persist and which won't. So books suggesting that the way to be happy/be your true self is via irreversible medical treatments, is irresponsible at best.

Please don't. I'm not sure if you've read this whole thread but there's a cartoon in which a young girl views her breasts as 'bags of fat' and proceeds to have them amputated. Please keep it well away form her.

I agree that puberty is so, so hard for teen girls especially now.

She's self conscious in a way all 12 year olds that are larger than average in the chest department are, she doesn't hate her body or think it's the wrong one.

I mentioned it only to highlight that this is the type of abuse girls are subject to every day for being different, my daughter is a stroppy single minded individual who wouldn't usually hesitate to give as good as she gets with everyone, and even she was affected by stupid thoughtless comments from idiots.

Being transgender must multiply that by 100x it is more than feeling uncomfortable or self conscious it's about feeling wrong.

Maybe all a book like this needs to do is exist for one child to not feel alone, you might not need to read it but maybe they do.

I'm not advocating that behaviour am I? It's not what I want, it's what it'll take though.

I can see what everyone keeping their opinion to themselves, or select listeners, has done for the debate so far. People need to be out and proud with this.

If your daughter is self-conscious about her chest then please for the love of Goddess don't let her get her hands on the book under discussion here.

Direct her to books and media resources which celebrate and affirm the biological female body in all its diverse glory.

It's a good book, my 14 year old borrowed it from the school library, and I read it at his recommendation.

It's written by an adult who finally feels settled in their own skin writing to their teenage self, reflecting on how they felt, what they struggled with and why.

Its sad that they were drowning even though they had a supportive family and close friends.

My 12 year old had someone scream at her the other day that she had "massive boobs" she felt self conscious and upset, there will be a next time because kids at her school are frankly assholes, I told her to respond with "I would rather have massive boob's than a tiny mind".

It is amazing how many people seem to convince themselves teenager can "catch" being Transgender. If it was that easy to be influenced by media/books surely some of you would have read books like this realised how hard a transgender persons life is and caught compassion and empathy by now?

Reading memoirs of anorexics can absolutely act as a trigger to adopt, accelerate or relapse into ED behaviours. This is a well known fact in the world of ED treatment, so much so that the most graphic memoirs, such as Marya Hornbacher's Wasted, are banned from ED units and can result in removal of some privileges if being harboured.

Interestingly anorexia tends to manifest in its full blown form in the late teens although restrictive behaviours or what used to be known as cryptanorexia typically appears aorund age 14. An especially impressionable age. So i cna absolutely acknowledge that seeing healthy breasts described as fatty lumps would be triggering and dangerous to any teen girl alreday vulnerable to all types of body dysmorphia.

10/10 this book should be for adults and carry a TW.

So you said PP was free to write her own book, knowing that she would be harassed, threatened and lose her livelihood if she did?

So more women need to be threatened and harassed, if we want teenagers not to be encouraged to damage their bodies. Good to know.

A ex ofsted teacher friend says it’s becoming the new anorexia all this gender stuff. It’s really scary.

No I'm fully aware. Are you suggesting that people who've got something to say don't say it? Sounds counter productive. Pretty sure nothing ever changes without being challenged.

Or is getting backslaps on mn enough?

You're not aware of what happens to women who write children's books and don't believe in gender ideology, are you?

https://wildwomanwritingclub.wordpress.com/2021/12/09/rachel-rooneys-exit-interview-from-publishing/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11259447/Former-childrens-author-opens-cancelled-standing-JK-Rowling.html

You are free to write one!

ALLJ · 20/09/2023 13:16

Because it's not aimed at young girls, it's aimed at trans boys who are teenagers, not children teenagers.

I'm not sure where to start with that hairy bag of piffle. It most certainly is aimed at girls, girls in psychological distress, because they think they are actually boys. You may call them "trans boys," but they are, in fact, girls. Also, teenagers are children - what on Earth does "not children teenagers" even mean?

No I haven’t read the whole book, but anything aimed at young girls that ends in ‘and then I realised my perfectly healthy female body was actually a man in disguise due to my untreated mental health issues’ is not something that should be aimed at young people at all.

As a side note, have you seen the authors social media videos? Evidently their issues with being a girl runs deep. A lot of internalised misogyny, certainly not someone who should be aiming their own words at other girls.