To think we’ve got it wrong about gender identity in children

‘Living in their preferred gender’ seems to mean living as a cliched woman. It’s so regressive. It’s saying to young women that if they don’t meet their gender stereotype then there is something wrong with them. There isn’t.

check out the Dylan Mulgavny doing a gym session as a cliche of a women. It’s appalling.

In answer to your questions:

• if is a valid amendment from when.
• the Cass Model.

I don't thinknfor a moment most of the people who believe in the importance of sex and who are gender critical think for a moment that trans children shouldn't be supported.

Agreed. The disagreement is on what the support should look like: a) a "gender affirming" model, where all support starts from the premise that the patient's gender identity belief is valid and therapy/intervention is focused on helping them to feel more comfortable as their "authentic self" OR b) a Cass-aligned approach where a neutral "differential diagnosis" model is used to unpick and address why someone might be distressed, without gender identity at its core (in this model, social transition is unhelpful as it's already the first step in the affirmation model)

My concern is not whether a person should be allowed to transition, it's when should a person transition? What due diligence? How is this done in a way that recognises the pain a child is in but balances the damage/benefits of giving things time to make sure this is the right path.

Surely if, not when? Also, it has to be based on informed consent. At the moment, children (and many of their parents) seem to believe that it's possible to go through the puberty of the opposite sex, by using cross-sex hormones (accompanied by puberty blockers sometimes too). It's not. There is either puberty or no puberty. Cross-sex hormones simply create a mimicry of some opposite sex characteristics. That's why (transwo)men's hips and transmen's (women who identify as men) voice boxes don't grow. Testosterone will thicken the vocal chords but not change the voice box itself, hence the distinctive "croak" sound that is different from a naturally broken male voice.
Perhaps more importantly, puberty blockers fully stop puberty. If they are used early enough, puberty will never actually start. If they remain in use past the natural window of puberty (they are generally used alongside cross-sex hormones until late teenage years), there will be no puberty. Ever.
Here's an X thread on the risk of this in relation to brain maturation and executive functioning - keep in mind that both the Cass Report and the NHS state that nobody knows the impact of puberty blockers on the developing teenage brain:
https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1746253004217454968?t=pRPTikw6cEkT4FXGiV3p4A&s=19

The complication which makes things difficult to talk about is that a disproportionate number of autistic girls identifybas trans and there is a worrying trend of people who have transitioned wanting to change back. The concern has always got to be "how ido i support my child to find the right path without getting it wrong?".

Agreed. Only 1% of the population is autistic, yet GIDS referrals show anywhere between 35% (Cass) and 48% (research by 2 GIDS clinicians: https://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/1910/) are autistic. Cass also cites a 5000% increase in girls' referrals over this period. That simply makes no sense.

The children should always be at the heart of these things.

There absolutely shouldn't be a 6 year wait to be seen as I'm sure many people wait before telling parents who then wait before trying to her an appointment. it should be treated as urgent.

Agreed. But which type of care should they get? "Gender affirming care" or a Cass-aligned model of differential diagnosis and mental health support?

And yes, I do understand just how much pain some children can be in and hate themselves and be at risk of self harm and suicide during this time, which is why the appointment , not the pathway, should be urgent.

The distress of believing that you have a gender identity that differs from your sex must be awful. Thankfully suicide risk (and most likely self harm) is no different for this cohort than it is for any co-morbiditity that is seen alongside a child identifying as trans e.g. autism, trauma from bullying/sexual assault. But yes, urgent support is key. This is a recent study from Finland which normalises the results alongside those of co-morbiditities, to remove the bias of the gender identity (belief) skew:
https://x.com/segm_ebm/status/1761469814185533449?t=BaAvG7rwWHGamHvEdu3_JQ&s=19

I do feel that even if schools stop teaching our children that it’s ok to change your body if you think you’re the wrong gender, social media probably has a larger influence and even if you protect your own child from accessing this message, you can’t stop their friends from accessing it and then being a large influence on your child. All we can do is keep telling our children that they do not have to conform to gender stereotypes and to embrace their individuality but that their bodies are healthy and perfect just as they are.

I cannot keep watching that heartbreaking documentary. Thinking of the hundreds of thousands of confused children and young people caught up in life long medicalisation of their healthy bodies is do distressing. All those images of young women and teenagers cutting off healthy breasts. Being actively encouraged by the medical and education community feels like the collective insanity of normally really very intelligent people. I still don’t get it.

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Not sure if anyone else has posted this link in this thread, but this film is excellent. I watched it this evening and it explains so much about where the gender cult started and what is happening now, and why. It opens in twitter/X so just click on the video that starts playing. https://x.com/i/status/1811125941541687316

One of my problems is the teenage years into your twenties is all about fitting in at the same time as your body is changing.

These two things have been linked together in an unhealthy way by activists. It's cultlike. Cults target people going through moments of significant life change.

The inability to realise why these two things coinciding is problematic is significant. But then the number of people who don't understand the difference between causation and correlation never fails to amaze me.

My daughter was born in 1996 and it didn’t seem to be a thing in her childhood - mind you, we were in a very rural area where many of her friends were farmers’ children heavily involved in outdoor work whatever their sex. I didn’t see any pressure for ‘girliness’ until she went to university really.

Unfortunately, when you wake up in the morning you don't have the body you think you have. You don't have a penis.
**
And many transfolk don't have surgery - they just live as their preferred gender.

So a transboy (to take your example) is a boy, yet they don’t have a penis.
In fact, their whole body is female, so how are they a boy?

You say it’s not about wanting to do things which society associates with the opposite sex (climbing trees, playing football and so on).

You also say that many transpeople don’t have surgery (which is probably for the best), so having/ not having a penis might feel wrong to them, yet in many cases they seem to accept it.

So what does „living as their preferred gender“ actually mean then? It seems to me like it‘s mostly about validation and affirmation from others, about insisting to be seen in a particular way.

My friend's daughter is 15. Even as a toddler she hated wearing dresses, in fact flatly refused. As she grew she liked football.. plays on a girls team.. likes gaming... no interest in feminine stuff at all. No Barbie dolls for her... no interest. Then suddenly within the last year she has wanted to learn about makeup, she's noticing good looking boys, and while she still won't wear dresses she likes more girly tops to go with her jeans. Likes her hair done nicely. She would, in some circles, have been encouraged to "identity" as a boy, which could have totally messed with her head and been a travesty. She's a young woman through and through.. thank god for parents who just let her be herself and she matured into that lovely young woman in her own time.

I am so heartened to see this thread and the responses on it. A couple of years ago, most of the responses would have said "be kind" and "trans women are women" etc.

I have nothing at all against trans people and wish them a happy life free from harassment. But I am very much against the transitioning of children, teens and very young adults. As the Cass report says, there's so much going on at that stage - young people might think they are trans because they don't conform to stereotypes for their sex; because they're realising they're same sex attracted; because they're autistic and don't fit in socially or are struggling with puberty; because it's cool to be non-binary or pansexual and part of the fun rainbow community; etc.

Sounds like you are doing a great job with your daughter OP. I hope the government continue with the schools PHSE consultation and that we can put an end to schools bringing in external groups that teach absolute nonsense about "really" being the opposite sex if you like this or that stereotype.

I agree with you.

15 years ago my niece was exactly like your daughter. She went a bit further and said she was a boy and refused to wear anything but football kit, which amazingly her strict uniform.policy school allowed her to do. It went on until she went to secondary school.when she suddenly dropped the whole thing.

She is now a very happy gay woman, she is absolutely female. If this was today she would probably have been told about gender identity, being non binary etc etc. Who knows where she would be.

I 100% agree with you OP

I don't thinknfor a moment most of the people who believe in the importance of sex and who are gender critical think for a moment that trans children shouldn't be supported.

I think the conversation is more around the importance of taking the time ans applying scrutiny to each idividual each time to ensure that children are given the right support. For some, that absolutely might be transitioning. The complication which makes things difficult to talk about is that a disproportionate number of autistic girls identifybas trans and there is a worrying trend of people who have transitioned wanting to change back. The concern has always got to be "how ido i support my child to find the right path without getting it wrong?".

My concern is not whether a person should be allowed to transition, it's when should a person transition? What due diligence? How is this done in a way that recognises the pain a child is in but balances the damage/benefits of giving things time to make sure this is the right path.

The children should always be at the heart of these things.

There absolutely shouldn't be a 6 year wait to be seen as I'm sure many people wait before telling parents who then wait before trying to her an appointment. it should be treated as urgent. But i do think that once on the pathway, everything should be considered rigorously and time should be given for the person to reflect, which I think is the nuance that many lobbyists do not agree with and consider that appointments should be reaffirming amd I think that is dangerous for getting the right outcome for children. And yes, I do understand just how much pain some children can be in and hate themselves and be at risk of self harm and suicide during this time, which is why the appointment , not the pathway, should be urgent.

Find out what they're being taught in school about gender and have a look at this website Homepage - Safe Schools Alliance UK. Talk to your child about what is being taught and tell them that sex can't be changed but that gender is not biological, it's whatever anyone wants it to be. If your child says that they are 'trans' try to separate them from the people who are influencing them. That might be friends or these days very likely people and groups online. Remove their phone and unrestricted access to the internet. Give them plenty of family activities to keep them involved and feel valued. Try not to affirm their 'new identity' but perhaps avoid arguing about it by not using pronouns or their name if you can. Try to discuss the matter with them - you're interested in it, so ask lots of questions, but not in a judgemental way. I've not experienced this myself but have read a lot and have heard mothers talking about how they dealt with it. A useful group Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) (parentsofrogdkids.com) They can probably suggest other resources - most I can see are gender affirming.

But what's not fine is using emotive language to imply that a parent who doesn't believe in it is somehow letting their child down.

It’s always an emotional argument because there’s nothing logical or remotely rational about believing in gender as a material reality.

I’ve just never understood how loving and intelligent people believe in encouraging children, teenagers or young vulnerable adults that it’s good to hate yourself to the point of taking harmful and permanent medication or undergo extreme surgery with the high likelihood of life long complications. Just why?

💐💐❤️💪
Your son is lucky to have you as a parent.

Thank you for trying to be understanding. But you are not understanding the situation. I have already told him that I will always love him, no matter how he presents. I have apologised for a couple of things that I might have handled better. But he is ghosting me. It is pretty clear that I am already rejected unless I accept him on his terms. That tells me that my feelings don’t matter to him. I won’t give up on him - he is my son, and I will never deny that. So you can put “respecting” his “preferred” pronouns the other side of Neptune. I don’t do compelled speech, especially when that is lying to my son.

His behaviour since announcing he is trans is becoming unrecognisable. Love doesn’t accept bad behaviour, it calls bad behaviour out. His choice if he continues to reject his family - including, as I think I mentioned, those who are prepared to speak as he demands. But he has been got at, like so many other trans people who think you’re suddenly hateful because you disagree over this one issue.

I expect you’re thinking that his behaviour is reasonable, because I am denying his “identity”. Two thoughts on that. First, for each of us, our identity is formed in community, and an identity which requires the whole community to see you as you see yourself is unhealthy and unrealistic. Second, his identity impacts on other people’s identities, including his mother, who is the mother of a son, and his father, who is the father of a son. Nearly the whole trans “community” is highly intolerant.

I feel for your child. They want to be accepted by you as a daughter, and by your family as a niece or granddaughter.

How is this a helpful comment?

Fine. You believe that everyone has a gender identity.

But what's not fine is using emotive language to imply that a parent who doesn't believe in it is somehow letting their child down.

Being a non-believing parent of a child who is making decisions about their body, at a young age, which may lead to a permanent impact on their endochrine system (and possibly to surgery, which is also permanent) is an unenviable position.

Nobody is letting their child down if they are learning about gender identity and doing everything they can to support their (believing and distressed) child. Quite the opposite.

Joining the circus! 🤡

but hopefully you'd also say that you loved them and that them joining the circus wouldn't change that, even if you thought they were mad!

What a nonsense analogy. Joining the circus is not irreversible. Joining the circus is not a medical procedure that we don't know the long term consequences of. Joining the circus does not require everyone else to lie to 'affirm' choices.

Loving your child involves far more than just nodding along to anything they want, regardless of the consequences.

I agree with you.
Back in the 1980's when I was a child my best friend ( female) desided she was a boy. She even used a male name in school. By used I mean she would write it in her work etc teachers just used her proper name.
She had short hair and wore boyish clothes.
Her parents literally just let her get on with it and ignored it. Her mother was very much "that's nice dear, now go and lay the table".
Occasionally she got forced into a dress for a formal event. But she was otherwise just accepted as a classic tomboy without stigma, judgement or interference.

Today that girl would probably be labelled given damaging hormones and god knows what.

She is now mid 40"s married (to a man) and a mother.
She is a classic tom boy but definitely a woman! She can laugh about it and happy admits she is no girly girl.
It's not new- famous 5"s George is a good example. Why can't we just accept kids as kids like we used to.

Her parents did the right thing in just not making a big deal if it. The teachers at school were correct in using her proper name.

Yes you’re right, and I agree with others that this isn’t a new idea. I grew up in the 80s and wore a range of different colours, played with Lego, climbed trees etc. Nobody was surprised by it and no one even called me a tomboy- I was a girl who liked a range of things 🤷🏼‍♀️ In those days they didn’t have that patronising girls Lego with dog grooming salons etc. just normal Lego that boys and girls could play with and make anything they wanted.

My DCs were born in 2005 and 2008 and I tried to raise them in the same way I was raised. They both played with dolls, tried on make-up, wore Disney Princess dresses. They both climbed trees, played sports and made mud pies. I had a harder job than my mum did in avoiding gender stereotyping as it was becoming much more of a thing then in clothing and toys.

It kicks in really young though. When he was about to start in Reception, my son chose a cardigan instead of a jumper for his school uniform. Less than a week in and he told me he couldn’t wear it anymore because ‘boys don’t wear cardigans’ (clearly he was not prepared to be the only boy at school wearing one). Really made me sad. I was also sad when he wouldn’t go to the school choir, despite saying he wanted to because it was ‘for girls’.

Since 2009 the number of gender clinics in USA has grown from 0 to over 100. For every trans person signed up a drug company can expect to earn millions over their lifetime. In 2018 alone Lupron puberty blocker earned $726m - and it will be a lot more now. The hospitals removing breasts and testicles and inverting penises, with the many revisions they have to perform, earn huge amounts. Governments and councils (our money) donate a lot to charities and other LGBT groups where employees are well paid - and often most of the work is done by volunteers! As always, when something doesn't smell right, follow the money!