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

I should have said “without challenge” but thought it was implicit. Children believe all sorts of things, but we don’t affirm other erroneous beliefs especially if mental health related. If an anorexic child told you she was fat, one wouldn’t affirm that, so why do it if someone believes their healthy body is so distressing they need to change it? They need support to accept the reality of their bodies rather than being validated in their feelings of alienation from their bodies. I didn’t mean to suggest we can directly control their thoughts!

This may be the experience of your friends but for many young girls being taught about gender and how you can identify as men is exactly what's causing a social contagion amongst teen girls. It's the new cutting and anorexia. Abigail Shrier talks about this in her book "Irriversable Damage".
Whilst gender disphoria is a very real mental disorder, most kids, around 90% will go through puberty and grow out of it. But just because this is a real disorder it doesn't mean that people are actually born in the wrong body and this is what they're essentially teaching kids in school. It's confusing and harmful . A man can never become a woman and vice versa. To tell kids they actually can be the opposite sex is a lie and it's only setting them up for further distress as their bodies start to change through puberty. To temporarily alleviate this distress some kids may start puberty blockers and then move on to cross sex hormones and it's this aspect of the whole gender ideology which is the most damaging especially considering that most will grow out of this distress.
So it's great that your friends as fully grown adults and can make the decision to transition but as we know a humans brain isn't fully formed until our early 20s. So let's not lead children down a confusing path and more importantly a path which can do irreversible damage to their growing bodies which they more the likely will regret later on.

I find it baffling. Tastes/likes and preferences do not define your sex. It seems so backwards to be reinforcing that if you like blue/trousers and football you must be a ‘boy’

Well I must admit I'm really confused with the last part of your post! Surely the best thing we can tell our kids, and those in school, is that they are perfect as they are and that they can be and do what they want to regardless of their sex?

We also need to address the gender/trans stuff because they'll hear about it from somewhere, either at school or on the internet and we should say that it's just made up, it's not real, (gender is a social construct), and most people don't have a gender identity, but everyone has a personality.

Girls are at particular risk of wanting to be the opposite sex and many of them are lesbian (definitely uncool these days), autistic, have been sexually abused, are in care, have MH problems, been bereaved etc. It's the new anorexia or self-harming.

To the OP with I think 14 in a school of 900 - my friend has 4 in a class of 30!! Schools should never validate these 'identities', it's so damaging and can have long term harmful consequences.

I don't truly understand it because I don't have gender dysphoria. I know they are far happier living their life as their preferred gender than they ever were pretending to be someone they are not - that's the truly unstable situation.

As you put it: You don't feel like a boy - you are one. 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.

Maybe talk to someone who is trans. Ask them how they feel. You will find a sense of clarity that explains this is way beyond a kid going "I wish I was a girl so I can wear pink" or "I wish I was a boy so I can climb trees and get dirty".

Where is the collusion? What lies are there? The truth is, you support them and deal with the actual realities together. No one would choose to face the hatred and misunderstanding. It takes a huge amount of courage and having family support and love is the one thing they need more than anything.

But how do you not 'allow' them to think something? You can't can you!

This was me growing up. Had to wear boys clothes and was convinced in my mind I was a boy. It would have been so damaging to be told I could change my gender.
I’m happily married with a son and love being a women, but as a teenager could have easily wanted to be different and followed a path which in honestly would have made me miserable. I’m all for it if you’re an adult and know you want to change but I don’t think children should be told it’s okay to change. There’s a lot of stories of regret out there coming out now

Just be mindful that there are people in this world who DO have transkids and remember the first rule of life - Be Kind. It's really tough because they know how hard it's going to be for their child in terms of acceptance.

It's far far easier to be the gender you were born with and a horrible uphill struggle to live as the one that doesn't match your skin. It's currently a SIX YEAR wait to even be seen by a Gender Clinic to discuss feelings. Children don't enter that lightly.

And imagine YOUR child screwing up the courage to tell you their deepest darkest secret, and you respond with scorn or hate? There is enough hate in the world for them - they don't need it from you as well.

And actually, wouldn't you want to be the person who buys them their first binder or helps them with make-up?

There is so much hate on here. It's so sad. I'm sure most of you will end up with CIS heterosexual kids - but please, please, please THINK before you assume that the parent of a trans, non-binary or gender fluid child is somehow guilty of child abuse. We are all just doing our best to be loving parents aren't we?

Yes I had my kids in the late 70's and was aware of the danger of stereotypes even then. I think it really went wrong when the LGB groups achieved equal marriage in 2013and the funding ran out so Stonewall and others embraced the T so they could keep going.

Since about 2000 some US billionaire medical and tech philanthropists have been throwing millions of dollars at LGBT groups and at universities and medical facilities, promoting transgenderism and gender identity ideology. Their aim is to blur the lines between the sexes and destabilise society. Their power and reach is quite frightening and in many countries they have already achieved their aim of having gender recognised in law, rather than sex which means that women's rights can no longer be upheld as there is now no category of woman which doesn't contain men. Gender ideology is extremely regressive and damaging to women and girls. The Billionaires Behind the LGBT Movement | Jennifer Bilek | First Things

THIS

I spent my childhood running around in bare feet, tucking my skirt into my knickers and climbing trees, paddling in streams and catching snails. The next minute, I would be twirling around in my skirt. I also had a really active childhood and was supported to compete in a male dominated sport. When I look back, I loved my childhood for the freedom it allowed me to explore all of my personality.

My daughter wasn't very girly at all. From being a toddler she preferred playing with cars, trains,bugs and dinosaurs.....anything but dolls! Didn't care for anything pink and preferred dungarees to pretty little dresses. Although she was a tomboy we never had any concerns about her gender identity and she was never confused by it either. Too many people are putting these weird ideas into the heads of young impressionable kids. It's all going too far!

I have a cousin (much younger that me, early twenties) and she went through a phase in her late teens of thinking she was a boy. Got everyone to call her by an alternate name, looked very much like a boy. Now she is the complete opposite- dresses, makeup, very girly, back to her old name. Think her mum just went along with it as she had other phases in her life, was just very relaxed about the whole thing, didn’t go out of her way to encourage but also didn’t discourage it and she literally just grew out of it. When I was at school whenever we played I would always insist on being a male character in whatever game it was, never wanted to be a female. I fear for how that would have been taken if things had been how they are now.

@pollymere

The TRA lobby had gender dysphoria changed from a mental illness to whatever it is now.

It them that have downplayed gender dysphoria and its definition.

You post about celebration achievements outside of gender norms. This was being done by working against gender stereotypes, girls in STEM, Boys in textiles and much more.
Now thanks to TRAs we are back to gender stereotypes and are just supposed to accept this without some sort of robust definition and foundation in fact.

But based on what?

What is it they are feeling?

Boy just means juvenile male human? It's not a feeling. It's a fact. A reality. How can you feel like a boy? You just are one.

And how can a kid ever he happy on such an unstable impossible solution that is everyone pretends reality doesn't exist and colludes in lying to a child.

Please don't downplay gender dysphoria. There is a serious difference between celebrating achievement outside gender norms and accepting that your child feels different inside to what they have on the outside.

I know children who felt that way at four but were then given gender norms to follow so tried their hardest at bring their assigned gender rather than being given acceptance for who they are inside. If boys can like cooking, dancing and wearing dresses and still be boys, it's not those things that make them a boy inside. Likewise your DD may like things associated with being a boy or actually feel like they are a boy.

Either way, it's about love, support and understanding. And if it's a phase? So what? Let them have it rather than hide it.
A happy child is better than a dead one, surely?

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Totally agree. As a child of the 70s/80s no one batted an eye at short-haired girls wearing boys’ clothes. There were “girl toys” and “boy toys” but kids played with whatever they fancied and what was available. They grew into perfectly ordinary, happy women and men. No-one seriously suggested Adam Ant, Boy George, Marylin or Pete Burns were girls or Annie Lennox and Grace Jones were boys regardless of clothes, make-up or sexual orientation.
I do think there was discrimination as far as boys participating in “girly” activities like dance, and that’s never really gone away, but no suggestion of being not male.

It’s a shit show now. Playing with stereotypes or not fitting societal norms is now deemed a demonstration of “trans identity”. The idea that putting people on endocrine altering meds to dick around with every aspect of health is a good idea is mind boggling. No-one knows long term outcomes. No medics are collating genuine research data.

It’s utterly immoral. I actually don’t care if it’s adults choosing to do this or not. In fact, on simply cost/benefit grounds I object. Anyone trotting down this path is consuming a cocktail of drugs their body does not need. With no certainty of positive long term benefit. Taking them for the rest of their life. Then, the known (and as yet unknown) knock-on health impacts. What is that costing/going to cost?

Prevalence of vaginal atrophy, need for hysterectomy, urinary incontinence, heart medications, breast surgeries, hair removal, mental health meds and treatments. All documented effects so far. For a socialised healthcare system that’s a lot of money to spend with no proven benefit. Even in consumer system like US where it’s covered by insurance - every other consumer is taking a hit on the cost as premiums rise to cover it. There’s no winners here - people feeling good about themselves for being social justice warriors blindly promoting a new religion.

I'm another person who was never girly - more interested in maths and computers than fashion and make-up. It does seem like all those stereotypes we were beginning to overturn are becoming stronger again, because stereotypes are okay if you can choose which one you want to be - and I think that's really detrimental. DD is very similar to me, and seems happy being a non-girly girl (despite non-binary and trans-identifying friends) - it perhaps helps to have me as an example that it's fine.

Society needs to change, not children. Normalise boys playing with dolls, painting nails, girls playing football, having short hair. What even is gender? The idea that boys like some things and girls like other things? I actually don't think I have a gender. I'm female because I have female reproductive organs. I'm at great risk of being raped because I'm female. I'm not a girl because I paint my nails.

The only thing I took from your post was that you didn't and haven't read any of the posts before yours.
What do you say to the people who don't have a gender? No one is assigning genders to babies when they are born. Society has imposed gender on us. It's not something we are born with. No one is born in the wrong body. I have sympathy for your family member. How awful to feel you need to alter your body. Gender is regressive stereotypes.

A brilliant post. She's lucky to have you for her mum. But what have we come to in a few short years? When I was young me and all my friends believed women could break down barriers, dress how we pleased rather than for the male gaze, say what we thought and stride through the world. A few years later there's huge amount of gender stereotyping with young women expected to be hyper feminine and a regressive idea of "gender" creeping through everything. Keep her safe from would be "kind" " inclusive" influences and influencers until she's built her own boundaries and good luck to you and all the mothers protecting their children. The more people speak out the more we will roll this awful regressive stuff back.

I agree. It's just reinforcing stereotypes and is the opposite of progressive:
Oh you like dresses, you must be a girl!
Oh you like football, you must be a boy!

It's bullshit.

It’s incredibly cruel to encourage or allow children and adolescents to believe that their bodies are wrong must be fixed to match their personalities.

No one is assigned anything. X or y sperm meets egg and that decides the sex. Its determined at conception.

By adopting this notion its a choice , a random decision that can sometimes go wrong ( outside of medical conditions tat cause ambiguity) is contributing to the confusion.

You are male or female. Everything else is a construct, something imposed on you by society which is what needs abolishing.

I know your heart is in the right place and you are worried for your daughter’s future challenges and what she will go through if she decides that her biological sex does not align with her gender. BUT I think you are conflating two very different things. Feeling that you want to do stereotypically masculine things, like pay football or wear your hair short is not the same thing as believing your gender is different to the biological sex you were assigned at birth.
My niece was assigned male at birth and has undergone full gender reassignment. She is a computer games designer (typically a male dominated career). She plays electric guitar, as a child she loved trains. She is beautiful and feminine but as a child she didn’t like typically ‘girly’ things.
Having a biological gender assigned to you, and dealing with all the gender constructs that come from a body that outwardly classifies you as a gender you don’t identify with can be catastrophically damaging in a very existential way. It is not up to people who are comfortable with their assigned gender to lead discussions on what will or won’t help.
Exposure to positive female role models in sport or other male dominated fields can only be a good thing, hopefully it will tackle some of the misogyny that is so prevalent and give young women the confidence they need to succeed in these areas. It’s not going to stop some people feeling that they have literally been born into the wrong body. We should be educating our children about gender and trans rights in the hope that society will begin to b come more accepting and inclusive so that everyone, regardless of their gender (and there are many genders btw) can feel confident to become their authentic selves whether that aligns with their biological sex or not.