Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY! - Thread 2

There are quite a number of papers and articles that have been written about the misuse of suicide attempts and suicidality around gender identities.

Here are a few, but I will go and see if I can find the one which shows that the figures are not different when you look at the statistics for the co-morbidity conditions that those who declare they have a transgender identity have. But here are some that I have found:

This is a report by Professor Louis Appleby, University of Manchester, Department of Health and Social Care adviser on suicide prevention:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust-independent-report

Summary of conclusions

1. The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock.
2. The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide.
3. The claims that have been placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence.
4. There is a need to move away from the perception that puberty-blocking drugs are the main marker of non-judgemental acceptance in this area of health care.
5. We need to ensure high quality data in which everyone has confidence, as the basis of improved safety for this at risk group of young people.

Here is another review:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02287-7

Suicide by Clinic-Referred Transgender Adolescents in the United Kingdom
Michael Biggs. January 2022

Even the Tavistock was upfront that suicide was extremely rare on their website

https://archive.is/2DzUk

Marcus Evans wrote one of the first papers about this misuse of suicide :

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/freedom-to-think-the-need-for-thorough-assessment-and-treatment-of-gender-dysphoric-children/F4B7F5CAFC0D0BE9FF3C7886BA6E904B

Many interesting links but worth remembering this:

Evans said: During the 1980s, I led a parasuicide service in King's College Hospital, London, and treated a number of individuals who had self-harmed or attempted suicide after gender reassignment surgery. These patients had a history of serious and enduring mental illness and/or a personality disorder. Having developed a late-onset gender dysphoria, they were often angry at the loss of their biological sexual functioning and aggrieved with psychiatric services, which they felt had failed to examine their motivations for requesting reassignment surgery and/or to adequately investigate their psychological difficulties. A common theme in their presentations was a belief that physical treatments would remove or resolve aspects of themselves that caused them psychic pain. When the medical intervention failed to remove these psychological problems, the disappointment led to an escalation of self-harm and suicidal ideation, as resentment and hatred towards themselves were acted out in relation to their bodies.

And

Robert Winston also highlights how often medical transition may not meet the expectations of patients:

www.transgendertrend.com/professor-robert-winston-joins-transgender-debate-share-concerns-young-children/

‘He said 40 per cent of people who undergo vaginal reconstruction surgery experience complications as a result, and many need further surgery, and 23 per cent of people who have their breasts removed “feel uncomfortable with what they've done”. He added: “What I've been seeing in a fertility clinic are the long-term results of often very unhappy people who now feel quite badly damaged. “One has to consider when you're doing any kind of medicine where you're trying to do good not harm, and looking at the long-term effects of what you might be doing, and for me that is really a very important warning sign.” He added that the long-term effects of taking hormones “are likely to affect reproductive function”.’

Here is a parent responding to the much publicised Trevor Project self selected survey

https://genspect.org/a-parent-responds-to-time-article-on-poorly-designed-trevor-project-survey/

here are other links

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560325001082

Intersectional analysis of suicide risk among transgender and non-binary people

Highlights

The study investigates variation in suicidality among transgender people across intersecting social identities and positions.

Thirty-percent of experienced suicidal ideation and 4.2 % reported a suicide attempt in the past year.

Younger transgender people exhibited higher rates of suicidal ideation and attempts overall.

Respondents with lower educational attainment and disabled people with higher education reported more suicidal ideation.

Among those 20+, current and former sex workers experienced higher rates of suicide attempts.

Also, Chase Strangio, a female with a transgender identity who is a lawyer for the ACLU admitted this on the witness stand as part of her testimony:

STRANGIO: "What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in some—in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare and we’re talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don’t necessarily have completed suicides within them."

That's great news, for all the reasons outlined on this thread. I'll never understand or get over the resistance these female-run orgs have shown to this. And the glee that so many males have shown in their resistance - like our visitors early this morning. It's really brought home to me that women's rights are very vulnerable indeed.

There's such complacency now ("We've made it, we have equality! We don't need female-only spaces for children!") and such ignorance and naivety about how terrifyingly recent the gains we've made are, and how limited they are still.

I really think that one of the biggest indicators of how sexist and misogynist our society still is, is young women's lack of awareness of this. It's sidelined in school and normalised in society to the point that they don't even see it.

That we're not proactively promoting awareness of this to the degree we are issues surrounding race, sexuality and gender (that people are far more likely to deny it even being an issue in a way they don't in those other areas!) - to the extent that women and girls are now denied even a noun of their own to advocate for themselves, reduced to using "female" to be explicit - says to me that sexism and misogyny are the most enduring and insidious of all prejudices. What signifies oppression more clearly than persuading the oppressed group that, not only are they not oppressed, but that it's Right and Good for them to prostrate themselves at the altar of the oppressor group's demands, including offering up their only words?

I was pretty appalled to read that they were announcing this ‘with heavy hearts’.

The policy was trans inclusive - it now isn't. No I didn't consider all of your points because they don't seem rational to me, they come from a place of fear.

Well the WI has just announced that they are banning men/transwomen from their organisation as of April next year.
It would seem that the lawyers are beginning to get through to the people in charge of women's and girls single sex charities the full legal and personal consequences for the board members of allowing boys/men to join 😃

Thanks for the thoughtful follow-up, Solid. It must be difficult reading these contrasting viewpoints in relation to your child. I know that there are children whose transgenderism is apparent from a very early age, and who persist throughout life - I've talked about this with medical professionals who have treated them. But I also know that these professionals say that this is exceptionally, vanishingly rare, and that there's limited understanding of why it happens. In this context, with young children so sensitive to and confused by social cues - and autistic children so desperate to find and cling to reassuring patterns and rules - I think it's vitally important for parents who see their child as trans to be aware of the messages they may be sending, intentionally or not, from birth onwards.

It really does start that early, and is utterly insidious. It can be so hard to resist that instinct to greet the male newborn as a "big, strong boy" and the girl as a "pretty little thing". I mean, FFS, I find myself doing it with the family cats - "Go get him, Paws!" versus "Aw, poor little Twinkle!" kinda thing. And I'm thoroughly GC and a lifelong feminist.

I'm not saying this is necessarily what's happening in your case, but just wish there was wider understanding of how messaging about gender suffuses our world and how damaging and limiting it can be. The current ideology celebrates as progressive attitudes that I think are regressive and pretty destructive. I feel so sad to look back on the progress made in the 80s - girls with short hair, boys with long hair, gender-neutral clothing - and then see virtually every secondary school-aged female now with her perfectly coiffed long hair and prematurely made-up face. And then to know that the odd one out with the short hair is likely to be assumed to be non-binary or trans?! What it means to be female / a girl has been squashed right back down, corset-style, into a single, stereotypically feminine shape. And we've done this to them, somehow - we built this society.

It's devastating, tbh.

"all I'm asking for is understanding"

You allowed your child to access a female only group when they were not female. Did you ever think of the female children there and what they needed? And have you ever considered the pressure that those female children at Brownies felt to affirm your child when your child is a male child? Did those female children ever have the freedom to say that your child was a boy and that he should not have been there? Or use male language for him? Didn't you say you were a leader there?

I'm not asking for "cheques from society", all I'm asking for is understanding.

I saw a trans woman on public transport the other day, I observed a lot of staring at "the other". It felt slightly threatening. I hope it'll be different for my child when she comes of age, if her gender remains as it is.

My child consistently, persistently and insistently asserted herself as girl, often to the point of great distress. She constantly corrected us. We pushed back but she persisted. This occurred for over a year before her 'social' transition. Please don't make assumptions that we guided her to this.

She may well be autistic, we are on the list for a referral (years now). To my mind this is just another part of the puzzle, the brilliant unique person that she is, not a simple explanation to dismiss her 'gender dysphoria'.

Because she isn't - at the moment - dysphoric (ie: unhappy). She seems happy in her body and who she is, though this decision is the probably the first of many societal knocks.

She knows what her sex is, she knows what her gender is. Her existence isn't the problem but she is being made to feel that it is. That's why I mentioned the suicide rates earlier - I have spent much of my adult life battling quite severe mental illness. In supporting in her, in making her feel safe and listened to - at home and in our community - I hope she can have an easier path than the many trans people before her who have been ostracised by society.

(Sidenote - if anyone has links that debunk the widely quoted 30-50% suicide attempt statistic for trans people, I'd be very interested to read. It's hard to get reliable statistics on suicide, much less on a marginalised community.)

It's not an easy path, far from it. I suppose we don't always get to choose our paths through life.

I probably won't post much more today as I need to get on with work but I hope you all have a good day, thanks for the discussion.

GG have been anything but kind to children in allowing this to happen. This piece by a clinical psychologist is very informative about the psychological damage that's done to young children when the adults around them pretend they're really the opposite sex.

It's well worth reading:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

Sully. Here is the thread.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4409650-To-ask-you-to-see-who-girl-guides-support?page=1

Wasn’t there two women who also complained who were reported to the police for their complaints?

disgust is the right word. I don’t use it lightly either. Their statement yesterday was disgusting. The right result in terms of begrudgingly listening to the law, but the mealy mouthed way they apologise for doing the right thing? Just Fuck Off GirlGuides.

I agree. They need a complete restructure with new people at the helm. They can’t be trusted.

Frankly I think everyone involved in pandering to boys at the expense of girls should resign because they are not suitable people to be running the girl guides. If they hate prioritising girls so much, why are they running a girl's organization. They should go.

‘affirming’ parents are writing a cheque that they expect the rest of us to cash.

yes. Expecting other people and children to act as if a person is materially what they say they are when they are not, is certainly not respectful or kind.

Yet it is constantly framed as being both which is emotionally manipulative and coercive. I don’t think some of those who make the accusations that people are disrespectful and unkind understand the coercive pressure that they are attempting to put on others. I think they have unthinkingly absorbed and repeated dishonest falsities that groups have framed as progressive.

When you see similar sentiments expressed by GG, it is hugely concerning. The messaging we are giving to our female children that they have to accept things as materially real that are not is very harmful. Messaging our girls that they should not have boundaries and that their consent isn’t sought or needed, that they simply must accept this is just wrong on many levels.

I do sympathise with any non batshit volunteer who was put in a difficult position by organisational stupidity, and is now put in another one. All because of the initial failure to safeguard female single sex space. You can bet it won't be those with organisational power taking on any difficult conversations that might be needed.

What I think disgusts me the most about the GGs at the moment is that they are so disappointed that they need to follow the law and actually BE a single sex space (even though this is their mission!).

Who at the top is so captured that they don't even see the problem that they brought entirely on themselves? Their failure to safeguard girls is completely unforgivable in my opinion.

I have even less respect for them as an organisation than before because of the wording of their statements which only have concern for the impact on male people and has no apology for the impact on the very girls it is set up to support.

It’s fantastic news GirlGuides are going back to their roots as a girls only organisation. It was awful they allowed some boys in but not all and no safeguarding measures. I hope GirlGuiding lasts a long time, and this will be one day considered a dark part of their history!

The tone is disappointing, and I suspect it’ll take a new leadership team to truly get Girl Guides back to its roots / normal. It’s a bit concerning that boys weren’t immediately barred - obviously that’s the sensible measure to take, hopefully in the message next week. Perhaps they’re contacting the boys families individually first before putting a message out.

I think that GG needs to acknowledge not only the damage done to female children and leaders in their decision to lower the standards of their safeguarding processes and the removal of female single sex provision. They also should acknowledge the contribution to harm to these male children.

I cannot imagine being welcomed and celebrated as a GG only to then be told ‘sorry you are not a girl after all.’ How do these male children cope with having some adults tell them that they are girls and that they are female yet for only some purposes?

How do adults expect children to understand that they are only a girl and a female person sometimes while you are always really a male person?

This. Did pp ever establish what her son meant by ‘girl’?

Small children are still learning language and categories. Child logic is not like adult logic.

When ds was tiny, he saw Halloween stuff and was scared. We tried to explain to him that it was funny, not scary. So the new word he had learnt was that he didn’t like ‘funny’ things because they made him feel scared.

Kids make links and are constantly trying to learn rules that will help them understand the world. If there is a flaw in one of their early associations, it can throw their whole line of reasoning. I heard of a girl who said she wanted to be a boy, when questioned by sane parents, it turned out she thought that only boys could sleep in bunk beds and she wanted a bunk bed.

It is not kind to agree with a child that their categorisation of themselves as the opposite sex is correct. It sets them up for a lifetime of lies and potentially ill health if medication to change appearance is sought.

If any other psychological condition were diagnosed in their children, most parents would look at all the treatment options and certainly not preclude the least invasive treatments from being tried first and thoroughly. We know that puberty mostly resolves these feelings of incongruence in children.

Proper, open minded therapy or counselling would help uncover the vast majority of ‘gender questioning’ kids whose feelings stem from sexual abuse, grief, autism, or familial homophobia. None of these feelings are best treated by agreeing that the child is really the opposite sex and will ultimately need to harm their health to achieve the appearance that corresponds with their misdirected feelings.

As a pp put it very well on the other thread - these ‘affirming’ parents are writing a cheque that they expect the rest of us to cash.

I would like to point out that affirmation only of pre-pubescent children, is now likely to fail. Whilst I am aware of the situation in @SingleSexSpacesInSchools DC's school, more and more are taking a sex realist position.

The Department for Education mandated a few years back that all data about children in schools must be recorded as by their sex, with the optional extra of also recording gender identity if wished.
All of the local primary schools to me require parents to bring in a copy of their child's birth certificate, when the child starts at the school, which will record their sex.

The secondary school I teach in, separates all children for sport into single sex classes, from year 7, regardless of gender identity. A transboy will be offered a single changing place, if they do not wish to change with the other girls, but they would not be allowed in to the male changing rooms.

We are seeing far fewer "transchildren" than 5 years ago. There are a few more NB girls, almost exclusively autistic girls.

What I'm trying to say, is that society cannot sustain the lie that a child change sex. Responsible schools (and societies) are supporting gender distressed children, without doing them the unkindness of lying to them.

No human can change sex. There are differences in the bodies of the two sexes, and sometimes those differences are important.

Plus, the report on how boys take over social spaces is absolutely what every school teacher has ever seen.

Girls have the right to a single sex space, as has been confirmed by the highest law court in this land.

Even one boy, makes that space mixed sex.