Transgender kids article in today's Guardian

MythicalChicken, I don't think children are ever "persuaded to change sex". Cases I've heard of where children are transgender are very much child-led. I would imagine it's incredibly rare for a parent to push their child into something like this.

I'm quite looking forward to the documentary, really.

Those of you who don't agree with allowing children to take hormone blockers etc - where would you say people are able to start making those choices? I know of someone (not directly, more a friend-of-a-friend situation) who is currently supporting their 15-year-old son through hormone treatment and eventually surgery. I also know someone who's a year older than me (so late 20s) who came out as trans a couple of years ago, yet she's known for years that she was trans. It seems to me that she could have had a much easier time of it if she could have started treatment earlier in her life.

I did google and have been reading this Kat Callahan Jezebel Article. I'm trying to read it openly and take what she is saying at face value. I need to reread later (after eating all my choc eggs by myself ) and organise my thoughts.

But what about all the boys, for instance, who grow up liking girls toys and glitter and clothes and make-up… and end up being just gay.

Or even the ones who end up just being straight.

There is a massive great elephant in the room of public debate about this issue, and it renders the self-reports and aspirations of trans people extremely problematic. They can only express their situation using the language that we have, and the categories that we take for granted, but unfortunately that language and categorisation is full of made up assumptions and fallacies.

The idea that you can be born in the wrong body presupposes that there is such a thing as a "right" body.

The idea that you are deeply and physically different from other people because you don't "identify" with the gender role you were assigned, presupposes that those other people do.

Neither of these presuppositions are valid, IMO.

I grew up playing with cars, climbing trees and digging in the mud. I had no interest in dolls or princesses.
I have grown up to be a heterosexual female.

I think it is possible for someone as an adult to look back and say 'I always knew I was different, I didn't like typically boys/girls things.' But it's not always possible for someone to start from that point and look forwards.

But what about all the boys, for instance, who grow up liking girls toys and glitter and clothes and make-up… and end up being just gay. None of the gay men I know want to be women, even though they grew up liking girls stuff. Do people worry that children who are gay but not transgender will be persuaded to change sex when, in fact, that is not ultimately what they would have chosen?

Ehric, apologies, I am about to have a houseful - I will come back later but I am quite sure Google will enlighten you in the meantime.

There are plenty of adults who experienced panic attacks and tears at the idea of growing up the sex they are. The vast majority come to terms with it as they grow up as teenagers.
Hormone blockers do have side effects.

Is what way tibbysmum?

gender dysphoria and bdd are two different things....

But if you talk to your male infant a lot, that's not going to turn him female, just like a verbally neglected girl isn't going to become a boy.

I'll watch the documentary with interest this evening. I expect that Theroux will have done a suitably sensitive job of it. Thanks for flagging it up, OP.

The article is far short of what I expect from the Guardian; it bothers me that girl are boiled down to shoes and boys to trucks.

I do wish I had an explanation, that I could understand, of why gender body dysphoria is treated differently than of types of body dysphoria. I have the same questions as ELTB.

The problem with the idea of trying to identify brain scans as male or female is that it doesn't account for socialisation- if there is a 'female brain' are we born with it, or are we taught to think that way? Environmental influences can be very strong. There are some interesting studies showing that mothers talk much more to girls, even as infants, which in turn influences language development (and, I would assume, brain development as well). So even at a young age any differences could easily be nurture rather than nature.

There's this one. No idea of it's validity.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-reading-8978248.html

I do wonder why women have a considerably lesser propensity towards violence. I expect many on this site will say that's because girls are told to be nice and to be good but so are boys so I'm not convinced women not resorting to violence is just because we're told not too. I suppose testosterone plays a part.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html#.VSEnDZPF-fg

If there was a definitive male or female brain then the easiest test would be to show a bunch of experts a load of brains, or brain scans or whatever they need, and have the experts identify them as male or female. You could have brains of people who identify with their birth sex and also of trans people.

Has that been done?

I don't understand transgenderism due to my relationship with my own gender. I am not "transphobic" and in no way wish to make life any harder than it already is for teams people but I just do not understand it. I can't. I have no feelings of being or not being my own gender. And like the OP I find some discussions of "feeling" one gender or the other are laden with trite stereotypes.
I work with a transgender woman I knew as a man. I just don't try to understand her transition and think of her as a new person as I have no idea what traits she has In Common with the man I used to know.

What definitive research would convince you, LeBear?

There is no such thing as a female or male brain

Can you link to the definitive research on this? I can only find scientists disagreeing with each other about whether men and women's brains are in fact wired differently or not.

The mum in the article says they kind of knew at 18 months that their son was actually a girl.

18 months.

Wtf.

Hmm. Number of reporters and documentary makers who will 'edit' information to tell a story - all of them?

Number of parents who will decide their child needs gender reassignment simply because their son tried on their shoes and will find several apparently reputable doctors to agree with them - none?

I know nothing about this but I am sure it is more complicated than portrayed on tv.

Maybe more will be revealed in the programme but I, too, am struggling with the idea that a very young child could feel that they are the wrong sex.

My 5 year old probably didn't start categorising people into boys and girls until he was about 3, and certainly didn't distinguish between them in any meaningful way, more like 'I'm a boy and Jess is a girl, boys have willies, girls don't'. He pushed a teddy around in a pushchair without thinking that it was a girl thing to do, and as he played football with mummy, it wasn't a boy thing to do. His identity wasn't tied up with his activities.

I just don't get how young children could have such a strong sense of gender identity that they could feel attached to the 'wrong' one. How liking pink and glitter could turn into 'is actually a girl'. Is it the people around them giving them this idea?

Ignoring the transgender part of this discussion for a moment.

What really disturbs me here, is the idea of "feminine and butch behaviour" in children. Do socially constructed preferences/fashions in toys, hairstyles and clothing really determine the label a person is given?

I find this terribly depressing.

Body dysphoria is not uncommon. Even in children. The answer is usually to help the person to accept their body except in cases of transgender dysphoria when the answer is to change the body... People who believe they are supposed to be disabled, or an amputee, are not treated by having a limb removed. So why do people who reject their sexual organs get treated by having those sexual organs removed or changed?

Gender is socially constructed. There is no such thing as a female or male brain. Children cannot be born in the wrong body. They need help to accept themselves as they are not hormones and surgery to change their bodies.

"Female clothes"

Aaaah!

There is no such thing as "female clothes".

I'm with Eddie Izard on this one.

What I have an issue with is completely different, but I'm also aware that expressing my knowledge or opinion will attract vitriol and hatred and being told to die in a fire, so I'll just leave you to agree with each other.

Well I'd be interested to hear.

I have friends whose daughter from a very early age refused to wear any clothes which could identify her as a girl, often picking from the boys ' section and insisted on keeping her hair very short. She didn't play with dolls but loved trains. However she used to get annoyed if she was mistaken for a boy. She's 25 now and the last few times I've seen her she's been wearing short dresses and make up and generally looking very feminine.

Boys wearing dresses comes up regularly on AIBU but usually from mothers being self-congratulatory about how relaxed they are about their non-gendered parenting rather than considering their child might be transgender. If anything such threads are determinedly emphasising they are the mothers of boys who like girls' things.

From that article Camille's parents seem a little too hidebound about what girls and boys are supposed to like.