Mumsnet Grass Account

I have thought for some time that encouraging children to examine their gender and transition is "gay conversion therapy" under a different name. They have the funding and the government approval provides them access to children. Fact checkers are demonized and even have the police set on them for stating those facts.

I just had someone on another thread tell me SRS on an underage person was fine because they’d be legal soon anyway.

I'm not sure who you're referring to there Bowl, but just in case it was me, I didn't tell you that. Forgive me if I assumed wrong. Just wanted to be clear what I did say in response to your questions:

So, yes or no: is it ok to do a surgical procedure on a person below the legal age limit for it?

As a question with no context at all, answer: no. In that particular case being discussed it's not my call to make, but context is important. There is a huge difference between a parent facilitating genital reassignment for a 16 year old, and FGM on a person of any age.

And discussing the difference between FGM and GR you asked:

Please explain what the difference is, and why one is appropriate and one not?

One is an evidence based treatment for a recognised medical condition, gender dysphoria and is also commissioned by the NHS.

The other is a culturally ingrained harmful practice that inflicts an intentional injury to female genitalia for non-medical purposes, and has no health benefits for girls and women.

I didn't at any point say it was fine. We were referring to someone who had surgery in a country where it was legal at the time for them to do so.

There are millions of users on here -

A fraction of whom post on Feminism Chat. Of which a smaller subset like to misgender transpeople regularly. I doubt MN will be losing too much sleep.

I think it's quite well established, a lot of trans kids are gay. They could go on with their lives free of medication and surgery if they were allowed to be gay and they were just left alone. It's too easy to 'be trendy' by having a child that's different. I hope I'm gone when these kids grow up and realise what's happened to them, it's heartbreaking.

Even if she was OK with the kid potentially growing up to be gay the dad clearly wasn't

Similar narrative to Paris Lees , whose father similarly had a problem with having an effeminate son.

And, of course, the same as in Iran and Bible belt USA, where it's far preferable to have a trans son or daughter than a gay son or daughter

It would be good to see some guidelines for posting. I do agree with not discussing individual minors. I think if that minor is an adult and the parent but not them themselves has courted publicity then there’s also a case for being discreet.
If the now adult minor however has a public domain record of publicising their surgery though I think that’s a different thing.

If I could humbly pop a few requests in for your consideration @katemumsnet?

Firstly, coercive control training for mods. So important.

Things that should be allowed to stand:
Statements of scientific fact. The earth is an oblate spheroid, humans cannot change sex. That sort ofbthing.
Rebuttals of skewed science/science misrepresentation
Quotes from public domain media sources unless they are in themselves naming children/identifying children.
Generalised debate not naming individual minors as above but with basic procedural details - I do think this is important because there’s a lot of misinformation out there about the affirmative treatment routes. I just had someone on another thread tell me SRS on an underage person was fine because they’d be legal soon anyway. That’s pretty dodgy ground.

For what it’s worth, I actually think by trying to be conciliatory the situation is inflamed. Male centered boards would just tell these people to feck off. The TRA lobby are exploitingvthe fact that you guys want to be nice, to be fair and to be decent. They’re seeing a way in and they want to shut you down. They will not give up - you understand that right? Nothing you do short of never ever mentioning anything female ever again will be good enough. They are like the ultimate male abuser. You can tiptoe round and look pretty and keep the house nice but it’ll never be enough. No matter what you do, or how many people or posts you mod, they will keep on at you.

So to me, the logical response is to stop tying yourself in knots, put VERY simple guidelines in ( I’d keep it as simple as ‘transphobia will be dealt with like any other racism or religious hatred, please see our policy on those.’

And then I’d just stop engaging. There are millions of users on here - boycotts of advertisers by TRAs is laughable in the face of that.

Stop engaging, short simple boundary down and leave it.

I didn't think the child on Radio 4 the other week sounded like their confusion was coming from an innate place either - sounded like bullying from peers after suggestion from the mother.

I just hope that all of the confused young people find good counsellors to help them work it all through sensibly; whether that ultimately leads to a decision to transition or not.

Meanwhile, we must change society to smash up these stereotypes.

Parent tells their child ‘only girls play with those toys!’
Child using child’s logic concludes ‘I must be a girl then’ and eventually after telling their parents this enough, they are then allowed to play with the stuff they like, leading to the parent saying that the child suddenly became happy after being sad. Well...duh!

Exactly! It’s so obvious

Smacked the child for wearing the "wrong" clothes? And then they wonder why the poor kid comes up with a way around their ridiculous attempts to impose gender norms.

Yy exactly AAK. I don’t get how parents can believe that their child being trans is innate, and simultaneously say ‘I prevented him from playing with the toys he liked’ or ‘I smacked him when he wore girl’s clothes’ (not suggesting that susie green smacked her son, that was an American parent of a transgirl)

Even if she was OK with the kid potentially growing up to be gay the dad clearly wasn't.

weezol

Oh the relief

No elves

Putting a pub shed down there so people may well see elves when they leave...

I bet she has elves hidden somewhere in that garden.

Oof, I've made an arse of communicating my point there...

Rufus you are a reindeer with fingers ffs, there's no way I'd be suggesting you do such a thing - I have no idea what other magic powers you have.

I just will not accept that the rudeness on here is what puts people off. If rudeness put people of AIBU would be tumbleweed

They can't handle the truth. Spoken by educated, thoughtful, assertive women. There's very little rudeness.

Note that by toxic elements I mean stuff like mercury, not nasty ladies saying mean things.

Your ipad is probably full of toxic elements so best not to burn it really.

Greymisty It's just madness. Still, it gives the poor love something to do.

I believe the same applies to the internet today.
(Sorry, hit post instead of preview)

I may have taken that too literally

Rufustheyawningreindeer I twisted my ankle and couldn't weight bare over the weekend. I have been out most of the morning today though. My internet has quite a good reach too

I am not burning my ipad