Poor kid

hackmum

Yes. It's badly written. Amateurish.

Yes exactly

There's a lot about this story that doesn't seem quite right. Most of the stuff has already been pointed out. The reporting is strangely uncritical (for the Mail) and the parents' examples of non-conformity are extremely trivial - all that stuff about the short hair, and the child refusing to wear make-up. The detail about the burning of the bra (wtaf?) was faintly disturbing. Claiming the transition (ie something that will render the child permanently sterile and unable to have a sex life) wasn't a "big deal" suggests someone who doesn't know what she's talking about.

The sentence that stood out for me was: "Gabriel's next big step is to undergo a hormone blocking procedure, and he is on a waiting list at a gender clinic in Leeds. It is hoped that will stop puberty before it started to allow him to transition into a boy."

There is nothing here to suggest that the clinic will actually put her on puberty blockers. It all seems to be happening in the mother's head. She seems to me that she's in her own little fantasy land with no understanding of the reality of what transition means. The very fact that she has gone to the papers with this story also suggests someone who is more interested in attention-seeking than the wellbeing of her child.

These are the sorts of threads that should be on the main boards.

It’s not exactly a convincing case study, is it? I also think that it shows poor judgement to publicise it in the press for achildthat age

Which makes you wonder what kind of Dr agreed to do this. If I had to hazard a guess id also say a gender obsessed mum wanting to "enjoy having a girl" and possibly on the receiving end of some bullying or sexual comments/harassment at school or digs about her sexuality.

No protection at all for girls or lesbians

Could of course be wrong...

Tomboy here. Was horrified when I had to wear a vest and not go topless in my shorts like my 4 brothers when playing.

But at no point did I ever ever want to become one of them brothers.

Ffs what the shit is going on that a kid even has them thoughts in their head
Who is feeding them this crap
It’s an awkward time starting puberty for sure but they don’t need this sorta crap being fed them

Ffs

There is so much to be sad/angry about in this story. Who is advocating for that poor child? They are of no age to be making life altering decisions or to understand the impact of these decisions even when explained. Surely part of our job as parents is to protect our children from themselves until they are of an age to do it themselves? My daughter mostly dresses in a neutral way, at times wants dresses and make up, she is 6, her brother who is 4 rocks a princess dress and likes dolls, does this bother me? Does it fuck! Gender is a contruct, we are all free to perform/not perform it as we see fit. The idea that clothing toys or anything preference signals that somehow 'biology' is wrong is quite frankly ludicrous.

yes, that poor kid.

I wonder how the conversation around being "LGBT" really went. It's entirely possible that Charlotte wanted to tell their mum that they're a lesbian. But mum went straight to trans.

What do you think TransplantsArePlants? The only girl out of 5, mum going over the top to feminise her only daughter deeply into stereotypes, the child rejecting that and using the other kids, her brothers, as a template for how to avoid being put into an unappealing and very narrow-looking box?

It’s not exactly a convincing case study, is it? I also think that it shows poor judgement to publicise it in the press for a child that age.

The article drips with gender stereotyping:

Tom Boy, twirling in dresses, sole girl in a family of 5 kids, makeup on a 6 year old

Wonder when mum and dad spilt up too

It's a tricky old year for 10 year olds (when she started to reject stereotypically female clothes and hair cut) as they start to look out into the world and see what's expected of them.

Wonder whose idea it was to burn a bra? Whose bra - not little Gabriel's, certainly

"He said 'do you know what LGBT is?' And I didn't know what it was"

Chinny reckon.

I also think the fact the parents are parading their child in the papers is terrible.

That was definitely me and still is to a large extent.

How many of us had short hair, didn't wear make-up, disliked dresses and were "tomboys" when we were under 12?

I will probably get deleted for this but the mother comes across as exceptionally thick.

Leeds is at least an hour away from Hessle - it’s not exactly local, Yorkshire is a big place after all!

Anyway, as I pointed out before the school the child goes to has been in the national press for trans issues but I don’t think think there’s a direct Mermsids link.

Screenshot from Grauniad article I linked to upthread, mentions Mesmac as a local charity involved as well as Barnardos.

This stood out for me
Gabriel texted me from his dad's house. He said 'do you know what LGBT is?' And I didn't know what it was. He said 'well I'm one of them,' and I asked him if he meant he was trans and he said he was

The mother jumped straight to suggesting trans and ignored completely the possibility the child could be gay. Talk about leading.

It said the child is being treated in Leeds at the gender clinic there, not that she lives there.

Poor child.

"He has four brothers so I thought it might be to do with that but then he said he wanted his hair cut short."

Because girls physically can't have short hair.
Men and boys cannot and should not ever have long hair.
Short hair is an absolute sign that a person is male.

Moreover, this has held true across the world for all of history.

Hair length is a way better indicator to a person's sex than anything else.

I worry a bit about all this as I have a GNC DD who wore "boys" clothes exclusively for a few years (and it was about being labelled boys rather than the style, this was when she was 8 or so), still always wears a more neutral / masculine style (AKA comfortable), has short hair and wants it shorter etc.

At 10 though she has already started her periods and her body changing doesn't seem to be freaking her out.

She does follow a lot of LGBT+ stuff on animo and I asked her to stop, lots of transboys on there talking about binding etc

I also asked her if she thought people could literally change sex (get a penis / vulva) and she looked a bit confused and went with yes...

I do think that this is the alternative culture of our day, and that's all AOK, blue hair, makeup on boys, call me Dave, whatever. The bit where I baulk is when the medicalisation starts.

I also have a lot of concern about why no-one seems to be making teh (to me) obvious links around female puberty in a sexist society / being an older girl in a sexist society, that girls have always taken steps to try to opt out, and the fact that girls are the largest quickest growing group of trans people (transboys).

Wasn't emma healey the MN intern who leaked Ip addresses a Leeds uni student?