Parents who won't 'affirm' 8 yr old gender change being referred to social services

I think in primary care we're used to assuming the people in secondary or tertiary care know what they're doing and letting them get on with it. The exceptions are usually related to cost restraints where I have to battle to get patients seen who've been bounced back.
The trans situation is unusual in such one sided pressure being put on health professionals to promote a particular view of gender and transsexuality and particular treatments and with objective research being opposed.
I can't think of another field of medicine where the patient group has so much influence.

I've become increasingly concerned about this as a GP. I've only referred a couple of people to our gender clinics and both were of a Gillick competent age and very insistent at wanting referral. I didn't do much counselling or discussion myself thinking they'd get loads of that at the clinic.
I'm now concerned that clinics just go down the affirmation route with very little discussion of the disadvantages of being trans and exploring thoughts on sexual stereotyping, why they can't live the life they want and have the job and partner they want in their born sex etc and am thinking I'm going to have to book anyone wanting referral in the future a long appointment with me to discuss this stuff if no-one else is.
It does seem that anyone going on gender awareness courses just gets one sided brainwashing.

Your post has moved me, rather uncharacteristically.

It's such a relief when people who are in a position to gate keep see the problem for what it is.

Me too.
More professional people, as you say the 'gatekeepers' need to get on board with this.
I don't blame the ones who don't.
In the current climate, it can be professional suicide to raise one's head above the parapet.

Still, they can't police people's thoughts.

at the end of her post upthread you can see various pages advocating that teachers and other adults should maintain confidentiality in defiance of safeguarding guidelines and 'affirm' primary school children (as young as 4) without question and without sharing information.

Neither of the DC schools has mention trans anything to us.

Yet a recent now rare walk home with older two children and they started a conversation with me.

Yr 6 was confused - sex and gender hadn't be defined and most he has got from it was being trans was "good". He'd also been taught boy girl brains stuff which I pointed out wasn't backed by research.

Yr 8 - had been told she needed friends from diverse backgrounds - nothing bad about that as she friendly with people from different ethic groups, countries religions and social backgrounds - but apparently it meant gender and sexual orientations - though gay and lesbians hadn't been mentioned. On being question she wasn’t sure why only it looked good.

Other than promoting trans as good to my children the schools seem to have just really confused them - the idea that they could then without any input form us their parents go futher is worrying.

As a new mother this absolutely terrifies me. I had no idea things were getting this bad in the uk. :(

I live in Ontario, Canada (from the uk originally) and the liberals made changes to the law a few years ago to allow children to be removed from parents who refused to affirm their gender under the guise of it being child abuse. I believe it was designed to target religious and conservative families, but I have no doubt that it will be levelled at anyone who tries to resist.

But, coupled with the fact that until recently they were teaching this gender identity stuff in schools from a young age as part of a recently updated sex-ed programme (which has since been axed by the new conservative premier) and the closure of the only big clinic which took a counseling approach... Affirmation is basically the only option available right now and I think that’s wrong, especially when you’re threatening to remove people’s children if they refuse.

I know Canada is not the UK, but it’s horrifying to see that SW’s in the UK are starting to push for removing children from their parents for refusing to affirm. It’s bad enough that activist groups are trying to drive wedges between children and their parents through pushing schools to keep things secret, and in some cases grooming children online in this ideaology, but this just makes things so much worse.

Horrendous that this is happening.

The professionals involved display FII (fabricated induced injury) behaviour!

I totally agree here. Pushing their own issues onto vulnerable children. The ignorant people pleasers scarmbling to put them on a pedestal.

Please can I also just mention that there are other serious MH disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) which is very real and complex and often stems from severe abuse/ neglect, and has a specialised but underfunded NHS clinic, that can present as feeling like another person/identity including an identity of the opposite sex. This has the purpose of denying or masking overwhelming trauma and/or overwhelming confusion so that the person can cope and get by (and not kill themselves or go completely 'mad').

Sufferers do suffer great distress and chaotic lives at times but may be high functioning in certain aspects of life (a benefit of the trauma being 'split off' and hidden away inside the mind), meaning that contrary to the movie representations, DID can actually be difficult to recognise sometimes unless you are aware of the condition and are close to a person and complex in children.

I share the concerns posted on the thread above and it is also my concern that some children with DID will be misdiagnosed and herded into affirmative gender transition treatment, totally missing that there might be serious underlying problems.

It is one thing to try to stabilise someone in severe distress, but another to collude and reify (to make more real) a delusion or emergency coping strategy. (This would apply to ROGD too and I think I will start a thread on reification.)

I don't know why more MH professionals are not speaking up abut this trans stuff. But I don't know why I am surprised as too many of the MH professionals I have met over the years in various settings have been severely lacking in compassion and education and very biased against patients (dismissive and accusing of attention seeking etc) and especialy women, and the service is criminally underfunded.

Very frightening times for children, parents and those with MH problems.

Re the new Self ID 'consultation'.

What is being peddled is ideology of activists within the trans movement and Conservative ideology when it comes to social services, NHS and mental health provision.

The Conservatives want the latter to disappear under 'nhs provision' and the former facilitate this. Right wing ideology in action and winning.

In the GIRES training linked by R0wantrees at the end of her post upthread you can see various pages advocating that teachers and other adults should maintain confidentiality in defiance of safeguarding guidelines and 'affirm' primary school children (as young as 4) without question and without sharing information.
Just in case the 'this never happens' brigade are about.

This is worth a thread in AIBU or Chat

Tara sounds exactly like Snappity on the ROGD thread.

That this massive increase in children identifying as 'trans' is completely attributable to social contagion caused by internet access (I started teaching in 1980 and worked in a total of 6 secondary schools over 30 years; I knew a few probably/certainly gay kids in each school and not a single one with any suggestion of trans) + activist lobbying and promotion seems self-evident to me.

HOW are we allowing this to happen?

2rebecca

Your post has moved me, rather uncharacteristically.

It's such a relief when people who are in a position to gate keep see the problem for what it is.

It does seem that anyone going on gender awareness courses just gets one sided brainwashing.

Gires 2014 Annual report & accounts:
www.gires.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/GIRES-Accounts-2014.pdf

(extract)
In the UK, GIRES has sought the adoption of those standards by serving on the intercollegiate committee, which has published the Good Practice Guidelines, and on the NHS England (NHSE) Clinical Reference Group, which is developing the specifications for gender identity services for adults. GIRES is also currently contributing to the improvement of the service specification for children and
adolescents. However, even as standards are improving, capacity within the NHSE specialist gender services for adults has not, overall, kept pace with the continuing growth in numbers. Waiting lists are often much more than a year and worsening. Financial pressures on NHSE are likely to restrict funding for additional capacity. In order to augment capacity and provide the required equity of access to services for gender nonconforming individuals who need treatment, NHSE may consider upskilling GPs so that the less specialist elements of care can be offered locally and more promptly in tandem with the specialist clinics. This would improve the mental health of the individuals who would otherwise be waiting for care and address the risks associated with their obtaining unsupervised hormone
medication via the internet. Gender treatments are not part of standard medical training in the UK. GIRES has therefore been working with professionals, trans service users and families to develop e-learning resources for:
 GPs, in collaboration with the Royal College of GPs (funded by GIRES): gires.org.uk/gender-variance
 School nurses, health visitors, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services, teachers and other providers of care, as well as families, in collaboration with the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
(funded by Health Education England): gires.org.uk/caring-for-gender-nonconforming-young-people

I think it gives a lot of these young people false hope that they will one day be taken seriously as a man/woman, very cruel.

I've become increasingly concerned about this as a GP. I've only referred a couple of people to our gender clinics and both were of a Gillick competent age and very insistent at wanting referral. I didn't do much counselling or discussion myself thinking they'd get loads of that at the clinic.
I'm now concerned that clinics just go down the affirmation route with very little discussion of the disadvantages of being trans and exploring thoughts on sexual stereotyping, why they can't live the life they want and have the job and partner they want in their born sex etc and am thinking I'm going to have to book anyone wanting referral in the future a long appointment with me to discuss this stuff if no-one else is.
It does seem that anyone going on gender awareness courses just gets one sided brainwashing.

Indeed speakingwoman

The judgement really nails the reason why this child was not safeguarded by social care professionals. Just as the thousands of girls up and down the country have not been safeguarded because professionals were too frightened of being accused of being racist, accusations of being transphobic are having the same toxic reaction in relation to the safety of some children.

From the judgmetn:

"Transgender equality has received a great deal of attention in recent times. I believe that in this case the profile and sensitivity of the matters raised by the mother blinded a number of professionals from applying their training, skills and, it has to be said, common sense. They failed properly to investigate M's assertions, in part I suspect, because they did not wish to appear to be challenging an emerging orthodoxy in such a high profile issue. "

I wonder what happened in14/15 to cause that pronounced upturn?

My daughter went to university 13/15 (yes, that one) and was very friendly with bronies (who are apparently harmless). One day I said something about those identifying as female but retaining tackle and lesbians from a totally practical point of view, not being au fait with any of the ideology, and got shot down. We cannot discuss anything like this any more (this is someone who did biology, although not a biologist so should know something (confused). We do, however, talk about things like domestic abuse, CSE safeguarding etc (which she is very interested in) and one day I am hoping that with life experience added, connections will be made. But this ideology seems to have been firmly entrenched in certain parts of certain institutions well before that, and those people are now out there willing to work in areas putting it about.

Important thread which has wide ranging discussions about the systemic failings / failures of child protection and safeguarding vulnerable people frameworks:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville

The parents had to leave the school because it went down the immediate unquestioning affirmation route with no independent medical advice or input.

How the eff is this happening?

Wholesale abandonment of Working Together. I just cannot believe my eyes.

I was concerned to see this in June's edition of 'Professional Social Work' magazine produced by BASW.

I can imagine where the training materials are going to come from...

This is worth sharing with parents , teachers and social care professionals as an example of what happens when the trans ideology is allowed to impact on safeguarding professionals. The Judge in this case is scathing about how social workers failed to protect a child and left him with an abusive parent because they simply 'affirmed' his identity as a girl on the basis of his mother's disordered beliefs and ignored all concerns about him from other professionals. It makes chilling reading.
I always wonder whether any professionals were disciplined for choosing to ignoring so many safeguarding issues??

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html

May i suggest you repost this in Chat? (I doubt MNHQ will move it). This is something a lot of patents will be interested in and unaware of - the realities anyway. And please include Rowantree's post with the January article. Scary.

Once again, truly horrifying that activists are trying to enter Child Protection fields

I am absolutely horrified by this.