Butterfly - Feedback from ITV to email complaint

source?

I've never heard of the glitter family. I think many end up in care or on the streets tbh.

Feeling as though one is in the wrong body is a fairly normal human feeling for anyone forced into social strictures that they don’t have an affinity with, or at puberty, particularly for girls. Adult women spend their lives with their bodies being public property. As a young woman, and very thin, if I ate ice cream or chocolate in the street, some random man would feel it his place to tell me that would get fat.
People with anorexia strongly feel their body is wrong. People with injuries, scars, disabilities , may feel distress that this isn’t the body they were meant to have.
Surely helping everyone to feel comfortable with their skin, and to enjoy the diversity of human appearance, with all our perceived “flaws” , is far, far better than putting a very young child on a drug that renders them sterile, and damages their bones, solely so that they better fit some idea of femininity that they are aspiring to ? When almost all children with those feelings will do a swift about turn after puberty, I think this is a criminal, abusive and disgusting thing to do. I also wonder why so many adult men are interested in the appearance of children.

How do I know how another woman feels
Exactly, so how can a boy know how being a girl ‘feels’. In reality no one can know how anyone else feels.

My daughter knew something wasn't right
Again so, so many children and teenagers feel like this, unhappy in their body. Many would give anything to change it. Most do grow to accept it and be happy with who they are but often not for many years.
I do think it’s cruel to tell teenagers they can change sex though. It’s leading lots to go through irreversible and damaging medication as they believe it is worth sacrificing it for something that isn’t possible.

I think if you said to lots of these boys/girls, look you can take hormones that will make you grow breasts/facial hair etc but the reality is that nothing will actually turn you into a man/woman, many wouldn’t be so keen.

I think we are doing a huge disservice to these children by not keeping repeating the reality. The same if they want to be American or have a different coloured skin or be taller or have different hair they simply can’t as that’s just how they are.

Anchor - that is heartbreaking. I have seen tweets telling children that if their parents don’t support them they can find their new “glitter family” within the trans movement.

Dangerous grooming of vulnerable people that destroys families.

and 'the wrong body' does not equate 'the body of someone of the opposite sex'.

Because they feel deep down they are in the wrong body.

There was a transwoman posting on here a while back who said that she felt as though she was in the wrong body. She acknowledged that that was obviously not literally true, but just the best way to put into words how she felt. Does that sound like how your child felt, Feminist4?

The important thing is to not lose sight of reality. It is not literally true that anyone is born in the wrong body, and it is not possible to change sex.

I feel for you. I feel for her too.

Anchor I hope that some day your child will understand that you acted in their best interests and looked not just to there here and now but the future as well.

Feminist4:

MrsKcastle, I think it showed the attitude of many parents. Nobody wants their child to be transgender as it is an awful journey and they face huge amounts of abuse. People are beginning to accept transgender people, but stereotypes remain - as on this board. Many trans children feel alienatated from their own parents who refuse to accept what their child is going through. I think Butterfly reflected both types of parent in one family.

Doo you think that some (many?) parents are so worried about having a trans child that they would suppress and discourage any signs of gender non-conformity, as Max's parents did? I do hope not, but I think you may be right. I've seen in many coming out stories something along the lines of 'no matter how many pretty dresses we bought, our child kept complaining ' or 'they wouldn't play with the trucks and dinosuars, even when we got rid of all their sister's nail polish and sparkles.'

If a child is constantly told 'you can't do that (or be that or wear that) because you're an X and that is for Ys' then doesn't that prompt the child to say 'well I must be a Y then'?

the wrong body. OK, so not a girl's body then?

And as for you Feminist 4 - I am one of those parents who is estranged from her trans child.

This was my child's decision - and not because we did not respect her new 'identity'. It was because we told her we had concerns about cross- sex hormones, surgery and the speed with which things were moving. She did not want to hear anything but total affirmation.

Living without my child in our life is a nightmare. I am grief stricken. But I cannot tell lies and pretend something so radical is fine and dandy when it isn't.

I would never tell a parent who supported and facilitated their child's transition that they were wrong. No matter what my own personal beliefs are.

So please shut up and stop peddling the TRA mantra that anything but total compliance will mean your trans child will disown you.

If my child hadn't heard that trope repeated to her over and over again she might still be in our lives.

Because they feel deep down they are in the wrong body. I didn't believe at first, like you. But experiencing my own trans daughter and her struggles, now I do.

sillyolme.wordpress.com/
^is a transactivist, although I disagree with her on some points, she is a breath of fresh air when it comes down to talking science. she does reviews of papers claiming blue brain pink brain and lays out facts, I can't find her individual paper reviews at the moment but they are out there. Please give her link a read. She is on Your side Feminist4 but like in most things in life there is always common ground.

The article you link to is pop science, it's a piece written to support an idea, cherry picking and misinterpreting the papers it's referenced.

a lot of research actual shows the difference in brains of homosexuals and the similarities of certain MtF and FtM with that of there sex. Other research cannot get past the nurture element of the brain.

here are a couple of conclusions on the actual papers that were referenced in your link.
link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-016-0768-5
Untreated MtFs and FtMs who have an early onset of their gender dysphoria and are sexually oriented to persons of their natal sex show a distinctive brain morphology, reflecting a brain phenotype. These phenotypes are different from those of heterosexual males or females; the differences affect the right hemisphere and cortical structures underlying body perception. The genesis of these phenotypes might be caused by atypical effects of sex hormones or their metabolites in specific cortical regions of MtFs and FtMs. These effects of hormones on the cortex suggest the hypothesis that brain differences between homosexual MtFs and FtMs and male and female controls are due to differences in the development of the cortex; this hypothesis would imply that the thinning process undergone by some regions of the cortex is timed differently in each phenotype

The review of the available data seems to support two existing hypotheses: (1) a brain-restricted intersexuality in homosexual MtFs and FtMs and (2) Blanchard’s insight on the existence of two brain phenotypes that differentiate “homosexual” and “nonhomosexual” MtFs. The studies on the effects of cross-sex hormone treatment on the brain of MtFs and FtMs consistently indicate dramatic effects on the gray and white matter after short- to medium-term treatments but the long-term effects on the brain require evaluation. Finally, the postmortem studies should be interpreted in light of these in vivo findings as well as of their underlying mechanisms

jpn.ca/vol41-issue6/41-6-395/
Results: We included 21 girls with GD, 20 male controls and 21 female controls in our study. In the absence of any group differences in performance, control girls showed significantly increased activation in frontal brain areas compared with control boys (pFWE = 0.012). Girls with GD before testosterone treatment differed significantly in frontal brain activation from the control girls (pFWE = 0.034), suggesting a masculinization of brain structures associated with visuospatial cognitive functions. After 10 months of testosterone treatment, girls with GD, similar to the control boys, showed increases in brain activation in areas implicated in mental rotation

Limitations: Since all girls with GD identified as gynephilic, their resemblance in spatial cognition with the control boys, who were also gynephilic, may have been related to their shared sexual orientation rather than their shared gender identity. We did not account for menstrual cycle phase or contraceptive use in our analyses

Conclusion: Our findings suggest atypical sexual differentiation of the brain in natal girls with GD and provide new evidence for organizational and activational effects of testosterone on visuospatial cognitive functioning

There is a thread somewhere on here were D bands?(terrible memory sorry) were discussed and explained. I shall see if I can find it.

still waiting for your to articulate how a boy can feel like a girl. Because right now it appears that you want laws to be changed on the basis on an undefined, unarticulated feeling that a child has. @something wasn't right' really doesn't cut it.

How do I know how another woman feels - I don't judge people because of my own narrow world view.

Oh, so now we're all individuals and no-one can know what anyone else feels.

So tell me how a male can know they 'feel like a girl/woman' if even a girl/woman can't know how another girl/woman feels?

OK so my trans daughter is a girl. Yes?

How embarrassingly transparent.

Not the first time on this thread it's seemed that Feminist4 is just here for shits and giggles. They're certainly not making much of an effort to convince anyone of what are apparently their views.

How do I know how another woman feels - I don't judge people because of my own narrow world view.
My daughter knew something wasn't right all along, but a gradual awareness grew in her teens of exactly what it was that was wrong.

I'm a bit late to this thread - but what a wonderful parent you are Housemum. How fortunate for your daughter that she is able to work through her difficulties within such a sensible and loving approach

@Feminist4

If you don't mind me asking, how old was your daughter when you first knew she was trans? (Apologies if you have already answered this)

How could I know how a transgender girl feels - and how can you?
But how can a boy know how a girl feels?!

If you are saying you don’t know how it feels to be transgender how can a boy possibly know how it feels to be a girl?

it is far more harmful to reduce womanhood and girlhood to nebulous, undefinable feelings and regressive sterotypes. Far more harmful. And as a feminist I centre women and girls, females, in my thinking.

OK so my trans daughter is a girl. Yes?

That was to Feminist4

WTAF are you on about you strange person? Nobody is calling your child the wrong thing (whatever you think that is). Nobody is actually calling your child anything.