Stella O'Malley, Trans Kids: It's Time To Talk

Lassupthebrew;

Actually, I AM on social media. I'm aware of the hoo ha, and the posturing. I just react a bit differently to it. :-)

But as we can easily communicate outside of Mumsnet, perhaps we should do that? This isn't our place to clog up, is it?

Very best wishes..
K

Sorry for these long posts. But I feel really passionately on this because I am very fearful for the present generation of children being innocently swept up in this. We seem to be sleepwalking into a tragedy believing that we are helping.

It is down to those few of us who have been there as that child and understand the problems in ways they are far too close to it to see for themselves to say what we think.

I watched the parliamentary debate on the GRA 'reforms' last week and it was shocking how many of the MPs from different parties have bought into all this trans are terribly oppressed and struggle so hard to get any rights and need to be given this that and the other.

No we aren't. Sorry and whilst not entirely a product of the young it is most obvious in the generation that have grown up with social media able to aim insults at anyone whilst behind a mask and it breeds a kind of invulnerability complex.

The internet is what has driven children into the arms of the trans mantra. When we were growing up being trans you felt you were the only person in the world like this as there was no community, no clinics, no daily blizzard of media coverage and - most importantly - no You Tube transitioners telling others - look at me - it is easy - just make the change.

This is what has turned a rare medical condition of still unknown cause but with very obvious psychological and social aspects into a social contagion and impacting the young more than any generation because of they live their lives on line.

Of course, not everyone is like this. But many are being swept along with it like these MPs were. They believed implicitly the claim that 41% of trans people have experienced a hate crime in the past year.

I have no idea of the validity of that but of true the question is not - oh, poor you, how can we give you more rights? But why is this happening to you now?

You and I have both been around a while. Not sure how long for you, but I transitioned more than 41 years ago and in all that time I have NEVER experienced a single hate crime. I don't think the reason is because I am just very lucky.

Something has shifted in attitudes and approach of today's trans people in what they call a hate crime.

Yes, I am sure really bad things do occasionally happen. But the definition of hate crime is now anything, Just like the definition of being trans is anybody.

There are no defined boundaries anymore. Everything is a blurred fuzzy mess in the same way the concepts of sex and gender and the rights and names of others are assimilated Borg like.

This is the kind of world that the children who experience what we experienced are growing up into and they are surrounded by this kind of influence not the ones we were.

In our day we knew something was wrong but not what. So we saw doctors as gender dysphoria very obviously is a problem not a cause. And we tried to resolve it and did what it took.

Today these youngsters see the adults simply saying who you feel is who you are and nobody must stand in your way. And there should be no boundaries. It is your right to declare you are not what your birth certificate says. This is where the entitlement emerges. Not the cry for help we had.

It is no wonder they are being swept along in increasing numbers - the ones who DO have dysphoria and the ones who think they do (but will eventually find out they don't - possibly too late for some to reel their lives back in) . Plus the ones who are just doing it because it seems like a cool idea as one of their friends did.

Kay, I don't think you are on social media to see the entitlement from the young trans activists out there. It is incredibly prolific. It is scary.

You have also not had veiled death threats issued by them because you are not supporting their line of transwomen ARE women (no we are not but can sometimes be regarded as such if we deserve to be).

Nor been verbally assaulted much as they do to Mumsnetters. People thinking like you are called Truscum, Quislings and even Nazi collaborators. The hatred is prolific. It has driven many transsexuals off social media because it shatters your perception of how we should behave.

This is not remotely the same as 1960s other than in a general sense that all youth generations rebel.

In the 1960s we did not make bomb threats that wreck any meeting of women they find out about. Nor condone violence against women. Nor show the offence taken at every turn if someone accidentally misgenders them. Nor the entitled demands to tear down posters that are literally just true words taken from a dictionary.

These tactics are out there every day in abundance. I had to see them for myself to believe them, because, like you, transitioned years ago and got on with life and happily and respectfully tried not to create any problems for others. I never protested when I had no rights at all because life is not all about rights and I was just content to be living truthfully to myself at last. It was enough and society compromised to help, which was fair and equitable.

Being trans should be about being yourself and living harmoniously with others without trying to make them believe what you believe as the one true god.

from the thread above I wrote:
"I am reading the book 'TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria: A Guide for Everyone (including professionals)'

There are very useful introductory chapters by Dr Az Hakeem

There are also essays by a number of people with different perspectives. One of these is a transman Luka Griffen who set legal precedent in Australia:

In his essay Luka describes the discomfort felt as a young person and then as a teenager during puberty and the associated physical changes

Luka identifies the internet and YouTube specifically as been how he made sense of his feelings. referring to
‘How I knew I was trans’ , ‘Quiz: are you trans?’ and a YouTube video called,‘ How I knew I was transgender (and some advice on coming out)’ by Skylar Kergil which Luka describes as resonating completely with all of his feelings.
Luka describes a moment of epiphany,
"I felt so much relief. Because somebody actually knew how I was feeling, it helped give me a new understanding of myself. Some of the confusion, frustration, and anxiety was easier to deal with, just knowing there were other people in the world who felt like me. It was like a light had been turned on in my mind. I knew I was a transgender man, and I knew that I didn’t want to be called by my birth name."

Having read this, I searched YouTube 'Am I transgender?' many of the top rated videos are by young transmen. I watched a few and was struck by how many said, 'If you're asking the question, you probably are' there are also a great many similarities in these young people's YouTube narratives

www.amazon.co.uk/TRANS-Exploring-Gender-Identity-Dysphoria/dp/1911246496?tag=mumsnetforum-21

This thread is relevent from July 2018, 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria' week.
Interesting to note the attempts to silence discussion by adult transwomen, both public figures and MN posters:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3315676-ROGDWEEK2018

Instagram has just over 200 posts on #detransition but 130K+ on #binding and 70K+ on #F2M as well as many other transitioning hashtags so it’s still being pushed heavily on there. The cutting hashtags you get a warning if you try to search these days, but cutting both tits off is A OK and cause for celebration. People need to be sending this shit to their MP’s, Schools and local safeguarding and asking WTAF is being done about this massive global scandal

Guardian article May 2018 'Schools pulled into row over helping transgender children
As more teens come out as trans, experts clash over how schools should help'
(extract)
"Davies-Arai says her broader concern is that by affirming students’ gender identity, schools may be nudging them down a route that can lead to cross-sex hormones and life-changing surgery without enough time to reflect. Teachers, she says, “are essentially being forced to collude in an experimental approach towards children with gender dysphoria”. She adds: “You can support children and accept them, without affirming their belief that their body is ‘wrong’.”

Adele Robinson (not her real name), a head of year at a secondary school, shares Davies-Arai’s worries. The school has had 12 children, all girls, come out as transgender in the past 18 months. The majority, she says, have autism, and some have experienced sexual abuse.

When they come out, she says, they have brought in information sourced from Tumblr blogs and YouTube videos. Although her team does its best to “support every child in a loving, kind and compassionate way”, she feels that staff are too frightened to challenge what she sees as harmful practices: “We have chest binders worn in school, which is horrible. If a child was cutting, they would be straight in with a counsellor. Yet damaging developing breast tissue goes unquestioned. It’s a gross failure in terms of child protection.” (continues)

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/15/transgender-row-teachers-afraid-challenge-breast-binding

Got a bit distracted by the footage of the Bristol meeting because I was excited about recognising so many of the speakers.
anyway it was a great documentary on I would recommend watching!

Hi Stella and thank you

L.U.T.Brew..
Can't say I agree with your analysis of the situation. To me it seems that young people today have it much harder than those of us born in the decades after the war, when the world was opening out, and people expected to be richer and with more opportunities than our parents. And so it proved. Young people today have less teenage pregnancies then 30 years ago,, drink less, and many reject drugs. Their prospects are much more limited than ours were., and the education system puts huge pressures on them.

There is something going wrong for young people; I agree with you there. But by and large it isn't that they get everything on a plate. That was what people said about my lot on the 60s, and with justice.And boy, did WE scream and shout and go on demos, like the TRAs of Bristol.

It is all pretty depressing, tbh; I am almost but not quite certain that there is no big expansion in genuine, lifelong GD.... although some of us wonder what chemicals and hormones we are all stuffing into ourselves, anti nataly as well.

It's the parents transing their very young eg 3-4 year olds I can't feel sympathy for because they should know better.

There are people who have 3-4 year olds who grew up being brainwashed on the internet themselves.

I’m horrified by some of the younger posters on the main boards (and I’m really not THAT old myself) what they think is acceptable/normal after growing up in the age of online porn.

If blockers had been around in the early 60s I would have wanted them desperately. They would have made a huge difference in my life.

But looking back now I am glad that they were not because the rare occasions when they might be justified cannot compensate for the lives that might be destabilised taking them when they should not.

Having to go through puberty and emerge intact teaches you to fight for what is necessary but not without exhausting other options first.

Today's emerging society is soft round the edges and sees rights as a given and demanded like a child at Christmas wanting everything in the store.

If you get handed something too easily you may end up grabbing it whether you want it or not, just because it is there or others round you got it first and so you want it too.

If you have to fight to prove need and work like mad to earn it this builds character and helps appreciate what you have won. You end up understanding the value. Of your rights and other peoples rights.

This is what is going wrong with this society and the handling of this transgender issue. Belief is life is too hard so make it easy and I will be good I promise.

Life should be hard. So should fundamentally changing who you are legally. Easy is not necessarily better. It can be the highway to mistakes and taking things for granted and treating others as if their support should be implicit.

Being trans is no cakewalk. You have to work at it for a lifetime. It has to be really necessary and if it can be avoided then you should thank your lucky stars and do it. It is not a Marvel adventure story.

We should not be teaching our children anything different. Yet tragically we are and some of them will suffer for our 'kindness'.

One thing that is crystal clear to me is that trans people are not one homogeneous group. Some are born male and others female, some are teenagers whilst others are middle aged, some are autistic others neurotypical, some have other mental health problems but others don't, some seem to have a fear of growing up and others appear to have a sexual motivation for change, etc etc

Recent BMJ letter by medical clinicians:

Published 29 October 2018
'Redesigning gender identity services: an opportunity to generate evidence'
authors: Richard Byng, general practitioner and professor in primary care research, Susan Bewley, emeritus professor of obstetrics and women’s health, Damian Clifford, consultant liaison psychiatrist, Margaret McCartney, general practitioner and freelance writer
(extracts)
"A recent feature in The BMJ implied that new services are all that’s needed to improve transgender healthcare. Providing timely, sensitive services for all, including those who decide to not pursue treatment or detransition, is important. But the article did not question the steep rise in referrals of mainly young women or the potential harms of medical overdiagnosis and overtreatment" (continues)

"Regulated medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations. Creating that evidence to inform quality standards is an ethical imperative. We need research to explore the interplays between gender identity, mental health and neurodevelopmental problems, sexual orientation, autogynephilia, and unpalatable gender roles" (continues)

open access link here:
www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4490.full?ijkey=6lX93kQA0lz5YoB&keytype=ref

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3410257-BMJ-article-We-need-research-to-explore-the-interplays-between-gender-identity-mental-health-and-neurodevelopmental-problems-sexual-orientation-autogynephilia-and-unpalatable-gender-roles

Kay

serficafleur;

There is a lot of that, I am quite sure. Really, a lot. But there is also some other stuff, which comes from somewhere we don't understand, and which has always been there at a much rarer and more scattered level.

So unless the nature of the human animal is suddenly changing, which I kind of doubt, there is contagion, the internet, unhappy girls responding to things in our society that are deeply unhealthy.And so on. I don't blame the parents as much as some, because I have met a few, and they have been doing their best in a nightmare situation. I have not often thought that the issue was being created by their own actions and misconceptions.

Although god knows what chemicals we are ingesting. I truly don't know what is going on, and when I was young, and struggling with palpable GD in isolation, I would not have dreamed that we would be where we are today.

Someone once said to me, and it was good advice. "Don't do it,. Just, DON'T do it. But if you HAVE to do it, it can be done." At 53 I gave the struggle up, having been a VERY peculiar little boy of 7 ( everyone said) and trying transition in 1966.

By the " don't do it" mantra/ sentiment, you'd fight tooth and nail not to have your child on puberty blockers or hormones. But you would love them the more , and the more conspicuously, because of what they are going through.

To add, mostly mothers in these groups.

You're right serf.

I'm in a massive fb off topic sling group but I don't follow it at all not sure why I joined but decided a few weeks ago to just search for anything related to the GRA after I was surprised that an arty mum type page suddenly promoted stonewalls advice for the GRA consultation.

Utter hysteria on several threads on the sling page. Many women had tactfully tried to challenge some of the assertions made by very pro TRA types and were repeatedly given suicide stats while mods stopped discussions citing no hatred here thanks.

Arty mum type page had a similar play out, utterly nonsensical long post from someone who was extremely hand maidenly (I actually copied it into my notes the cognitive dissonance was so batshit crazy so I could try to understand it) lots of hearting and rainbow emojis. I noticed a few who'd attempted to query the twaw mantra (mainly via safeguarding concerns; instantly plagued with suicide stats) had the suffragette colours in their profile pic. (I'm not sure many get what that means and I've never done anything that before but have done now.)

Mind you in the sling group I once saw a thread about gang bang porn and how the women absolutely love it, in response to someone who queried finding it funny.

Not just Instagtam.
Tumblr. Twitter. Facebook. There is a social media mass hysteria gong on.

Affirm all trans ideology! Delete and remove all thoughts critical of trans ideology!

All non-conforming, all misfits, socially awkward, body-critical, body-dysphoric, rebellious... Here is your answer.
You are trans.
We will elevate you to status.
We are your new and better family.
Just repeat after us.... Mantras... Slurs against the unbelievers... We understand you. No one else will.

Well it's all very convincing when you are a vulnerable young person. And is working. For the time being.

It's the parents transing their very young eg 3-4 year olds I can't feel sympathy for because they should know better.

lass, oh, don't get me wrong, what's done is done, I appreciate that there are lessons to be learned from the past, negatively and positively.

Thingybob totally agree. Very diverse group.

Reading what R0wantrees linked to about trans boys being a bit like Biebers - I can, if I put my teen head and eyes on, completely relate to this.

I definitely went through a phase where I was confused about sexual orientation and I can see that I'd probably have been very attracted to a trans boy. I had huge crushes on boys but sometimes girls too. That might have been wanting to be^^ them also. Pre teen I certainly loved George in the famous 5, I loved that she did everything a boy did but I also thought she was very cute too. (Massive crush on Dick also, couldn't work out who I'd want to go an an adventure with more.) Retrospectively an unfortunate name.

But I actually now know that my confusion was seated in a gut feeling that boys/ men could be dangerous, (I always as a teen fancied cute, quiet, meeker or shorter boys). I'm not sure where it came from; probably media and hearing about football hooliganism.

Instagram has just over 200 posts on #detransition but 130K+ on #binding and 70K+ on #F2M as well as many other transitioning hashtags so it’s still being pushed heavily on there. The cutting hashtags you get a warning if you try to search these days, but cutting both tits off is A OK and cause for celebration. People need to be sending this shit to their MP’s, Schools and local safeguarding and asking WTAF is being done about this massive global scandal.

So many sad stories on that site
So many struggles

It looks to be conversion therapy today but at the time was not. It was just a way to try to resolve serious problems. It was only ever done of patients agreed and we were desperate to escape from the dysphoria so often did.

They did not do this on children then, In fact children were not treated openly at all and there were no special clinics. There were not even any for adults until I was about 18.

I was seen as a child before then and tried some of the less invasive methods (lifestyle changes) as a child. But medical intervention of any kind was strictly not done on a child and it was only at 18 that I faced the other methods.

Worth remembering that there was no major reporting of surgical intervention. Cases of 'sex change' were still rare then. Birth certificate changes and marriage happened on a one to one basis as it was treated as a individual anomaly. That only altered through a famous trial in the early 70s.

So there was not the obsession with just one way out - transition - as now. Patients were more willing to try 'cures' if it meant removing the dysphoria and getting some kind of normal life back.

Doctors spoke of transition and surgery as a 'tragedy' and families were always involved in a joint decision on steps taken because if it reached that point it meant other options had failed and the future was uncertain as this was all very new.

Medicine then had no idea about long term cross sex hormone use and its consequences. There were some as it turned out.

This is so different from the attitude today but also chillingly like what is happening with the medicating of children now. Treating them as a science experiment much like we were (willingly - of course - as clearly are the children now).

But today with children this is happening without them having gone through any of the softer options to treat less invasively first. Which in the case of children today should be to just let them be kids and see what happens.

As with the adults back then most will grow out of it and for every genuinely transsexual child who benefits from blockers (and there will be some) the risk is that 10 times as many who should not have gone near this route might be taken along with the promise of an easy way out.

However misguided those methods of the past look to us today they were only trying to do the best for the patient by trying to treat symptoms without drastic consequences. Because they knew the risks of taking the more drastic route were incalculable.

Having been there once less than half a century ago it is worrying that the lesson of history has seemingly been forgotten.

I don’t know any other condition that is treated by affirmation. If you went to a therapist suffering from depression they aren’t going to say you are right, life is shit.

Therapists are never going to tell you ‘Forget the holiday, if you get on that airplane, you’ll have a screaming, fiery death. Avoid social situations because you’ll just embarrass yourself. Your neighbours are spying on you and you are right about clowns and spiders.’

Out of interest, I've just done a search under #detransition on Tumblr. There are so many responses and blogs by young women who are detransitioning; I'm totally taken aback.

www.tumblr.com/search/%23detransition

So many of their experiences echo what we discuss here - sexual abuse, internal misogyny, homophobia and the sheer problems around being a young woman growing up in today's society. Evidently, none of these issues were confronted.

Most are from the US but some from the UK too - the themes are common anywhere