Bloody hell BBC

I find the increased used of gender stereotypes such a backward hateful way of thinking.

We should accept ourselves in the body we were born in but be free to express ourselves outwardly in whatever way we like without making judgements about others.

We should love, cherish and respect the body we were born with and protect it as far as we can so that we can live a long, healthy and happy life. For some, this takes some work but our children should be taught to love their bodies, not feel revulsion towards them.

There should be research into different treatments for dismorphia and a proper analysis of outcomes to see which is best, with the motto 'First do no harm' at it'so root.

Perhaps Sarah doesn't see a need for separating girls and boys at all in school.

Why the need for cubicles in mixed gender toilets? If a trans girl needs to use a urinal, surely another girl shouldn't have a problem with that? There should be urinals in girls toilets too.
Perhaps our daughters should play the boys at rugby, and go and share communal changing rooms & showers afterwards.

Betty and your DD

To relate this back to the post I made earlier, one of the reasons my daughter has PTSD is because there is no way to contextualise her experience in an age appropriate way.
You wouldn’t even let a kid of her age watch a tv drama depicting what she has lived through/seen her friends on the ward die of.

The realities of being transgender similarly cannot be explained in an age appropriate manner.

Also she's quite clear that at 15 she doesn't really understand the (in her case entirely unavoidable) consequences of infertility - her parents have more awareness and understanding of it - children are incapable of informed consent to being made infertile.

Just saw this

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/newsbeat-47457088/i-m-15-going-through-the-menopause-and-won-t-have-kids

It's a 15 yo girl experiencing early menopause and hence lifetime infertility.

All quite clear and biologically spelled out.

Big contrast to all the 'stunning and brave' trans kids where they gloss over the self-same scenario.

I love the bicycle analogy! She's brilliant.

OK, Sarah, can you tell me the age-appropriate way for telling a 7-year-old that if they make the choice as a child to take puberty blocking drugs followed by cross-sex hormones, they will probably grow up to have no sexual function and will be sterile.

And to be medicated for life, in an untested experiment.

Because I'd love to know how you tell this to children in an 'age-appropriate way'.

I use 1 towel and DH uses 2. Bugger.
Seriously though, as someone who grew up in an era where we all wore weird clothes of any description, had hair of any length (commonly short at one side and long at the other) and wore make up or not, jewellery or not, probably platform boots, etc etc, how the hell did we get to this stage where stereotypes seem to be worse than ever and why is nobody even looking at pulling that stupid house of cards down. And why are people of both sexes trying to dehumanise themselves by looking like dolls? Is there suddenly something inherently wrong with being just a person? Is it the JUST part?

My 7 year old DSD knows where babies come from. There are age appropriate ways of saying things.

OK, Sarah, can you tell me the age-appropriate way for telling a 7-year-old that if they make the choice as a child to take puberty blocking drugs followed by cross-sex hormones, they will probably grow up to have no sexual function and will be sterile.

Do you think a 7-year-old is mature enough to understand the implications of this course of action?

Wouldn't it be kinder to tell them that they can express themselves in any way they want to, but that changing sex is impossible?

The quibbling about what constitutes a mother and so on is largely irrelevant.

When it comes down to it, Sarah thinks that validating the child's desire to be the opposite sex is the kind, supportive thing to do, whereas most of us think it is cruel and abusive, on a par with foot binding, female genital mutilation or castrating boy singers. There isn't really a bridge between those two positions.

Personally I think that in the long run we will be proved right, and future generations will look back in horror at the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery on children and young adults.

I could be wrong - maybe it will all turn out swimmingly well for those children and they'll all be delighted with their new bodies and there won't be any long-term health impacts. Not putting money on it, though.

I think my problem with what you are saying, Sarah, is that it means we should care less about 'non-trans children' who are misdirected into transition than about 'trans children' who are delayed or discouraged from doing so.

But detransition is a thing, and is appallingly difficult to deal with once permanent changes have been made.

Thank you Floral for your timely reminder of Bunbury's sage advice.

The semantics of the word 'mother' are pretty irrelevant IMO.

That said, all humans who have ever lived on this earth ever, have been gestated and birthed by a female. All people who have been adopted, have lesbian parents, were born of surrogacy, were all gestated and birthed by a female. All of them will have a 'birth mother', a 'biological mother' as well as possibly having another mother. Obviously it's up to them how they want to see and use the term 'birth mother'.

No male, including a male who has transitioned to 'living as a woman' has ever gestated and birthed a baby.

To use the very sensible quote: 'We all know what a woman is, we all came out of one'.

September 2017, the vegan cat: www.instagram.com/p/BZjdNfKAyQ_/

Let's just stick a microphone in your face www.instagram.com/p/BtwAw9UHu29/

Just got past the first photo of Autumn and see Autumn has two brothers. Awful convenient Autumn turned out to be a girl.

Also, Autumn's mum makes Pagan spell candles. Which is . Actually no it's not , it's fucking stupid. AIR the Challenor family are/were well into all that shit as well.

She owns a tattoo parlour, which has all female staff. Which sounds nice, except that you could achieve the same effect by identifying blokes as women.

You can be a mother in a number of ways including when you're not genetically related to the baby.

You are not the mother. You are the adoptive mother. The child refers to you as mother for practical and emotional reasons so that the adoption isnt front and central all the time. An adopted child still has an actual mother who actually got pregnant, grew the child in her body and gave birth. Mother is not just the name for the female parent or adoptive parent.

Thanks for that context, as if I'm not also a short girl who is around 8 stone. No I wouldn't have an issue. You could just as easily have a 6 ft, 12 stone teenage girl. Considering a third of children are now overweight or obese I wouldn't very much want a 12 stone female running at me and the same applies to a 12 stone male. You certainly wouldn't say the overweight or obese female couldn't play though.

And if a young girl doesn't want to play with the 6ft 12 stone teenage boy, a boy who is almost definitely much larger, stronger, with a larger heart, lung capacity, hand span, longer legs and arms.... She is a bigot who needs 're-educating'?

I don't think that giving a child puberty blockers that will stop them going through a normal puberty, or giving cross sex hormones which will cause all manner of crazy shit to happen, including irreversible infertitily, possible bone issues, almost definitely sexual dysfunction, is really comparable to anti depressants And that is before we get onto double mastectomies, hysterectomies and castration.

These are children with perfectly healthy and functional bodies. Why anyone would advocate artificially altering or mutilate those bodies irreversibly, or giving a child the idea that that is a good thing to do, is beyond me.

you wouldn't have any issue whatsoever with a 6ft, 12 stone teenage boy playing sport with girls? Absolutely no problem for you at all. Just to add some context, I stopped growing at age 11 at 5'2, weighed about 8 stone through my teens.

Thanks for that context, as if I'm not also a short girl who is around 8 stone. No I wouldn't have an issue. You could just as easily have a 6 ft, 12 stone teenage girl. Considering a third of children are now overweight or obese I wouldn't very much want a 12 stone female running at me and the same applies to a 12 stone male. You certainly wouldn't say the overweight or obese female couldn't play though.

Bunbury suggests that people that think saying humans do not change sex is hate speech are not going to be receptive to other manifestations of basic knowledge. I believe she recommends not getting drawn into time wasting semantic discussions.

Sarah so, to confirm - you wouldn't have any issue whatsoever with a 6ft, 12 stone teenage boy playing sport with girls? Absolutely no problem for you at all. Just to add some context, I stopped growing at age 11 at 5'2, weighed about 8 stone through my teens.

Still can't see a problem with this?

Those with families like those here have had severe mental health issues and really struggled to deal with it and instead turned to self harm, eating disorders and even suicide.

Breast binding is self harm. Disassociating yourself from your body and wanting it changed with hormones and surgery are self harm.

Girls wanting to be trans are harming themselves, just as girls with eating disorders are.

Sorry about your daughter @BettyDuMonde

Yes of course @RiverTam because anyone who dares to have a different view to yours must be trolling

That's great @DodoPatrol that yours now feels happier. Not all will. Which is why I think all options should be explored.

I only use one towel in the shower but my husband uses every bloody towel in the house given half the chance. We must be doing this gender thing totally wrong.

We did discuss this gender thing and agreed that, clearly, we were each the wrong gender. But then decided it made no difference!