Bloody hell BBC

Going off a lot of these responses I dread to think how some of you would treat your DC if they came out as trans

Bigots, transphobes and now unfit parents? Is there no end to the the strings to our bows?

Encouraging any child to focus so massively on their own appearance can be expected to store up mental health risks for that child, as well as taking up the child’s their time and energy that could be better spent on something less boring instead.

Kids need acceptance as they are from those close to them but they also need to be equipped to deal with reality. Nobody can ever control how others see them.

Going off a lot of these responses I dread to think how some of you would treat your DC if they came out as trans

Just thought I’d add this one to your collection betty

I absolute love those Suedehead girls in the 3rd image above - wish there was a better quality image!

Got a bit stuck in the 80s - Skinheads, Suedeheads, New Romantics, Rude Boys... lost any sense of chronology in my excitement!

Seems to me that we are just sliding backwards, giving our youth fewer and fewer freedoms...

I love all those pictures betty
Bless all those youngsters!

Autumn is made up like a glamorous 1930s film star. I wouldn’t wear that make up, let alone permit a child to do so (unless dressing up at home on a rainy weekend).
Why clog a child’s pores with products designed to make adults sexually attractive to other adults?
This may though be because I am not a real woman, despite my chromosomes. I know this now because I have only one towel in the bathroom at the moment for myself and my children. We are feral. It is actually quite clean and dry though. And saves washing. I recommend it.

BettyDuMonde that's a splendid series of photos to show how much less rigidly stereotyped we were back then. DH and I were married in 1968 and on our wedding photos my hair was shorter than his.

Reeks!

That's a new one.

Metal heads, emo kids, cyber goths, barely a gendered difference between us.

Yet suddenly we’re pathologising young kids to the point that we’re analysing how many bath towels they use? It’s complete fucking nonsense.

Hey! Transactivists - leave our kids alone!

Indie kids, free festival ravers, goths...

Through Northern Soul to Punk...

This completely gendered childhood/teen years stuff is a really recent invention.

A quick google search of teens/young adults from the 50s onwards shows that.

From Teddy Boys/Teddy Girls to Mods...

And yet here in the 21st century Autumn can grow up to be a woman and a mother.

Not in any real sense though. For sure he can pretend to be a woman and mother and the societal forces around him can force others to collude in that pretending, but he hasn't actually changed into something fundamentally different has he (unless you are aware of a hitherto unheard of method of humans changing sex)?

And yet here in the 21st century Autumn can grow up to be a woman and a mother.

Just to be clear, Sarah, Autumn can grow up, become a lifelong medical patient who is reliant on regular doses of cross-sex hormones, and have loads of operations and can become a transwoman. Autumn can't ever become a woman, because Autumn was born male. No amount of wishful thinking can change that simple fact.

People can't change sex.

No, Autumn can't grow up to be a woman.

Autumn needs lots of protection because Autumn's mum is an attention seeker and the journalist and the BBC are colluding in exposing this child in a way that even the achingly pro trans Victoria Derbyshire hasn't done with a child so young. I suppose I should be grateful that Autumn isn't sexy dancing in a club for money, but there's a pretty low bar for what I find I am grateful for these days.

I use a towel and a t-shirt on my head.

I must be queer as fuck. Make way for my specialness!

here in the 21st century Autumn can grow up to be a woman and a mother

Erm. Riiiiiiiight. Sure. If you say so.. no

Sarah, that's a viewpoint not a fact.

It's equally valid to suggest that we have gone far too far in removing children's rights to grow up as who they are.

Autumn is male, and little. By any objective measure he really is a little boy still.

How do people change sex, Sarah?

The point I was making was that it's cruel to tell a little boy that he can grow up to be a woman and a mother. Because he can't. People can't change sex.

And yet here in the 21st century Autumn can grow up to be a woman and a mother. To continue to refer to Autumn as he is frankly offensive and just reeks of a complete lack of understanding and empathy towards people who are or think they may be transgender. This thread and the vast majority on the feminist board just go to show how far we still need to come in trans rights.

“GrouchyKiwi

Re towels: I use two one day and one the next so I guess that makes me genderfluid?”

I use a bathrobe:

but there's a difference between looking ridiculous as a female and looking ridiculous as a male

Nonsense. You are carrying some gendered baggage around, SarahH12!

there is a difference between giving birth and being a mother though. You can be a mother in lots of way - stepmother, adoptive mother (both at any age DC not just baby), child born through surrogacy etc

Of course. But there is also a difference between an infertile woman and a man.

By draw the line I meant would you say a female who is infertile but adopted isn't a mother?

Of course not. But there is a difference between an infertile woman and a man.

The point I was making was that it's cruel to tell a little boy that he can grow up to be a woman and a mother. Because he can't. People can't change sex.