What can we do as a society, and as parents, to reduce the number of girls who mistakenly transition?

Thanks rodgmum - its good to know.

stumbledin I’m a member of Bayswater Support. There’s no politics involved at all. We’re just a group of very concerned parents who want to take a more cautious approach than the current automatic, unquestioning, untested, positive affirmation approach used by lobby groups.

I can’t believe the influence these groups have in the schools. After saying how important my DD’s therapist thinks it is for the school to remain neutral, the response was effectively, “OK, for now, but children have rights as well”. A) I’d question the legal basis for any gender ID “rights” in school and B) Are they really saying they would go against medical advice because the child wants them to? It’s exhausting.

I would say that the biggest problem, alongside social media, is the lobby groups that have pushed themselves into schools.

This is undoubtedly the biggest problem. Combating idiots on youtube is easy compared to combating what they are taught in PSHE lessons and the enthusiastic transing of children in some schools.

There's a twitter thread on this on the Bayswater Support Group which was mention on another thread on FWR.
twitter.com/bayswatersg?lang=en

Thread on increase in girls transitioning twitter.com/ImWatson91/status/1216211885189746689

Not sure about the politics of this group but they are questioning affirmation as being the accepted position. This is there web site www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/

This other group was also mentioned as it looks at the pressure on young lesbians and gay boys www.genderhq.org/

Oh and adopt a zero tolerence approach to lesbophobia and biphobia.

Just the obvious really:

Be extremely clear that sex is immutable whilst gender a product of social conditioning.

Be extremely clear that in a misogynistic society feelings of alienation from one's sexed body are entirely normal and are a mental health concern rather than a physical problem "change society not yourself".

Be extremely clear that bar the role of sperm donor and men's olympic sprinting medallist (and a few other roles that require exceptional strength and speed) girls and women can do anything a man or boy can do; wear anything they can wear etc.

Be extremely clear on the history of gender-nonconformity and how it relates to sex and sexuality.

Well, I just had another meeting with school and while they are not affirming her as a boy, there was a lot of mention about children’s rights and balancing what my daughter might want in future vs our “instructions”. They are still led by the LGBT Youth Scotland guidance (though did say it was good to get differing views) so I would say that the biggest problem, alongside social media, is the lobby groups that have pushed themselves into schools.

Why the fuck doesn't your school let girls wear trousers? That's some bullshit right there. Can you get onto the governors or join the PTA and get that changed?

Because it's those sorts of stupid arbitrary rules that are making kids feel uncomfortable in their own skin. If there weren't boy/girl uniforms and boy/girl interests and boy/girl toys, no one would even think about transitioning. They'd just be themselves.

oh and the blooming toilets need to be changed back in a lot of schools!

Agree with much already said - esp dumping the lobby groups out of schools; keeping a close eye on the new relationship curriculum and challenging any nonsense; more support for autistic girls; more focus on the varied ways to be a female; listening to our children and helping them to feel valued; shoring up their boundaries around healthy/unhealthy behaviour; getting them an interest outside of themselves or their friendship group e.g sport, hobbies, etc.

Echo what kind of things do you think are being worked out?

Overall I think we are in an era of working stuff out and I think ultimately it will come to the good, but it's a mess right now and I hope not too many girls go too far down the wrong path. My suspicion is that the vast majority of detransitioners have not done and will not do anything permanently damaging to themselves in all this and I hope I am right.

however access to online communities kept me sane as an ASD teen with a family who didn’t seem to particularly like or understand me.

In the past though some kids who now make friends/have interactions in this way through the internet would find like-minded in other ways. That's not to say none fell through the cracks because I know that happened. There were a lot of what would now be called ASD kids when I was growing up who gravitated to the RPG groups, which would meet at someone's house or over a comic shop or in the school library. Mostly boys, mind you, I think the girls struggled more in terms of finding groups of kids they had a lot in common with.

It might be age bias but I feel like those in person meetings were a lot healthier in so many ways.

Well there are 2 packs - one about relationships which talks mainly about same sex relationships and the other which is titled lgbtqai sexuality and talks only about trans and non binary identities.

Which is bloody confusing to be honest.

I also find it disturbing that resources written by an anonymous source with no contact details whatsoever (which claims to be 25 teachers on their website but which uses singular pronouns on TES) are used by teachers as a valid source of information. Where's the due diligence?

It’s not a gender neutral society, or world.

Yep, that's part of what we've discussed.

Really, Clymene? That's pretty shocking.

Do parent governors have any influence here? I don't have school age children so I'm not sure of the scope of their remit, but is that a practical step that people could take?

That entire LGBTQAI pack doesn't mention homosexuality once. It's all about trans and non binary identities.

It’s not much good telling children, teaching children or trying to persuade them that they can do/dress/act/be whoever they want if they are surrounded by choices that are clearly gendered, with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ responses. It’s not a gender neutral society, or world.
They’d say they are making a free choice to be Male.

Way back in the early 70s, we 2nd wave feminists thought we were smashing gender stereotypes to create a new world where a female wasn’t constrained and restricted by her gender.
But it was only partially successful. Laws were created, sex equality, not being dismissed from your job when married to women being allowed to have a mortgage or a credit card without a male’s permission.
But the more insidious, social stuff not only remained, it increased. Supported by both genders. Not what we thought the future would look like, 40 years down the line.
Not surprising if you get close to puberty and look at the mainstream choices and decide you don’t fit the stereotype of woman, or desire to do so, you must be a male.

That is true and ideally there should be that relationship of trust; however it relies on an amount of parental capability. Mine weren’t terrible people; they are products of their upbringing and in one case, severe MH issues. We also had a pretty bad personality clash. They did their best and tbh it wasn’t great.

Unregulated access to dial up internet made my life infinitely better - but I think in hindsight I needed formally teaching how to think critically before just opening my brain to that. Autistic kids are especially prone to just absorbing and repeating concepts wholesale. We’re very good at spotting flaws and sketchy conclusions but we need to be taught it, doesn’t work by osmosis.

You could also say the internet has changed a lot since the early 00s and what young people are confronted now is more addictively sophisticated.

access to online communities kept me sane as an ASD teen with a family who didn’t seem to particularly like or understand me

If we want to protect our kids, fostering a strong relationship with them, listening and doing our best to help them feel heard and understood is probaby the best approach.

And yes, Echo, I see what you mean - it's a good point that I need to be careful not to overcorrect.

I want kids to feel safe, comfortable, secure in themselves. (Not just my kids, all kids). To feel that they can talk to someone, ask questions, not be judged or ridiculed, not pushed into making choices or decisions that they're not ready for.

I want the adults who are supposed to be protecting and guiding children to start doing that, basically.

This thing about managing internet use. I don’t entirely disagree, however access to online communities kept me sane as an ASD teen with a family who didn’t seem to particularly like or understand me. I don’t think I would have coped without my fanfic and online RPGs. I also got to research my topics of interest and figure out a lot of the ideas that have guided me into adulthood. I would absolutely not have done this supervised because my family thought my interests were a waste of time, and yeah, I clicked on some horrendously not age appropriate content in the process. I think I would have been vulnerable to trans content if it had been a thing - so I can see the arguments on both sides.

Is there a way to allow some unstructured internet time while protecting kids from sexual predation and ideological grooming? Maybe rolling back restrictions with age, maturity and critical thinking skills? Role modelling healthy internet use, ie not endless scrolling and consumption of content but using it to connect with people and find out information?

Yeah, I have already had some conversations with DD about how some people are mistakenly latching on to being trans as the answer to other problems

It's so frustrating because I do believe some people genuinely are trans - my mum's first cousin has been living happily as a man after transitioning over 30 years ago, but now the waters seem so muddied.

If you'd asked me even 3 years ago if I'd accept my child declaring they are trans I would have unequivocally said 'yes', but now I can't say that and not because I've suddenly decided trans people don't or shouldn't exist or are gross or are liars, but just because they whole thing has got in such a mess that we sometimes can't be sure who is genuine and who is looking for answers in the wrong place.

WRT teaching in schools, I've pre-empted it by talking to both my kids about these subjects (age appropriately). Stereotypes, for a start, I've always challenged and questioned. We've discussed what cultural norms are and why they are there, and whether they are absolute truths (obviously not using this language, but the gist is the same).

Bodily autonomy has been pretty high on my list, respecting boundaries (precursors to consent).

The subject of people changing sex hasn't come up much but when it has I've been pretty clear that it's not possible. That certain hair/clothes/actions/jobs don't mean we are a different sex.

That same-sex relationships are normal and not that uncommon, that there's nothing shocking about lesbians or gay men, or bisexuals (actually I don't think bisexuality has come up yet, but it all has the same approach.)

I've attended a meeting at school about all this, and it was presented in a fairly sensible manner, more about underage pregnancy, periods, puberty, really, than anything else. The guidance for Scottish schools (at least for primary age pupils) is mostly reasonable, and anything I've thought might be an issue I've raised beforehand.

We've navigated Christianity with school before, so I'm not too worried that the kids are going to be co-opted into the trans ideology when they've managed the (mostly fairly mild) indoctrination attempts by Church of Scotland.

Neither of my kids (DS Y4, DD Y7) seem to have had input about trans from anyone at school TBF, and no adults have have suggested to my rather gender non-conforming DD (she gasp has short hair and prefers trousers at school) that she is trans.