Keira Bell and Mrs A vs. Tavistock - Court of Appeal hearing 23 & 24 June 2021

It's a shift isn't it? According to gender identity ideology as of last month, trans meant "someone who says they're trans". Now that's being developed further to be "assume trans until they tell you otherwise".

Is this going to get to the point where everyone is "trans", "trans" stops meaning anything really, and somehow we get back to the original concept attaching just to people who are perceived to be "tru trans"?

If you believe you are just helping children become their "true selves" then it's easier to ignore concerns about pushing DC onto a medical path unnecessarily. But if you accept that children and young people may be influenced into identifying as trans then the whole thing falls apart.

But, if you accept that, then you need to reassess your position from "good person who's helping trans kids against a backdrop of adversity" to "ill-informed person whose intervention is making life harder for DC who already have a load of issues to deal with". I guess lots of people prefer to identify as the former.

Even at GIDS, the problem seems to be that people are split into believers and non-believers. It's mind boggling that people who are meant to be delivering evidence-based care would not see that the lack of evidence of any long term benefit underpinning medical transition is a problem, but their faith seems to be blinding them to this.

It's looks like senior management at GIDS see a psychoanalytic approach to children presenting as trans as problematic, and have taken the ideological position that people who want to look for underlying causes, just don't understand trans kids.

According to Stonewall, crossdressers are under the trans umbrella, which means men in dresses and women wearing men's suits are 'trans', even though they might not be transgender or transsexual.

it really does seem to me that this is a very complex issue that has been reduced to childlike logic.

and then for some reason, we have allowed to children to drive it.

And for some reason all of our tools to inform them have been taken away from us.

That is terrifying, Rabbitwoman.

It's the reversibility lie that is at the heart of this case, I think. Puberty blockers are reversible if used appropriately and for a limited time, say on a 6 or 7yo who is showing signs of going into a precocious puberty. The child comes off at 11 or so and a normal puberty follows, as I understand it.

But trans children in these clinics almost invariably go straight from PB to cross sex hormones, meaning they get no pubertal growth spurt or sexual maturation at all, just some secondary characteristics induced by the artificial hormones, like breasts for the boys or facial hair and a deep voice for the girls.

If even a 30yo woman can't get her tubes tied because she "might change her mind" about wanting children, how is it right to let pre-teens start on a medication route that will leave them stunted, weak-boned, infertile Peter Pan individuals who will never experience orgasm or enjoy an adult sexual relationship?

What sort of lives will they lead? Who will they sue for what they've lost? How many of us have heard "Why did you let me do that?!" from their adult children?

I often view this as a parallel situation.

My son is 14. He's a very bright boy. IQ in the top 1 percent etc.

Suppose he came to me and said he didn't was absolutely certain he didn't want children and wanted a vasectomy, was distressed at the idea he might get someone pregnant and was actively avoiding forming any kind of "relationship" with a girl because of this worry, should I sign off on his vasectomy because he is a clever child who in many other ways would be deemed to be perfectly capable of having "capacity"? Even if him having the vasectomy caused him huge relief right now?

That is alarming rabbit. Who has misled them this way?

It’s pretty impossible for gender non-conforming teens to just be themselves then. The peer pressure must be overwhelming.

rabbitwoman so in their view David Beckham in his sarong was trans? Basing it all on clothes, hair and make up is an incredibly restrictive view. It's what I've always said that this agenda is the total opposite of progressive and liberal, the real worry as you rightly point out is the irreparable damage this causes when they insist they are trans and start down the medication route with adults cheering them on.

... hopefully, in 10 years time, it will be Keira bell in that list of LGBT icons, not Harry Styles....

(although I love Harry and his style he is neither G, or T, or probably not even B. And he's not the first man to wear a dress....)

Not that I think sexuality is a big deal! But as LGB is presented alongside trans, it seems to be an exercise in getting kids to label themselves asap, rather than leaving them to experiment and work it out for themselves with time and as their minds and relationships mature.

Oh yes, I don't want to derail the thread.

Just, couple this with the immediate affirmation model being pushed by Stonewall and GIDS et al, with the fact that even trying to explain that wanting to dress a certain way does not make you transgender is being framed as conversion therapy, and in very simple terms that's how you get a generation of Keira bells.

DS reads very masculine, but has long hair. He says kids at his school ask if he is trans because of his hair. They also want to know what sexuality he is. He says he says "I'm 12" as he doesn't know.

I don't remember sexuality being a big deal in year 7 when I was young.

That's the frightening thing Invisible how can a belief system such as gender identity have got so far when all the arguments are so flawed. I know this has been said so many times for so many years but it's still staggering when presented

Funnily enough, since the MF judgement I’ve seen it said “we never said biological sex wasn’t real”. Rewriting history to suit the current narrative.

I see ... So effectively they are identifying someone as trans if their clothes don't match their biological sex?

I don't want to derail this thread too much, but this is really dumb because there is the simultaneous argument that biological sex doesn't exist. And the cognitive dissonance that you can't possibly know someone's pronouns until they've told you.

.... then I imagine the next step for these kids might be;

I like wearing eyeliner / I don't like wearing dresses. I am also unhappy. So I must be unhappy because I am trans therefore there is a pill I can take which will make me the opposite sex and therefore that will make me happy....

And someone somewhere is telling them this is correct....

Oh, I don't think they were confused about whether or not someone was male or female.

They were confused over whether or not someone was 'trans'. Wearing certain clothes makes someone 'trans'.

And of course, this is concerning if being 'trans' confers the same rights as someone who is that sex. Harry Styles wearing a skirt makes him 'trans', therefore gives him the same rights as a woman.

Of course, they might have been winding me up......

Yikes rabbitwoman how old were the kids??

There's a really good article by Katie Alcock about children's understanding of sex constancy here:
medium.com/@katieja/young-children-reality-sex-and-gender-3421f4f165f1

She cites research that by the age of 10 children usually understand that what your wearing doesn't literally change your sex. This video of 2 girls and some Barbie dolls is a good illustration:

Were your class older than this? They sound like teens?

I suppose, if being trans is just a vague feeling that cannot really be defined, the only way of really being able to tell externally is how you dress? But there's no distinction, then, between 'gender expression' and fashion.

And it would be fine, really fine, if it weren't for the fact that at least some of them might end up like Keira bell because of it, and at least some of them like laurel Hubbard!

Good grief Rabbit
How can people confuse clothes with biology. It's so bizarre.
People wearing flamboyant clothes mostly makes me roll my eyes and dismiss them as either attention seekers or vain. Which is a rather obvious conclusion for anyone in the pop world.

Today, at work, there were posters of a colleague who is leaving. She was dressed not unlike this, but with a sparkly skirt and bikini top. I definitely didn't think she was a sunflower. Or even had a sunflower gene.

There's an idea, I think, that this is something they understand and that we never can. I was bemused to see the write up next to Harry Styles, about his 'groundbreaking' work to promote inclusion in the music industry - like noone ever did before him.

Don't get me wrong, I love Harry and his style and would love to encourage anyone to dress and express themselves however they want, but it's like no man ever wore nail polish before.

Show this to the kids rabbitwoman*, it'll blow their minds:

You'd get the sack mind, but it would be a laugh.

• yeah I know, it's from a Right-leaning organisation having religious affliliations