Guardian long read by Shon Faye about trans children

I thought it was the least well argued bit of diatribe I’ve read in ages.

As a mum of gender non conforming children who are totally fine as the sex they are whilst enjoying some stereotypical opposite gendered toys/clothes etc I’m constantly prettified someone will decide to plant a stupid idea in their heads. One of my little boys came home telling me “only girls like pink”. He has ASD. So in his mind it the means either he can’t like pink or he must be a girl. Thankfully he has a totally biological understanding of what being a boy is (that’s the most protective bit of knowledge you can give your young child). But he was left upset because some adult still feeds kids this crap.

I told him that old fashioned people still think that but they are wrong and we should feel sad for them.

Trans children to my mind are a result or either parental or societal toxic gender stereotyping and so medicating them is insanely regressive and dangerous.

I dont believe the author of this article who claims that children have some deep, unchangable idea of gender which is neither biologically nor stereotype based. If they are a male child and gender is neither based on their biological sex (ie they have a willy) nor on stereotypes they’ve been taught or picked up - then what the heck is it? I have yet to read anything remotovely convincing. Is IS about stereotypes and they don’t want to admit it.

What a joke then for a progressive newspaper to spout it without engaging their brains.

Exposure therapy starts with confronting items and situations that cause anxiety, but anxiety that you feel able to tolerate. After the first few times, you will find your anxiety does not climb as high and does not last as long. You will then move on to more difficult exposure exercises.

What's ERP Tibtom?

This is the reason why they are determined it is not a medical condition, not like body dysmorphia. Because for that treatment is ERP which has been shown to be effective, and the last thing you should be doing is accommodation (affirming) it. Accommodating BDD just makes it worse. Same with OCD. They are desparate to separate Gender dysphoria from these conditions because their is effective treatment.

Yes that’s a great point PermanentTemporary

If as a kid you’re told yes, you ARE the opposite sex and it’s so amazing, and you are affirmed and convinced of such from a young age, there will be even less resilience to deal with the reality of their actual puberty.

This is such a missing piece of their treatment, grounding it in reality.

“Yes you feel like a girl, but you realise you can’t actually be a girl? We can help you accept that reality.”

“Yes the thought of puberty distresses you, but you realise it can’t be avoided if you want to be healthy as an adult? We can help you accept that reality.”

Adults who help children deny such realities should be ashamed of themselves.

Is there any evidence about early affirmation having an effect on dysphoria at puberty?

If you're affirmed as the opposite sex from an early age, would it make it even more distressing when your body starts developing in a way that makes that identity suddenly further away?

You'll never get an answer to that. It's one of those unanswerable questions along with: why do children need treatment at puberty if they identify as trans, but it's OK for an adult male who identifies as trans to have no medical treatment and just declare that his penis is now a female organ?

Two people who had any kind of surgery in that early pandemic period, I mean. The other was an emergency ambulance admission for life saving heart surgery.

Why do they need 'healthcare' for something that is not a medical condition according to them?

In this context, “denied access to healthcare” seems to mean “is not granted immediate access to elective cosmetic surgical procedures on the NHS”.

Welcome to NHS waiting lists. And the concept that surgery to treat acute medical conditions are sometimes higher up the priority list.

I know just two people who were able to undergo surgery in early 2020 lockdown, and one of those was a transman having elective procedures. They’ve had multiple elective ops over the last few years, all on the NHS. ‘Healthcare’, even under the specific TRA definition, is definitely being made available.

Excellent piece by Lily Maynard about Shon Faye's article.

lilymaynard.com/transitioning-children-how-young-is-too-young/

The TRA is called Autumn Sandeen.

mirandayardley.com/en/suffer-the-children-how-children-became-the-collateral-damage-of-transgender-ideology/

@mirandayardley

That upthread comment about trans youth being important to gender legislation because it takes the sex out of the trans experience was breathtakingly prescient as this is exactly what’s happening.

That comment was originally made by a TRA in a video on YouTube. There was a link to it on Miranda Yardley's site and it was also discussed on here. The video was eventually taken down. I assume it was because TRAs realised that spelling out so clearly what their recruitment of children was really about wasn't going to help them in the long run.

I wondered if this article would be discussed here. What struck me was the accompanying visual graphics to the article. It very much seemed to be a boy with a doll in their hand. Or at least a child with short hair holding a doll. Could be a sexist stereotyping for either sex.

It’s all so worrying for young people. A teen girl we know from from DCs junior school says she’s now trans (using female pronouns because she’s not ‘out’) but apparently not told her parents yet. This girl is very likely ASD, was always bullied for her weight and height and lack of ‘girlishness’. There feels to be so little space to discuss complicated and complex emotions about identity.

My DC is very supportive of trans issues to the point of complete acceptance of someone who ‘feels’ like a woman ‘is’ a woman regardless of their sex. After listening to Jamie Doightery (?) talking about how trans kids are "denied access to healthcare" because of Keira Bell who ‘wasn’t even a kid", my DC is now someone angrily reporting any ‘transphobic’ comments on SM.

And between us, it’s become such sacred ground that we can’t talk about it. Anything that I say about retaining female only spaces is transphobic and the retort is now ‘what’s in someone’s pants is none of our business’. A phrase I’ve seen used on some of these threads by some TRAs.

That upthread comment about trans youth being important to gender legislation because it takes the sex out of the trans experience was breathtakingly prescient as this is exactly what’s happening. My DC is a caring and socially aware person who abhors exclusion of any kind. But also too young to have experienced the silencing of women.

Just so worrying that so many adults responsible for our young people are badly letting them down by this constant use of the word gender when they’re talking about someone’s sex.

any admission that these are two different groups - whether because they have different physical characteristics, different social experiences, different risk factors, whatever - introduces the possibility of separation/different treatment aka "exclusion" and "bigotry".
Thus the only way for anybody to be a woman or girl these days involves some indefinable essence which is unmoored from logic and physical reality

Thank you Bessie. This really highlights how these people are using children to fulfil their own demands and underpin an ideology. Never has it been more important for women and parents to stand in the way of this and to literally protect children from the harm caused by this.

That's an excellent point. If a child is too young to understand even just the concept of permanence, how can they possibly understand 'changing sex' and not being able to change back?

That would be confusing, but sort of OK. But then comes the absolute insistence that there is no difference of any kind between the boy who wants to be called a girl, and a girl.

And there's no indication in the article that this boy, still at primary school, fully understands that even if his parents, teachers and friends call him a girl, that he is actually a boy, that he will always be male, and that he can't change sex.

I don't think the adults should be indulging his fantasies to this extent.

This (male) child isn't 'girly', but wants to be called a girl. That's it. That's what 'gender identity' means now. A boy who wants his parents to call him a girl.

That would be confusing, but sort of OK. But then comes the absolute insistence that there is no difference of any kind between the boy who wants to be called a girl, and a girl.

Because any admission that these are two different groups - whether because they have different physical characteristics, different social experiences, different risk factors, whatever - introduces the possibility of separation/different treatment aka "exclusion" and "bigotry".

Thus the only way for anybody to be a woman or girl these days involves some indefinable essence which is unmoored from logic and physical reality.

Dismantling the basic definition of womanhood is "inclusive". Yay.

As one TRA put it:
“I’ve always said there are two groups that are going to make change in transgender legislation and the “gender identity and expression” related language in legislation. It’s going to be trans youth because … they demystify it and take the sex right out of the trans experience.”

mirandayardley.com/en/this-is-an-all-out-political-war-the-gender-recognition-act-and-beyond/

Yep.

I just don’t believe there is such a thing as a transexual child.
Children have personalities/characters and different ways of expressing themselves. Some will grow up and realise they are gay. That’s fine.

It’s the adults around the children telling them they are trans, and that’s terrifying.

It's also easier to detransition as a male to f. Blaire hasn't had srs for very understandable reasons.

Even as an adult, detransition from female to m is close to impossible, irreversible.

OldCrone, yes, which makes their narrative even more incomprehensible and like a metaphysical religious claim.

Shon was poo-poohing the idea that 'Gender Identity' is like having a soul on Twitter. Shon thought an adequate rebuttal was to say 'No, it isn't' but of course, withoit even that kind of metaphysical comparison, as you say, all you have is a child claiming, without any clear frame of reference or evidence beyond the claim, that physical reality itself is wrong. Which is a metaphysical claim in itself.

And still doesn't change that both the author and the child here are male, and always will be, whether they continue to wish otherwise or not.

They've realised that when they say this, it's pointed out that it's all stereotypes, and nobody has to conform to stereotypes. And that children should not be medicated for not conforming to stereotypes.

So now it's not about the toys or the clothes (although it's still mentioned that the male child in this article wears clothes bought in the girls' department, so they don't completely get away from stereotypes).

And they don't talk about 'born in the wrong body' any more, because it's been pointed out that this is again reinforcing sexist stereotypes.

This (male) child isn't 'girly', but wants to be called a girl. That's it. That's what 'gender identity' means now. A boy who wants his parents to call him a girl.

But that just raises a whole load of other questions. Why does a boy think he is a girl and want his parents to call him a girl? What does he think it means to be a girl? He obviously doesn't think it means he has a girl's body, because he presumably knows he has a boy's body. Or, since his fantasy about being a girl has been indulged by adults since he was at nursery, does he understand that he is a boy, and that this is a permanent state, and that no amount of wishful thinking will turn him into a girl?