"Children in Need are currently funding 37 projects to the value of over £2.6 million specifically focused on young people affected by issues of sexual identity and gender identity."

Are shops not supposed to address you? Are women supposed to ignore men in women's toilets and changing rooms? I mean, I know you're a woman but that seems to be what you're implying.

I'm still not clear how funding from CIN would help address people thinking you're a bloke.

@lieselotte "But to get back to to the thread topic, giving funding to support for teens whatever their needs, isn't a bad thing. It would be different if CiN supported breast binding and the like - I hope they don't. I don't donate anyway, I give to other things."

CIN give a lot of money to mermaids and mermaids didn't hide the fact they were sending breast binders to young teenage girls therefore CIN do in fact support breast binding. And probably "and the like stuff as well."

I see we've got the usual 'if you have a boundary of any kind you are failing children'....

There are many ways to support children. Funding organisations that are helping children to harm and safeguarding disasters are not one of them.

In my experience of young people struggling with gender identity, in every case it's a current culture-driven coping strategy to deal with all the other issues they have - exoerience of racism, undiagnosed or diagnosed neurodiversity, trauma, general 'not fitting in', mental health difficulties of various types.

More support for children and young people suffering in those ways is welcome. If it has to come in a gender envelope, then in a way I'm sorry about that but it is also the current cultural expression of these issues and meets the children where they are.

The problem is when it ‘comes in a gender envelope’ too often those other problems are precisely not discussed and everything goes in to a big gender box, sealed and stamped.

Mermaids is also promoting the idea, through workshops for SEN, (which all GC are barred from), that trans is an inborn aspect of being autistic, rather than an identity an autistic person, a girl especially, might use to gain acceptance and attention at school, or might hide behind as an explanation to themselves for other difficulties. What if the Mermaids approach prevails in the sphere of SEN too?

And yet my experience is also of being stared at and challenged in public toilets, and being called Sir in shops. (posted further up the thread).
Just because you’ve never witnessed it or experienced it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
And no, I’m not deliberately trying to make myself ‘look male’ (whatever that means). I’m just me.

She already gets stared at by typical presenting women and girls in public toilets and ladies changing rooms.

That is very strange, Alexander, unless she is trying successfully to make herself look male. In other words, deliberately gaslighting other women. I have never seen a naturally boyish-looking woman, or a woman in typical male clothes, getting stared at in women’s spaces.

More likely your DD’s mental health issues are caused by the sex-stereotyping rubbish pushed on children by the gender identity movement, via social media and (shamefully) in schools. This feeds on the disruptive effects of normal hormonal changes during puberty and adolescence.

I hope you can help her steer her way through to a happy and healthy acceptance of her natural body.

everyone is within their rights only to support straight people but I am surprised how many are ok with admitting that

Bovrilly, no one here is saying they only support straight people. They don’t support charities that encourage children to think they are born in the wrong body.

Sexuality = gay, straight or bisexual. Gender identity is not about sexuality. A high percentage of transwomen are heterosexual adult males.

Gender identity is about imagining you are the opposite sex, or any of 100 other invented ‘genders’ or identities. It is very far from being harmless nonsense, as it involves children being put on drugs to prevent puberty, and girls having their breasts amputated etc.

THIS!
It's the lack of due diligence exercised by CiN. Their spectacular failure to notice the lack of safeguarding, the paedophile supporting, porn enabling employees, providing breast binders to children in secret from their parents at Mermaids.

Of course vulnerable children need mental health support - and much more of it. What they don't need is "attention" from self invested queer theory activists self identifying as "counsellors" with behaviour that is akin to gaslighting (there's a better word). They need neutral organisations without an agenda, high professional standards & impeccable safeguarding. That's what CiN have failed to establish in too many instances.

Or you're just a liar trying to push an agenda.

I think thats more likely. I dress in jeans and hoodies/jumpers most days now, as do most of the women I know. Its certainly not uncommon.

TheKeatingFive · Today 09:03
Well I think we can blame Lego for establishing ideas of girls and boys toys.

No, quite the reverse! Lego was marketed to both boys and girls and the original sets were quite basic so definitely unisex. It is only more recently that the sets have become more complex and more gender specific.

Meccano, on the other hand, missed a trick with only marketing to boys. Although I did have a basic Meccano set - well edgy, me!

Many high streets and you find females wearing jeans, T-shirts/jumpers/hoodies and trainers.

You'd be hard pressed to find ones that aren't this time of year, certainly where I live. The only thing worn by girls and not boys tends to be leggings.

I frankly don't believe this. Have you actually witnessed this behaviour? Because it sounds to me as if your DD is paranoid.
I'd suggest any mental health issues she has, started a bit closer to home.

Or you're just a liar trying to push an agenda.

I cannot remember the last time I wore a skirt or dress. I am in my 50's and have always dressed in trousers, tee shirts, DM style boots etc. My hair was extremely short at times - shaved on the sides. Why do you assume I would be less accepting than a kid? I think anyone should be free to dress as they want and that clothing stereotypes are regressive.
It's nobody's business but hers what she chooses to wear and there are plenty of adult women who are fight against the gender stereotyping that might restrict her choice.

No I grew up in the era of section 28 and lots of my friends dying of AIDS.

So I absolutely agree with you that young women are being indoctrinated into a damaging ideology if they don't fit the gender norms but there is much greater acceptance (and less death) of the LGB community.

As I said, sexuality and gender identity are not the same thing. Many of the girls who don't identify as girls at the moment may not be lesbians or bisexual, they may just really hate being massively oversexualised and I don't blame them at all for wanting to opt out of that. And they are vulnerable to the ghouls who have a vested interest in getting them to change their bodies.

Not all lesbians are butch. Not all girls who prefer trousers and short hair are lesbians.

Good for them. All the more reason to donate.

She hasn't settled on a sexuality yet (she says) and wears very gender neutral clothes. She already gets stared at by typical presenting women and girls in public toilets and ladies changing rooms

I think this is her perception. I always wear trousers and jeans, I wear a dress once every few years. I can't imagine anyone would look askance at me because I don't wear dresses or skirts. And anyone can have short hair.

The amount of gender stereotyping that goes on is ridiculous. You do not have to be male to wear trousers and you do not have to be female to wear a dress and make-up.

But to get back to to the thread topic, giving funding to support for teens whatever their needs, isn't a bad thing. It would be different if CiN supported breast binding and the like - I hope they don't. I don't donate anyway, I give to other things.

I think that Children in need give funding to Young carers. My dc are young carers, and they have been a massive help every year they've been growing up. They help loads of children to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do.

I think they fund childline as well, who have also been great when my dc have been struggling with various things.

I don't mind donating.

That just goes to show how incredibly ignorant you are of LGB history.

No. Not at all.

Did you grow up in an era of mermaids, the genderbread man and countries like Scotland advocating social transitioning without parental knowledge?

Perhaps go read up on the rocketing numbers of young females identifying as trans and some of the tales of detransitioners and them let's have a conversation

And gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality. Nothing.

It's forced teaming.

I mean, lets not forget that the CEO of Mermaids transitioned her son because his dad didn't want his son to be gay. They took his toys away and he only said he was a girl so that he could play with them.

This should not be lauded or funded. It is incredible how many people fall for this.

I'm a 55 year old woman who has very short hair, and wears mainly men's style clothes and this has never, ever happened to me.

Well, I'm genuinely glad for you that it's never happened to you. I get it now and again, and have done for years. Maybe I look more 'male' in the face? Who knows.
Just because it's not happened to you though, doesn't mean it doesn't happen to others.

That just goes to show how incredibly ignorant you are of LGB history.

Are you suggesting we shouldn’t support teens struggling with gender identity? Because that’s a very bad idea.

Personally I think we need to understand more about the emerging issues with socially and medically transitioning children before supporting charities that are enthusiastic advocates of this. Particularly when they then turnaround and claim no medical expertise on the subject.

Gender identity isn't an actual thing, you know that right?