Friend's child. Is this worrying?

The kid is a male who is now being called a girl. Parents are educated professionals in Oz, on the left of course. I think it's a cult-of-expertise situation plus ideology & political echo zone. Crunchy arguments won't fly I think.

Sounds like one of my sisters. The other one has a farm and drives tractors and quad bikes around. Oh dearie me. And my brother hated football.

When I was a kid, a lass that lived around the corner from me loved truck toys, Action Man and other boys stuff. She wanted her hair short, didn't like skirts etc. Her parents just let her get on with it.

Come our teenage years and she turned out to be gay. These days she'd have a good chance of being transed.

I believe in at least one US state you can change the sex on a birth certificate of a child if my understanding of this page is correct.
https://doh.wa.gov/licenses-permits-and-certificates/vital-records/sex-designation-change-birth-certificate

The parents immediately switched to male pronouns and within the year they've changed the child's name to a boy name and even changed the birth certificate and the passport, erasing the child's birth identity.

There is no US state in which it is legally possible for parents to amend a birth certificate in this way.

What else about this story isn't true, OP?

What stops these parents from saying ‘this is Sadie - she loves monster trucks, rugby and plays the drums’?

Seriously what is stopping them? ‘This is Tim, yes he does like to dress like Ella from Frozen. He makes a mean chocolate cake’.

’Amy - can you get down off the roof please? That child! She is such a daredevil and wants to be a soldier when she grows us!’

‘oh yes - she he green veggies’ (yes one if the actual ‘reasons’ given for transing a kid in America)

Ds used to go around pretending to be a dog (a police follow to be precise). Some days I’d go along and we’d have barking conversations on the way to nursery.

My DD’s 4 year old friend has been saying she wants to be a boy since her baby brother was born. Fortunately her parents are very sensible and have told her she can’t be a boy, but can have her hair as short as she wants, wear and play what she wants. There are definitely some sensory issues there - boys’ trainers are simpler with fewer shiny / sparkly bits and she hates the feel of skirts or dresses. She is lucky to have the parents she does.

(My own DD4 has just declared she’s a spinosaurus today - had to Google that one.)

Children of that age say all sorts of things. It’s time (some) parents stopped treating their toddlers as if they are oracles and remember they are still learning about language and concepts. Parents should be providing them with a broad range of non-sexist opportunities to help them do this

The parents will be under extraordinary pressure from their LGBT community to affirm the child as trans. Going against this will require a lot of reflection and confidence.

They need to realise that they may be inadvertently transing the gay away. For that, they need to encounter perspectives like those of Buck Angel, Scott Newgent and Keira Bell. That’s the only thing that will shake this loose. They’re not going to listen to straight and gender-confirming women about this. Gender critical transmen, detransitioners (especially lesbian ones) and butch lesbian TERFs are who will change their minds.

Poor child. This is not worrying, it's terrifying. Do all you can to deter them from puberty blockers. https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

Perhaps they feel their own lives would have been easier if they were male, or one of them was seen as male? You could maybe ask if they are planning to transition themselves?

I'm with @parietal - the best outcome in the short term would be for the parents to identify their child as nonbinary. Agree also with the pp suggesting nonmedicalised trans role models.

How crunchy are they as parents (using US slang here, not sure if I'm right)? Would they be open to a bit of very mild 'doctors don't know everything, natural is best' stuff? It would go against the grain to head that way because I'm so pro vax and anti quack medicine, but I am also very much 'fresh air and exercise, an apple a day keeps the doctor away' type. I wonder if they are too. It doesn't seem to play the same in the US.

And I'd take the kid to soccer games. Anywhere where there's plenty of active women getting on with being awesome while also female.

Some parents are complete lunatics. Those poor kids.

Just ran into a similar situation. Fortunately not a close friend, but it's still pretty shocking. I guess the easiest path is just to break off contact -- she is pretty much doing the same anyway as she's detected how skeptical I am of gender ideology. And my own (actual female) daughters are my main concern. But I feel for the poor kid and the fact that his mom seems all the way locked in already - he liked wearing dresses sometime so now he is a "she" and everyone in their sphere must be onboard or blocked out. He's only 6. Is there anything I can do?

Thank you ballincat43

You asked if young children like this change their mind but the truth is this is just an experiment as it’s never been common to act this way with your children. Especially so so young. My child is just 2 and he still doesn’t quite grasp how the world works. The other day he thought a balloon floating out of screen might appear in our room. It’s ridiculous and dangerous for parents to act this way with children.

Children with gender issues do tend to grow out of it with puberty but generally the children in those studies weren’t socially transitioned. I don’t know how this poor girl isn’t going to be messed up to grow up being told she’s now a boy and then puberty comes around! Even if she does say she wants to be a girl again this is all just a mess. Also putting a label on her and putting her in this box might make it harder for her to realise she is a girl as the whole gender ideological belief is all about how children have an innate sense of their gender and how the only way to resolve it is to transition.

Poor girl. Personally I’d find it hard to stay friends.

True - if you parent a child by agreeing to every delusion or idea they have, where will it end?

My brother believed that you only had a set number of words you were allowed to say, and when you used them up, you were mute. So he didn’t speak for a while.

My 3 year old told me he was a pirate and made me call him Scallywag for 5 days straight and corrected me every time I used his actual name.

He's had many, Spidey, Captain Barnacles, John 😂 but only for a few hours here and there. Scallywag lasted nearly a week.

Let kids be kids and stop forcing adult thought processes on to them, for christ sake.

Do you really think it's anti trans to state that a 3 year old child should not have their gender changed by their parents? That's a genuine question.

I used to be a teacher......and in my experience I also found too much 'child centred' learning to be counterproductive and makes the teacher's job almost impossible.

I found a lot of interest in Frank Furedi's book about boundaries ( mentioned earlier) - and certainly his reflections on the dissolution of boundaries between childhood and adulthood and the abdication of adult responsibility - which in turn makes life more difficult for children.

I'm not sure I want to get into too much about child centred philosophies here - because the thread is primarily about the child in question being transed by the parents. Though it did bring tom ind the Furedi book.

"Child centred" is OK - it puts the child's needs at the centre. It's "child led" that's the big problem here. You don't let a 3 year old lead you across the road just because they want to get to the ice cream van. Adults teach children about traffic. And you don't let a 3 year old lead you into believing that they really can or should change sex. Parents anchor children to reality.

This. Much better put than the way I said it earlier. We should not say nothing when we are witnessing child abuse.

It's horrific. I would say something. You've got nothing to lose really, because your friendship is doomed if they stay on this path. Imagine how you'll feel when this child gets medicated and their life is a mess. You won't want to be around them to witness that. Don't be compliant in seeing a child's life be destroyed. Say something.

I was a tomboy who cried myself to sleep on the eve of my 10th birthday because I knew double figures was the start of me turning into a woman, and I longed to be a boy. My best friend called herself “Bill” and I was “Jim”, and we were going to cut our breasts off when they dared to appear. We went around topless on our bikes like all the boys did, and nothing made us happier than being mistaken for boys, it’s easy at 9 or 10 to look like the opposite sex.

Anyway, I know this isn’t an uncommon tale, but I was talking to my Dad and sister about it a few weeks ago, and although they did vaguely remember this phase once I’d mentioned it, they’d completely forgotten in the interim, it had meant so little at the time to them, it was just me being a tomboy. It was NORMAL.

If we’d been that age today, my friend and I would have egged each other on to go down the transition route.