Hadley Freeman in the Sunday Times

WTF!

Another factor with a lot of blame for having led so many kids into the weeds: being cool.

Yes, doctors and scientists and parents and teachers should have been pushing back from the start. But, honestly, are kids that susceptible to any of that? When tumblr and tiktok are on the other side?

Teaching uni, I've had a broadish sampling of young teenagers. Certainly for girls, being straight is just a ticket to devoting your life to an endless race to perfectly match Barbie. Very hard to be cool on that track. But if you're queer, bi, trans? Instant "oh so brave."

Not that it's an insight which helps figure out how to deal with it. The last way you can alter the course of what's "cool" is by interfering with what's "cool."

I think it must be archive.ph Maybe there is something else on that site it objects too!

I just tried to read this link and was blocked as it contains images of paedophilia??

Nobody is really " living their best life". This amercanised concept springs directly from the world of social media in which people continually update images and snippets, all carefully curated, from their lives. Real life is far more complex, far more nuanced.

Of course. Most people know this deep down. My point is that the sense of shame and guilt you feel as a parent when your child is struggling is really hard. I can understand why some parents may see transition as a solution and even appear proud about it as a defence against the pity of others.

Great article, Hadley Freeman is a star.
There is also a corker about the JustStopOil sentence
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/21/yes-five-years-in-jail-is-too-harsh-but-the-just-stop-oil-five-shouldnt-have-done-it

And a sad letter about violence to women.
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/article/2024/jul/21/end-this-culture-of-male-aggression
Im sure there were laws against Drunken disorder when I was a kid.

There are already thousands of detransitioners, and their stories are out there; but when you live in a trans bubble - which is what ends up happening - you just don't come across these stories. You effectively join a closed groups which protects itself from outside influences, in which 'being trans' is front and centre of your whole life.

Nobody is really " living their best life". This amercanised concept springs directly from the world of social media in which people continually update images and snippets, all carefully curated, from their lives. Real life is far more complex, far more nuanced.

Regarding the "cheerleading" parents. When you have a child who's struggling while your friends' kids are living their best lives, the sense of being pitied is hard to bear. I can see why you might try and make their "transitioning" into a positive thing in the eyes of other people and act like you're delighted. Indeed, you might be incredibly relieved to find what seems to be an answer to their struggles.

And I think in the climate of the past 15 years, unless you are a particularly resistant to trends, or a Mumsnetter, you probably would believe that any concerns you have are to do with your own prejudice.

None of this is an excuse for not thinking more deeply about it as the other side of the debate has become more widely discussed. But I can see why if your child seems happier for transitioning then you might be strongly in favour of others doing so. We haven't seen huge numbers of detransitioners yet and it may take many years before we do. I think for those who are TRA for personal reasons then it will take personal reasons to reconsider too.

God she's brilliant. One of her best yet.

Great article, thanks for the link.

But these TRA's are fucking bonkers. Compromise, accommodation, reasonableness have no place dealing with nutters. We have to win, full stop.

Wholly agree.

Those 8 years have been spent with people trying to politely, kindly reason, sympathise, endless explain that they are not saying such things to be mean but because other people have needs too and that the dangerous bits don't disappear if you identify as them not being there..... it hasn't worked. At all.

The only thing that is going to work on this is unfortunately clear, firm boundaries.

And while some parents have actively enabled and found their own benefits and identities through their children's, plenty of parents have been threatened with social services involvement or worse, and have had zealous school staff gagging to enable their child in parental alienation as well as many less than healthy or stable adults online meeting their own needs through vigorously encouraging kids through transition. And those parents have been left with the awful option of going along with harming their child and by doing so at least have some hope of gently applying breaks or other thoughts to protect their child, and not losing them altogether. Some of them are MNetters, right here, still dealing with this daily.

This is a massive safeguarding failure on so many fronts. Massive. Historically so.

“the reliably ill-informed Anneliese Dodds”
😆😆😆

This. It's just toxic.

I agree. My concern is that scoping this as winning and losing encourages a never ending battle. A cardinal rule of negotiating and even of engaging in conflict is to provide the opposition, however framed, with an acceptable way out.

I understand you point but if there's one thing I've learned in the past 8 years following this scandal, any approach that involves aiming for a midpoint, or compromise, ends up with:

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. "Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.

Gender identity ideology is simply bad, and incredibly harmful, and needs to go into the dustbin of history.

It is a good article but I don't like the framing of winning and losing. It's too antagonistic.

I think what the whole trans issue highlights is that societies who think of themselves as progressive still feel uncomfortable with gayness, really hate lesbianism, and still prefer when people fall in with sexual stereotypes. Most of these parents would rather have a child who can be corrected than a child who is unconventional.

As a parent of teens, there is definitely a sense of there being a lot of resource on offer for teens whose parents do NOT affirm a new gender identity, and it’s easy to imagine schools being very pastorally supportive to a child who tells their teachers about their horrible unsupportive parents (bearing in mind the school generally barely knows any of the parents) after encouragement from online sources. It’s quite scary really, how difficult it is to challenge this stuff with love, when you’re painted as bigots who want to drive your kid into desperation.

exactly this ☝️

@ZeldaFighter if you think about the difference between manslaughter and murder, perhaps the word abuse is incorrect in this context as the parents are carrying out abuses unknowingly. Just as someone can accidentally kill someone by dangerous driving, someone can accidentally send their child down a path to an identity crisis and life long medicalisation. They're not gleefully setting their kids on a path to being a lifelong medical patient. They've inadvertently drunk the kool aid and trusted so called professionals. They must take some responsibility though because it's a batshit thing to medicalise a child's struggle with their identity and go defcon 2 in responding to it. I refuse to let parents off the hook entirely and say that they don't have any role in pushing this agenda further. I know of a fair few parents on a personal level who've managed to push back despite bloody "professionals" from captured membership bodies trying to confuse them with gender woo.

That was a good read this morning.
I do wonder whether the shift in parenting styles - you are your child's best friend etc - has made it much harder for some parents to say no to their children? If you never use the no word, boundaries are endlessly negotiated and children have a sense that their needs take priority, then this must be an impossible issue to negotiate.
Instead of telling children they can't change sex, saying no to PBs etc some parents have to navigate this from a position of not being the authority figure. They've never said "no because I say so", "while you live under my roof I decide what's best for you" etc. Life's a constant compromise - except with this they're compromising their child's future mental and physical heath, fertility etc. And with the online "glitter community" encouraging parental alienation. it's very frightening. So maybe the alternative becoming the child's cheer leader seems the only option?

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed that except for the hubristic title. But Hadley probably didn't write the title.

They seem to be winning at the moment. They just got stopped from using puberty blockers on other people (children).