URGENT help needed please re college socially transitioning daughter

Re the cancer treatment regret vs trans surgery comparison ...

I had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. I wouldn't say I regret it - it was necessary to save my life - but I'm not particularly happy about it.

By contrast, my trans colleague also had a double mastectomy. My work organised a 'Congratulations!' card for them and we were specifically told to be positive in our messages as trans colleague was so delighted with the whole surgery.

If trans regret truly is only 1% then I think that shows just how much of a brainwashed cult gender ideology is. It's not psychologically healthy to be so delighted about extreme surgery

OP, I am sorry you felt overwhelmed, I am not surprised.
In case you missed it before my post
ScrollingLeaves · 19/12/2025 13:23
had some links that you might helpful.

This is not necessarily true, some kids just need grounding in reality while they do a bit of maturing.

Hang in there! If you’re not already, you might also want to reach out to Bayswater parents’ group. They are very supportive.

@ConcernedmumofTIF, not sure if this was mentioned upthread when you first raised this issue, but both Transgender Trend and Safe Schools Alliance have resources on their websites - including letter templates - that you can use to help push back against this with the college.

Just support your child, going against them will just allienate them. Non binary kids are especially vulnerable when parents don't support them.

OK so imagine it was DSM and not ICD 11 that was being used to diagnose gender dysphoria.
Say you have a child who ticks most if not all of the DSM boxes.
You can then say they have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
It's what happens next that is the issue.

Is the child helped to understand that whichever sex they were born into is the sex they will remain all their lives, because it is not possible for humans to change sex?

Is the child told that gender stereotypes about the way children dress or play are just ideas that some people have about how boys and girls should be, but that's not true, they can be however they want to be, play with whatever toys they prefer, they don't have to be 'a real boy' or a 'girly girl'?

Is the child supported in accepting that there is nothing wrong with their body as it is, they were not 'born in the wrong body', there is no such thing as a wrong body, and they shouldn't listen to anyone who tells them there is anything wrong with their body as it is.

Or is the child told that they can change sex, that a boy can decide he's a girl, and can grow up to be a woman, or a girl grow up to be a man? And that everybody around them will believe that they really have changed sex?

That if they are a boy who likes playing with dolls, or a girl who likes cars, that is something that should be considered 'not right' and further investigated?

And if a child is so disturbed that they reject their own body, should they be told that they can look forward to avoiding puberty, and at a later stage having perfectly healthy parts of their body removed, as a solution?

A diagnosis of gender dysphoria is one thing; what matters is how the child is lovingly and wisely helped through it to accept reality, i.e. that they are what they are, they are and will always be the sex they were born with, and there is nothing at all wrong with their body or their mind.

Write to them and raise it as a safeguarding issue, highlighting her lack of maturity and stating that you consider her to be vulnerable for this reason. It might give them some pause at least.

Can she move college?

Don't know what to suggest, but just saw this and commenting to bump for you OP.

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this.

The definition in the DSM5 was changed, in part, because transgender and human rights advocates actively lobbied the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to declassify gender variance as a mental illness altogether.

This is why we now have TRAs screeching that it is not a mental health condition and it's an innate characteristic, when it is very clearly a mental health condition in many of the people who ID as trans.

The DSM looks like it was written in an era long ago, either that or by people who live in a world who wished we did.

That you are a man is simply a matter of fact. If you take this as an insult, that's on you.

It just shocks me again every time I read this (the criteria)

Very succinct responses to all the points. Thank you seethlaw.

Oh. I hadnt noticed that asymmetry before. Well spotted.

'In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing'

That is interesting.

Here is a quick critique of the DSM and diagnosis of psychological problems generally.

www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&source=android-browser&q=criticisms+of+the+dsm+5

The NHS uses ICD 11 for diagnosis, not DSM.

Check that definition. Note the exclusion.

Fact is, anyone could present with and be diagnosed with gender dysmorphia just by being committed to getting the diagnosis or having been trained to believe it by a parent.

Yep. The bar is incredibly low.

It's an open door to parents who are homophobic, who are worried that their "non-conforming child" might grow up to be gay. They've got a great opportunity to teach them from an early age how to meet this criteria and therefore become "straight".

It's also an open door to any parents or carers (e.g. supervisors in the care system) of boys, who they think of a cross-dressers that are simulating female attire 🤢, who might have more nefarious motives towards young boys and vulnerable young men.

I remember an interview that Ritchie Herron did with Benjamin Boyce where he said he was pretty shocked at the number of older males (with their genitals still intact) who were encouraging young gender-dysphoric males like himself to go for the op when he joined support groups. He was reflecting on how he hadn't understood the motivation behind this at the time and only did so with hindsight. It must have seemed pretty obvious afterwards, in an incredibly painful way (😥) that had these supposedly caring mentors been genuine, they themselves could have had the op at any time. But no, they chose instead to dedicate their time to manipulating encouraging younger males to do it.

I'm simply making the point it's all based on subjectivity. There are many, many criticisms of the DSM - it puts little boxes around groups of symptoms. Maybe what we are really dealing with in many cases is distress.

Fact is, anyone could present with and be diagnosed with gender dysmorphia just by being committed to getting the diagnosis or having been trained to believe it by a parent.

Well said.

As an additional thought, it's a bit grim that the description for "boys (assigned gender)" uses the term cross-dressing and talks about "simulating female attire".

If they wanted to avoid any potential for linking this to transvestic fetishism, you'd think it would mirror the description for "girls (assigned gender)" e.g.

• In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical feminine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical masculine clothing; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing

I appreciate others have probably picked up on this before and I haven't seen those posts. But it's the first time I've really looked at that bullet in detail, despite having seen the DSM criteria before. It feels like it was staring me in the face and I couldn't see it. It's very clearly a description of performative behaviour in a way that the description for "girls (assigned gender)" isn't. Euw.

I dare you to actually read DSM and go through the assessment,

As you wish.

Diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children.

DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in children require ≥ 6 of the following (1 of which must be the first criterion):

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
• In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
• A strong preference for toys, games, and activities stereotypical for the other gender
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
• A strong rejection of toys, games, and activities typical of the gender that matches their birth sex
• A strong dislike of one's sexual anatomy
• A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics that match one's experienced gender

My comments:

• Desire is not an observable behaviour. It's a self-reported feeling.
• Dislikes and preferences are observable. However, all that is observed is that the child does not align with the stereotypical behaviours socially expected from their sex. Thus the problem here lies not with the child, but with the expectations put on them. Pathologising the child when the problem lies with society is obviously abysmally wrong.
• Moreover, plenty of chidren are gender-non-conforming, yet don't grow up to be trans. Thus assuming that a GNC child is trans is a basic error in logic.

Do I believe that children can diagnosed with what the ICD calls (more appropriately in my opinion) "gender incongruence of childhood"? Absolutely. However this incongruence points to the problem of society expecting gender congruence in the first place. Thus, it's society which needs treatment, not the child.

So does dysphoria, I dare you to actually read DSM and go through the assessment, consider it an experiment, 500-600 quid for a session with private specialist that is actually allowed to attempt a diagnosis.

And just as with say autism, some is very observable, some is not, not all cut from one stone, no matter how much you hope it to be.

Yes, I mean those criteria, which all depend entirely on what the child claims, and not at all on observable symptoms.

Autism, on the other hand, has a whole list of observable behaviours. There was no need to ask my son how he felt, to diagnose him as autistic. Observing him was plenty enough.

Right, so you with, I am going to guess with 0 formal training in any of it, can decide which condition then is real, or not.

Because you obviously would not be fine if AuADHD kid would be told that: "well, because you maybe both have AU and ADHD, we won't treat either as we cannot confirm they are actually separate"... Right? You don't say that kid should just have some conditions, or all of them, abandoned, just... Well, not sure what do you want done here.

But when it's gender dysphoria, you know categorically that it should just be dumped and cite actually incorrect numbers of 98%, but let's skip that.

Your decision of what to dismiss is entirely arbitrary, which is the opposite of how modern medicine works, especially when treatment is safe, with limited and controllable side effects and easy to get off if proven wrong, aka blockers if you read actual peer review studies.