The kind of “girl” that a boy who identifies as a girl thinks he is

I think a child of this age is expressing confusion about sex permanence and a preference for some of the perceived positive aspects of being the other sex. Different permitted toys/clothes/ family privileges etc

I know this is the explanation that feels intuitive to most but Really flies in the face of all the empirical evidence . This is not what gender incongruence is- it's not about stereotypes. People often have interests: prefer the cloths, enjoy the privileges of their birth sex , and yet their gender incongruence persists.

By the way- re phantom limbs- these can also occur in people who were born without the limb. It's not just about experiential development.

How does a child’s “body map” include parts that don’t exist? Eg a penis.

I can see how phantom limbs work in amputees - they developed a nervous system and neurocognitive body map of a whole body and this was not rewritten when they lost their limb.

But how does a young child develop from an embryo to a baby to a child of 4/5 years with a “neurocognitive” body map of the opposite sex? What is the actual mechanism for this developing?

I don’t think I buy this explanation without some actual scientific research evidence.

But perhaps this isn’t what Lacksie means either.

I think a child of this age is expressing confusion about sex permanence and a preference for some of the perceived positive aspects of being the other sex. Different permitted toys/clothes/ family privileges etc.

Either way, it seems very stupid and simplistic of an adult to take a young child’s pronouncements at literal face value.

Science and medicine need more evidence than 'you can't rule it out'.

But you can't rule it out being the point.

Research indicates that gender identity and the neurological structures associated with it are influenced by biological, genetic, and prenatal hormonal development (such as how the brain and body process sex hormones).

When you dig down into this research it is all confounded by the presence of cross-sex hormones in adults, or by the inability to separate nature from nurture or by very small sample sizes or by not correcting for sexual orientation or neurodiversity or by extrapolating data on adults to children, and so on.

Is there a smoking gun that proves a cognitive link to gender dysphoria?
No. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist just like many other psychological states that are also considered valid by the expert psychological community & have no 'smoking gun'.

Research indicates that gender identity and the neurological structures associated with it are influenced by biological, genetic, and prenatal hormonal development (such as how the brain and body process sex hormones).

Could an individual have experienced depression never knowing another human? The theory is also the related to neuro structures.

But what there is a smoking gun for is biological diversity. And while biological diversity exists all bets are off.

Do 5 year olds ever identify as non-binary? How do they know if they are trans or NB?

(I believe that parents latch onto the trans label because of reasons like their child doesn’t get along with their sex and trans requires other kids to “be kind” and go along with it )

Is it, though?

I’m trying to think this through. Surely in Plato‘s cave, the prisoners see a reflection of what really is out there not a reflection of something that’s presenting as something that isn’t what it appears to be?

If it’s the image of a table, then it’s the image of a table, not the image of a chair that thinks it’s a table? Or have I got that the wrong way round?

Since I spend several hours explaining this earlier , I certainly won't waste any more of my time.

Thank heavens for small mercies

Ah, So no then. 😂.

Since I spend several hours explaining this earlier , I certainly won't waste any more of my time.

Why should gender incongruence be affirmed when BIID is seen as a disorder to be treated in other ways and racial incongruence is viewed as racist?

Do you agree or disagree with Diane Ehrensaft (see video I posted earlier - it's less than 3 minutes long)?

Are you saying it's purely a neurological disorder similar to BIID?

Where is the evidence that gender incongruence is entirely independent of these things?

So have you or have you not accepted the first step- that it is entirely plausible that a persons neurocognitive awareness/ experience of their sex, could be incongruent with their anatomy?

I'm not sure what this means. Can you explain in more detail?

Since one's awareness of one's sex is based on one's anatomy, I don't really understand what you think is happening here.

It's important to learn from history about what happens when adults argue that young children have agency to make inappropriate decisions about sexual matters.

Back in the 1970s PIE, (Paedophile Information Exchange), argued strongly for the lowering of the age of consent and argued that young children - even of primary age - were competent to make decisions about sexual relationships with adults. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse said that PIE "was accepted as a legitimate voice of an oppressed sexual minority by respected and well-established civil society organisations such as the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL, now known as Liberty) and the Albany Trust (a specialist counselling and psychotherapy charity). It achieved some traction and influence in civil libertarian and gay rights groups generally in that period." Link to ICSAA report below.

This is not an accusation aimed at any posters on here. It's highlighting that the adults arguing for very young children to have agency to make life changing decisions about their sex or sexual relationships are breaching some fundamental boundaries that society has developed to protect children.

It's fine to debate whether gender identity exists for adults. It's not fine to argue that 5 years olds should be enabled by adults to pretend they're not really their birth sex. That's breaching society's fundamental responsibility to safeguard children.

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/westminster/part-g-paedophile-information-exchange/g1-introduction.html

There's no evidence whatsoever that gender incongruence has anything to do with conscious reasoning- either about sex stereotypes or anything else.

Yes, at the age of 5 a child's reasoning is likely to be along the lines of "I like playing with dolls. Daddy says dolls are for girls, so I must be a girl".

So have you or have you not accepted the first step- that it is entirely plausible that a persons neurocognitive awareness/ experience of their sex, could be incongruent with their anatomy?

If so , then we can move on to address the misunderstandings about how we respond to this (eg the idea that "affirming" someone's experience of gender is the same as a clinician pretending someone has a rubber limb)...

@OldCrone It's all about "neurological phenomena", but the other similar neurological disorders which were presented as similar to this aren't expected to be seen as objectively and literally true by other people (phantom limbs, BIID).

Nor are they affirmed by health practitioners: 'Yes, you really do have a rubber hand attached to your arm.' 'Yes, your amputated limb is actually still there.' There are various approaches to treating these neurological disorders, but none of them involve permanent affirmation from everyone (including health practitioners), for the rest of the patient's life.
As someone on the previous thread said, nearly everyone already has a reference-point for the sensation of having an attached limb. So they can name the sensation correctly, even if the brain is in error for some reason.
No-one of any age has a reference-point for being the opposite sex. A boy cannot name whatever he is feeling as 'girl', because he has no reference-point for this. Any adult who supports the child in making or continuing with this category-error is abusing the child.

I'd like to know how a boy 'knowing' he's a girl differs from a boy 'knowing' he's a dinosaur, cat, or Spiderman.

I shall repeat the question asked and ignored on the other thread when @lacksie asked for reasons we refute that a child of 5 can ‘know’ they are the opposite sex.

“@Lacksie”, you are attributing a very abstract kind of thinking to a 5 year old, something they don’t develop until round about 12. At age 5, thinking you are a girl/boy is more likely some confusion about the concepts of girl/boy and trying to make sense of them, not some innate sense of being born in the wrong body.
Can you give an explanation of what type of cognitive development would be consistent with abstract reasoning at age 5?”

It's all very Plato's cave allegory.

After that 1000-post thread about this, I'd say that you'll never get an answer to those questions OP.

Apparently, very young children can just 'know' that they have an opposite sex gender identity, but the way in which they come by this knowledge can't be explained in a way that intelligent adults can understand.

It's all about "neurological phenomena", but the other similar neurological disorders which were presented as similar to this aren't expected to be seen as objectively and literally true by other people (phantom limbs, BIID). Cross sex identification is literally true and real (even in 5 year olds, where surely it's all about clothes and toys), but cross racial identification isn't.

None of it makes sense, but the main aim seems to be to impose adult ideas on children and suggest that they can understand them. Where have we seen that before?

Here's a video of gender zealot Diane Ehrensaft talking about trans toddlers which may partially answer your questions.

Barrettes_ Diane Ehrensaft - video Dailymotion

Really interesting thought experiment. We can't know, can we.