Transgender 4 year old wanting to join girls only group

[Helpwithdivorce]

So I’ll preface this by saying im very much a live your life however you please as long as you’re not hurting anybody kind of person. However I run a group, which is just for girls aged 4-7.

I’ve had a request from a parent for their child to join. The child is 4 and the parent said they are transgender. Now here is my predicament, which may be rightly or wrongly.

Firstly I feel like this mother is just out to cause drama, there are other very similar mixed gender groups, there is no reason this child needs to join a group only for girls.

Secondly I simply do not believe that a 3/4 year old child knows that they are transgender. I feel this is being peddled by the mother, again feeding the drama.

What would you do? I really don’t want this mother in my group, but the group is ‘inclusive’ so I can’t say no you can’t join.
Currently I’ve just ignored the request.

"What would you do? I really don’t want this mother in my group, but the group is ‘inclusive’ so I can’t say no you can’t join. Currently I’ve just ignored the request.

A 4 year old is way to young to really be considering changing gender. If you can be "inclusive" group when you only accept children of one gender, then you can still be an "inclusive" group by not accepting this child. If not accepting a boy is "in-inclusive" then you are not an inclusive group anyway! (I am not saying that single gender kids groups are in-inclusive, just that in this context it doesn't work both ways.) If the child was 14 that would be different...

Thank you for keeping girls spaces as girl spaces

Multiple studies have found that girls perform better in all subjects without boys present, have higher levels of self confidence, participate in sports at higher levels and take more STEM subjects. This is usually attributed to the lack of gender stereotypes in girl only settings, nothing to do with individual personalities.

I also think, if you do believe your 4 year old could be and might be trans gender, trying to sign them up to a single sex group of either their bio sex or their potential chosen gender is weird!

You don't have a lot of options unfortunately OP as far as I can see. You can accept the boy (I wouldn't either) or tell the mother you cannot accept a boy because it is a girl's only group.

If she accepts it, you can carry on. If she pushes back on it with GGHQ, they will likely tell you that you have to accept him. Then you can comply or close your group.

I have nothing but sympathy for you. I am technically a warranted leader but I'm not going near that shit show until they sort themselves out because I don't want to be in the position you are in.

I honestly CANNOT BELIEVE the transphobic comments on this post or in OPs original question. If a 4 year old wants to be a girl so badly he’s asking to join a girls’ group, why not let him? And if his mother is making the effort to ask you, why on earth would you presume it’s for anything other than good reason.

Even if he’s not actually trans, what harm can a 4 year old boy do in a group of girls, and how sick are the commenters presuming that he’s some kind of pre-school sex-pest?! He’s 4!

Make his day & let him join! He’ll probably be an asset to the group & your most engaged member!

You have the opportunity to change a trans child’s life here. If you truly believe in working with children, for their good, why wouldn’t you take it? He & his mother will probably look back on this as a formative experience. Why not make it a good one?

And if you don’t intend to, then for the love of god remove the ‘inclusive’ description from your group. This is in no way inclusivity.

No.

Just say no. The law is on your side.

He's a boy. The group is for girls only. He should not be joining a girls only organisation.

Why is your whole family so sexist?

As the grandmother of an 11 year old who has lived life since the age of four as someone of the opposite gender and who has been given the choice to revert at any time and has never deviated from their “choice “, I can say that a four year old may not understand the implications, but he/she will definitely know what feels right for them.

You don't 'live life as the opposite gender' until age 11 without having sexist parents. And it seems grandparents. It's impossible. Sex is not gender. The equality act recognises that sex is not gender and sex remains important regardless of gender transition (which you can't legally have done by age 11)

They still have to hit puberty.

They don't get a choice about whether they go through male or female puberty. So setting up expectations that sex = gender age age 4 through to age 11 is setting up your grandchild to a lot of distress.

They will go through the puberty of their sex.

The trauma of this for some children is an appalling thing for adults to set a child up for. It's emotionally abusive.

Social transition is not a neutral act for this reason. It sets them on a course. And it's harder to socially detransition as a teen who has been socialised as the opposite sex.

Not to mention the impact on the privacy and dignity of all the children around that child who do not have the capacity to actively consent and even if they do they face duress because they've been socially conditioned not to recognise appropriate boundaries around sex.

I have no time for sanctimonious drivel which fails to recognise that sex can not be changed however much we might like it to be true.

It doesn't save children from harm. It enables and potentially ensures harm.

No.

I cannot fathom how it is "transphobic" to be concerned about the well being of a small boy who clearly isn't being allowed to be a 4 year old boy. He can't change sex. The mother should provide opportunities for imagination, creative play and wider friendship groups, finding out what kind of little boy he is. Pretending he's a girl won't help him and is very damaging.

I honestly CANNOT BELIEVE the transphobic comments on this post or in OPs original question. If a 4 year old wants to be a girl so badly he’s asking to join a girls’ group, why not let him?

BECAUSE IT'S NOT LEGAL

Nor is it transphobic to uphold single sex spaces.

I hope that clarifies the point.

@RedToothBrush well put.
How cruel to allow a child to pretend to be the opposite sex, then the poor child has to go through puberty and discover they were lied to?!
Just awful.

Yes and also damaging to ask any other young children to pretend.

I've read my schools policy on the puberty talk today.

It says transgender kids can choose whether to go to the boys one or the girls one.

I was gobsmacked. It's beyond ridiculous.

Nope. I spend hours a week unpaid as a volunteer leading two units, and I do it because I want to volunteer with girls and young women. I don’t want to volunteer with boys and young men. I don’t want to use my time for that as it’s not something I’m interested in. I am interested in working with young girls and women in a single-sex organisation, which is what most people believe (reasonably) GIRLguiding to be. If I wanted to volunteer with mixed sexes or with boys, I would choose an organisation designed to do that. But I don’t.

Why is it always women (the old-fashioned kind, with vaginas, as Ricky Gervais would say) who have to sacrifice things in the name of ‘inclusion’?

This is a parenting issue, not a problem with OP or anyone else volunteering their time for Girlguiding (as in on the ground volunteers, not the upper echelons who are making the policies - it is absolutely their problem). No 4yo is trans. This is a safeguarding issue that I wouldn’t want to touch with a barge pole outside of the fact I don’t want to volunteer with boys and men. It’s a recipe for disaster. I’ve had my fair share of safeguarding concerns I’ve had to report, and it takes a lot of time, effort and emotional labour as a leader to deal with them. No way am I willingly signing myself up for a delusional parent in an organisation who don’t even have proper guidance on the issue in the first place. It’s a shame for the kid, but there’s only so much of my time and wellbeing I’m willing to sacrifice for someone else’s mental health issues.

Agrred
Also if a four-year-old boy wants to join a girls group so badly...tell him no.

For goodnese, sake, children can't have absolutely everything they want trans issues aside.

I would also question if this boy really does desperately want to join rainbows or like his trans issues has his mother started all of this.

Any child who has been led to believe they can change sex, that their body is 'wrong', that they may need to be medicated to avoid puberty, is being set up to be a very troubled child facing a terribly difficult life.

I do feel for some parents who've been given terrible advice and coerced into buying the narrative, but a four year old child? No.

@LivelyCritic ""a 4 year old boy wants to be a girl so badly"*.
No, he doesn't. He just has an approach to play, engagement and socialisation that is usually associated with girls. This gender stereotyping is dangerous. Our 6 year old daughter wasn't "trans" , she just liked digger trucks, so we facilitated that. She remained a girl and is now a woman.

I think it's shocking, and future generations will find it hard to believe.

This is the thing.

The parent could easily say no. In fact a 4 year old boy won't even know what the hell rainbows is.

The parent is choosing to actively try and remove a female only space for their own activist aims.

The parent could easily have chosen Squirrels. The fact they haven't says everything. It's 100% about the parent trying to cause trouble and push their politics onto others. Using their four year old child.

It's not ok.

That parent is bad news.

I wouldn’t let him join and how can this be his choice.
However what I find confusing and annoying why can girls have girls only groups but boys can’t. Beavers, cubs and scouts have girls how is this fair?

Transphobic my arse.

Its a girls group. Girls can meet up without being pushed to let boys join.

It's not about fairness. It's about how boys dominate.

Equality doesn't always me exactly the same. It means trying to balance things - but that doesn't necessarily mean by using the same approach for every group.