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.

You miss out what the first A in AFAB/AMAB stands for - assigned. If babies had their sex assigned at birth how do you explain the millions of missing girls in countries with sex selective abortion and a preference for boys? Or do you think they ‘assigned’ a bunch of babies girls a male sex?

Sex is determined at conception and observed at birth, or often before.

I agree. Fine to have girl only groups but then boy only groups should be fine too.

Absolutely.

And this is why there are so many problems with the world we live in today.

No

You can still have boy only groups. My understanding is that cubs/scouts went mixed due to falling numbers and they didn't think they would be viable if they remained single sex

I just feel sorry for those poor children. Going through puberty is bad enough

This is what needs to be said going forward, every time a man asks to join womens groups or women's services, and every time a parent suggests their child can change sex.

No.

I can't get past the 'transgender at 4 years old' concept. 4! For God's sake. The world has gone stark raving bonkers. I am otherwise lost for words.😣

Scouting went mixed sex as I believe they were struggling for both members and volunteers as a single sex organisation. Girlguiding in my area at least is extremely popular with long waiting lists for all our units. We can’t accommodate the actual girls we want to, let alone any pretend ones.

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.

A single sex girls organisation can be inclusive without letting boys join. It can be inclusive of girls of all ethnicities, religions, physical capabilities etc etc

Me neither. I really do feel for this poor kid whose idiot parents have decided that he's 'really' a girl because it makes them feel special or whatever. It's just appalling

The word inclusive is so pointless.
Groups are meant to be exclusive (by activity, age group, sex, location etc etc), single sex spaces are exclusive by definition. Exclusivity is what safeguarding is all about, otherwise it’s including people who do not belong in those spaces.

Well said @IridescentRainbow 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 and good for you for thinking this way as a grandma, when so many people on here, who are presumably the generation below you haven’t got their bigoted heads around it yet.

Just to clarify the position about Scouts and Guides. Scouts chose to go mixed sex-largely because of falling rolls. They could have stayed boys only if they had wanted to. Guides chose to remain girls only mostly because they had waiting lists, and because there are many girls who needed, for cultural and religious reasons a girl only environment.

Missing the point somewhat, but there was a nice little boy in my Rainbows group in the late 1980s.

Just calling people "bigots" doesn't invalidate their points.
It's more bigoted to think that if your son likes dolls and the colour pink, he must be "trans". If your daughter wants short hair and likes football, she must be "trans".
How sexist and narrow minded. Bigoted, you could say.

It's not bigoted to want female people to have things. It's not bigoted to want girls to have single sex spaces.

I believe that it is transgender ideology which is the bigoted belief because fundamentally it seeks to destroy rights for female people. It's also dangerous to young children to set them up to fail. They can never BE the opposite sex. The law has confirmed that they are not entitled to be in single sex spaces so suggesting they can be is simply cruel.

Boys can wear and play with what they want but they can never be girls. Saying that is not bigoted it is just the truth.

As the grandmother of an 11 year old who has lived life since the age of four as someone of the opposite gender ...

I love this statement. Because I love to ask what it means.

What does it mean to live as a girl or boy? What does it mean to live as a man or woman.

I really would love to know what you mean.

If it's a boy pretending to be a girl. Is he living as a girl because he wore dresses and played with dolls, grew his hair long and did ballet classes. The other way round Was the girl a boy because she liked trains and stereotypical boy things?

A boy can play with dolls or do ballet classes or grow his hair long without having to say he's actually a girl. Because then you're just reducing a girl to appearances and outdated stereotypes.

I do not understand it when somebody says they have been living as the opposite gender. What does it mean to live as a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?

Ridiculous. I have 3 children under 5.

How can a child that age ever be transgender?

I question the parenting.

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?

WHY WON’T GIRLS SET ASIDE THEIR RIGHTS FOR A BOY!! Wahhhhhh!

Report to social services. No 4 year old is “trans”. This is being pushed on the child by some activist mother. I would say it’s your moral duty to raise the alarm and have this looked into. And certainly to protect the little girls in your group from this kind of crazy.

I think they're sexist. Obviously the sort of parents who can only have their daughters in pink and bows, and boys in football shirts. Decent parents know that you don't categorise children.

I thought 'falling rolls' was some kind of gymnastic move for a minute ...

Yes, this is what I've heard too, although I also know that some boys here were upset when girls started going to Scouts.

Kids like hanging out with their own sex sometimes. So do adults.

Your boy isn’t loud and some girls are but mostly boys dominate the space and are more physical.