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.

Could contact the PR department for advice, stating you don’t know how to respond given the Supreme Court ruling and you’re concerned it’ll result in legal action

Sounds like rainbows or brownies - shut it down OP. At 4 that kid is not transgender. Probably doesn't even fully understand the difference between genders yet apart from body parts.!

He might have a nut allergy.

I'll get my coat..

The harm would be

1. lying to other members who have been mislead about the organisation.
2. organisation would be breaking the law.
3. OP being put under pressure to collude in a lie to the child.

Not sure what you mean by ‘meant to be born female’. This sounds rather sexist.

Because not all parents are good people.
No 4 year old understands their own gender. No 4 year old even knows rainbows exists! Both of those things have come from the parent.

I have zero issues with little boys wearing dresses, playing with dolls, but telling a little boy he is a girl or that he can be a girl at 4 years old is lying. Like telling him he can be a dinosaur.
I also have an issue lying to all the other children in my group. Lying to their parents.
If it was a mixed sex group and guiding said anyone can join absolutely no problem. I’ll take as many boys as want to come. But I’m not about to lie to my girls that this boy is a girl because he isn’t. He is a boy. He will always be a boy. He can wear a dress. He can grow his hair long. He can do whatever he pleases with his body and his life but he is and will always be a boy

Acceptance of what? That your grandson is living a fantasy? You don’t seem so accepting of people on here who recognise reality, how are you going to treat the teenage girls around him who don’t want an adolescent boy watching them undress or exposing himself in front of them? Who don’t want a boy stealing their sporting chances? Will you call them bigots too?

My grandchild wants to be known as the opposite gender

Do they understand that that is not within anyone’s gift?

Do they understand what sex is? That it can’t be changed?

I also suspect you may lose attendees when their parents find out. Maybe also be a legal issue from the parents who didn’t know the boy was trans and they found out.

No harm will come by letting him join.

Two very obvious harms will occur: a girl will be denied her place in a female group, and the group will become mixed sex.

Nothing changed in that way, obviously. Loving parents surely do their best and react to every new situation as best they can, whether that is dealing with temper tantrums in their two year old or dealing with teenagers and their problems. If a four year old girl suddenly starts telling a parent that they are really a boy inside, what is the parent supposed to do? In my world it’s to really listen, ask some questions to clarify things, and then believe them and support them and let them know that we will help them and advocate for them. My grandchild has brothers and sisters. The thing I am most proud of? They have all reacted in a positive way, accepting their sibling and the new name and pronouns and apart from that just getting on with life . That’s definitely down to their parents and the way they are being raised.

Or indeed, if she is called Thomas but is a little girl being led astray by an idiot parent (assuming the best of the mother there), she will always be a girl (& therefore welcome in a single sex space), however she identifies, as long as everyone else isn't "required" to play along.

…and he’ll be put on a path to believing he is a girl so that when he grows up he won’t have any memory of adults not pretending he’s a girl and when he hits puberty he’s going to be very, very confused and distressed when he realises he’s been lied to.

If a 4 year starts telling an adult they are Superman inside what do the parents do?

You don’t turn up in Hollywood demanding the next movie part.

And the girls will be lied to wrt his sex.

What is a parent supposed to do?

My 4 year old son (jokingly) said a couple of times he was a girl.

I corrected him and we moved on to something different.

Here you go, job done 👍

“There’s a waiting list” - your child’s name has been added to the list….

How many children are asked to go along with this?

Do you tell the child he can change sex?

You try and work out what they mean by ‘boy’ and why they think there is something wrong with them, and why they have a limited idea of what a girl can be.

When you say that you insisted on a name change, and that nobody would know the child’s sex, it suggests that there has been an an adult attempt to hide a gender non conforming child - that they weren’t acceptable as they were.

@IridescentRainbow

I honestly think this is awful and I feel
so bad for your grand child. Has he been told he can’t change sex? The truth?

Gender is an internal construct so you cant be 'the opposite gender'

You can think yourself as the opposite sex, you would be wrong to, because your sex is just your sex. Its like wearing brown contact lenses and saying 'I feel like Im really brown eyed rather than blue eyed, I've felt it all my life'

It doesnt make it so. Your sex just is. Its just there.

Gender is a collection of likes, dislikes, personality, good old fashioned personality.

You're actively harming a child if you enable them to believe they are the wrong sex, you need to find out why they feel such a disconnect with their body, provide MH services for that, not call it 'trans' and make it a 'thing' that its not.

'If a four year old girl suddenly starts telling a parent that they are really a boy inside, what is the parent supposed to do?'

Ask the 4 year old what they mean. I knew a 5 year old girl who started insisting that she was a boy - her parents asked her what 'being a boy' meant. It turned out she was dying to play football but only the boys at school ever played football so understandably she thought it was only for boys. One football and goalie net in the back garden later, they had a happy little girl on their hands!

This handwringing about what parents are supposed to do really is ridiculous. Adults with their heads screwed on know that boys are boys and girls are girls on the basis of observable biological SEX. Toys and colours and interests don't come into it. Young children often pretend to be dogs, but no one ever suggests building them a kennel and feeding them from a bowl on the floor

This child has been tricked by his family.

You listen, you ask questions, you support them. You say, you are great as the person that you are. There is nothing wrong with you. You're not the wrong sex. You are the sex you are and we love you for it. Has someone been unkind? Had someone said you're not the right sex?
What you shouldn't do is tell a child that they can be a different sex.

Poor child.