AIBU to think this is child abuse? (trans related)

[pisacake]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/10/raising-a-non-binary-child-as-long-as-one-of-the-side-effects-wasnt-death-it-was-the-right-way

Basically 14yo daughter came out first as lesbian, then as a boy shortly after that. She didn't want to be examined by NHS gender clinic she was referred by trans-child charity to private 'trans-your-child-by-post' GP gendergp.co.uk/.

Said Dr. sent puberty blockers, then 3 months later testosterone gel, but had second thoughts, stopping the T-gel, and remaining on the puberty blockers. Now her mum says 'It will be 18 months before they can even be referred for adult surgery. '

AIBU to think that this is horrific child abuse and that these medications should not even be an option for children under the age of 18, confused about their sexuality?

I work in an (all girls) school and a 14 year old girl has just transitioned - taken a male name, wearing a different uniform and school have to complete accommodate (which is absolutely fine...). I have since found out that this student is being medicated for his transition. However, the parents are not on board at all, they don't want this and refuse to refer to him as 'he' or his new chosen name. Legally, we had to consult lawyers with this, we have to go by the choice of the child no matter what age they are. Parents' evening is coming up, I am not looking forward to that appointment...

Who is behind the medication then if the parents aren't on board? Don't the parents have to give their consent for that sort of thing? There must be other adults involved somewhere?

It is clearly child abuse and I have no idea why authorities are colluding instead of making arrests

Medicating and using surgery to attempt to treat a condition that requires non invasive therapies is abusive imo.

I wish I could 'like' so many of these posts!

I know of a 6 year old girl who 'decided' she was a boy. This was after years of being told by her parents and nursery she was 'just like a boy' because she didn't want to wear dresses, wanted short hair and was different to her uber-girly sister.

The parents went to the NHS who suggested a group play therapy session with 'trans kids' fro. 4-13, which was - once per month, about 1.5 hours away.

There seems to have been no questioning of the child's whim decision, suggesting that wearing trousers or liking trucks didn't actually make her a boy or anything. And the child is now 'living' as a boy (referred to as he at home /school, encouraged to talk about their willy etc). They are also talking about future hormone treatment.

None of this makes any sense to me.

After three months of taking testosterone, Caleb decided not to transition – choosing instead to avoid identifying as male or female – and began to identify as non-binary, using the pronouns they and their.

For now, Caleb remains on hormone blockers, postponing a female puberty while deciding how to proceed.

What the fuck? So after just three months Caleb changed her mind about wanting to become a boy. But is now in a state of limbo where she is still on puberty blockers 'whilst deciding how to proceed' aka trying to navigate the awfulness of adolescence that many people go through.

Why are The Guardian promoting this crap? Why?

Splatattack if the school is now obliged to consider the child a boy, why are the child staying in a girls' school? It doesn't make any sense!

There is a medical term for this kind of disconnect from reality.

Can someone who knows more about this hunan me tell me the effects of puberty blockers. So it seems that Caleb has been on them for 2 years age 14-16. If she stopped them tomorrow, would there be any long term effects? Would she just go through puberty as normal just a bit older? Her body has aged two years without puberty, would that have an effect? Would two years on puberty blockers affect their fertility?

Also, Calebs mother said that she thought that her daughter being big and muscly as a child meant she would probably be a lesbian. But in that photo the Mum looks like she is of quite a heavy build as well?

That mother is an idiot. You cannot determine some’s sexuality based on their body type as a child. If adhoc medical experiments (which is what this amounts to) were being carried out on children under any other circumstances, there would be an outcry and it would be stopped.

I'm afraid you only have to read the trans threads on MN to see just how blinkered and prejudicial the posters are surrounding gender based issues.

DC is currently identifying as non-gender binary. I feel (undiagnosed) ASD is at play here, as DC has struggled within their peer group their whole school life and always felt they were on the margins. I feel they are therefore struggling with where they fit in as they start their teenage years and so is going the non-gender route. We have had endless discussions, but DC is convinced that is how they feel and that even a discussion of those feelings is seen as unsupportive and they get very upset. It is a very confusing and upsetting time for DC, and as their parent I am lucky that I have a lot of family support as well as good friends that help me explore my own feeling too. As parents we all find it upsetting when our children are in distress.

This whole gender topic needs to be out in the open and explored. Society as a whole needs to take a long, hard look at gender stereotypes that are still pervasive, so much so that young children are still adhering to them (the girl being told she can't do karate as that's a boy thing, for example). Social media also needs to take a long, hard look too because many young people don't seem to be questioning what they view/read. I'm often hear to say to DC "Oh well if it's on the internet, it must be true!" /end sarcasm.

Sadly mental health services are chronically underfunded and over subscribed, and whilst we're going to try the NHS route, I've got a feeling we'll end up going private.

Sadly they don’t have to give consent. If drs are allowed to give underage teenage girls contraception (remember Victoria Gillick & Gillick competence) they can prescribe other drugs. The school will be trying to support the child (duty of care etc) and the current guidelines are acceptance rather than question why. It is a dreadful situation with counselors with very little experience of these issues, who have only met a child once, deciding that they know what they are doing and encouraging children to visit one sided websites. I am not going to increase their prominence by naming them.

I was unaware that the height and lesbianism were somehow correlated.

Has someone warned Sandi Totskig she must be heterosexual?!

Am I the only one who thinks that if your child doesn’t fit in at school it might be a good idea to encourage them to do things the other kids do in order to fit in, rather than encouraging them to be different and get bullied. I know everyone should be able to be themselves but I’d much prefer to encourage my daughter to wear makeup when she’s not really interested in it than see her be bullied which would surely make her more unhappy in the long run.

How dare the Grauniad recommend f*ing Mermaids!

Mermaids where the CEO took her son to the US for cross-sex hormones under the age of 16, because the NHS will not give cross-sex hormones to under 16 year olds.

Mermaids, whose paid CEO took her son to Thailand so he could be permanently castrated/ have genital reassignment surgery on his 16th birthday. Thailand was apparently the only place where this surgery was performed on under 18s at the time, but they have since come into line with the rest of the world.

If her son was really a girl, this would have been considered FGM. There is no equivalent male criminal offence, but why has she not been prosecuted for child abuse? Why did the NHS medical authorities, when they realised her son was being prescribed cross-sex hormones as a child not take action to prevent this, involve social services, take a court order to prevent her son out of the country or giving him any further non NHS approved treatment? So many failures of care here!

Even supposing all this treatment was carried out by stealth, Susie Green and her son, now officially a daughter have been quite open about the treatment since the child reached adulthood. So why no prosecutions?

At the very least Susie Green, and Mermaids while she is in charge, should not be allowed near anyone's children. Justice Hayden had the right idea in banning Mermaids from contact with the family of child J.

I am very sorry for Ally and her daughter Caleb who has clearly been horribly bullied and has not been able to access the support she needs for her mental health problems. The real shame here is the lack of funding and availability of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, which drives desperate families into the arms on unqualified "support services" such as Mermaids who actively promote a policy of early medical and physical transition, who peddle the myth of "better a trans child than a dead child".

A child who is self harming or threatening suicide needs proper qualified support. They do not need to be prescribed off-label hormone blockers with known long term side effects or given cross-sex hormones which further impact their mental health and have in many cases irreversible side effects. Caleb is very lucky that she was only on the testosterone for a short enough period and low enough dose that she hasn't suffered permanent effects. (Permanent side effects usually include increased facial and body hair growth, male pattern baldness and deeper voice).

Any serious exploration of gender reassignment needs to be put on hold until underlying mental health problems are resolved, under control and the child has reached the age of 18. Even then there needs to be a period of counselling and consideration to make sure the person fully understands the effects of transition: infertility, a life time of medication, increased risks of certain disorders, increased difficulty in finding sexual partners/ life partners.

If parents with non-gender conforming children continue to be sign-posted to groups like Mermaids, and government policy allows itself to be influenced by these groups, we are brewing up massive problems for the future when hormone dependent, mutilated infertile adults ask how this was allowed to happen to them as children.

To my knowledge the only longterm case studies we have of children being subject to hormone abuse as adolescents and young adults are the athletes of the former Eastern bloc. That didn't end well.

The mother saying that "Caleb was very androgynous and a big, muscly child - "not feminine at all. It was then I thought perhaps I was going to have a gay daughter – which would have been fine.”

You've got a large frame, love. That's where the child gets it from (and I'm guessing the father wasn't tiny). A large frame is not an indicator of being lesbian or trans.

And here's the thing.

• The child came out as lesbian
• Then came out as trans
• Then came out as non-binary

The child cannot be all three, therefore the child is confused (and we all know why, given the crap advice that adults around them have been dishing out). So, after all this, the child isn't trans after all.

Christ.

Yes, it is abusive.
I feel a bit sorry for the mother because she is clearly dim and being pushed around by agencies who should know better, but the virtue signalling ninnies encouraging this should be ashamed.

A child/teenager cannot make decisions like this. Its a confusing time and they're still learning about themselves.
At what point will this insanity stop?
How is it possible for medical intervention to be made at this stage?!

Jellyslice we are trying to be inclusive and so will not ask any student to leave even though we are all girls. We are now looking at a permanent uniform change to include trousers with the aim of demonstrating inclusivity. We have also been told that we have to accept students who have changed from boy to girl. We are a boarding school so this adds difficulty...we have had interest from one girl (who used to be a boy) so far...

I have nothin against this but I dont know that enough real support is in place for these young people..and teachers, other students and parents all have to immediately adjust with little support or guidance...

I am very open and liberal, but working in a school in this climate feels like a bit of a minefield...and are we doing the right hing for these young people?

oops, just posted a separate thread about this. Yeah, it's child abuse IMO, and a lot more.

My dd went through a stage of struggling with her gender (from the age of 9 until 12), she wanted to be a boy. She’s now 14 and although she isn’t very girly she is happy with being female, she has a boyfriend but is unsure if she is straight, bi or gay. A lot of her friends have come out as gay or bi but not trans. I think 14 is way too early to be transitioning. It should be 18.

I have a freind who has been transitioning from female to male (they are in there 30’s) but they have now stopped taking the medication.

This is the comment I posted elsewhere as a separate thread

Just noticed this in a piece on raising a non binary child in the Guardian (no comments allowed).

"Ally noticed that Caleb was not going to be a typical little girl at a young age: Caleb was very androgynous and a big, muscly child – “not feminine at all. It was then I thought perhaps I was going to have a gay daughter – which would have been fine.”

So now the Guardian is telling us that if your child is not gender conforming at an early age you draw conclusions about their future sexual orientation? Because you can't be a big muscly 'non feminine' woman and be straight? I can't work out which is worse about that, the misogyny or the homophobia.

The woman in the piece also took her child to Helen Webberley, currently suspended by the GMC - which they do actually manage to mention, surprisingly for the Guardian.

This piece demonstrates amply how anyone gender non conforming is being labelled as trans. The child in the piece seemed to simply not want to wear makeup, dresses and high heels and ended up on testosterone, which they didn't like, and is now on puberty blockers and has serious mental health problems. And the Guardian seems unable to consider that this may be because of the way they've been treated and medicalised simply for not conforming to stereotypes.

salad

So I'm wrong about trans kids but you're listing LGB kids.

I know numerous gender non conforming kids, I was one myself. Fortunately my parents didn't impose gender stereotypes, if I wanted to climb trees and play with lego and a chemistry set instead of dolls they let me get on with it.

If I knew someone like this, I'd phone social services. Not least for taking the child out of the NHS system to a private GP now being investigate by the GMC who prescribed testosterone to an under 16 year old.

My dd went through a stage of struggling with her gender (from the age of 9 until 12), she wanted to be a boy"

I was horrified when I started having periods. I'm not trans, but for a lot of young girls, the bodily changes of puberty are hard to handle, especially as they usually start nowadays, thanks to better nutrition, in girls who are still children psychologically.

Given this, how many girls are saying they want to be a boy because they don't like how their body is changing? I read about one famous public school that all the girls who used to be anorexic are now trans, and it's often said that eating disorders are a reaction to puberty and wanting to maintain a childlike body.

Christ, find me a bunch of girls in the first flush of puberty and you will find a bunch of hunched shoulders and crossed arms. Not even the most feminine presenting women all enjoy the arrival of our objectification radars, aka breasts.