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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think it is dangerous & wrong to teach children to think they can be "born into the wrong body" instead of teaching resilience?

116 replies

SpeakUpXXWomen · 21/03/2019 20:46

Stereotypes, lies and thought crime are in and logic is out.

CAMHS is completely overrun and we are in the midst of a mental health epidemic.

We keep pouring money into ideologies with NO scientific basis whatsoever cooked up by people with no child behaviour expertise or qualifications. We are paying these people to undermine children's natural confidence and dismantle safeguarding and sex based rights. We are paying these people to lie to children and it is doing serious damage, targeting vulnerable groups such as those who have suffered abuse or will likely be homosexual adults and those who are on the autistic spectrum.

AIBU to think this is utterly batshit and the money would be better spent teaching children resilience and funding the mental health services we need instead?

Why are we campaigning to help children with eating disorders overcome their difficulties whilst simultaneously forcing healthy children to deny themselves completely if they do not crush themselves into a stereotypical box?

OP posts:
RockyFlintstone · 21/03/2019 23:30

Teach trans kids resilience, tell depressed kids to smile, tell anorexic teens that the opposite sex won't fancy them without some meat on their bones.

Interesting equivalence there with anorexia. Does the treatment for anorexia involve telling that person 'yes you are right you are actually fat' because that is how they see themselves? Do we affirm their belief that they are fat or disgusting and that their body will be 'wrong' unless they take steps to correct it by losing weight? No, we don't.

DangermousesSidekick · 21/03/2019 23:31

Or in depression, do we reinforce the belief that life isn't worth living and you are worthless.

SpeakUpXXWomen · 21/03/2019 23:33

You can't be born into the wrong body. Your brain is part of your body. Your body isn't a lego set where you can trade pieces.

Your brain is a chemistry set and incredibly plastic, you can do lots with it and that applies to your entire life. This is a wonderful fact.

You get what you're given and then you hopefully get the proper support and influence to love it, enjoy it and make the best of it.

This is not narrow mindedness or bigotry it is science. Tried and tested practice of resilience teaching, the evidence is there in decades of research. Attachment disorders, trauma, adolescence and everything in between. What works and what doesn't. Lying does not work. Loving and developing yourself and sense of self does.

Here is a quick guide to resilience for those not understanding the use of the word with regard to child development as I am using it.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/resilience

Why would an anorexic be told the opposite sex won't fancy them without some meat on their bones? That's a very weird statement to make. There was a news story recently about the campaign to make instagram behave more responsibly on the subject of eating disorders and stop feeding anorexic teens algorithms of pictures encouraging starvation. I would like a similar campaign to address all types of social media fed physical rejection.

As a pp said critical thinking as well as resilience should be taught in schools to all children as a matter of fact and as a targeted campaign to all parents as far as possible.

OP posts:
SpeakUpXXWomen · 21/03/2019 23:36

As an example the resilience taught would be that you get fit and strong for yourself, you eat to nourish your body for yourself. It is a long path for an anorexic to take and can be a battle that is always there but it can get easier. Nothing taught to children about their own bodies should be tied into what someone else would want them to look like or be.

OP posts:
RevealTheLegend · 21/03/2019 23:36

Sort of reminds me of the camps for homosexual children because it's all in their mind too

Yep, telling gay youths they are really the opposite sex, then surgically sterilising them. While giving them drugs known to inhibit brain development.

That isn’t gay conversion therapy in any way, shape, or form.

AlunWynsKnee · 21/03/2019 23:41

BellaVista you said physical issues are more valid than mental issues
Really? That's what you think?
Which do you put autism in?

BellaVista1540 · 21/03/2019 23:48

I said physical issues are more validity than mental (question) I.e questioning the OP

Linning · 22/03/2019 00:00

I am sharing a house with a trans-man, have plenty of trans friends (though not trans myself), I also have plenty of non-binary friends and friends who don't stick to stereotypes of feminitiy/masculinity, but there is a real difference between Trans people and non-stereotypical boy/girls.

My friends who are non-binary or do not fit the stereotypes, are NOT looking to change their body, dress differently? Yes, wear a packer every now and then? Maybe, but they wouldn't want to go through hormones or invasive surgery at all, as they don't feel like they are born in the wrong body as much as they don't feel they suit the gender norms.

My trans friends on the other hand, ALL experience body dysphoria (some to a much bigger scale than others) and simply do not identify with the body and sex they were born in, and any reminder that they have the body that they have (such as breast growing, periods or else) is a real trigger for them and it definitely impacts their life, mental health, confidence and intimacy. Telling them to "suck it up" wouldn't help them (and wouldn't make them "get over it"), most of my friends are at different part of their journey, lots have had hormones already and some surgery as well as their paperwork officially changed and all are thrill by whatever little thing they manage to make happen in their transition. I am not preaching giving hormones to 6 years old or even 15yo, I am saying that people should stop vilifying trans people and let them live their life.

The person I am currently living with has zero issue with being trans and is perfectly happy with the steps he has taken to get closer to having the body he believe suits him, the only thing damaging his confidence are people treating him like a mentally ill person or suggesting he is, when all he is doing is living his life. He has a baby and recently went to get a passport and was absolutely terrified at the idea of having to disclose he was transgender to the passport office in the current climate as he was terrified he would lose his baby despite being a wonderful father due to rhe current hostility towards transgender and governments threatening "non-traditional families".

I don't think it's wrong to tell kids that some people don't identify with their body and that it's okay, I also don't think that it's bad to tell them that people might not identify with their body for a large amount of reasons and that sometimes it's just a question of therapy and learning to love your body and differences and sometimes someone might feel like surgery and other procedures (hormones) are the only way to reach happiness. It goes for people having breast augmentation/reduction and a nose job to trans people.

I don't think there is any kind of ideology behind explaining that to children, in simple words they can understand (because trans people do exist and they might encounter one) it's like being gay, most kids won't be gay, but I don't think it's bad to mention that while most people are straight some are not and prefer the same-sex, most people/kids know about gay people without feeling compelled to experiment it first hand or turning gay themselves.

AlunWynsKnee · 22/03/2019 00:00

Your answer makes no sense.

AlunWynsKnee · 22/03/2019 00:02

That was to Belle in case of confusion.

BellaVista1540 · 22/03/2019 00:24

@AlunWysKnee I posted...

SpeakUpXXWomen sorry for the hardship you must face but physical issues are more valid than mental issues?

It was clearly a question

AlunWynsKnee · 22/03/2019 00:29

Well the answer is no. Physical and mental issues can both have devastating effects. As can neuro developmental issues.

BellaVista1540 · 22/03/2019 00:30

So we agree then 👍.

AlunWynsKnee · 22/03/2019 00:35

I doubt it

MorningsEleven · 22/03/2019 03:04

The dangerous and wrong thing is you, OP.

Rottencooking · 22/03/2019 03:48

Yanbu at all

Coyoacan · 22/03/2019 06:01

and any reminder that they have the body that they have (such as breast growing, periods or else) is a real trigger for them and it definitely impacts their life, mental health, confidence and intimacy

is perfectly happy with the steps he has taken to get closer to having the body he believe suits him, the only thing damaging his confidence are people treating him like a mentally ill person or suggesting he is, when all he is doing is living his life

So this person is constantly being triggered by their real life body but does not have a mental illness?

There shouldn't be a stigma about mental illness, lots of people have some kind of mental illness and this person certainly sounds like they have one and should get treatment.

RockyFlintstone · 22/03/2019 07:36

Yes, I struggle with the idea that a person can hate their physical body so much that they are willing to take drugs that will irreversibly damage their body and make them infertile and are willing to get perfectly healthy body parts chopped off......but they don't have a mental illness.

RockyFlintstone · 22/03/2019 07:48

it's like being gay, most kids won't be gay, but I don't think it's bad to mention that while most people are straight some are not and prefer the same-sex, most people/kids know about gay people without feeling compelled to experiment it first hand or turning gay themselves.

It's fucking nothing like being gay, stop it. Gay people don't have to take drugs or have extensive surgery to become their 'authentic self' - they are what they are and they like what they like. That's it, no further action required. If a child decides they are gay, that's it. They can experiment with it if they like, they can play with their sexuality, all without doing any damage to their bodies, and some may even decide that they are not gay after all and it doesn't matter.

Plus, it's literally impossible to teach someone that they are gay, because you know whether or not you are gay by the very definition of who you are attracted to. And you can't really change what you like, it's part of who you are. So even if you were exposed to loads of 'gayness', if you are not attracted to people of the same sex, you are not gay.

This, IMO, is totally different to teaching children particularly at a time when they are about to embark on a stage of their development where they will almost definitely have some natural discomfort about their bodies that some people are 'born wrong'. That if they don't conform to the stereotypes normally associated with their sex, or they don't like their body, that there could be something 'wrong' with them, that needs 'correcting' with surgery and/or drugs. It's such a shitty thing to teach kids, to even plant that seed.

I think it's incredibly clever but disturbing that this ideology has piggy backed onto LGB. Because now, if I object to my children being taught that some people are 'born wrong' or I voice that I think the Mermaids GI Joe/Barbie jelly baby brain horseshit then I can be dismissed as a bigot and not listened to. Job done.

malificent7 · 22/03/2019 07:59

Would you have the same attitude if a child was gay?

MIdgebabe · 22/03/2019 08:18

Well I will repeat my experiance

AS a young teenager, I experianced what is now known as gender dysmorphia. I thoughts about cutting of my breasts, I know what my preferred method of suicide is. I gave myself a new name. I don’t fit gender norms. I was bullied for that.

But my parents continually gave me the message that I was just great, and if other people had problems with me, that was their problem. The gave me message about how I could do what I want. The involved the school making sure I had the right opportunities to study maths and science at the highest levels

I strongly remember one day working on the car, when my small female hand could do something my dad couldn’t ...I was so proud. My body is not always a limitation.

And now. I am a woman, a mother, a happy person. I think the currnent practise of supporting transition as the natural and preferred option is horrific. It is leading girls like me to be sterilised, to lie to themselves, to think there’s something wrong with them. Leading to a lifetime of medicalisation and drug use.

Yes it’s bad luck to be born female in today’s society, change society and be true to your whole self . Accept yourself for who you are.

MIdgebabe · 22/03/2019 08:22

And In response to the gay allegory,I am still not gender normal. I can be that and a woman at the same time. I don’t need to become something physically different to show anybody that or for good people to accept the WHOLE me

It is interesting that rates of being gay are consistent across society, time, culture,. Even in strongly homophobic societies the rates are constant. Trans rates however vary strongly and tend to be higher in countries with stronger gender sterotypes . Suggests one in innate and the other society induced.

Madhairday · 22/03/2019 08:24

Read the previous answers, malificent. Kids who are gay are not being told something about them are intrinsically wrong, they are being affirmed in who they are. Telling kids they must be born in the wrong body is just the complete opposite to this, and I really struggle to see how this is not glaringly obvious. Kids are being told their body is wrong. They are being told an intrinsic part of them should be changed. They are being fed dangerous stereotypes about what boys and girls should like and do, then told that if they don't match those stereotypes they should begin on a course of treatment which will affect their brain cells, their fertility, and so many more side effects we don't even know about yet. It is a scandal in the making, an utter abhorrence, that small children are being fed the lie that their bodies - their amazing, individual bodies - can be somehow wrong. There are websites selling packers for 5 year old girls identifying as boys. This is so creepy and off balance it seems like dystopian literature.

Comparisons to anorexia are interesting, too. Many anorexic teens say that they feel suicidal, and if they are forced to eat they will take their own lives. This is heartbreaking, but health professionals don't then turn around and say that we must allow these children to starve themselves, to form their bodies into he shape they feel most comfortable in, in order to prevent this. We don't weaponise suicide for anorexic people, because we know that would be abhorrent. We know affirming them in their beliefs about their bodies would be wrong. Yet with gender non conforming children, we say that oh, they might commit suicide, therefore let them go on these life altering drugs. We affirm them in the belief that their body is, indeed, wrong.

Why are we not teaching children to celebrate who they are, as whole people? To celebrate their bodies with all their flaws? And why are we as a society perpetuating all these stereotypes which send children into such great discomfort about who they really are? Why can't all children play with any toy and love any colour and do any activity they want to do?

Instead of embracing freedom and delight in who they are, our society is narrowing these kids in, putting them in firmly labelled pink and blue boxes, and when they struggle to climb out of them we tell them it's fine, they can be in the other one. They just need to put a dress on and change their pronouns.

Let's break down the boxes instead, and allow children to be children.

I know that gender dysphoria exists and is utterly crippling. I know that some people feel more comfortable in the world expressing themselves in gender norms of the other sex. But the way we are pushing children into this - increasingly - when they express childish ideas, is nothing short of hideous.

In compete agreement, OP.

Madhairday · 22/03/2019 08:27

Your parents sound great, @Midgebabe :)

nolongersurprised · 22/03/2019 08:31

malificent

See rocky’s post above.

It’s really nothing like being gay, not even a tiny bit.
11 year old boy: I think I might like boys. I’m not sure though.
Most parents : OK. Wait and see. We don’t care either way, we’ll love you the same.

11 year old boy: I feel like I’m transgender, I like dancing and long hair and make up and I don’t like sport and trucks. That’s how I know I am really a girl. I want to take medicine that will stop my body changing like a boy’s body and then I want to have an operation to remove my penis and another one to give me breasts. I won’t be able to have children in the future and the lack of normal puberty will affect my learning and brain development. You need to stop calling me Josh and call me Kate and if you don’t let me have medicine and call me your daughter I will threaten to kill myself.

Most parents : Confused