To be worried about Rainbows

[justanotherguider]

As a guide leader and as a mother I find this worrying:

girlguiding.foleon.com/guiding-magazine/guiding-summer-2022/rainbow-girl

"If you see them as a girl, then using the right pronouns should happen naturally," chirps the article, merrily.
Oh, if only it was that simple. Re-learning pronouns and then trying to execute this flawlessly can completely derail my train of thought, fluency and lead to an embarrassed, blushing, fumbled battle of excess compensatory nonsense as I attempt to extricate myself from my mistake.

I don’t know how anyone could be any more mature about it.

Well, they could have been more mature by being literally older. I hope and pray this was the right decision for this child, but the stories and the sheer numbers of detransitioners do not fill me with confidence. Have you looked at any of the detransition websites or interviews? Absolutely heartbreaking.

The parents should have put a stop to it. They did enable the child, sorry. It's their job to protect and defend their kid, they should have said no, no drugs, no hormones until you're an adult and free to make your own decisions. I know it's easy to say that and there's a lot of pressure on parents, but still. That's your job as a parent, to protect your kid.

Couple of ways I think that's messed up:

1. The child is immature enough to identify as a comic book character, but is somehow considered mature enough to be allowed to make decisions that put them at risk of severe, lifelong harm in service.
2. The parents are wise enough to put a stop to their child identifying as a comic book character, but not wise enough to stop them from going along a medical pathway which is quite likely to end in their child being alone, disabled, in pain and under medical supervision for the rest of their life.

Totally fair to be worried. I was a brownie/girl guide, my girls was on the list for rainbows from birth. I didn't send her. My bestie sent her kids to Rainbows and volunteered too despite the non-binary leader. There came a day when the non-binary leader felt it appropriate to explain to the six year olds that she was neither a boy nor a girl. This is a lie. She stood up and lied to children. No amount of trauma you have been through is an excuse for this.

Could it be that they think they’re is a significant difference between the two? Kiddo didn’t do a ton of work and get a job to facilitate becoming a comic book character, for example.

Teen maturity is not uniform. Even adults make poor decisions sometimes. It doesn’t mean they stop bring able to make ALL decisions from them on, does it?

It also appears to be very, very rare that people regret transitioning (of course it happens, just not often) which suggests that something is working to make sure these kids really do want to transition, no?

Slightly off topic, but you’ve reminded me of when one of my DCs was 5 they had a non binary football coach.

after a session one day they said ‘x says she’s not a girl, she is though I can tell’.

out of the mouths of babes…. I just went for polite nonchalance ‘oh ok, now what sandwich would you like for lunch’ type thing.

Perhaps you could try understanding the concerns rather than throwing around accusations.

All children are entitled to safeguarding. It is incredibly short sighted to think that an issue which may affect you personally means that all usual safeguarding measures can be dispensed with. Girls have a right to spaces which exclude males, it is not hateful to say so. It may not matter quite as much at 7 years of age but it will within the next few years. No male leader should be sharing washing and sleeping facilities with female children under any circumstances. Any adult who thinks someone's internal, unverifiable identity trump's the reality of biological sex is a threat to appropriate safeguarding.

Those of us who are concerned about this are concerned because we have educated ourselves about the realities of self ID, which is what this policy is. Try not to be so patronising.

Absolutely none of what I have written denies gender questioning children support or understanding.

I know they considered this. In the end, after agonising about it, they decided that to support the child emotionally was a better choice. That the suicide rate amongst young transgender people was so high, and so much reduced by having supportive adults, that they would rather face having a mis-gendered child, even if ‘disabled’ (for want of a better term) by the transition process, than a dead child, and that of the unthinkable should happen they would know they had done what they could for child. I know they bitterly wished they had a ‘normal’ child and I do not envy them
this process one little bit. It was heartbreaking to watch, let alone live through.

In the end, I think I would have made the same choice. It’s all very easy to say ‘they should’ It’s a lot harder when it’s YOUR child’s potential suicide your discussing, rather than ‘40 percent of transgender children’ or whatever the stats are.

Again, it’s early days for this child and the two others I know. But they don’t seem to be conforming to any of the things people say. So I’m still wondering why what ‘everyone says’ isn’t what I see.

YANBU

I would never have anything to do with any organisation that is so captured by this horrific ideological c*lt.

It's the age.

There is simply no way we can know until we are older.

7 year's old now and when younger identified with the wrong sex in books??

How does any 18.month old identify with a male or female character in a book??

This is dreadul.

At 18 months "she" identified with female characters 🤦🏻‍♀️

DD2 identifies with a dinosaur character, what should I do? 😱

“That the suicide rate amongst young transgender people was so high”

This has been shown to be false. The Tavistock has even said that the suicide rates are not higher than other vulnerable groups.

It’s incredibly concerning that people still quote unsubstantiated scare statistics.

I too from around the age of 4/5 identified as a dog, I wanted nothing more than to be an actual dog, and I even "married" our pet terrier and he became my dog husband. Obviously this phase passed and I'm grateful my parents didn't transition me to become my true self!

Children shouldn't even be aware of this , it's far too big a subject for tiny children.

What are we doing!

Can we all email them and let them know how we feel??

Miss maple dd also wanted to be a dog.

She used to want to eat from a bowl on the floor,copied dogs mannerisms...we had to call her a dog's name.

Teen maturity is not uniform. Even adults make poor decisions sometimes. It doesn’t mean they stop bring able to make ALL decisions from them on, does it?

But children are children. They don't get to make adult decisions, because they're children. Adults get to make adult decisions for themselves, because they're adults. Yes, they can get things wrong and make bad decisions, but they're adults, so they knowingly take that risk. Children are not adults. They don't get to make adult decisions and take adult risks. That's not fair.

We don't accept children making decisions about many important parts of life. They can't vote, get married, get a tattoo, drive a car, have sex, drink alcohol etc. We do this to protect children. The same should apply to medical decisions that we know have a high rate of regret and serious complications and consequences, such as never being able to orgasm, being physically disabled, being dependent on drugs.

It also appears to be very, very rare that people regret transitioning (of course it happens, just not often) which suggests that something is working to make sure these kids really do want to transition, no?

The number of people who regret transitioning is HUGE and rising. We have begun to see the first lawsuits initiated - many, many more will follow. (To give you a sense of numbers, there are currently 36,000 members of r/detrans, a reddit sub for detransitioners.)

You're right, these kids do really want to transition - they think it will solve all their problems. So they transition, realise they still have problems, and now they also have a whole set of new problems to navigate, like being in constant pain, or dealing with incontinence in their 20s.

My DD likes playing in mud and not wearing dresses, is she actually a boy?

Give it a rest - poor kid is traumatised for life now no matter what. Shame on Rainbows for allowing such utter crap

There is so much wrong with that article I don’t know where to begin! That poor poor child. Awful parents who seem firmly wedded to old-fashioned gender stereotypes, an women’s organisation who are promoting the concept of ‘girl-think’ ….
My DD is in Brownies but hates it. It’s so boring now compared to when I was at Brownies. Every badge seems the same. The poor volunteer leaders have to go through days and days of training, well beyond what I had every imagined. It’s any wonder they have anyone left to run their packs. DD won’t be going back in September.

@SingingSands how would I know, no one has to tel me, and it's not just kids it leaders, again under no obligation to tell me.

It’s all very easy to say ‘they should’ It’s a lot harder when it’s YOUR child’s potential suicide your discussing, rather than ‘40 percent of transgender children’ or whatever the stats are.

It's a real shame they didn't get some better advice about this, because those stats have been comprehensively debunked. It's just not true that trans kids have higher suicide rates. In fact, there are some studies which suggest that suicidality is more likely to increase after transition.

I don't get all this transgender malarkey about he liked girly toys and girly clothes and so on.

I have sons. When eldest was in nursery he was forever dressing in the princess dresses, I didn't bat an eyelid. When he was around 6 or 7 he was obsessed with a well known very girly tv show. He had all the characters, he'd brush the dolls hair, he'd save his money to buy the toys, put on shows with the character. Not once did it cross my mind that he must actually be a girl, I just accepted it and reassured him it's fine to play with whatever toys you like. He played with mostly girls at school too.

He's a teen now, a 6 foot deep voiced, muscly male human.

Why can't we just accept that makes and females don't have to fit into stereotypical ideals of what a girl or a boy should be.

It’s so boring now compared to when I was at Brownies. Every badge seems the same. The poor volunteer leaders have to go through days and days of training, well beyond what I had every imagined

Completely depends on the leaders and their attitude. My Brownies unit is not boring. This term we have done camping, archery, kayaking, made clay sculptures, built electronic circuits, Lego models, baking, exploring the woods, firelighting, making slime... Some of it part of the programme and some not.
And I haven't done that much training - 6 hour first aid course, 4 hour safeguarding course, which are done every 3 years. Plus "on the job" training to become a leader in the first place.

I don't have an issue with Guiding being mixed, I was a leader at Beavers and Cubs and it was fine. I just don't understand why he had to become a girl, one of my sons loved wearing dresses and playing with dolls, we never took any notice and one day he stopped. If he hadn't stopped I suppose at some point we would have had to address it but when they are little why does it matter.

Eeksteek I'm glad you and the parents of the young person you're talking about have been so supportive, you clearly care deeply about their well-being.

However that's an example of only one.

I definitely know of other examples of much younger children being pushed into identifying as "transgender" apparently to satisfy some desire on the parents' part. Unfortunately not all parents are as sensible and loving as the ones in your example.

I also know of multiple examples of detransitioners.

The validity of all these young people's experiences is really important. Yes, that includes your example of a young person who appears to be making an informed choice with supportive parents.

But equally it includes the detransitioners who you have dismissed as "very few." They're not any fewer than your example of one, right?

It also appears to be very, very rare that people regret transitioning (of course it happens, just not often) which suggests that something is working to make sure these kids really do want to transition, no?

We have no idea because data hasn't been gathered on detransitioners. Many are lost to follow up. Minors have not previously transitioned at the rates they do now. We are conducting a live experiment on children by allowing them to make irreversible changes to their body long before their neurological development is complete and we have no idea of the long term consequences The detrans subreddit has 36k members which suggest transition regret is more common than previously thought.

The interim Cass Report was very clear that social transition is not a neutral choice, there will be many more children put on a pathway to lifelong medical treatment before there are enough legal cases to halt the madness.