This book, “My Trans Teen Misadventure for Children. WTF???

[TheWorldisGoingMad]

I know this post may offend and I'm sorry if it does. But I feel children need to be protected. If parents don't know what books may be in their school libraries, how do they counteract the information?

This book, “My Trans Teen Misadventure,” has been nominated for UK bookseller Waterstones Children’s Book Prize of 2023.

AIBU to think this is a dangerous book for children's mental health and body image. I find it seriously worrying that children have access to books like this from an early age. I feel sends a message to vulnerable girls that the answer to dis-ease in their bodies is irreversible medication and surgery.

Stop recommending it to your students . Shame on you, it's not remote appropriate. Nor is it your bloody place to foist it on anybody else's kids.

I will continue to support my students. Teachers don't have the influence on students you seem to think (nor do books). Which given the GCSE and A Level specifications for Lit is a good thing as otherwise I'd be teaching a bunch of murderers!

Trans people in books for young people are fine. Books telling vulnerable teenage girls that chopping parts off their body and taking drugs which have serious side effects is a good thing are not fine. Would you tell teenage girls that if they think they are fat to take diet pills and get liposuction? If not, why not? If a teen was self harming because they hated their body would you buy them the means to do so and show them the best places to cut? If not, why not? Why is affirmation of one dysphoria ok but not the others?

Also it should be noted that this thread title is goady. It is not for children. It is for teenagers.

Er…teenagers are children.

I hope that Waterstones go bust: it’s what they end their staff deserve.

Omg that book is fucking awful “fatty lumps that need to be gone” these are girls going through puberty, likely to feel uncomfortable about their changing bodies.

what sort of adult writes a book like that? I feel physically sick we are letting this near our kids. That such books reflecting a very very dark ideology certain adults seem to be imposing on kids. It’s child abuse in plain sight nominate for an award. WTAF?

It does look like propaganda although I havent read it

We do accept social contagion problems for self harm and anorexia/eating disorders, its why there are strict rules about what is on the internet about those things.

I’m sorry, but you really shouldn’t be recommending this to any children, I would hope, as you are presumably a teacher, you can recognise propaganda. In case you can’t, this is it? Do you really think that it’s helpful for girls going through puberty to see their breasts referred to as “horrible fatty lumps”?

If you recommended this book to my child, I would be raising formal complaints about you at every level with the aim of having you struck off. You are endorsing body shaming young girls
and harmful thought processes and practices in an unbalanced way. it’s an horrendous, misogynistic book.

As teachers are often fond of reminding us, you are there to educate and not do a parent’s job, you are certainly not there to impose your political views or ideological theories on our children. If you think otherwise, you should be in a different profession, especially as you are clearly carrying over your own psychological trauma and letting this impact your judgement on how to deal with your pupils.

As a self-harming teenager reading that I wasn't a total freak was actually quite helpful.

Presumably books that address self harm wouldn’t be published if they read as an instruction manual and telling you how great it is, without pointing out the dangers of self harm.
There’s a big difference between books offering solidarity and support, and self help tools, and a book advocating drugs and surgery without the very basic safety information.

Its worse than that though, because the trans narrative is that misery is solved by being or becoming the other sex (although whether sex is ever mentioned I dont know) and that the route to that is via surgery/drugs

Where is the narrative that the misery is solved by therapy, addressing the real issue, coming to terms with the past, loving yourself, dealing with the trauma/confusion

Where is the narrative that the misery is solved by therapy, addressing the real issue, coming to terms with the past, loving yourself, dealing with the trauma/confusion

Exactly.

I know.
We should be teaching everyone how to be comfortable with themselves.
Having to have drugs and perform surgery on physically healthy bodies should be a last ditch attempt for individuals, not the standard approach.
And encouraging children to live in a way that requires 100% validation all the time, or they are hated/faced with genocide/certain to commit suicide, is grooming and breaking so many safeguards.
Any teacher encouraging books like this should not be a teacher.

And do any of those books in suicide give a step by step guide on how to do it?

I fucking despair at people! Clearly propaganda and you’ve been taken

Reading a book about growing up trans doesn't make people become trans any more than watching a film about gay people makes you gay, or reading a book about eating disorders makes you anorexic.

False association bullshit.

There is abundant evidence that social contagion can play a significant role in both gender dysphoria and anorexia.

Eugenics

Teenagers are children and the same safeguarding protections are afforded to them 🧐

So if teenagers aren’t children @GrammarTeacher why can they not live independently as adults? How many 14 year olds do you know living alone, working and totally supporting themselves?

I'm just picking on a couple of points but they are important ones - the comic suggests that not shaving and having your breasts as a no-go zone is somehow related with being trans. It's not and it's sexist and worryingly me-to fodder to suggest otherwise. I don't think kids should be exposed to old-fashioned sexist bunkum dressed up as 'progress'.

It is a terrible image from a terrible book OP.

It is not a self help book, intended to improve mental health and body image - it is a recruitment pamphlet. It is filled with inaccuracies and misinformation. Puberty blockers are harmful drugs that prevent natural puberty.

As others have pointed out, we don’t buy our kids pro anorexia books that contain ‘how to’ tips on losing weight.

I am gutted that a) anyone thought that appropriate to write in the first place, b) that Waterstones are pushing it hard while hiding or refusing to stock feminist books and c) adults and apparently teachers think it is a good defensible book to give to impressionable teenagers to read.

It's Gay hysteria all over again and people on here are taking the roles their grandparents did "My child could catch the gay" has turned into "My child could catch the trans". History constantly repeats itself and it always seems that each generation thinks it's children incapable of thinking for themselves.

You’re funny 😀

You are not supporting your students you are indoctrinating them. How can you say on one hand this book is effective in supporting students then on the other has not effect in relation to their behaviour. It is totally incongruous.

if you want to support your students I suggest you familiarise yourself with propaganda and cult recruitment tactics. You also need to be ensuring your students do not get caught up in cults, have critical analysis skills, do not adhere to gender stereotypes and are comfortable with their changing bodies.,you should not be recommending books which contain dangerous lies.

Your suitability for the teaching profession is very questionable.

I think for me it depends how balanced it is and what the overall message is. If it was an honest warts-and-all description of transitioning, including the pros and cons, I'd maybe be okay with it. In the same way as I'd be okay with a book for teens that dealt with anorexia or self-harm, as long as it didn't imply these were positive things.

However this book seems to portray transitioning as entirely positive, puberty blockers as reversible etc, when the reality of physical transition is pretty brutal. It also implies that if you don't like your body as a teen, or feel more masculine than feminine, then physically transitioning is the right path. I think this is dangerous. It might be the right path for a small minority but could be a terrible mistake for many teens who would later come to accept their body.

Yes history does repeat itself, but not in the way you’re suggesting. You would think we would have learned about the sterilisation of groups those is power don’t deem suitable to reproduce.

That those who challenge the religion du jour get hunted down and sacrificed

in the end those who see the issues are nearly always right