Are parents of 'Trans' children aware of the damage of full affirmation?

[Iloverosesandcarnations]

All children go through a stage of who am I? Confusion etc.

Am I a boy, a girl, do I fit it etc.

The social contagion of affirmation of 'I'm in the wrong body, so need to change it' it IMO so damaging.

Talking through, understanding that all children go through 'who am I'
rather than initial blind affirmation and ok.lrts change your name, clothing etc tell school rush into changes young BEFORE maturation, is so dangerous.

Why would I be embarrassed about having the ability to think and reason out a situation for myself? I'm perfectly capable of looking at the facts and forming an opinion after careful consideration. Why are you scared to hear the facts and trying to shut down anyone who expresses concern for vulnerable people? Surely you must be as concerned if not more. But go ahead and call me judgemental and patronising all you like, it's not going to make me turn off my ability to think and decide for myself.

So your child got diagnosed with a serious mental condition during that apparently requires a lifetime of drugs and surgery that impacts their fertility and health but you and DC are not upset?
And now DC faces a lifetime of the challenges of being ’trans’ - which are widely claimed by trans activists to be great - all that stress about being ‘outed’ and which facilities to use and you are not sad for them?

I’m not ‘patronising you’ - I hadn’t even directed my original response at you - I was offering a sympathetic opinion in general but for some reason you want me to stop talking instead of scrolling past my posts?

Clinical notes re gender from early childhood, grand we will start there. There need to be long term proof.

I just noticed this bit ...

What does this mean? Clinical notes re what? Long term proof of what?

Are we talking about gender non conformity here? Or what?

So if lived experience is such an important factor in understanding, you do realise that precisely zero humans have lived experience patience if being the opposite sex?

Men who identify as women might dream of being treated like a woman but they are treated as men with special privileges at best. You just have to look at the fawning on tv.

Might you be an ED consultant from America ? Where representatives of the medical industry boast about the huge profitability of ‘trans’ surgeries?

So you want only people who have experienced it to have an opinion but you're also dismissing someone who says they've experienced it, because their opinion is not the same as yours?

You are the patronising one here, no one else.

As a medical professional, you understand that sex is biological and gender is a social construct, yes?

And so as a medical professional you should be able to understand that telling any person that they can change their sex to fit with the gender they identify with is incorrect, yes?

No one on this thread cares what gender anyone else best identifies with. It's a thread discussing biological truths and how giving young people the idea they can change their biology is more harmful than helpful, because it's not true.

If you're a medical professional, you should know all of this.

As I said upthread, how did we go from ...

Thinking that gender stereotypes should be challenged and overthrown to ... being so important that we need drugs and surgery to better align with them?

Because on this thread, those that have a family member/someone at their child's school consider that to be a lived experience. It's really not the same as being the parent/immediate carer, when discussing the OP's title question.

I say this as a parent of a DC who announced trans aged 14ish. My DC never questioned anything, no amount of "But Biology" made any difference. Their schools immediate affirmation was very unhelpful and I'm thankful they didn't stay on there. The teacher leading the charge of DC1s affirmation seemed almost giddy at the prospect.

We're in a good place now, DC identifies as non-binary and we use their preferred name and pronouns. I'm very conscious they may swing back to trans in the future but I'm not living in a state of conflict with my DC, who is now an adult and would no longer need any parental consent if they went down the medical route.

A PP who stated they'd lived through something similar to the very hostile PP got a response was very dismissive.

That particular PP (the hostile one) is not interested in hearing any opinions that do not match with theirs and what they did through their experience and she is being very dismissive, patronising and downright rude to anyone with a different one, regardless of whether they have experienced it as a parent, a relative or not at all.

No one has been judgemental of the PPs own circumstances. But we are allowed to form our own opinions based on our own lives, what we see and read, what we experience and what others have told us.

I've read through this thread, the poster who said they've been through similar, hasn't expanded on what that experience was. Of course there is no obligation to; but when you compare to the posters sharing their lived experience, I'm betting it's an experience where they don't have PR of the child.

As for it not being judgmental, take a look at the OP's title question! We're discussed in a way that we immediately affirm because we're all too dim and brainwashed by the pro-trans movement to do anything else.
I've yet to meet a parent who did this; but seemingly they're all friends of friends/1 cousin twice-removed from the majority of MNers.

Are you saying that only people with trans children are allowed speak about trans issues?

The hostile poster doesn't know what anyone else's experience is. There will be posters here who have voiced their opinion, which they've formed through lived experience as a parent, but haven't said that's happened to them.

No one is owed a life history in order for us to not be rude to them.

No, I'm saying that there's a difference in lived experience between having PR for a trans child, and knowing one/of one. Particularly when it comes to advice on how to deal with it.

I agree that there's a difference. But the advice you would get from someone with a trans child might be different than the advice you get from someone without one. Surely it's better for parents to gather as much facts and help as possible from every source. Helen Joyce for instance, doesn't have a trans child but has written an entire book on the matter, based on facts.

There's also support information for parents on the charity website she co-runs.
https://sex-matters.org/support-for-parents/

(for anyone reading who would like more resources).

Do you really think that most parents don't look at a range of information? And that "facts" fix this? Many parents I've chatted to in the Bayswater support group are GC themselves and we're broadsided by their DC saying they were trans. Nearly all had schools immediately affirming and causing conflict between parents and DC. Some found themselves having SS referrals made as safeguarding has a broad scope.

There's several posts from parents of trans DC on this thread, and we're all saying similar. I don't need to assume that everyone with an opinion on this thread has lived experience as a parent, and many have clearly stated that they are not the direct carer of the trans child they know.

I think really those who don't have DC in this situation, really feel it would never happen to them; their parenting would stop it ever being an issue in the first place, or just a simple talk would remedy it.

I'm off to click my heels 3 times saying "Biology"

Of course I don't feel parents don't look at a range of information. As I said, I'm posting that link for anyone who's reading who might be looking for where to start getting help.
I'm not saying it's easy or just a matter of stating facts or that parents with trans children have done something wrong. You're reading all that into the posts yourself.
What I am saying is that I have huge compassion for anyone who finds themselves in this position and I can understand why it has come about. Every parent wants the best for their child. It's a societal issue and we need to deal with it as a society and talk about it.
You can read whatever criticisms you want into this but I'm on your side!

I also think it could easily happen to any parent, especially parents of gay and/or austistic children.

The point I'm trying to make is that the cultural/societal backdrop which is heavily focused on affirmation is making it incredibly difficult for parents to navigate this path, for all the reasons that have been outlined already on this thread.

However, I also think the stage children are in on the pathway is inmportant. The approach you can take with a child who is only dipping a toe in will be very different to one who is heavily immersed already.

I do think that the tide has turned though and parents can push back a lot harder than they would have been able to do previously.

Yes, agreed

I honestly think parents who encourage their children to take life changing hormones are abusing them. When they're adults they can decide. Everyone thinks they're in the wrong body or whatever as young teenagers. It's heartbreaking to see people regretting transitioning and now being infertile or having other health problems.

Well from my cousin's point of view (story upthread) that feels very harsh,

She had big misgivings about her daughter taking T, but she was also afraid of the consequences of not supporting it, ie what she was told (falsly) by professionals about the suicide risk, but also her daughter going NC with her.

Now she has very complicated feelings about it, obviously, as does her daughter. But she was put in an impossible position.

Now it probably is different. Post Cass I would hope these findings inform parents positions and give them ammunition to push back, particularly on affirming professionals.

The other thing is the link between social transition and medicalisation. As the Cass report states, these are not unrelated, but not much research has been done to understand what factors might influence how likely the first is to lead to the second.

There is a real danger in relying on or assuming more relevance from a lived experience.

• all lived experiences are different
• by their nature every lived experience has a different context / different participants / etc.
• the underlying debate isn't about matters which are fully open to choice - there are black and white immutable facts within the debate

So, while a lived experience absolutely gives a lot of understanding of that situation, it doesn't of itself give any precedence or additional expertise or accuracy in this debate.

As has been posted above - the debate is not about criticising parents - it has been recognised on several occasions, and by multiple people that parents often have been disenfranchised from the decision making process - the debate here ultimately is about how children can be parented (mentored / brought up / etc. by all those who play an influencing role in their lives) in the context of a captured society which is putting out inaccurate and dangerous messages.

yes - of course it is tricky if a parent is blind-sided by a child telling them that actually they are a boy not girl etc. - but that is almost never the first step in the process - rewind and you will find all sorts of nefarious influences which have been playing a role against the parenting in place - social media / schools / GPs / government / charities / businesses / mainstream media / their friends / etc. - all have been pumping out a barrage of information telling children that if they are confused about their sexuality / worried about body changes / uncertain about their feelings / have thoughts and interests and passions and emotions more in line with a strictly controlled and artificial societal gender stereotype of the opposite sex - that they have been born into the wrong body...

further more those same influences have been telling them that if they take hormones and have surgery they can become the other sex...

those messages / the pathway to hormones or surgery and body mutilation are safeguarding issues / child abuse - and it may be in some or even many cases that the parents affirm / push the child down those pathways and so hold co-liability, but equally it is very likely that parents have been disenfranchised and have no say in what is happening. This is taken further by those same organisations advising parents that affirmation is the way forward.

Regardless of individual parenting lived experiences - this is black and white:

• you can not change sex
• anything which has suggested to children that they can and has therefore affected their mental health / mutilated their bodies is a safeguarding issue and is child abuse.

Some parents will undoubtedly hold a proportion of the guilt for this - others will have fought it and been unsuccessful and be effectively innocent bystanders dis-empowered and disenfranchised from their own right to parent their children.

There is huge compassion on here and elsewhere towards children and parents who have been victims of a societal process that is only now coming to light as the abuse it has been - the general hope from most is that however painful it is for a few it will be exposed rapidly to avoid additional issues for new sets of children each year.

There really isn't an accusation against all parents that they have failed to parent - but that doesn't stop the twin realities:

• some parents are at fault
• society as a whole is at fault, and it has become very difficult to parent well under that barrage of influences

Bollocks.
Treatment does not begin for patients until they are much older.
Much older??? Is just turned 18 and legally adult considered "much older"??

Long term clinical proof...Clinical notes re gender from early childhood,
Not required, as long as you have the £££ to engage one of the disgusting private gender clinics, have 45 minutes to spare for the "in depth consultation" then you are on your merry way with your cross sex hormone prescription. My child didn't need (because she didn't have any) clinical notes from childhood.

We don't just offer treatment to anyone.
Oh yes they do, if they can pay the £££, there are no checks or safeguards in place with these private clinics.

Parents please be aware that children (even those under 18) can readily access online clinics who will sell them puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. The only requirement is money. So yes, don't automatically affirm and also check what they're buying through the Internet.

There is a lot of anger from parents of trans people on this thread - as I already said, the opening post and others, are making a judgement on us parents. A judgement we have no need for, especially given that many of you have not experienced the incredibly difficult balance of helping your distressed unhappy child, against "allowing" that child to proceed down a path of what many of us consider harmful.

Sure, there's possibly compassion from some posters for us who are going through this nightmare. But stop thinking that most of us willingly agree to this for our children.

My child was 18 when she announced to us she was trans identifying. A legal adult over whom I had only influence (very little) but no control.

It's a very different situation from a family with a younger child or even a teenager. Even if in our situation, they start as a young teen and you persuade them to wait/ stay neutral/ do not immediately affirm their new gender identity, or remind them that NHS waiting lists are years long, once they reach 18 years old they are entirely free to do as they want. And we parents are powerless.

The only thing one can do as a parent is to try and maintain a positive relationship with your child. Many of us have chosen to do that at the expense of principles, facts, biological truth. We're not stupid nor have we necessarily "fallen" for the gender ideology.