Six year old trans girl ‘tries to cut off her penis’ after Guide ban

[JonesTown]

Quite a disturbing article in this morning’s Observer regarding the impact of the Guides’ ban on trans girls following the Supreme Court ruling.

It reports on the experience of one six year old trans girl named Emily after hearing she could no longer attend Rainbows:

Emily’s parents decided to be honest with their daughter about the situation, and explained that she was no longer able to take part in Rainbows because she was trans. A few hours later Curt said they found her “sobbing in her room” and were “shocked” to find her holding a pair of plastic scissors to her penis.

AIBU to find this a distressing consequence of campaign by anti-trans activists or is it a natural result of allowing such young children to change their gender identity?

Unbelievable

Quite literally

That poor child. I think there are better ways to support a child who is so extremely distressed than the ways this child’s parents choose to parent them. As the saying goes, “unfortunately you can’t pick your parents.”

Why is a 6 year old even aware of these things?

Maybe he would decide to transition as an adult.
Maybe he's gay.
Maybe he's just a strange child.

But he shouldn't be aware of this stuff at age 6.

Yup.

I think perhaps the parents should have been very clear with their little boy that he's a boy, right from the very start. If my child hated a body part that much at such a young age I'd be seeking psychiatric help because there's a clear mental health issue here. Poor kid has been spectacularly failed by the adults in his life.

Scouts have, for many years now, accepted both sexes. Perhaps it would be a better fit for this child?

I am quite happy to say that even if this little boy managed to cut off his penis with a pair of plastic scissors he would still be a little boy. It is a long time since I studied biology but I think chromosomes have something to do with gender....
He needs help with his mental health not convincing he is a little girl by taking him to brownies.

The problems here are beyond attending Rainbows once a week.

Including for any adult who thinks that that is a simple and acceptable solution for a potentially self mutilating 6 yo.

Quite a disturbing article in this morning’s Observer regarding the impact of the Guides’ ban on trans girls following the Supreme Court ruling.
Ah, yes. Because it's all about the transgirls, isn't it? Nobody else matters.

I wonder how the child’s parents broke the news to them about Rainbows. Was it:

’We’re not going to be coming back in September, how about Scouts?’

or was it

‘Evil society hates trans girls like you and you’re not allowed to come back because you have a penis’

Because if this is genuine, a 6yo (in year 1/2) trying to mutilate your own genitalia off is not a normal response to not going back to a club and something is seriously wrong here. How would a child even make that connection (that their penis is the problem)?

How can anyone try and blame the ‘anti-trans’ (feminists) for this? I don’t feel particularly strongly about transgender children in Rainbows/Brownies either way, but seriously, no.

Exactly this. What the hell has this child be exposed to and what gender bullshit have this child’s parents brainwashed their SON with. This needs a social services and safeguarding investigation, but not for the reason the TRAs think.

Poor little boy. He's a victim of terrible, abusive parenting.

Yes, but taking him to Scouts wouldn't create quite so much drama would it! Heaven forbidden they just got on with life without making a scene by going to Brownies 🙄

The child should be taken into care, and the parents arrested for child abuse.

Of all the things that never happened, this didn't happen the most.

Zoe Williams has argued that a sensible solution to all of this would be to make the Brownies mixed gender like the Scouts.

Wouldn't this be more sensible than making six year old girls so distressed that they attempt to cut off their penis?

Unreal that the Girlguiding organisation are being used as a lightening rod by some for what appears to be a very particular issue - a family who need to focus on what's going on closer to home.

Utilitarianism is a real thing when it comes to associations. The needs of 300,000 girls cannot be overlooked simply because one young person is regrettably going through such a turbulent period that they are doing what is described.

And this, even more regrettably, is how it needs to be looked at. That this is an incident of a young person with serious troubles, who needs to be helped directly as much as possible, who needs to be loved and supported away from politicised debates.

Turning this young person into some sort of story or totem to show that Girlguiding were misguided in their decision, is just so wrong.

I think the parents who try to reinforce their children's identities or somehow keep them safer by deliberately signing them up for a girls only activity are making a huge mistake. Beavers and cubs are available and would have made their child much less vulnerable to both criticism and this type of rule change, even if they had joined those while being described as a girl.

Spot on.

The child isn't barred from Girl Guides because he is trans, but because he is a boy. How on earth does a 6 year old end up with such a severe case of self loathing, and why isn't he getting the appropriate mental health support?

The poor boy having this all over the papers - assuming it’s not a work of fiction.

That’s just shitty parenting.

Vegan Cat.

Either the parents have not even tried to put sharp things out of reach of a six year old with known mental health problems or we have full on Munchausens by proxy in motion

Social services as much as they may be pro trans will however not be looking into Girl Guiding over this.

A far more sensible thing to do would be to sign your male child up to a mixed sex organisation such as scouts in the first place as opposed to a female only one.

Even a six year old knows they aren’t going to be able to cut off their own penis with a pair of plastic scissors. There was no risk, and reporting this childish rubbish is just sensationalist attention seeking. The parents should be ashamed of themselves.