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?

The parents caused the child’s distress by filling their head with nonsense. The child may have mental health problems but pretending to be a girl won’t fix those. The child needs counselling and the parents need guidance.

Law means trans people are their sex regardless of their chosen gender so not wanting a child with a penis in a specific organisation with children without a Penis can't be transphobic imo.

I thank you for your attention to detail. However it always seems a little wasted on fact defying threads like this one.

This thread is so uplifting - 2 lunatic TRAs spouting anti women and anti science nonsense and all other posters disagreeing

the grift is well and truly up

"6 year olds don't need female only spaces. Absolutely appalling and unnecessary that this young child was excluded. It is going too far. Maybe if we got rid of these rigid gender boxes children wouldn't feel they need to be another gender to fit in the box."

I totally agree with getting rid of gender boxes but until we reach that place 6 year olds DO need female only spaces. Each year Girl Guiding conducts an attitude survey:
https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/globalassets/docs-and-resources/blogs-and-case-studies/gas/girlguiding-girls-attitudes-survey-2025.pdf

Some of the findings should make it clear why a single-sex environment where girls can be themselves is important:

"Girls are regularly exposed to sexist and misogynistic behaviours at school. It starts as early as 7 years old and worsens as they get older."

"They are subjected to comments that make them feel uncomfortable and scared. Girls have to navigate their environment, and be careful about appearing too smart or too self-confident. And this can negatively impact their mental health."

This does seem like culture wars pressure has been put on the organisation rather than any actual threat to girls that has come about.

Well no. It's about abiding by the law.

If Guides want to become unisex, they absolutely can do that. What they can't do is advertise themselves as single sex, but let boys in through the back door on the grounds of 'gender identity'

What I find really hard about this is: there was already a scouting movement available that’s mixed sex. Because at the age of 6, camping isn’t a big part of the movement, a trans child is much easier to accommodate without it being much of an issue that this is a male child using a female name and wanting to be treated like they are female.

But the parents rejected this and went for the only female only option. They did that after the Supreme Court’s judgement, at a point Girl Guiding had said they were reviewing.

These cruel parents set their child up to be disappointed and hurt.

If there was not a mixed sex option, I can see this might be a problem but when there is a mixed sex option, just trying to destroy the single sex option feels hateful.

And I’m afraid the Green Party’s stance just makes them look like they hate women. If people who are male can’t access female only spaces the solution isn’t to improve male only spaces or to create new additional mixed sex spaces, it’s to scrap female only spaces and force people who are female to always accommodate people who are male.

I do think solutions need to be found for trans people that isn’t just “they need to stop being trans”- but forcing women to share their spaces is not the solution. Fix male spaces first.

Absolutely not. There are lots of very good reasons why biological females need and benefit from single sex spaces.

There's a trans girl in our primary school. When the GG ruling was announced all the girls in that class made posters and banners in support. Lots threatened to leave GG to support their friend. Huge support from the families of the children too.

However... I am aware that many of the parents were secretly supportive of the change. Everyone was just too scared to be seen as transphobic especially as the mum of the child was exceptionally aggressive with their views. None of the other children did leave and everything went back to normal.

When my niece was 3, she wanted to copy her big brother. Batman, spiderman, boys clothes, boys toys etc...

... then she wanted to wear his underpants.

LINE FUCKING DRAWN 🛑

There were tantrums, but she was told repeatedly that she is a girl. It was just a phase and it passed.

She is fifteen now and totally normal teenage girl.

Imagine how didficult her life would be if my sister had indulged this nonsense.

Oh that’s good - so you recognise that same sex attraction is about sex and not ‘identity’, therefore you find it perfectly acceptable for a lesbian to say she is not attracted to ‘transwomen’ (an identity) because they are male (their sex)?

For that we should be thankful.

There's a trans girl in our primary school.

Primary school.

Actually can you answer @JonesTownand @ThatCyanCat- do you think these parents in the article - who waited until after the Supreme Court judgement to sign their male child up to what they knew was a female only organisation, one that had already put out statements that they were reviewing the judgement- do you think they made a good decision by sending their child to rainbows?

do you think a parent who made those choices at that time, definitely handled telling their child they could no longer attend Rainbows in the best possible way for that child’s mental health?

I really hope social services are working with this family already. The parents seem positively cruel.

I don't think you meant me?

Indeed.

I believe people should be able to be in relationships with who they like.

I do not believe it’s possible to change your sex. But I do believe you should be allowed to identify as the opposite sex if that’s how you feel. Gender is different to sex. It’s a construct and can therefore be changed.

I'm left wing. Very. I believe in social justice, support EDI measures and am proactively feminist, anti racism and anti wealth inequality. The rise of the right sickens me too.
However, I am also a person who doesn't believe some men are women and I can't square putting the wishes of a tiny subset of men over the much greater number of people who are women, with my belief in the greatest good for the most people.
You can Insult me as a bigot because we differ on this one issue if you like. But the narrative that the only people who are sex realist are right wing Reform voters is a myth and a smear.

What a horrific story. It just shows the Guides' move was actively harmful to the kids they were claiming to help

Highly transphobic of this girl's parents to raise her to believe she cant be a girl with a penis.

What does identifying as the opposite sex look like in practice to you?

It's all very 'Emperor's New Clothes' though, isn't it? And while I am sure a lot of people realise that trans people have a false belief that they are the opposite sex (or whatever 'gender' even means), and try to be kind to them realising this, all right-thinking people know it's not actually true. They believe something about themselves that isn't true, and affirming that isn't necessarily helpful. Facts are not 'abuse, disrespect or hatred'. People cannot be what they are simply... not.

no I don’t! Sorry! Grabbed the wrong @

And that's why gender is performative, stereotypical bollocks and not the basis for single sex spaces. Girlguiding is for kids who are girls, not boys who act out enough performative stereotypes that you yourself admit is a changeeable construct.

Anyway, this OP (with the great taste, fabulously edgy username you can't comment on too much) does at least own that he knows letting people "identify" their way into spaces for the opposite sex make it a mixed sex spaces. His solution is to explode all rights to single sex spaces and just label them mixed sex. Which is actually an improvement on the usual line which is to keep them supposedly and labelled mixed sex, so that the other sex can use them.

This is an interesting reaction.

@JonesTown Is this right, to summarise: You see no spaces that should be kept single sex. You agree that any male person who says they’re actually female needs to be allowed access to all female spaces and point out that this Green Party policy. Ipso facto, you approve of that policy of the Greens.

This . Zoe is the worst of the worst of the guardianistas imo.

Plus as many other have said, 6 year olds girls don’t have penises. What the child has is really rubbish parents . That is the sad story here .

I hope you are joking???
How about the parents supporting their son to be a boy who is maybe showing more feminine behaviours but that’s ok for a boy to do. How his parents encouraging him to mix with girls (and boys) at clubs that he does feel he is able to join and enjoy. How about his parents encouraging him to be proud of just how he is and who he is?
What has gone so wrong in this world that everyone is SO miserable about just being themselves, in the body that they were born into? A society where you can feel perfectly happy just being you both on the inside and on the outside?
Why do so many think that that is bad and wrong?????