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?

Trying to harm your own genitals at 6 is a major red flag that the poor child is being sexually abused.

If my 6 year old tried to self harm I'd not waste time or energy talking to a journalist. I'd be spending my time on getting them mental health support as soon as was possible and then getting myself and DH parenting support and our own mental health support for whatever issues we were inadvertently passing on to our child.

The girl clearly wants to identify as female, and I think it’s only right that we respect her wishes in how we refer to her.

6 year old girls don't have penises 👍🏻

6 year old girls don’t have penises

No. Because the Guiding ethos should be about a single sex space where girls can be together. It’s a really important thing imo and one of the very few places in society where it still exists - I really dislike the grudging way guiding has approached the ruling and think they need to reread their own value statements about girls identities but there absolutely is a place for single sex environments

And, yet, maybe if someone had been honest, this child wouldn't be where he is now.

Girls of Rainbow age dont "boycott", their parents do.

Yeah that’s worked out really well for him so far

Interesting user name btw.

The parents probably caused the delusion.

It sounds like they're the ones with mental health problems.

Probably desperately wanted a girl.

Yep

Theres another thread running at the moment about parental authority, nothing as indepth as pretending you're the opposite sex but theres an example on there of the over explaining and over burdening of information to young people. But apparently in that example on the other thread the 4 year old 'gets it'

I suspect that parents who waffle on and go into great explanations about things think that their child 'gets it' and oh they're so insightful and they understand lots of things.

But what you create when you put a load of information dumped on a very young child like 3, 4, 5 and so on, is that although on the surface you think they 'get it' but you're over burdening them with processing and digesting of things that are too multi layered and grown up in some ways. This is why childhood anxiety is through the roof.

I would wager this has happened to this child in his life before, leading to this nonsense that he thinks hes a girl 'you know she's really clear about her identity and what she feels'.

And now the information that he cannot attend a particular club anymore was couched in similar terms 'because we're completely honest with her'

Well dont be, you're a grown up and children need to be given information in an age appropriate manner. The club is closed for you now so lets join another one.

He's a boy, do you make a habit of lying to small children?

Growing up as a 'trans girl' unavoidably means learning to accept a duality - the reality of male sex continuing to exist and being relevant in some circumstances, alongside a 'female' identity.

Parents who don't make this clear to their children from the start do them no favours at all. But then maybe if they did those children would push back more against the compete irrationality of what they're being told in general about their identity, and the parents wouldn't like that?

He wouldn’t need to ‘cut off his penis’ if he wasn’t a boy would he? Not that he did try to chop off his penis, you know his parents are lying about that don’t you? To push their agenda?

Absolute bollocks.

The article is clear that it’s the girl’s friends themselves who have left in solidarity.

Not as 6
At 6 it's dress up.

There are plenty of mixed sex groups this little boy could attend rather than force little girls to be taught from a young age that their role in life is to roll over and #bekind to male entitlement invading their spaces

This is all just bollocks though isn’t it. If this child has been so terribly distressed (although I don’t believe it tbh) it’s totally on the parents for blowing it up and sending their boy to a girls group in the first place. I’m sure they could have said something like, rainbows has come to an end, it’s time for us to look at scouts. I find it hard to believe any child cares that passionately about rainbows or brownies or that all the 6 year olds are so up in arms they’re now boycotting it. These are all very adult sensibilities being put onto small children.

Saved me typing the same response.

He’d a boy - end of.

No girl has a penis. The parents should have supported their son to accept that it's OK to be different but being different doesn't make a boy into a girl. If he wants to play with a doll and wear pink he's still a boy.

Desperately wanted to be cool and special more like.

That’s got nothing to do with the actual girls who need single sex safe places and you know it.

6-year old "girls" don't have penises to cut off