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?

I absolutely agree that gender is mostly nonsense. I have always told my children that the only thing boys can’t do that girls can is to be pregnant, and the only thing girls can’t do is pee standing up (my youngest took issue with this one, so I stand corrected - it’s the only thing girls shouldn’t do)..
However, in the real world that my child has been navigating, gender unfortunately does crop up in the way the world treats you: in pronouns, hair styles, clothing choices and ultimately in interacting with the gender they identify with.
I suppose I’m trying to say that ideologically I agree with you, but unfortunately that argument didn’t hold much water when trying to help my child!

Yes absolutely.

I'm not going to collude in any belief that this child had changed sex or that their gender is somehow more important than their sex.

I agree that the current climate has made this extremely hard to enforce and anyone navigating this has my sympathy.

Which is why I think all the 'born in the wrong body' messaging has been extraordinarily harmful. There are many powerful people with a huge amount to answer to.

Today, I am dressed exactly as I am every day. Men's jeans(always Wranglers) , I've worn those since I was 13. A cast off to t shirt from my son, a plain jumper and trainers. I would ask hiw much of that is specific to one 'gender'? I've had short hair that could have been a modern boys style. Plenty of women don't dress in stereotypical 21st century, western clothing. In other cultures both sexes wear trouser like garments, in others both wear skirt type garments.. It's very narrow minded to believe that women only dress one way,look one way or have only certain interests. When I was young we didn't want to do that, I had boyfriends with hair down to their waists, who wore eyeshadow, colourful clothes. Why have we reverted to stereotypes, so that young people think that wanting to wear different clothes changes their sex?

Shame on all the adults who have allowed or encouraged this poor little fellow to believe he’s a girl. Reality was always going to knock him down sooner or later. Adults who lie to children about something as important as this are a disgrace.

I grew up on the 80’s when (as it was called then) gender bending was the norm. Plenty of men wore make up and had an outwardly feminine look. And women had short crops and wore suits and ties.

Of course there were a few raised eyebrows at the time but as the decade went on it became and more and more accepted.

To go from that acceptance that we can all dress and present how we choose to where we are now when kids bring gender nonconforming are being told they’re the opposite sex and pushed into a narrow box seems massively regressive

You can try and run away from yourself.

It never works. The truth and hard cold reality always persist and you have to come to terms with that.

You can force others to believe what they know to be true. Attempts to do so only ever lead to hard break and controlling and sometimes abusive behaviour.

There is no nuance nor compromise to be found in this.

I dearly wish there was to prevent all the harm it causes.

It is not an issue with people being unkind. It is not an issue with people hating. It is just an inescapable fact of life that we are what we are and we can not change sex. Even if we so desire it.

We can only find peace in accepting that. It is not to be found in lobbying government and forcing change in the law. This doesn't not change sex. It does not change that transition can only ever be cosmetic and it's cost is exceptionally high in terms of long term risk to health be in mental or physical.

To pretend differently is the very highest harm of all because it sells the lie to a vulnerable generation who hope that this isn't true and that somehow they are different.

They are not.

Some of us went on a journey of learning the same in our own ways. Some of us have seen first hand how it all implodes.

Maybe it works for a tiny number of people but that comes at a massive cost to the rest of us. And frankly to put it bluntly it's not enough of a reason to play lets pretend.

Small problem - female people exist.

"Gender" doesn't change the reality that having a female body in a society shaped by millenia of patriarchy/male ownership/defaulting to male has physical, social and economic consequences. Ignoring this reality to support people's "gender" means taking away the structures that were put in place to mitigate those consequences. It cannot be done without making things worse for the female population.

In short, your proposals demonstrate "Is it good for trans people?" is the only measure you are considering. Fairness for female people is not even on your radar.

I wonder if you realise that or if it's entirely subconscious that you do not register half of humanity?

Thank you for being kind.
I wholeheartedly agree that parents who use their child’s gender questions to showboat are parenting terribly, and I also agree that there should be safe spaces for everyone.
Girls shouldn’t have to get changed with biological males, but equally boys who can pass as female shouldn’t have to go into male spaces, and girls who can pass as male should also have spaces where they can be safe from predatory males.

are you purposefully calling this little boy a little girl OP - to wind people up? Because YOU are part of the problem here. Do you see that? This child, is a boy. With a penis. He should have never been allowed to join an All girls club because out quite simply - HE IS A BOY. The fact that his parents aren’t locked up for abuse is one this - this is awful parenting.

Thing is, who decides who 'can pass'? And why are we encouraging deception (passing) as a strategy in the first place? There are times when it's really important to know what sex someone is - medical issues and so on.

Why wouldn't gender non conforming males be fine in male spaces? If they aren't, then surely all our efforts should be going into challenging this behaviour.

Let's leave aside the fact that many people are in absolute delusion about how well they "pass", especially men who think they pass perfectly because women decide not to confront the potentially dangerous bloke who's already indicated he doesn't give a shit about the law or their consent by entering their space. Let's also leave aside the fact that much of the trans community considers it to be transphobic to give such special treatment to those with "passing privilege".

This is a case for third spaces. As you might guess, it's been suggested. Do you want to talk to the TRAs and report back on how they take it?

I think the headline should actually be "6 year old boy with complex psychological issue self harms, after idiotic parents facilitate make believe fantasy".

I’m not presenting the argument you think I am.
I am taking about gender, not sex. I realise you cannot change your biological makeup, but you can change the way you are perceived/treated. I was initially asking how people would “parent “ their gender questioning child, but now, I would really like to know why it bothers everyone so much? I fully agree with women’s spaces for women - I’m not trying to take anything away from us. I do think in this time, in a developed world, we could probably handle some more gender neutral stuff being made available, but I don’t want women to be less safe or lose anything. However, the idea that referring to a 6 yo as “she” which would make her happy, because your principles don’t allow for such nonsense because she can pee standing up seems like a strange wagon to hitch your horse to.. To me it seems unnecessarily puritanical.

So what does a person do to change gender?
Edited to ask, and how would I have to treat the person?

Because once you untether basic language from socially agreed concepts, you create trouble for everyone.

You start to call this child 'she' then you make it that much harder to argue that 'she' shouldn't have access to female spaces and services. How can you be a 'she' in language, but not a 'she' for toilets or changing rooms? How do you communicate that to the child?

How do you explain to this child's peers, that's he is a 'she'? Thus confusing everything they know about what is male and what is female? How are little girls able to maintain the boundaries they might need with this male who is somehow a 'she'?

Its not kindness to create confusion and contradictions for these children. It actually strikes me as quite cruel.

Yes.

His penis. He's a boy.

And we don't simply do things for children because it will make them happy.

No school and endless junk food would make lots of children happy. But we know better than to give that to them.

Thank you - you are the only person to reply who has actually known (a) trans child(ren).

I realise it’s a bit to get used to, using different pronouns, but just as when my nephew decided he wanted to be known by his middle name, you get used to it.
For plenty of kids, this will be a phase, like being vegan or liking Billie Eilish. But there will be a few kids in that mix who will relax a little at having their feelings acknowledged, and for them, I think it’s worth it. God knows, I bite my tongue on enough topics when dealing with pedestrian adults’ opinions to make accommodating a kid’s feelings as they learn who they are, seem inconsequential.

Lying to the child in the short term will not help them in the long term.

This case features a child who the parents are showboating about and have blogged about.

With all due respect @Ollldy78 I don't want to get used to it (using preferred pronouns) apart from anything, I truly believe it to be harmful. Instead I try to avoid pronouns use altogether in front of the individual and use their correct (sexed) pronouns if speaking about them when they are not around.

As for the offensiveness of it all, I do look at these confused young men and think wtf do you know about the stresses and difficulties of being a young woman, how arrogant of you to claim that you do, but I don't voice that thought. They are, after all, young, and have been let down by the adults around them and society at large.

Sometimes the adults in the room have to be adults and tell the truth and not indulge bullshit because the bullshit is more harmful than being a big meanie parent.

It's called being a grown up.

"Changing gender" is just another way of saying "pretend".

Dress how you like, do your hair however you want, but don't expect me to play Pretend along with you. I will use the pronouns appropriate to your SEX.

Sensible?

You are asking us to refer to a boy - complete with a penis - as "her" and you think you are trying to have a sensible conversation...