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?

My cousins 20 year old is a FTM
As is my friends 22 year old as an adult they can decide for themselves who they are ( both have a family history of autism which i suspect plays a part)
In the case of this 6 year old though ,thats on the parents, children of six dont question their sexuality
Many still belive in the tooth fairy
Santa etc.

Well for me it would be letting my moustache run riot on my face and wearing trousers.

Oh wait, I seem to do that already.

Oh, Im a boy!!!

"is it a natural result of allowing such young children to change their gender identity?"

It's this one, Children are really vulnerable and believe what the adults in their lives tell them so this child possibly really believes that they are a girl in the wrong body which every adults knows (even those who tell them otherwise) that this is untrue, that the boy is in fact a boy who may not conform to typical gender stereotypes.

The adults who set children up to believe the nonsense have a hell of a lot to answer for and we will be dealing with the fallout for decades to come no doubt.

I absolutely agree that children can feel pigeonholed by societal gender expectations (feels like a very wordy way to say that!). However, hand on heart I do not know where these crept into my child’s orbit

It's difficult to avoid the stereotypes and people often don't realise they are imposing stereotypes.

There was a TV programme a few years ago when they dressed baby girls in "boys clothes" and gave them boys names and dressed the boys in "girls clothes" and gave them girls names. They then filmed the interactions between adults and the children. The adults treated these babies very differently depending on whether they thought they were boys or girls based on names and clothing

@Ollldy78

I read posts on threads like these and it seems as though people imagine the parents of trans children to either be plotting some nefarious world dominating ideology based around public bathrooms, or hearing their child express a gender questioning opinion and immediately throwing a trans flag around them and changing their pronouns. The reality is very different, much more nuanced. I would really like to know how many of the “I’d just tell them that’s not real” brigade have ever met a trans person / child?

Yes, I know two trans adults and one child. (And others that are just acquaintances). None of them are nuanced...

The child is the worst. Their mother basically did do what you said, child said in passing they wished they were a girl (whilst still identifying themselves as a boy) and their mother went all out saying they were trans, introducing them as her "daughter", suddenly all pink v "girly" clothes, joining trans groups and posting on social media about being a mum of a trans child, got a trans flag badge for the child to wear at all times.

This is a child I used to babysit for frequently (for the separated father) so I saw it happen close up and knew the child well.

A lot of us have seen things like this, although hopefully most not so extreme!
Either way, it's not "nuance" to lie about reality. Yes, people may deeply wish to be the opposite sex. They can't be though.

The public bathrooms thing is almost a red herring. Pretending men can be women is far more fundamental (and dangerous) than that.

https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2024/2024fca0960. This was Tickle v Giggle in 2024 in Australia. The 2025 appeal of Giggle v Tickle is now waiting for the verdict to be handed down so the definition may yet change.

See Part 4, para 87 from Mr Justice Bromwich. You have to shop in the clothes department of your choice.

I don't lie to children.

The parents are lying to their son be allowing him to be a girl/she/her. It's not fair on the child. As this boy is now finding out just because mummy and daddy say you're a proper girl the majority of the rest of society know he's a boy.

Society don't know his gender identity but they can tell his sex.

At 6 can he even explain why his gender is different to his sex? Past dresses and toys and being happier when he plays with the girls? Can his parents? As I've yet to hear an explanation from anyone that doesn't just go on about stereotypes and not much else.

The lad is at an age when if told when he grows up he can have some medicine and an operation and will then be indistinguishable from all the other girls will believe them. A boy that has yet to go through puberty, a boy who will not understand the process and years it takes to go from child to adult. A boy who has no clue what his parents are suggesting comes with massive health implications A boy who has no clue that the medication has side effects and unintended consequences. A boy who has no clue the surgery will involve turning his penis inside out to create a open wound that is permanently trying to close itself.... Do I need to go on?

So whilst it all seems harmless and cute at 6 and what is the harm in calling him her? All they are doing is setting this boy up for an unhappy future where despite his wish to be a girl, despite the medication and the surgeries people will still see him for the male he is.

Much better to give him the truth now. He can call himself Emily. He can wear tights and pink dresses, he can play with the Barbie doll, he can grow his hair long and have bunches. But he needs to understand that none of those things make him a girl. And nothing that he does along the way, not medication, not surgery, not wishful thinking is ever going to change the fact that every part of him is a boy.

Honestly I'd rather upset a 6 year old and tell them the truth than lie to the extent this boys parents have done.

Offhand, about 7. Could be another couple I've forgotten though.

Having autistic young adults and one in the theatre scene, there are an awful lot of their friends who identify as non-binary or trans.

I speak to them using their chosen names. I try remember every now and again to say They, but I absolutely won't say She for the boys or He for the girls. I'm sure you've come across Barrackers outstanding essay Pronouns Are Rohypnol.

I get on well with these young people, I cook for them and make them drinks when they come over. They are nice kids on the whole (well, one's an asshat, but that's just people.)

I absolutely wouldn't allow them in any single sex spaces according to gender expression, but for all the many times a person's sex is irrelevant, I respect their right to express their gender as they choose.

Where sex matters, I am hardliner. Where it doesn't, I don't have a problem.

I think its a little naive to think there are no parents who are not highly receptive to, if not extremely encouraging of their child being trans. The allies with a self view that that they are progressive, enlightened and alternative who wear it like a badge of honour.
It brings attention, praise, a sense of community with those they consider like minded and feeds a sense of their child being special and unique.
While I doubt many are deliberately setting out to make their child's life harder, they rationalise the hardship by blaming it on the bigots rather than their steering of their child, and make fighting the bigotry their purpose.
I do know that being a parent to a child who states they are trans can be an incredibly difficult road, and agree that few would choose it. However for some, in some circles, unconditional acceptance and encouragement of their child's supposed 'transness' does bring social reward.

It is clear the poster you are replying to does not place any importance on negative outcomes for women and girls (in the original female sense).

Recognising an outcome is a "damage" requires that the thing suffering the outcome matters/has value and therefore worth looking after.

Therefore, I don't think making them aware of the specifics of damage will help much.

It is like vegetarians telling meat eaters animals are killed to produce meat. The meat eaters already know that. They just don't think the consequences for the animals of being turned into meat matter as much as the consequences for their dinner plate of the meat being denied.

(Disclaimer: I eat meat. I also recognise there's a value/relative worth decision between my food enjoyment and animals' lives implicit in that which the animals are unlikely to agree with)

And the MH disorders that arise from all this for him, and other children, are then ascribed to 'not being able to be his true self/horrible society not accepting him as he is'

Rather than that his parents or himself have not been able to accept him as he is, ie he is male but likes x, y and z and both those things are ok. Its a total invalidation of the self actually to promote a trans narrative.

It was a good friend transitioning and a quarter of my son’s (mostly autistic) friendship group declaring themselves trans that opened my eyes to the harm and misogyny of trans ideology.

HIS peers are other 6 year-old boys who can be found in the Scouts junior groups - Beavers and Cubs. His parents must know that, yet they set him up to fail when they enrolled him in Rainbows, which was about to become single-sex again, following the Supreme Court judgment.

He isn't a girl, so shouldnt be in the brownies or girl guides.
The solution is not to take girl guiding away from girls in order to appease distressed boys.

The threat of self harm should not affect the above.

NO.

It is not a problem "without an easy solution". It is not a clash between two minorities with conflicting needs.

That's a misapprehension that comes from the false framing of trans people as people who are somehow meaningfully and objectively closer to people of the opposite sex then others of the same natal sex.

The reality is that whatever it is that trans people are experiencing, it is only a projection of their own beliefs about the other sex.

This belief may be very real and meaningful to them, but as a personal belief about the opposite sex in someone who is not that sex rather than an empirical outcome of sex for the people who are that sex, it is not relevant to the needs and experiences of the actual opposite sex, and as such it does not justify this assumption that the needs of trans people can only be met through the delivery of the supports and protections of the opposite sex.

To be clear, I am talking specifically about sex here.

If there were to be Gender Identity specific supports and protections set up, supports and protections that are not simply a lazy appropriation of pre existing single sex provisions based on gender identity but actual new provisions built from the ground up to consider the needs of mixed sex gender groups, and which do not sinoly assume that a "cisgender" identity as a boy/man or a woman/girl is the default for most people without properly interrogating and justifying that conclusion, it would obviously be entirely appropriate for trans gender people to be accomodated according to their gender identity.

It's just the sleight of hand where their gender (a mental attribute) is somehow supposed to align with the opposite sex (a physical attribute) that makes no sense.

Yes. This is a male child. Why are you asking/expecting the rest of society to lie about that fact?

@FlirtsWithRhinos/ I’ve always felt the solution to “male spaces aren’t safe for tran women” argument should be solved with “let’s redesign male spaces and educate men/boys to change their unsafe behaviours” not “let’s just shove trans identifying males in female spaces”. But apparently making this a male problem to solve isn’t ok.

Transhausen by proxy. They jump at the chance to encourage their children to believe they can change sex, (at an age when they have no choice but to believe pretty much anything an adult tells them), because in certain social circles, having a trans child comes with a certain status, and makes them feel interesting and important.

I do have to laugh at people who won't indulge a fantasy and 'be kind' being described as 'puritanical' given the witch trial feel of the last 10 years.

I missed this old cliché that gets thrown around far too much on MN as if we are all living in a cupboard.

So first of all there's my brother. Then there's his classmates from school. And several people associated with them. Then there's the TAs son. And then there's one of my best friends sons. Then there's theres my son's teacher for an out of school activity. Then there's various other people who are more acquaintances...

I would say there's a sizable percentage of MNetters in the feminist section who have close acquaintances or family members who identify as trans - and as a result we've witnessed the darker side of this which has been massively taboo to speak about and really should be because it's not insignificant in terms of levels of harms.

Many many posters know people including children and teens as well as older adults who identify as trans and do so both personally and professionally.

And you might not mean it this way, but that question comes across as incredibly patronising. Many posters come to FWR precisely because they’ve found themselves navigating the trans waters and felt at loss as to what to do. Instead of suggesting everyone is arguing from some disinterested academic position, you could read a few threads and see why posters are concerned.

With respect, you raise issues (pronouns, being kind) that have been discussed ad nauseum on these threads.

I did respond to this because I have dealt with quite a few in my work over the years. My response wasn't acknowledged. I base my answers on my experience. Males don't change sex, or their personality because they 'feel' they are a girl/a woman. They carry on with the same personality, and some of them were awful!

It was the BBC. We literally start stereotyping from birth, from before birth if parents do a ‘gender reveal’ and colour code everything.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719

I'm a generation older than you and was a teenager in the first half of the 60s. when the great majority of my female friends, like me, had short hair. Only a minority had the long hair now seen as stereotypically female among young people. Once I discovered jeans I only wore skirts for parties or formal events. When I married in the late 60s, my husband's hair was longer than mine as it has been almost ever since. Plenty of gender nonconformity back then and for a long time afterwards. So regressive that gender stereotypes have come back so strongly to so many people.

That was a thought which occurred to me, too. Dramatic emotional blackmail is high up in the TRA playbook. If it is true, the whole family need psychiatric help.