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 agree. It’s another made up story of an imaginary child whose first word was ‘girl’ designed to pull on the heartstrings and guilt trip women and girls to #bekind and pander to the patriarchy

This caused by the parents not being honest with the boy from the very start . At that age you think you can be anything you dream of, but affirming that as actual fact is stupid & dangerous. Children should always be told that it is only pretending and that they can't actually change sex or be a cat or a superhero etc
If they want to be trans when they reach 18 they are free to go ahead but for crying out loud let them be little & keep creepy perverts from putting ideas into their heads!

If that’s the OP’s own personal quote she is very simply part of the problem.

Girls don’t have penises and aren’t thems.

Aye right.

The "disturbing" part of this is that this six year old boy has been gaslit by his parents into thinking he can be a girl. That is all shades of irresponsible parenting right there, before you even get to the parents going to the press about this "girl" and "her penis".

Using your child as a prop for your own political beliefs and agenda is just so wrong. As others have clearly said there are a million ways they could have handled this better so as not to unnecessarily distress their son, and chose not to.

Urgh.

I agree with this. Also, it's very interesting that when a child wants to change gender, it's almost always a boy wanting to become a girl... I do wonder why.............. ??? I have only known one occasion (in real life) where a girl wanted to become a boy, and that is a friend of my DD who started living as a boy at around 15-16.

15 years later, now living as a man. Would never know they were ever a girl. They are so quiet and shy and never cause a fuss.

I do know more Male to Female transfolk. In general there does seem to be a LOT more of them.

This case though... it's utterly horrific that a child so young is doing this. I feel for the child, and as many people have said, I think he needs taking into care.

.

As to why GG aren’t mixed sex, the organisation’s members have been against changing this every time they have been polled. Many leaders would leave if this was changed, myself included, because I don’t want volunteer with boys and young men; I want to volunteer with girls and young women as that’s where my passion lies.

There was quite a vocal (and what I expect is a significant) minority of leaders claiming they would leave in the wake of the trans ban, but already many of them are dialling that back on the various GG social media groups, saying they don’t want to let current members down, etc., so even those principals haven’t really held up to scrutiny! I suspect on the other side of the coin, many leaders would definitely quit if the organisation became mixed, as we all chose GG for a reason. Most of us just stay quiet as it’s not a safe space to enter into debate on, but I know through some reading between the lines of conversations that the other leaders in my district are of a similar frame of mind as me.

Scouts faced falling membership and a lack of volunteers (surprise surprise, women tend to take up a huge amount of the volunteering slack in our communities). Girlguiding has maintained a strong membership, my own units have waiting lists I can’t even get through. I could open two new units in our very small town and still not be able to accommodate the girls who want to join. That shows to me there is a very strong appetite and desire from girls and parents for a single-sex organisation.

I'm probably too honest with my kids, but if there was a topic that was likely to cause this level of distress, and the child is so very young, I would also just steer them to a different group or hobby. Lots of kids can't afford the hobbies they'd like to do, or they're not available or on at an inconvenient time, or they don't get selected on skill-level so they miss out.

My thoughts exactly . Why are they aware ?
6 is a baby . Yes allow them to wear what they like and be a child .
This has gone too far . This isn’t the supreme courts “fault “ this is whoever allowed this child into be a girl when only 6 small years earlier they were / are a he.
Parents ate not protecting their kids. Simple

Girls don’t have a penis. You seem confused about basic biology. No human can change sex, you are born male or female (aside from those with some rare intersex conditions) and no surgery, meds or pronoun gymnastics can change that.

A boy who grows his hair and wears pink dresses is still a boy.

I think the adults concerned have a lot to answer for here. Why are 6 year olds being made aware of transgender issues? How at 6 can you make decisions about your life that will affect you forever? This child should not have been allowed to join Rainbows in the first place and again I blame the adults for that. Parents should always be clear from the start their children can talk to them about ANYTHING, but in my opinion adults should not be facilitating transition in children so young.

I havn't read the article either but it does not sound like the child really tried to do anything, they were holding a plastic pair of scissors so I am guessing (hoping) the child was not injured

What would have been "more sensible" is if the parents hadn't forced their deluded nonsense onto their son. No 6 year old ever would have declared themselves to be trans if the idiot parents hadn't have put the thought into the child's head.

I am aware of a child threatening to do this at a similar age but quite some years ago. This was reported by an affirming parent whom I've known for some time
I think it is very possible that a gender distressed child might threaten this, but of course, that's when parents should be seeking mental health support and helpjng the child accept their body, instead of loudly telling everyone, including the media. All that this does is affirm to a very young child that threatening to mutilating their genitals is a reasonable reaction to being told no.

Perhaps this kind of tale is meant to make us think ‘Oh no! We are being really unfair and cruel to ‘trans children’ and should reverse this awful discrimination against them forthwith’ ???

It doesn’t.

It makes me ask what kind of fucked up society do we live in where a SIX YEAR OLD is made to feel they are ‘born in the wrong body’, the adults around them actively reinforce this gender dysphoria and indulge the idea that their little boy is a girl …and then have the actual fucking audacity to act as if their child wanting to cut off his penis is somehow anyone’s fault but their own?!

Poor, poor child. He should never have been put in this position by the adults around him.

No six year old boy is a girl. And actually girls deserve spaces free from boys.

His parents have created this situation.

Why are the parents even trying to send their son to Rainbows? He should be at Beavers or Cubs (not sure of the ages).

Six year olds girls don’t have penises.

6 year old GIRLS do not have a Penis to cut off. Grow up, you are part of the problem not the solution.

This is child abuse. Why on earth are his parents telling a six year old boy he is a girl?!
My middle child is 5 and going through the phase of wanting to know why he has a penis and his sister doesn't. "Because boys have a penis and girls don't". It's as easy as that!
DS5 also happens to love unicorns and will occasionally join in with his sister to dress up as fairies, that doesn't suddenly change his biology.

It's absolute unhinged insanity!!

6 year old girls don't have penises

Because as the saying goes, it's like a vegan cat...

This has nothing to do with Rainbows or being trans. This 6 year old child has severe mental health problems and should be given treatment accordingly.

@JonesTownYour post makes no sense, a 6 year old girl cannot physically cut off their penis because a girl doesn’t have a penis. We are talking about a 6 year old boy here who has shitty parents.

I don’t believe this story for a second.

It’s all very convenient timing for Zoe’s article.
Hmm…some might say it’s complete bullshit.

No, it wouldn't. Zoe Williams is a dimwit numpty who can't think why some girls may benefit from activities away from boys.
Guiding was founded for girls alone. It's one of few social groups that are single sex.

As for the "scissors", on the extraordinarily unlikely chance this is actually true, that's a parenting fail. Those parents deliberately presented the information in a way to distress their 6 year old. Anyone with half a brain would present it sensitively in a way their child could understand.

This reeks of Munchausen by Proxy. No 6 year old identifies as the opposite sex. It's dressing up and make believe playing.

6 year olds don't stage boycotts either. The whole thing is hysterical baloney.

Yes, I know a couple of children like this, and I wouldn't want to be in their parents' shoes given the hostile attitudes expressed upthread.

One is in their early teens and, having already been bullied out of school ("Urgh! You're trans!"), is now having to leave Guides, which had become a bit of a haven for them. They are very scared that they might get bullied again if they went to Scouts (they used to go to Cubs but found it a bit rough), although I have tried to reassure their mum that it's a very inclusive troop.