Increase in transgender children.

[mumtoaninja]

Don't shoot me if this is in the wrong section...I'm fairly new and still trying to navigate my way around!
Anyway, I watched an item on the news today about an increase in the number of transgender children being referred by gps.
My very first thought was is this generational? These days, parents are much more relaxed about what their darling offspring play with. Boys are happily playing with dolls and other 'pink' stuff and girls are playing more rough and tumble 'boys' games than they did maybe 50 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I've never encouraged my children (girl & boy) to play with gender specific toys, however they have both steered towards such toys. DS is mad on action figures/cars/gross stuff whereas my DD loves anything pink and sparkly. Each has had ample opportunity to play with the others toys, also at nursery and play dates but they choose not to. I do know several parents who push dolls and such on boys because 'why shouldn't their boy have a baby doll' etc.
Genuine question - is our new found open-mindedness causing children to grow up feeling confused about their gender?

No. Their are plenty of butch women who have a very masculine role - stereotypical masculine job, clothing, gestures and so on who do not identify as male.

There are also trans women who are not interested in stereotypical feminine character traits, dress or occupations who do identify as women.

Gender identity is a subjective experience.

I identify with female because females in my social construction of being female can have any job, wear any clothes and have any gestures they like. I know plenty of women like you describe who identify themselves as female and I would also identify them as such.

A subjective experience is socially constructed and socially influenced from the culture that surrounds the individual.

People get help with all sorts of issues. They get their ears pinned back, breast surgery nose jobs and many many other types of surgery that aren't essential but because people don't feel like they are right in themselves, so I would argue that the nhs does give surgery for bdd.

Gender dysphoria is different though. The process is longer and there is much more involvement from mental health professionals.

The way some people on here are talking is that you stroll into the doctors one day because your daughter played with a car and get given puberty blockers right away. This isn't the case at all. It takes a very long time. My son had 6 months of specialised counselling before they gave him blockers. He had been living as a boy for months before that and had felt as he does for years. The gp doesn't give blockers out, they are from a clinic that specialises in gender issues, and, because my son is 10 he wouldn't be allowed to have hormone treatment or surgery, they treat gender dysphoria of childhood differently to gender dysphoria.

It's not rare for children who feel as my son does to go on and live their lives as the gender they choose. 1 in 4 do. The ones who don't, have an infinitely easier childhood because they are being supported and listened to. Even if it is 'just a phase' who's to say that it isn't important and they shouldn't be allowed to express themselves and be supported.

Believe me, if I could choose a path for my son this would not be it, it's heartbreaking and difficult and will only get worse as time goes on I would imagine. However I have to be there for him for as long as he feels as he does.

It's so very easy to sit back and judge and to have an opinion when you haven't lived it.

Sorry Gogi, are you saying then that 3/4 of the children who take puberty blockers WON'T then go on to live in their chosen gender? That seems like a huge amount to me. Presumably the puberty blockers come with risks (they must do given what they are for). For 3/4 of the people who take them to then decide that actually they do want to remain the sex they were born is worrying.

The best of luck to you and your son.

No High sorry if I wasn't clear. 3/4 of children who present with gender issues won't go on to have gender dysphoria and will live their lives as the sex they were born as.

A child who has gender issues won't automatically be diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

A child who has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria won't automatically be given blockers.

Floundering You've confused me with your position. Yes, many parents would reinforce the gender stereotypes when faced with a child who doesn't conform. Are you saying that this should drive treatment of their children as transgender?

My original reply was to your point that children know they are transgender before they are aware of society's constraints. My point was that even by two my dd was aware of those constraints, and I doubt she is unusual in that respect.

If children are aware of gender expectations from so early on, and are unlucky enough to have parents that care more about reinforcing those expectations than letting their children be happy in themselves, the answer is not to reinforce those ideas even further by telling the children they are 'in the wrong body', it's to educate the parents and society in general that gender roles are a dangerous nonsense that no-one is happy fulfilling 100%.

Nikkinack, are you suggesting that the parents of Trans children are not letting their children be happy in themselves? It's the children who are telling the parents they are in the wrong body, not vice versa. This isn't a case of educating the parents and all those gender issues will go away. This is parents responding to their child's needs.

Nickinack whereas I agree with many of your points on gender I don't see which parents here are telling their children they are in the wrong body but rather dealing with extremely distressed kids and trying to support them to feel at ease with themselves.

As said the risk of not doing so could be massive - suicide is a real risk.

Surely just with many things with kids it's about listening to them?

And also I think there might be a real different between eg boys who love pink dresses and "boys" who feel so strongly they are in the wrong body that they hate their penis.

Those that need to change their gender are the ones who really deeply are both socially and biologically in the wrong sex/gender.

It's not possible to be biologically in the wrong sex/gender.

Except it IS Flora.

I don't have any personal experience of gender dysmorphia, but it interests me, and the reason it interests me is because it is SO difficult to understand. For the majority of the population we cannot know how it feels to be gender dysmorphic, as most of us are firmly identified with the gender we have been given. Gender dysmorphia messes up one's entire sense of self, and must be absolutely hell to experience. At least now we are becoming more educated about the condition; imagine how much people must have suffered over the years.
I wanted to send to Floundering and gogi and say what amazing parents they are.

Gender dysphoria, not dysmorphia.

tibbysmum I'm not saying it - Floundering said it:

"Nicki I'm glad to hear it, sadly not every parent is as sensible. That is my point."

Which is why I'm confused about her point - in that post she seemed to say that it is sensible for parents to tell their children that there is nothing wrong with a boy liking girls things, and said that not every parent is that sensible.

Thank you for the answer nikki I shall educate myself immediately and tell my son he has to be my daughter again

Neither I, nor any of the parents I know who are in my position have said to our children they are born into the wrong body. It's our children who come to us with how they feeling, it's our children who explain it to us.

Not one parent I know who's child has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria would choose this for their child at all.

most of us are firmly identified with the gender we have been given

I don't believe this is true. What do you mean be the "gender" we have been given?

I said educate parents and society. It is society that is failing these children by telling both them and their parents that a feminine boy must be a girl and a masculine girl must be a boy.

so all Trans people transition into stereotypical 'men' and 'women' do they then Nikki? I personally know two butch lesbian Trans women and several effeminate Trans guys.

Flora when you give birth to a child penis= boy vagina= girl that is their assigned gender (occasionally you get a non obvious intersex baby which is a whole other issue)

Sometimes children don't feel that the being they are internally, who they identify as is NOT that person assigned at birth. I do feel that if very youn g children were supported more to explore these isssues non judgmentally then they would in,time work out which place they want to be at. It may just be enjoying cross dressing, it may be staying as their birth sex but living fully as the opposite sex, no hormones or surgery, it might be fully transitioning. It might also be they work through their confusion and stay as they are into adulthood, but whatever the personal situation that child needs to be supported to get to where THEY want to be.

I find it interesting that where I use masculine and feminine, you use butch and effeminate. A masculine woman must be 'butch', even when she's a trans woman, huh?

Can we not all just accept that we are talking about INDIVIDUALS here not ticky boxes?

Wether or not you agree with it or accept it, programmes like the Theroux one bring trans kids into the public arena, allow them to feel they are not the only ones, or weirdoes, and really DO have alternatives tothe hnhappy lives they are leading.

Society hasn't failed my son at all.

He has always had a huge range of hobbies, clothes, toys and friends and never been looked down upon for it.

He isn't particularly 'masculine ' either.

He feels as if he is in the wrong body. He doesn't want breasts or a vagina, he doesn't want to start his period because he feels it's all wrong for him. He wants facial hair and a penis and a deeper voice because that's what he feels like should be happening to him.

It isn't parenting or society or anything else, it's a deep rooted feeling within him that he is a boy.

If he wanted acceptance from the world in general he would have remained as a girl, so many people who are supposed to love him have abandoned him and worse, he faces prejudice from people who know and is worried about the reaction from people who don't know should they ever find out.

To say that transgender people are that way because of society shows very little understanding of what it is they actually go through.

Nikki, don't be goady. You know exactly what I mean (and, fwiw, those two women self identify as butch). I was trying to illustrate that despite what many believe, Trans people do not always go on to be 'women who wear dresses and lipstick' in a stereotypical way or whatever.

I'm very sorry for your son that he is so unhappy in his body GoGi, and that is very warmly meant.

I don't believe this is true. What do you mean be the "gender" we have been given?

Flora, I meant that I only know of one person who expressed a feeling of 'being in the wrong body', and as far as I know she is currently awaiting surgery to fully become a woman (having been born a boy). Empirical evidence suggests to me that it is normal to feel at ease with your gender / biological assignation - at least, it is not something that people often seem to seriously complain about. Yes, people - myself included - get frustrated at gender prejudice or the pressure to conform to gender expectations, but that is very different to wishing that they were the other gender / sex.

I don't feel as if I am explaining myself very well, but I suppose my point is is that people who don't have gender dysphoria can't understand how it must feel, but just because we can't understand it, doesn't mean that we have to explain it away by using terms that we do understand (eg railing against societal pressure or suggesting that the condition doesn't exist).