Butterfly ITV

[Melamin]

Anyone daring to watch?

(Did it really have a mermaid in it?)

Thanks - and I’ve just remembered that incredibly powerful film (not tv) with Hilar Swank Boys Don’t Cry

Just watching episode 2.

Obviously Maxine is a child that has serious mental health problems. It's deeper than Max likes pink so must be a girl.

What strikes me is, if a child was saying they hated their ears, their ears made them feel sick and tried to cut their ears off you wouldn't say, fair enough you were obviously meant to be deaf. We'll give you ear plugs for now and when you turn 18 we'll take out/off your ears.

Why would you not look into why he hates his body so much, why he is so afraid of masculinity. Why can't they help him to accept his sex and express his gender non conformity as he pleases instead of indulging a fantasy and mutilating the body.

Nowt wrong with not being gender conformist and being a doll-loving boy or car-loving girl to use crude examples, but a lot wrong with giving your child potentially harmful puberty blockers at aged 12. It doesn’t sit comfortably with me at all and the more I read about it, the more I’m appalled.
I knew some young girls who were very non-gender conformist. One turned out to be gay, one is now a girl who just dresses casually (as far as I know is straight), and another is totally girly girl. All over age of puberty and beyond. They wore boys clothes, they only hung around with boys, or at the most other non-girly girls. None are trans. I should imagine their parents let them be who they we’re at that time.

I am disappointed in Anna Friel, who I've always liked.

Interesting how, after the decision to let the transition go ahead, the mother was sadly packing away her child's toy dinosaurs. I've always been interested in dinosaurs, clearly I must be really a bloke! I guess I should thank the programme makers for pointing it out to me.

Anyone watch the final episode?

There is an episode 3 thread on Feminism Chat www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3408037-Butterfly-part-3

which is interesting to read.

I gave up on this - it was a load of angsty drivel and was driving me up the wall. It is a shame about Anna Friel (and a number of the others).

I watched The Little Drummer Girl instead. I found it absolutely fascinating and compelling, although I haven't a clue what is going on because I missed the start , so I will have to watch again.

PS, I thought dinosaurs were for everyone too.

Pemba

"Interesting how, after the decision to let the transition go ahead, the mother was sadly packing away her child's toy dinosaurs."

I found that very sad, it also seemed pointless. The child can easily decide for themselves which toys they want and which they do not want.

I watched episode 2 and actually like it more than episode one. Still very extreme, I found the friend with anorexia an interesting point. The proramme talks about self harm, which maybe needs talking about but again it was very simplistic.

I also cannot believe the mum would go off and leave her teenage daughter.

I didn't expect it to end the way it did?

And they all lived fabulously ever after?

Some of the comments in this thread reflect the ignorance that exists out there about transgender.

I am now a mature 100% legal, physical, psychological and emotional woman, who started her journey at the age of 5, before anything was said about any transgender issues, when I was thinking as a girl but with a boys body. At that age I chose my female names and had a whole imaginary wardrobe of girls clothes (I was then an only child) and a real girl friend who I played girlie games with. I disliked the boys I met at my first school, and quickly realised I didn't fit in with them. At 7 I tried to take my life by walking in front of a lorry due to my inner distress and a feeling (very true in the 1950's) that no one would listen and understand me. In short "Butterfly" reflects everything I went through, but without any parental support or medical help available to me.

I grew up hating any image of me as I would not accept that what I really looked like; a boy, when I KNEW I was not. By 11, after years of practice, I was well used to raiding my mum's dressing table and using her limited cosmetics and clothes to give me the look I knew I should really have, but my war parents would not have understood. Other people classed my as being "extremely feminine", but strangely my parents just ignored it, and just treated me as odd! The late 1960's and 1970's gave me an opportunity to conform to the uni-sex look and more closely match my true Gender Identity, NOT sexuality (I am actually heterosexual women).

And so my misery went on until my 40's, with many suicide attempts, when at last opportunities arose for me to fully transition.

So, without rabbiting on, I can claim to be fully qualified to give an educated view point on this subject, and I am delighted that "Butterfly" has been aired and potentially given many children hope and a release from a 'prison cell' that life is when you are trapped in the wrong body. It is no joke, and the more people, especially those who express such ignorant and upsetting, know about a very real condition and can help those with it, the better.

Remember people generally are not just 'Male' or 'Female', but many shades on a huge spectrum of identity, well before you get on the subject of sexuality. Those who still believe that people are generally "normal" or peculiar / strange / inflicted / a nutter, belong in an age of long ago. God made us all different, so celebrate it and positively help those who require it, such as transgender children. That includes blocking puberty as soon as it is realised the child has Gender Dysphoria, and not letting that child go through the misery I had to!

@Janekent what do you think it means to 'think as a girl'?

Thank you for your post, jane

@Janekent thank you for sharing your experiences.

It is a whole package of inner feelings and a natural inclination to embrace all things usually considered "feminine" that cannot be simplified. It is complex but even at the age of 4 I had the definite belief that everything was wrong with me, and I did not fit in, backed up by my mum's reaction to my request to wear a skirt to school like all the other girls. I was just 5 years of age, and this request felt perfectly normal to me, but the reaction made me go within myself thereafter, which badly affected me in many ways.

No one can say what it is to "think like a girl" as that can be very different to each and every person. As I stated there are thousands of shades of grey between what is considered "a boy" or "a girl". Look around you, open your eyes and you will see the wonderful variations of the basic, but very complex, theme. I KNEW what I was, and my physical body did not conform to that and got in the way of living as I wanted, now confirmed by how I feel now: I am FREE, I AM now the REAL ME, not a lie, not a fabrication, not a character in a play, but a WOMEN who very much appreciates where I am at, with only the constant regret I couldn't have had the puberty blockers available now, and I couldn't become the full girl I was at 5! I even had to pay for all my treatment privately as I could not take the life risk of waiting one more month before getting the treatment after I shed my false masculine life that by then was killing me very quickly.

Maxine's story gives me hope that now more will be done to avoid the cruelty of children going through the pain I did, with a sense of no hope, mixed with suicide attempts. If anyone thinks this series was an exaggeration of the truth, and was unbelievable, then believe me when I say, with the knowledge this was a drama played out in TV time and therefore was a simplification of a very real challenge for all too many of us, that it WAS extremely close to how it is for anyone with a transgender condition. It made me cry so many times when I saw myself in the story, but remembering I had none of the help Maxine had. I was a child very alone, very scarred, and terribly confused. That is the REAL story and anyone who cannot stomach that truth, sorry, but you have not woken up to the realty of life. You are living in your own 'perfect world' where no challenges exist, wearing blinkers and expecting everything to 'be normal'. That is not real life. We are all different in thousands of ways, and accept it and grasp it to really taste life. People have many medical conditions to cope with and Gender Dysphoria is one of them that if left untreated with full, early, transition to the correct physical gender recognised by the brain, can KILL.

No amount of surgery and pills can can change a persons sex; to advise children otherwise is cruel. Max will always be a boy with lots of surgery, no matter how girly he looks. I grew up dressed as a boy, doing boy stuff, still wear mostly masculine clothes but know and glad I am a real woman. It terifies me that if I was young now people like Mermaids would medicate me.

I agree you can NOT change a persons SEXUALITY, but we are talking about GENDER IDENTITY.

Before anyone can transition there are many hoops to go through and hurdles to jump. You are assessed by many specialists in the medical and psychological fields. I had, even at my late age at the time, appointments with doctors, psychiatrists, specialists at gender clinics, and finally surgeons. I ended up with a big dossier of reports, assessments and recommendations, that in the end was evidence given to the Government's Gender Identity Panel for my final Certificate of Gender under the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Believe me, no child will just be given the green light for reassignment without all the necessary checks being done, as in Maxine's case, but significantly condensed for the benefit of fitting in many years of development within a three hour TV programme. All the checks last years, and before any medical treatment is given a RLT (real life test) of at least two years must be completed whereby the patient has to live in their "chosen" gender for that time. This has actually been criticised as being cruel and unnecessary by some specialist in the area of gender identity, which I agree with as even as an adult it is a very painful, often humiliating experience, as you try to take on your true identity appearance whilst battling your body which is in opposition to this. But they are the current rules, so no adult, let alone child, should be able to slip through the net and end up in the wrong gender identity. Conversely I challenge anyone who is not suffering with the effects of Gender Dysphoria to live in the opposite gender that they were born to. Do it for a week, a month, let alone two years? Would you put up with all the pain, humiliation and hate crime you are subjected to, let alone living as a women when you are actually a full bloodied, testosterone fueled man. You will not be able to do it, no more than I could carry on living as a so called man when everything I wanted to do was just be another woman!!

Jane, Days wasn't talking about sexuality but sex. To many of us, for good reason, gender identity is a social construct that services to damage women. An oppressed class can not identify their way out of their oppression.

No, Days WAS on about sexuality, but re-read her post for yourself!

As for your other comments; what on earth are you talking about?! We are talking in this thread about CHILDREN who suffer from Identity Dysphoria, and nothing to do with whatever women's lib message you are trying to attach to it. Gender is a key part of everyone's identity and has nothing to do with any political message about "oppression". It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with GD and oppressed souls; I was not oppressed by any means coming from a middle class family, and it has never applied to all the many transgendered individuals I have met. Their condition had NOTHING to do with how they were brought up, in what social class they came from, how much money or not they had. It all came from within, their, and my, inner self which from usually a very early age; between 3/4 in my case, and the same for many of the transgendered woman I have known, and not from any outside source at that stage. IT had no chance whatsoever of having any political connotation at that early age; we were CHILDREN and with a serious Gender issue.

Please do not bring women's Lib arguments to this discussion. It belittles what children like Maxine in the story, and those such as me go through. Most women I know willingly accept having sex and do not feel any oppression by having it. When it happens they also enjoy the children it produces. If that is not how you see it then go and seek professional help as you obviously have a hang up, a challenge, that should be dealt with. But do not bring your completely different adult political issues into this discussion about transgender children.

Ah, a woman being told to shut up about women's issues, then gaslighted into "getting help" - how totally refreshing! You just scream female empowerment.

Neitger days not I are talking about the act of sex or sexuality, as in the person you're attracted to. I do not have a gender identity whatsoever. The concept of gender relies on depressing stereotypes designed to damage women, and saying that children like Max are female because they don't like football/have body issues/like pink is NOT something to be lauded. Honestly, gender is so regressive and people can't even see it.

Whatever!

You are so wrong in your assessment of the Maxine situation and then going off on some tangent away from the threads topic, that you are just showing the ignorance that i have witnessed all my long life. I come from a strong line of women who never allowed themselves to be oppressed or whatever you are trying to explain. If you think being a "woman" is all about wearing pink, not liking football, not liking boys toys, and no doubt only liking dolls, it just shows how out of touch you are with male to female transition by a transgendered child,, let alone women here in the 21st century who may do the opposite of all that.

You are stereotyping and placing children and adults in boxes with labels, whilst claiming you have no gender, although you say you are a "woman"!!?? But, if that is what you believe, well fair enough! I will not waste my time saying anymore to you. I am on this thread to talk about childrens gender disphoria.

I will never ever be convinced that the right course of treatment for a young child with serious MH issues is to alter their body in such a drastic and potentially damaging or irreversible way. If Max were in real life he'd need serious intervention not the delusion that he can change sex, when he can't.

I come from a strong line of women who never allowed themselves to be oppressed or whatever you are trying to explain

HA!! Spoken like someone who has not a clue what being a woman is like. No one chooses oppression. No woman chooses to be have such a high chance of being a victim of rape or DV. I matter how "strong" you are - I guess you think all the victims of FGM, rape, assault and abuse are 'weak' women then?

If you think being a "woman" is all about wearing pink, not liking football, not liking boys toys, and no doubt only liking dolls, it just shows how out of touch you are with male to female transition by a transgendered child,, let alone women here in the 21st century who may do the opposite of all that.

Ah, you're taking the piss now, no? Because I have clearly stated I believe the very opposite. Being a woman is purely about biology, nothing more, nothing less. what you are describing is what people like me are trying the stop - the "gender identity" that only serves to damage with ridiculous stereotypes. "Maxine" was no more a girl than I am a fish. He was a boy raised in a dysfunctional home clearly driven by aggressive masculinity where he was made to feel inferior or disgusting by liking skirts and Kylie Minogue.

You are stereotyping and placing children and adults in boxes with labels, whilst claiming you have no gender, although you say you are a "woman"!!??

I am a woman (no inverted commas needed) because of my SEX not gender. Gender is a bullshit concept that I and many other refuse to "identify" with. It doesn't exist, it's abstract in every way

The makers of Butterfly would have done better justice to trans children if they hadn't copied Susie Green's disturbing story of what she did to her son. If Max had been raised in a happy house with no toxic masculinity and sexism, THAT would have been a better story.

Yeah, it's the Susie Green story innit? what a wonderful mother does, to disregard medical advice and take their child overseas to be castrated. Marv.

And if you dare dissent it's the SUICIDE KLAXON

FFS

janekent 'I grew up hating any image of me as I would not accept that what I really looked like; a boy, when I KNEW I was not. By 11, after years of practice, I was well used to raiding my mum's dressing table and using her limited cosmetics and clothes to give me the look I knew I should really have, but my war parents would not have understood.'

Simplistic, I know. But I want to understand. I'm female/hetero. I've never 'raided my mum's dressing table'. I've never been into make-up or clothes. I've never bought cosmetics.

Why do these things mark you as 'female'?

There must be something deeper than that.

(I'm not doubting you - I just feel that the pink/cosmetic/highheel markers are dubious. Not exactly things that could be identified on your DNA.)

Yes gutrotweins my experience as a trans woman was MUCH deeper that "raiding my mothers dressing table". It was the whole package of emotions, inner feelings, and the rejection of my body in the form it was born in, with my brain and heart in line with telling me to act very differently to how I was expected to live by others. On any forum I could never sum it all up; hours and hours of consultation with "experts" could never sum it up, no more than the 32 hours of counselling I received (the counselor stated I needed at least double that amount of consultation (but the money wasn't there to pay for it) just to come to terms with how society and my family had treated me when I had come to terms with my condition. I now live, as I hope any character like Maxine can now live, at peace with myself in my correct form, being able to circulate in society, helping others, free as my true female self as I previously explained in earlier posts.

As I will repeatedly state: "Remember people generally are not just 'Male' or 'Female', but many shades on a huge spectrum of identity, well before you get on the subject of sexuality. Those who still believe that people are generally "normal" or peculiar / strange / inflicted / a nutter, belong in an age of long ago. God made us all different, so celebrate it and positively help those who require it, such as transgender children."

It does still worry me that some still confuse sexiuality with Gender Identity, but one day there will be a greater understanding and help system in place to aid real Maxine's in the future.