woman loses residency of son she was raising as daughter

[BombadierFritz]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3859618/You-caused-son-great-harm-insisting-raising-girl-Boy-seven-sent-live-father-mother-raised-daughter.html

hmmm. ok so its daily mail reporting but I am conflicted
perhaps good if child was being pushed into something he wasnt
but wtf with the boringly stereotypical insistance on the type of toys played with

*I would also remind you that bthe people in this group are not just putting Mermaids down but they are also against you and I as parents who allow their children to live and be who they want to be.

What threads have you been reading? Please link*

links back most of mumsnet

Just on this page you have:

^'peddling the myth that a male can become a female'
'mutilating them and making them sterile'^

Saying:
'Nobody's denying that dysphoria exists or that there are people that don't conform to their gender'
and
'the dissonance between someones gender and sex will always be profound in people who believe that they can become the opposite sex'
is like saying 'cancer is real' so 'just stop believing in cancer and you'll be better'. You might as well be saying 'just pray the trans away'.

That kind of advice is unhelpful, not medically relevant and could well pollute the minds of a parent. It's like prescribing homeopathy for cancer patients - it doesn't work.

Unfortunately when the vast majority of people who do transition experience significantly better outcomes (measured in quality of life terms, suicide/self harm rates, mental health etc.), when people who are supported by their families and wider society during that transition experience significantly lower incidence of self harm and suicide attempts and when detransition rates and so-called transition regret is crazily low you kind of find it hard to argue that maybe the problem is 'believing you can change sex'.

Sources:
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/09/02/peds.2013-2958.abstract
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24275005
link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11136-013-0497-3
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574768
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22145968
www.gires.org.uk/assets/Medpro-Assets/trans_mh_study.pdf

But hey, those are cold, hard facts from various research done recently and internationally (not some widely debunked Swedish research paper oft quoted by the anti-trans lobby). Do your own thinking here people.

But please, carry on telling me how abolishing gender will make GNC and potentially trans kids better when all they want is their body to be more inline with the way they feel.

You have no frame of reference for this if you aren't trans so please stop trying to tell other people how they think. I am trans, I work with trans people and trans children. Mermaids probably isn't the perfect shiny rainbow unicorn charity you hope it might be, and they probably get things wrong from time to time because it's run by people. And people aren't perfect.

Trans kids need support, they need the chance to explore their gender in a comforting and supportive environment. Equally their parents need the right advice and guidance as well as support so their kids can lead happy lives and make the right choices. That choice may involve puberty blockers, hormones and surgery at the appropriate point. Doing 'nothing' is not always the right option. The 'right point' is open to debate and probably variable with the individual as well. Tavistock are usually pretty spot on although significantly overworked.

So please rather than trying to villify a charity for your own personal agendas and beliefs how about actually trying to support them and the children being affected by this. I'm already noticing a significant increase in worry for parents of trans children around this judgement and various issues falling out from it, and that needs to be addressed in the right way, not with more 'oh you can't change sex' codswallop.

Some people are trans, get over it.

Also read this:

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/trans-people-tabloid-punching-bag

Paris is pretty spot on with all of this right now (as she usually is...).

^'peddling the myth that a male can become a female

Has a chromosomal replacement surgery been Invented?

Cancer exists though?

You quoted Paris Lees and said she's usually 'spot on'? I just lost all respect.

And I absolutely agree that some people are transgender. But they're not, and can never be, the opposite sex.

ATransMum
"Some people are trans, get over it"

No-one is denying the existence of trans folk. Everyone is saying that men can dress/do/present as they like, ditto women, and that is absolutely fine.

People do object to to the lie that people can change sex, they cannot.

People also quite rightly question the wisdom of transing children, which at the extreme end results in sterilisation.

Surely these are not extreme views?

Let me put this another way.

Your AFAB child says 'I want to be a boy'. Consistently, persistenly, over several years, and is self harming and has attempted suicide because they are going through puberty and does't want their breasts to grow any more.

You can:

a) Tell them they can't change sex.
b) Listen to them and talk to agencies like Tavistock about the right options

Which one do you think gives the child the best medical chance and quality of life?

'You have no frame of reference for this if you aren't trans '

Well, yes I do. Sorry.

I have a frame of reference including a surprising amount of personal distress at my own female physicality that I had kind of left behind until I started a peripheral kind of work in this field, huge cuts in CAMHS, exponential rises in personal visibility and expectations that you will put yourself physically on show (men and women) in ways that have never happened before, huge rises in visibility of transitioning as a process, and huge levels of violence and body shaming that is very gendered - and I'll actually say that both sexes get this, in different ways. I have a frame of reference including living with someone with both a severe mental health diagnosis and consequent treatment for it, which together have huge physical and sexual effects, so the idea that THIS thing over here is mental and THAT thing over there is physical and never the twain shall meet and it's a huge insult to be told that something has a psychological element... I know, for certain, that this is nonsense. If you are telling me that transition has absolutely nothing to do with people in huge distress finding their personal path through that distress, I would say that you are wrong. Where I would perhaps agree with you is that transition can actually be an effective path through that distress. And it says some pretty grim things about our society that there is an epidemic of people who have to almost leave their previous bodies behind to find peace.

atrans

Couldnt i do both

Say sorry sweetheart but at the moment medicine isnt good enough to completely change sex but we will do whatever we can to get you as close as we can if thats what you really want to do and maybe medicine will catch up one day

I think it's very likely that the child will desist after puberty. I would not allow my child to come into contact with any gender therapist at all. Instead I would find a gender critical therapist who used evidence based interventions.

Or c) do both

If a child has gender dysphoria how on earth does lying to them help? So they get the hormones, the surgery, top and bottom. Yet despite all of this painful, invasive, sterilising surgery, and (probably shortened) lifetime of hormones a MtT does not have a female body - they have a sophisticated copy of a female body. Their vagina needs constant dilation, and does not lead to the cervix and uterus because they don't have one. They will never menstruate. A FtT will never have a properly functioning penis and cannot ejaculate.How much would that fuck you up - to have all this surgery that TBH can't even get you close to the male or female body that you crave.

Evidence suggests that four in five pre-pubertal children diagnosed with GID do not go on to experience the condition in adulthood.

I'm hoping this will reassure those parents on here who are going through distressing times.

Not because I hate trans people or wish they didn't exist, but because I think medical transition is a very poor outcome for anyone. I would support my child to live, dress and present however they wished though.

Atransmum

So it's better to bring up kids in lies and Half-truths? I'll repeat. If my DD became an anorexic there is no way in God's high heavens would I bring her to a 'charity' 'nhs agency' or anyone anywhere that said 'OK you're anorexic.let's get you some liposuction ASAP'

It's been said time and time again that 'childrens' brains aren't fully developed until they are 25. How anyone can justify claiming Thierry son is gay at 18 months and transgender at 3 years of age is beyond me.

But, real transgender adults are not my problem my problem are parents pandering to children's "feeling' or worse, forcing their own gender issues on their children. And men with fully functional penises in women's spaces. Just because they feel like a woman when I have yet to read an answer to the question

'What does being a woman feel like'?

And furthermore, you are also massively restricting their chances of future happiness in a fulfilling sexual relationship.

And furthermore, you are also massively restricting their chances of future happiness in a fulfilling sexual relationship

As evidenced by poor Jazz Jennings saying that the straight boys she know won't date her because it's 'social suicide'. No that's not why it's because you're not female and they're heterosexual. Her parents have lied to her about what she can be and its tragic.

Rufus I acknowledge some people have a wish to live life as the opposite sex. However at the moment medicinal intervention can only attempt to maintain the outward appearance of the opposite sex; it one cannot even begin to change someone's sex and will never 'catch up'. It may be distressing to have to accept this but wishing it different does not make it so. i could have lipsuction to make me 'thin' but I will still have unseen fat around my internal organs that would impact on my health even if people compliment my trim tum.

I think it's very likely that the child will desist after puberty

Yup. If by 'desist' you mean 'die'. Because that is also likely.

Evidence suggests that four in five pre-pubertal children diagnosed with GID do not go on to experience the condition in adulthood.

Sorry, nope, that's been debunked here: www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/the-end-of-the-desistance_b_8903690.html

It's exactly that kind of crap that I'm trying to fight against. Because you are basically saying 'oh they will probably grow out of it, don't do anything'.

I think medical transition is a very poor outcome for anyone

Unfortunately the evidence on all respected long term research into the outcome on trans people (you know, the like 5 articles I linked that are all proper scientific research from all over the world) is that medical transition is a much better outcome.

You are of course entitled to have an opinion. But opinion does not outweigh fact.

And for the poor mum's dealing with trans children they need facts, outcomes and science. Not your incorrect opinions.

ATransMum I find it extraordinary that anyone would think that when there is a disparity between feelings and bodies, we shouldn't look to alter the feelings rather than a perfectly healthy body. If the body is perfectly healthy then clearly the mind isn't.

If the mind said 'my left arm shouldn't be there, it's wrong, I don't like the way it feels', and the arm is perfectly healthy, would you seek to amputate the arm, or help the mind, even if that was a long and arduous journey? At no point would you actually consider amputating the arm, would you?

But when the mind says 'I don't like my genitals, they're wrong, I don't like the way they feel' we should do the exact opposite? Really?

From the Jackie Green article:

GID is diagnosed if a child displays several characteristic behaviours, including repeatedly stating the desire to be, or insisting he or she is, the other sex. Most pertinently, many children with GID become increasingly distressed – to the point of depression – as they get older, especially approaching puberty. Typically, they express disgust at their genitalia.

Followed by:

Evidence suggests that four in five pre-pubertal children diagnosed with GID do not go on to experience the condition in adulthood.

But why wait? You'll be right one time out of five...

And furthermore, you are also massively restricting their chances of future happiness in a fulfilling sexual relationship.

Actual lol.

My sex life is a million times better now I'm happier with my gender.

being trans is like

No it isn't. Seriously.

Say sorry sweetheart but at the moment medicine isnt good enough to completely change sex but we will do whatever we can to get you as close as we can if thats what you really want to do and maybe medicine will catch up one day

This is basically option B anyway. But that is also a very valid approach and sets a clear expectation.

blae

I realise that you cant change sex

But trans mum was talking about what would i tell my child

I would tell my child that they couldnt change sex, but we would do what we could

My sex life is a million times better now I'm happier with my gender.

That's great for you, but you are very lucky.

The problem is, taking MtT as an example if the MtT is sexually attracted to women, straight are unlikely to be attracted to them as they present as women, and gay women are unlikely to be attracted to them as they are male. The converse is true for FtT.

Not impossible certainly, but narrowing the potential pool of partners very significantly.

My sex life is a million times better now I'm happier with my gender.

YOU are an adult. I'm presuming you made the transition in adulthood. When I was 10 I wanted to marry Boy George. I repeated it continually. I had his picture by my bed and I'd kiss it last thing at night and first thing in the morning. By your standards I should have been transitioned.

To quote you actual LOL