Susie Green

[dorade]

First thing first, I fully support Posie Parker.

I decided to look at a bit of the backstory including watching Susie Green's TED talk.

Starting from the premise that mothers want the best for their children, I tried to consider how she travelled down the path that she did.

Clearly she didn't have a problem per se with her son playing with 'girl toys' (although the father was sending strong messages to the child that he did).

To my mind, the only way Susie Green can have taken the path that she took is that she must believe that someone can really truly be born in the wrong sex body. If you believe that with religious fervour then the actions that follow, particularly if medical professionals are validating you, don't seem as outrageous.

There then comes a point somewhere down the line when you have gone so far, where you can't allow even a chink of doubt to creep in because the whole house of cards and the horror of irreversible decisions would be too awful to contemplate.

For Jackie, I am sure much of the attention has been unpleasant but equally instead of being a run of the mill gay man he can be feted as a 'brave beauty queen'. His mother gets validated by Buckingham Palace and the Police amongst others.

Sorry, this is all a bit stream-of-consciousness, but what I'm trying to say is that at the root of it we must challenge the narrative that it is possible to be born in the wrong body. It's not.

We also need to retain humanity towards those who, aided and abetted by professionals and under dire warnings of suicide, have made awful decisions.

Terrible situation

+1 Lang.

Yes, the religious reasons do feature in many of the narratives. My theory is that people who are not very clued about science and medicine and who have an unshakeable faith in the existence of God and the literal truth of the Bible or the Quran find it a lot easier to accept a made up medical reason for a child not conforming to gender stereotypes than accept them as they are. Their view is that girls/women behave one way, boys/men another, and this is set in stone and not to be challenged. If a child does behave differently, the religious community and the family put a lot of pressure on the parents to punish the child and force them to conform. The great fear is that the child will turn out to be a rebel, a non-believer, gay, or all three.

If the child's behaviour continues to be a concern, they get taken to a doctor. The doctor tells the parents that the child may have been born in the wrong body. The parents accept this because they see it as analogous to any other congenital problem which modern medicine can fix. Child switches over to the 'true' sex, finds it easier to conform to the stereotypes for this one, peace returns.

Have they had their distressed relived though?

Hasn't it been said that the surgery does not reduce the suicide stats.

When your whole life has been fighting the battle to be accepted as a boy or girl/man woman, undergoing surgeries to change every feature reminding you of what you are, once it's all over, where do you go?

Once you can stop just how do you stop.

Like all those people who started off wanting s boob job then keep getting surgeries. Face lifts and tummy tucks and can't stop.

Eerie cross post with Flomper there!

yes very similar to the RL experience of the person I know. Religion and intolerance of anything "other" is a dangerous combination I think. Any yet, ironically, it's us gender critical feminists who are accused of being "phobic" and intolerant, when we are saying let children behave anyway they want, not according to 2 very narrow, out of date stereotypes.

Some people are just completely homophobic.

They'd rather fit their son into the "girl" box than the "gay" box as they see it.

Pretending that your child has a birth defect can be easier to live with than examining your own homophobic attitudes.

Just write it off as an Act of God and don't look at yourself. Must be tempting for some people.

Have they had their distressed relived though?

Hasn't it been said that the surgery does not reduce the suicide stats.

Well, there's the rub. Affirmation therapy - which I also consider to be religious dogma - is not helping. Dysphoric people are being led to believe that physical transition is a cure-all, when clearly it is not. Thus the follow-up figures aren't great.

That said, I do believe there is a place for medical and/or surgical intervention - when it is in the best interests of the patient and the patient has a rational understanding of a realistic outcome.

That said, I do believe there is a place for medical and/or surgical intervention -when it is in the best interests of the patient and the patient has a rational understanding of a realistic outcome

I agree with this. And I know it's daft to go by edited tv and you tube clips.but are they being told the truth about the surgery. I'm not saying the Drs are intentionally lying more that in a bid to convince themselves they did the right thing that perhaps the feed back and the stats the Drs are using are not as truth ful as they should be?

With jazz for example it's all been a surprise. The lack of a penis for inversion. The use of the colon for the vagina. If the truth was told befire the first but if the chest surgery how many would still go through witg it. The sex is a huge sacrifice

Feed back from the patients I mean. Are they lying to the Drs who are in turn using the feed back as positive outcomes

For some Christian people, Christianity is cultural. They don't pick up a bible, they don't give it much thought.

Jesus was all about love. Jesus wasn't into people having promiscuous or polygamy relationships. Jesus was all about forgiveness.

I very much doubt Jesus gave much more thought to sexuality as he doesn't mention it nor trans, he is focused on other things.

Jesus would want a child, be they gay, GNC, Autistic or trans to be loved and accepted as they were born, because God loves us all and wants us to love each other.

Those are my thoughts as a Christian. I guess like feminism, somebody will come along and tell me I am doing Christianity wrong.

I hadn't thought about the 'little mermaid' story before but it is very apt if you consider the original not disney: the little mermaid got her legs (at some cost) but was unable to achieve what she longed for and died/turned into sea foam.

It’s incomprehensible that anyone can think it’s okay to remove someone’s sexual and reproductive functioning. They’re such basic functions for all mammals.

May I also note an observation about Michael Caahman?

I would like to do two things. Firstly apologise to MC and others that were treated badly by others in the name of Christianity. Those people should have shown you love, they like all of us are imperfect and have free will.

The second thing is a relative of mine, a Christian, protected a gay colleague in the 1980s from a homophobic colleague trying to get him sacked.

My personal belief is that MC is projecting and still hurting from bad behaviour he endured in the past, most of the people that hurt him are pensioners or dead now.

I've been reading a lot of posts on here from Jaycee (trans, MtF, decades ago) over the past few days to try to understand the issue from all perspectives, and the agony of going through the 'wrong' puberty comes over very strongly.

Jaycee's view seems to be that regardless of any warnings of pain, shortening of life expectancy, public criticism, sexual function or anything else, she would have regarded physical transitioning as worth it and indeed the only way to live with her body.

Maybe Susie Green had read similar accounts and assumed her child was the same.

I am so, so dubious though. We had one of those dramatically glittery boys, unhappy enough to talk of suicide, frequently calling himself a girl's name, writing stories in which he was the girl protagonist. Our GP was concerned enough to refer him to a counsellor, who quickly dismissed the idea that he had a gender identity problem and suggested we sort out the school bullying problem he had instead. I hope that's still what happens in the majority of such cases, but in a climate of affirmation and when every child over 5 has now heard that 'boys can be girls inside' I suspect there's much more chance of incorrect diagnosis and of children unnecessarily believing themselves to be trans.

I just came away from the ted talk wondering if susie green really wanted the best for her child.

I didn't like the photos she showed of her child in skimpy attire.

I wondered about the Dad. Did he have to come around so that he could have a meaning relationship with his child?

For example someone me and my DH know bought their girl all toys that were domestic products, ironing boards irons, toy vacuumed cleaners etc.

We actually had a discussion how we just would have those types of toys. I actually grew up with traditionally boys toys.

We could t believe our friend was so into their daughter having these types of toys.

We don't know really what the story of the father is in relation to his child and ex-partner.

I was a tomboy when young. I probably still am. I played with action man and toy guns. I wasn’t in the least bit interested in dolls or princess stuff.

When my sons were young they had dolls, toy kitchens, dolls houses and pink stuff. Didn’t do them any harm.

I hate all this gender stuff that’s going on now. I grew up during the 80s when pop stars wore makeup, could be effeminate etc. Women had short hair and power dressed. I really thought things were changing, particularly when gay people felt they could come out and it all became mainstream. I don’t think people felt as socially constrained, yet here we are, back to putting people in boxes and then closing the lids.

Yeah on the toy thing sorry me and my DH would not buy cleaning product type of toys like pink vacuum cleaners and irons.

I grew up making model planes Luke f 16/ which I bought with my own money I didn't think it made me more or less of a girl though.

Whenever my DS wanted to play hoovers, I just gave him the real one

I think what can be drawn from all of this is the absolute certainty that a child's (supposed) desire to "be the other sex", doesn't come just from them, and their inner voice. Both family and social pressures and prejudices all have a part to play. I was astonished to see the Iranian Women's Football Team, which has 8? Transwomen in it. Apparently it is more acceptable in their society to become a Transwomen than admit to being gay. I think this view is more widely shared than we might first suppose.

This is a really fascinating read, and demonstrates how a change of mindset can be a better solution than reaching for the hormones and scalpel.

www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201803/different-stripe

"Jaycee's view seems to be that regardless of any warnings of pain, shortening of life expectancy, public criticism, sexual function or anything else, she would have regarded physical transitioning as worth it and indeed the only way to live with her body.

Maybe Susie Green had read similar accounts and assumed her child was the same. "

That's why I think it's dangerous for MIT to come onto a parenting website and state that they were unhappy, suicidal even to go through puberty or not 'live as' the opposite sex. I think most parents, above all else, want their children to be happy and will sometimes go to extreme lengths to make that happen.

I'm not saying MIT shouldn't talk about their childhood, but I think caution should be used. And I think the threat of having a suicidal child should not be used against parents.

Well if my child said they 'would be better off dead and never born' I wouldn't go to the extreme lengths that would entail in order to facilitate it.

LostArt

Opps!

Meant to add, good post LostArt

However I got the impression that the dad was so disapproving the kid felt that he had to choose. Be a girl to play with this or be a boy and have daddy not approve

She now says that their ex son/ new daughter 'has his father wrapped around her little finger'.

See kids! That's how you get your homophobic dad to accept you- just cut off your genitals and accept a shorter life span!

On one level, I have a great deal of sympathy for SG: she was stuck between a rock and a hard place is my feeling (between child and husband). And, as is so often the case, it became her job as the mother/nurturer/female to find a solution.

But I do think cross hormones and surgery should be a last resort, not the default. And I simply cannot see why explorative therapy is considered such a great evil/transphobic.