Transing children

[Pratchet]

Brace doctor breaks cover and warns of the dangers

Please note: by age 2 or 3, a child starts to develop a sense of being a male or female. Some children with a learning disability/additional support needs, however, may not develop gender awareness at the same age and stage as their peers. It is important that children with ASN are actively taught gender identity so that they understand the gender assigned to them at birth.

Conversely, this often requires blatant ‘boy/girl’ activities. However, once a child understands the gender assigned to them at birth, teaching and practice can diversify to include non-stereotypical approaches and allow the child to explore their True Gender identity.

This entire policy makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard.

It is important that children with ASN are actively taught gender identity so that they understand the gender assigned to them at birth.

There is so much wrong with this I’m not even sure where to start.

Or, radical I know, we could think that maybe the kids are alright as they are, and it’s we adults who are forcing them into little boxes..?

Please note: by age 2 or 3, a child starts to develop a sense of being a male or female. Some children with a learning disability/additional support needs, however, may not develop gender awareness at the same age and stage as their peers. It is important that children with ASN are actively taught gender identity so that they understand the gender assigned to them at birth.

Conversely, this often requires blatant ‘boy/girl’ activities. However, once a child understands the gender assigned to them at birth, teaching and practice can diversify to include non-stereotypical approaches and allow the child to explore their True Gender identity.

This entire policy makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard.

Also I have no idea what "feeling like a man" is but I have a sneaking suspicion that it related to the pain of accidentally sitting on one's own testicles in some way.

There is ample evidence to support that gender is a set of societally imposed expectations.

Tests to show unconscious bias, the subliminal messages that children receive, etc.

I can't remember which Magdelen Berns video it was, but she talks about gender and quoted all the leading health organisations, including the pro trans lobby groups, and they all concluded that gender was a social construction.

It was very surprising, but nonetheless that's what their literature said.

The idea that you can actually be born in the wrong body is not supported scientifically.

Plus detransitioners! Their narratives are remarkably similar.

angryattackkittens - that quote also gives me "the rage"! Autistic children in particular have been subject to a range of cruel techniques to force them into a more 'socially acceptable" mould. ABA "therapy" is another example which in the early days was really a form of mild torture for autistic children.

"Leave children alone" is my response to pretty much all of this bollocks.

AngryAttackKittens

There is lots about this ideology that worries me, infuriates me and shocks me, but the ASD thing went into the stratosphere for me.

The cruelty, rank stupidity, and just plain lack of common sense is breathtaking.

You take children who already don't get gender (because you are making it up), force them to arbitrarily pick one, then tell them it's wrong.

It's sick.

It's child abuse. Again, can the gender enthusiasts please leave children alone?

'experts' who have never worked with trans kids says one thing, and experts who work with trans kids constantly say the opposite.

Talk about confirmation bias....

thinkprogress.org/transgender-children-desistance-a5caf61fc5c6/

Is there a term for that (points up)? Argument by dropping of pointless links?

Experts who make money from transing kids? Experts who ignore current best practice guidelines? Experts who go against medical ethics? Those ones? Yeah sounds legit. What could possibly go wrong with people who are cool with prescribing shit like Lupron off label?

I’ll just drop a link in from some rando site that’s a blog about my personal obsession, rather than NICE guidelines, or any kind of peer reviewed actual science....

Bowlo the vast majority of medical institutions and ethics advise treating trans kids that qualify for the 2013 diagnosis criteria of gender dysphoria with affirming treatment. THAT is the ethical stance and best practice, arrived at through countless studies and expert opinion. Find me a verified WHO organisation that states the opposite, otherwise your opinion in against best practice and ethics is based in bias.

The Link I showed you was an article actually involving trans kids, The OP article was about someone with ZERO experience of trans kids, that is far less substantial than my link.

As ever what is always missed out of this conversation, is that trans adults were trans kids. I think trans people would have a hell of a better understanding of the risks, the benefits, and why gender dysphoria requires such drastic steps.

But y'know you just keep working hard to preserve that world view based in refusing to acknowledge you clearly know nothing about trans kids and trans experts, when you would prefer the opinions of those least qualified to give it.

But of course it's big pharma right? Riiiiiiiight!

@crispbuttyfan

"But of course it's big pharma right? Riiiiiiiight!"

... and the chemtrails, don't forget the effin' chemtrails! (and the oestrogen in the drinking water and the bad parents and and an.. ah well)

As ever what is always missed out of this conversation, is that trans adults were trans kids.

And the fact that a significant proportion of children who struggle with gender grow out of it..? Does that mean anything..?

Are you saying that the majority of medical ethics boards in the UK approve of off label treatments like lupron? Because that’s the reality of what you’re proposing. NOT ‘affirmative’ treatment which can be psychologically based.

Children do not have capacity to consent to these irreversible, life changing drug treatments. Or to surgery which will sterilise them.

These are children. Vulnerable children. Affirmative treatment including drug and surgical options is, in my opinion, child abuse.

Not quite sure what your point about pharma is - can you explain that?

@Bowlofbabelfish

"These are children. Vulnerable children. Affirmative treatment including drug and surgical options is, in my opinion, child abuse."

Bowl, is it just the drug and surgical options you disagree with, or do you agree that affirmative treatment per se is wrong? i.e counselling.

Although I'm still unsure about the ethics of puberty blockers. It's still something I'm pondering. fwiw I agree surgery should be off limits until a person reaches adulthood and had time to consider all options. However, it seems if qualified psychiatric and medical professionals consider a child to be transsexual and highly likely to persist into adolescence and adulthood, then affirming treatment, including ongoing support and counselling would seem like a reasonable compromise?

"but pushing children to transition who would otherwise have been gay IS a form of conversion therapy is it not?"

ah, I get it. trying to help someone unhappy with their body and how it works and society's expectations is not conversion therapy. Teaching them that they can't be gay they must be trans, would be conversion therapy. As in Iran.

The thing I hate most about that “trans adults were trans kids” argument is that the 80/90% of GNC children who desist are what - just nonentities to be cast aside in pursuit of a higher purpose?

Remember that pretty much everyone on this board was a GNC child, and many of us have GNC children ourselves. We also have input into this debate. It also affects us.

so difficult to stop the language being politicised.

Poula - by "affirming" are we talking about

• listening, echoing back "you feel that....", and "because you feel X we will explain to your teachers that you are going to do Y at school"?

OR

• "Yes, I have diagnosed that you are actually a girl. You have a girl's brain but were born in the wrong body."

I think most people are ok with the first (subject to competing sex-based rights) but not the second?

So I might be ok with "affirming", depending on what it is.

As ever what is always missed out of this conversation, is that trans adults were trans kids.

For every trans adult who remembers* their childhood dysphoria, there are four adults who also remember their childhood dysphoria and grew out of it.

There is no reliable diagnostic to ascertain which child will persist and which will not. Therefore, regardless of ideology or morality, medicating is a bigger risk than not medicating. It's a simple matter of numbers. First, do no harm.

(*This is without saying that adults construct explanatory narratives of their childhoods and that perceived memories are often entirely unreliable. Not peculiar to trans issues - we all do this with our memories. Memory is not reliable.)

I disagree with affirmative treatment to be honest. High numbers of kids get through puberty and decide they’re Ok with their gender, and as PPs point out, I feel that affirmative treatment is homophobic. I feel it is a form of conversion therapy and I feel it reinforces gender stereotypes in a toxic way.
I was very GNC and still am. I worry hugely that young girls are under so much pressure over this - puberty can be quite horrifying for young girls. I’m sure there is equal pressure on GNC boys. If you’re a bit ‘wet’ you can’t just be a boy who likes non boy stuff, or be gay, you must be a girl. It’s crazy.

Although I'm still unsure about the ethics of puberty blockers. It's still something I'm pondering. fwiw I agree surgery should be off limits

Puberty blockers are touted as ‘time buyers’ and reversible but that is simply not true. All these drugs have very serious side effects and a lot of those side effects are irreversible. Lupron in particular I know is being pushed off label now and that can have a devastating effect on metabolism, fat distribution, cognitive ability and bone health. It’s not a case of ‘take this and it just delays stuff a bit.’ These drugs will continue to affect the child for decades.

I can fully see how girls could be terrified by the changes in their bodies - to be suddenly physically matureing is to be open to the pressures adult women face and by stopping or binding breasts etc they hope to escape that. But that's putting all the focus and fault back on the girl. It is not she who is at fault, it’s society and their expectations of her as a sexual being. I escaped in my own way with short cropped hair and ‘boyish’ behaviour but I see so few teen girls do that now. The expectation is that a girl must have long straight swishy hair, a ton of makeup and act a certain way (which is fine if that’s what you really want.) I am not seeing the tomboys, the shaven headed biker booted girls like I used to. Their ability to be a girl in the way that suits them best is stripped from them, and they are forced down this road of being a boy.

And it is forcing. It’s grooming online, with Twitter, with pressure.

Children should be supported to express themselves however they want to - GNC kids should NOT be forced into little ‘girls do this’ boxes. They should be allowed to make their own way through puberty and adulthood.

Drugs are terrifying. Surgery is terrifying. Both are child abuse in my opinion.

What never seems to get mentioned is nature and evolution. If a percentage of humans are naturally transexuals, how and why did this evolve? With homosexuality it is easy to think of several explanations for how and why it evolved. Nothing unnatural is required to be homosexual. It involves only naturally occurring bodies and is consistent with evolution. Nature does not do mtf surgery or blockers however. In nature, according to tras, all transkids would be so distressed that they would all commit suicide before having the chance to reproduce. Only blockers save them in the modern world. How does this sit with evolution. What is the argument for how this evolved. Or is it a mental illness with no advantages.

Is there a term for that (points up)? Argument by dropping of pointless links?

Link ploppers

crispbuttyfan
Instead of random articles from sites with an agenda, what about a peer-reviewed article written by people who work in the field?
Treatment of Children with Gender Identity Disorder

As ever what is always missed out of this conversation, is that trans adults were trans kids.
But not all 'trans kids' grow up to be trans adults. From the paper linked above:
In our own follow-up studies, we have found a persistence rate of 12% for GID girls and a persistence rate of 13.3% for GID boys.

So nearly 90% of 'trans kids' do not grow up to be trans adults.

Quite an interesting paper. It mentions one boy with ASD and his parents' reaction to his declaration that he was a girl, comapared to other obsessions such as thinking he was a computer, and an obsession with male heavy metal rock stars:

David reflected that his parents may have been concerned about his desire to be a girl, as they knew that he was “really a boy.” He recalled his parents’ efforts to curtail his cross-gender behaviors by limiting his time and access. He discussed his belief that this was not the right approach, and that they should have just allowed him to grow out of this interest, as he had all of the previous and subsequent ones.

Terfulike - good point.

Bowlofbabelfish. Absolutely. It is outrageous that so much effort is going into calling out and dealing with transphobia (however that is defined) and absolutely no effort as far as I can find in calling out and dealing with bullying, homophobia and overwhelming pressure that GNC kids have to deal with.

And many of the new influx of transgender teenagers/young adults had no gender dysphoria growing up, even through puberty. And no they were not all suppressing their true identity.

The link up thread is daft. They are showing two sets of criteria

• one for gender nonconformity and the other transgender.

Both sets of criteria include the, (surely debunked), concept of playing with opposite sex toys, clothes, peer groups, etc.

The only material difference between the two sets of criteria is the distress felt by the child in question, and the difference between saying they are the opposite sex and they want to be like the opposite sex.

The first being trans, the second being GNC.

If a child says they are the opposite sex, it's just wrong to agree with them.

Sex is a description of biological function. That's it.

Whatever it is they are thinking, or feeling, it is not, quite demonstrably, being the opposite sex.

Interestingly, the older transsexuals we have on here say that therapy included getting them to acknowledge quite definitely, that they understand they cannot change biological sex. That they are still, and always will be, male.

It has to be understood, otherwise there is going to be a lifetime of pain. You cannot convince everyone you meet. It's impossible.

A child who is convinced they are the opposite sex, has either a mental problem, or a biological blip. Either way, they have not, and cannot, change sex.

It is an issue that should remain firmly within the confines of medicine.

Not taught in schools and celebrated with cakes and coming out parties.