The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

[Kettlepotblackagain]

Sometimes, when I think of the way hard earned women’s rights are starting to erode I think my blood is going to boil over. I get so fucking angry sometimes, about this fetish, this cult, this delusion that is fast being forced into our lives.

But then I speak to the mum of the boy at my children’s school, who says he wants to kill himself because he’s not a girl. I stay quiet because entering into a debate is inappropriate. I watch the video that’s Rowan linked on another thread showing Tara the trans NHS inclusion worker, earnestly trying to educate people on these isolated groups that are at risk because they are afraid and ashamed to interact in everyday life. I read about how trans people just want acceptance and how these groups, with their jargon and pseudo science are simply being a voice for those without one.

Don’t these Twitter TRA warriors realise it is these people they are hurting? Are we sometimes too quick to dismiss that at the heart of this absurdity and hijacking of women’s issues are genuinely good intentions? Can we accept this as GC feminists? Should we try to remember this more?

I don’t think people on here are dismissing the vulnerability of people suffering gender dysmorphia.
If my child said they wanted to kill themselves because they were not a girl, I would want to know what they thought being a girl would bring them that being a boy didn’t. What were they struggling about with being a boy? I understand that the school gate is not the time to chat about this, but with all other children’s troubles, we try to understand what is at the root of it and address that. When it goes beyond what we are comfortable with, then we seek support and referrals.

Because it is not possible for my DS to become a girl, I would want to understand all the factors which made him unhappy with being a boy and address these. If one of those factors was body modification, then I would be saying he is as nature intended him to be, which is just perfect.

One of the things that makes me angriest about this whole situation is the likelihood that vulnerable and unwell young people are being denied adequate mh treatment because so much distress in this demographic is being attributed to gender dysphoria after which it becomes professionally impossible for any health professional to address it other than by a referral to gids

It really makes me appreciate the trans people who are speaking out about the harm caused by some of the better known activists.

It must be really difficult for them to make a stand but perhaps there's only so much gender critical feminists can do alone, due to those issues you've raised here.

Children all the time say things in unhappiness such as they want to look different, want to stop going to school, want to self harm, etc. We don't simply allow them to do these things. We find out what is actually happening. Have other kids said something? What are they thinking? Etc Etc. That is pretty basic mental health care for children and adults.
But totally appreciate that at the school gate is not the time to raise that without looking like an insensitive ass.

No, I’m not going to go into detail but it is a very serious problem for this child. It’s real. It’s genuine.

I think the more radical transactivists (including non trans people) don't really care about trans people unless they join in the radical activism. I've seen how they treat transpeople who speak against them.
But you make a good point kettle

Just watched a BBC doc 'Ugly- body dysphoria'. I can't help thinking this is similar phenomenon. Proper treatment and finding root causes should be the primary approach. Psychological issues rarely present in a simple way. TRAs do more harm than good.

Well said Tallulah
There will always be people who are genuinely euphoric and op's friend's kid may well end up transitioning and being happy but good, informed, psych support to alleviate the crisis of their distress will give them time to calm, grow, be sure. Being suicidally distressed is absolutely not the mental state in which to be making life altering decisions. Get better and THEN, if you still want to, transition; transition is not the way to feel better in and of itself.

Oh ffs: dysphoric not fucking euphoric.

Yes very true MrsW

Nobody said it was not a genuine problem for the child or asked for details.

I know Katara - I was perhaps a little too hasty, but that was in response to crunchys comment 'children say things all the time in unhappiness' it's implied it was perhaps just a phase or masking the real problem - although I accept that may not have been the implication.

I don't discount that mental illness is a serious thing. I had a mental illness and was put in a psych ward for a month. I get it, trust me.

What transgenderism is, is an assault on the planet and women. It's funded by rich white autogynephiles who are hoping to make some serious money while promoting the mutilation and sterilization of children.

They know what they're doing.

They are purposely putting little kids and their traumas as the face of this anti-earth, anti-woman movement.

Don't be fooled.

I never know quite what to say in situations like this.
I have been suicidal since I was seven. The gender roles were narrowly restricted, the children were cruel, and the abuse by adults was both physical and emotional. Much as things are today.
My first response when confronted with suicidal ideation in a child is to look for evidence of abuse.

I had a suicidal teenager. Two of his closest friends killed themselves; in one three week period when he was 15 he went to sux funerals. It was a terrible time.

Many teenagers are unhappy for many reasons. I don't support encouraging them to transition for the same reason I wouldn't support them in taking illegal drugs, or stopping eating, or running away. We can only support unhappy teenagers will really good mental health services - and that is what is lacking, and what my son would have benefited from.

It's ironic that these days it's still impossible to get good counselling and mh support, but it is possible to get puberty blockers. There is something wrong with a system that says "here's an unhappy child, let's fill them full of drugs".

Obviously if that child is still unhappy and still convinced as an adult that their distress can be fixed by transitioning, that's their choice. But to collude with a child by telling them that they can change sex and by doing so become happy is just wrong. Factually wrong, and also morally wrong.

Children aren't born finding their bodies unbearable. I don't believe that.

How is transgenderism an assault on the planet and anti-earth. That must the one of the most bizarre accusations about it I've read!

Very difficult, dud you watch the bbc doc on trans children . The psychiatrist on it ( forgotten his name ) was v interesting on the various reasons this could happen.

I ask highly recommend the book Crazy like us. It charts the differing attitudes to mental distress ( illness) in different cultures.

Mancheeze - I do agree, but isn't that part of what it makes it so complex? That there are people within this who do genuinely have good intentions...don't we have to remember this? Be angry yes, but be mindful?

The child mentioned is still in Primary school...I don't know a huge amount of the exacts but I do know it has been a problem from very young. It's not a teenager channelling unhappiness into a gender identity crisis...

I agree. I see what is happening to the, for one of a better phrase, genuine trans people. I worry for them. I worry that self ID means they won't get medical care they need. I worry that they are going to face the backlash while the TRAs doing this for fun will just go back who they naturally are, changing identities as easily as changing clothes.

But I also worry for the children and teens who aren't really trans. I worry for the trans widows. I worry for the ones going ahead with modifications and finding they don't really change sex and that they have now massively lìmited their dating pools.

And I worry for the women and children who are being used for validation and who are suddenly a hell of a lot more vulnerable.

This activism really does help no one long term and will do so much damage.

I just want to talk, openly and honestly, about what's going on.

In order to communicate properly, we need to agree on at least workable definitions of words, including acknowledgement of biology.
I genuinely believe that the extreme side of transgender ideology can be really confusing to everyone. Just think about how quickly all this terminology is changing. How fast we've gone from saying "a man who feels like a woman" to "assigned male at birth but now female." Not to mention other gender identities like non-binary.

How are we meant to teach people about their bodies and reproductive sex? Doesn't this kind of language alienate them further from their physical selves? Why is whether you have "M" or "F" on your passport so important, while simultaneously your actual biological sex of male or female is now considered irrelevant? When did this happen?

When I first started thinking about trans issues, they referred to what were called transsexuals. And the framework for thinking about it made sense to me... But now, the trans umbrella is so broad, I fear it has lost sight of who it was set up to shelter. The extreme trans activists don't seem to care about how their rhetoric and policies will affect other groups, including females, or what long-term effects on transgender children might be, or even on how we will be able to accurately record trans health outcomes on a broader scale if we can't identify what people have physically transitioned, and what people haven't. The ideology, combined with increasingly aggressive trans activist tactics genuinely scares me.
I think what's happening is divisive, hurts everyone, and alienates us from each other. As you point out, it's the vulnerable (especially the young), who will suffer the most.
I guess all we can do is try to show empathy and remember there are gray areas in all of this? I feel badly for that child and their family. And anyone who is struggling.

I'd agree that humans as species are anti-earth and an assault on the planet.

I can't see how gender comes into it?

Everything Hersy said. This movement, in its relentless bid to include everyone, includes no-one. For these violent and abusive TRAs I don't even think it's about being trans half the time now....

There are many very good reasons for children in our society to be extremely distressed. Domestic violence, abuse, bullying, being socialised as a subordinate female, believing yourself to be a failure as an insufficiently masculine male, objectification and sexualisation, relentless academic pressure, poverty and its attendant chronic stress , constant crisis and lack of opportunity

Patriarchy, inequality and austerity contribute to toxic relations within the family, the workplace and the community. This makes people, especially children, ill. This regressive genderist ideology is a massive red herring that is preventing us from understanding the true causes of our problems at the same time as monetising them through the normalisation of dangerous drug regimes for pubescent children.