I cannot believe that Mumsnet - a parenting site!! - agrees with the following:

[badgirlswatchagonnado]

1. Giving children drugs off-label that have ZERO long-term safety studies

1. Advocating surgery below the age of consent

1. Teaching children LIES (changing sex is physically impossible, and thus a lie)

1. The enforcement of redactive, prescriptive gender stereotypes

1. Encouraging children to ignore parents to get advice from strangers on the internet (and even to leave their parents and live with above internet strangers)

I made a comment last week that was short, but encompassed all the above behaviours and labelled it as abusive.

Because surely it is abusive to treat a child in such a way.

But Mumsnet deleted it, and stated it went against their guidelines, which is the same as agreeing with the above.

Mumsnet isn't interested in child protection.

Mumsnet is happy to see children being injured by dangerous drugs.

Mumsnet is happy to have other posters advocate surgery, drugs, and lies while people like me - who are against these things - get our comments deleted and sanitised.

Just thought people would like to know.

There's a whole lot of sophistry going on here. There is no equivalence between saying "we do not allow you to state here that this thing is child abuse" and saying "we think this thing is totally fine"

I agree with Pratchet < #klaxon! > that the OP is defamatory.

The line mnhq seem to have drawn is that it's not ok to say that it's child abuse to parent a child in a way that permits them to present as trans, and access legal and legitimate medical treatment for them.

The legal and medical status re trans children is outside the control of mnhq. Can you really not understand that you put the platform at risk by using it to accuse parents pursuing legally and medically approved treatment for their children of being child abusers.

Given how massively important it is to be able to clearly delineate and recognise child abuse in order to safeguard children, I'm surprised so many posters are willing to use the term in this context.

And before anyone has a pop at me, I'm am not saying that there are never cases where a trans child is subject to child abuse.

But nowhere in the list of things considered child abuse or safeguarding warning indications does it say "child is permitted to present as the opposite sex and to seek appropriate medical treatment in the U.K."

It's not legitimate treatment. It's reversible, damaging and sold on a lie.

irreversible fuck it

As someone more eloquent than me put it: parenting 101 - don't sterilise the kids.

Which thread juzz

I totally agree with you, OP. Mumsnet is on the wrong side of history with these guidelines and deletions. They go against child protection completely.

Are we allowed to say that the current legal and medical status re trans children is child abuse? As long as (obviously) we don't mention specific children?

Because it is. Giving children untested drugs would not be allowed in any other medical field. ffs, even life-saving drugs can't be given to anyone, adult or child, until proper, full medical testing is done. There are very strict guidelines around this. People die while waiting for those test in many medical fields, for the simple reason that we, as a society, must avoid the mistakes of the past such as thalidomide and others.

I can't understand how (a) safeguarding is so disregarded here and (b) we aren't allowed to question it.

When people wake up and realise what they've done to themselves and their kids, it's going to be a whole lot of personal hell. What will it be like in 20 years. My goodness.

Is it also ok to say that to disregard safeguarding rules and encourage children to take advice from randomers on the internet - knowing that those random people are suggesting buying and taking illegal drugs - and then, knowing what the children are doing, facilitating the cover-up and helping them to hide their actions from their parents is child abuse?

Because if it was in any other field than trans rights professionals (doctors, teachers, counsellors, support groups) doing this would be considered at best neglectful, at worst pure abusive.

Am I allowed to say that?

No5 on ops list is called grooming. It’s a known safeguarding concern.

It is also known that abusers target and groom adults to get at kids ie single mothers/adults who work with children.

Jimmy Savile successfully groomed almost the entire country aided and abetted by the media and politicians, to get access to children and vulnerable adults.

Old timers may remember the mother of a trans child who used to post here years ago. She'd left a well known group for such parents because she strongly disagreed with their ethos. She described other parents using the group's meetings to discuss ways of obtaining cross sex hormones illicitly. When she left the group she was pursued with suggestions that if she didn't facilitate medical transition her DC would commit suicide and it would be all her fault. It was nasty stuff.

Prawnofthepatriarchy

Wow that’s horrific! I do think in some cases (not all) it can be a manifestation of munchausen by proxy. Can I say that if I’m not aiming it at a particular individual?

Either Mumsnet HQ are supporting medical experimentation on children because they truly believe it's the right thing to do or they're supporting it because it's the expedient thing to do.

The latter seems worse.

<a class="break-all" href="https://fairplayforwomen-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/fairplayforwomen.com/boy-lived-stealth-judge/amp/?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQECAE4AQ%3D%3D#referrer=www.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Ffairplayforwomen.com%2Fboy-lived-stealth-judge%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> In 2016 a little boy was removed from his mother after she tried to trans him against his will. He went to live with his dad and by all accounts was fine after he got away from his mother. Mermaids was banned from trying to contact the child. The organisation kicked off but later deleted some of their comments.

The judgement isn't long and it's very clearly written.

The line mnhq seem to have drawn is that it's not ok to say that it's child abuse to parent a child in a way that permits them to present as trans, and access legal and legitimate medical treatment for them.

If this is the thread I’m thinking of, that position wasn’t actually put forward at all. As far as I’m aware nobody was mentioning this as a ‘bad parent’ issue at all.

What was raised was the following, and all of these are worrying

Direct ‘marketing’ (for want of a better word) of incorrect and medically dangerous information to minors. For example this BBC link that promotes puberty blockers as safe harmless and reversible: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/XZjhcLhQW08Ylw5b0p9xgH/gender-dysphoria-transgender - even worse was a link to a group actively promoting ways for minors to access these drugs directly with no medical supervision. If that’s not grooming, what is?
off label prescription of powerful drugs to minors. Drugs that are being prescribed off label, with no oversight.

• that said drugs are being promoted as being safe, harmless and reversible. To reiterate - this is not the case. These drugs (puberty blockers/GnRH analogues) have the following side effects that we know about: cognitive damage equivalent to 8-10IQ points, osteoporosis, sterility, metabolic damage, and suicidality. Crucially these drugs are actively contraindicated For use in young people with ANY kind of mental health issue.

The whole issue of “legal and proportionate” treatment is one I’d strongly contest. There can be no ethical justification for dosing healthy children with these drugs. They have horrific side effects.

These cannot be questions we can’t raise. No one should be criticising individual parents (but as i said if it’s the thread I’m thinking of nobody actually did.) children’s lifetime health and well-being is at stake here. I’m sure parents are doing v the best they can but how can they make informed choices when they’re given information that doesn’t reflect medical reality?

I remember the 2016 case. I always wondered if the mother was a poster I remembered from here.

Other than that well done that Dad and well done that judge.

I feel beyond sorry for parents who genuinely believe they’re doing their best for their kids who will one day come to realise they weren’t.

She described other parents using the group's meetings to discuss ways of obtaining cross sex hormones illicitly.

This is really beginning to worry me now. First that bloody dangerous website on the Lupron thread offering to provide information and sources to obtain puberty blockers illegally and now testimony from a mother who observed this happening.

If there are 800 to 1,000 kids on properly (well, legally) prescribed blockers in the UK, how many more are there obtaining black market drugs?

I feel sick.

@Prawnofthepatriarchy - I'd not heard of that case before. What the poor child went through is horrendous. I'm so relieved that his Dad was given custody of the little boy.

@LangCleg - I feel sick too.

Beggars belief. And it is very hard not to be angry with MNHQ for the guideline stance they have taken that effectively mutes any clear dissent about uncritical acceptance, and the irreversible medication pathway and surgical mutilation of children and young people.

I mean, good god, look at what I just wrote. We're in a situation where those facts are not in dispute, we are just told they are a positive good and we mustn't critique this behaviour - or at least must do so in the most oblique of language.

I am not going to rail at MNHQ, but as the mother of a GNC child, this is extremely relevant to me, and I am continually shocked at the state of affairs.

Just as an aside. My understanding is that most pharmaceutical drugs are not tested on children, after all who is going to consent to that. They are on the whole tested on adults and doses titrated accordingly for child size. Likewise pregnant women.....the children who may currently be taking the hormones are the guinea pigs! The research money needs to focus more on the triggers / underlying causes for being 'trans' .

iamawoman
beat me to it - drugs are not tested on children, so technically speaking all drugs given to children are 'off licence'. Interestingly drugs are rarely tested on women, pregnant or otherwise, as so many women are either on or have taken the pill. Drugs are tested on fit young men initially prior to clinical testing, ie people who are actually in need of treatment . For everyone else - we're all 'off-licence'.

Well I've got my second deletion for my views on child abuse.