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.

By non affirmative I mean one does not tell for example a born female child who thinks they are born in the wrong body that they are correct. Nor would one tell a child they can change sex. To go along with the idea that they are the wrong sex is affirmative.

Both of the above are biologically incorrect - humans cannot change sex.

Instead I personally think an exploration (age appropriate of course) with the child about WHY and from WHERE these feelings come is appropriate. So (age appropriate) talks about society - how society has these narrow stereotypes. How women are socialised to behave and dress and present a certain way. How the child does not and why that is absolutely OK and normal and does not mean there is anything wrong with them at all.

Obviously how this is done is very dependent on the age and capacity of the child. You can have a fairly in depth chat about oppression with a teen, less so with a preteen.

I’d also stress looking at co existing disorders and conditions - autism, depression, anxiety etc. Puberty is stressful and quite horrendous for a lot of children as it is - to be coming of age in a world where girls are expected to behave in such a narrow way and in such a porn soaked society is really toxic for many kids. Several autistic posters on here have made some very insightful posts about feeling they didn’t fit ‘the rules’ for what a girl ‘should’ be and thus would have been vulnerable to someone telling them they were a boy.

It’s a complex situation. I have huge sympathy for both parents and children. I’m also firmly, passionately opposed to doing anything irreversible (which includes puberty blockers) to any minor.

What a lovely clear description, Bowl. Par for the course, though.

GenderApostate
You have told us what you think of those who seek to treat gender incongruent children... however you didn't answer when asked what those should be done. Or are you relying on others to answer for you? It's OK to say you don't know... none of us have all the answers.

Bowl. That's all fine and dandy. I actually agree one should try to explain biology, gender, societal expectation etc., but what if the child still insists they are (or feel they should have been) the opposite sex? Conversion therapy until they desist?

Your use of "conversion therapy" reveals your agenda, Poula.

but what if the child still insists they are (or feel they should have been) the opposite sex? Conversion therapy until they desist?

Conversion therapy? No, I wouldn’t say that at all. Supportive therapy, watch and wait, exploration of coexisting disorders.

Indeed you can argue that affirmative treatment IS conversion therapy - how could one for example reconcile what might be at a later stage a lesbian autistic young person with telling them they’re a straight boy? These are children, they don’t have a mature orientation yet. That’s conversion therapy. It’s only when the adult stage is reached that one can assess a person properly.

Watch, support, wait is the only ethical treatment for minors. The affirmative irreversible pathway is too invasive and damaging.

I’m assuming the reference to conversion therapy is in the light of the proposed law change announced today to make gay conversion therapy illegal?

GAy conversion therapy isn’t illegal in the UK (I was surprised I have to say) but campaigners are trying to get gender pit in there too.

This would a grave mistake. Firstly it will setup a conflict as described in the example of the future autistic lesbian young woman above

Secondly it would make it illegal to refuse children damaging puberty blockers - that’s a dangerous road to go down.

I lurk on MN for useful discussions on this issue (I have preteen kids) but also other issues. I am amazed MNHQ haven't been on to this thread to clarify what was wrong with the @BadGirls OP that they banned. Maybe it is the words 'child abuse' because it conjures up images of sexual abuse, or battering children? I would say that the use of untested, off-label cancer drugs that have very serious harmful side effects on children is irresponsible and reckless. I'd also say that if it is done because of a belief in an unproven, unscientific and sexist ideology that 'sexed brains can be born in the wrong sex body', then that would be extremely worrying cult-like behaviour, and that is a safeguarding issue. Put those together - irresponsible, reckless and damaging treatment of a child due to extremely worrying cult-like behaviour - and you can see why so many are concerned about this and are raising the alarm bells. In any other area it would be rightly called 'child abuse'. Why not this area?

For children that persistently claim they are the opposite sex then they need to be helped to understand that there are many ways to be a boy or a girl - or an effeminate boy or masculine girl - and need 100% support in that, not being told they are the 'wrong sex' (which would simply reinforce all those sexist stereotypes, and teach them something that is unscientific, irrational and not true).

Hi Sunkisses can I just ask do you think trans people exist. And there is such a thing as being transgendered at least in. Adults or do you think we are all wrong in our belief? If you don't beleive that which on here is a possiblity then I can understand why you would also think that it does not exsist in Children too but if you are ok with adults being trans then guess what we used to be children too and many of us knew we were trans back then too and would have loved to live in a world. Where we could have to confidance to come out and actually be taken seriously and helped young people are not stupid they will not say something if they think you are not going to help them they just close up so all you would do is stop them coming out until they were grown up this is a damaging approach for young people

Hi Sunkisses can I just ask do you think trans people exist. And there is such a thing as being transgendered at least in. Adults or do you think we are all wrong in our belief?

Of course transpeople exist.

‘Wrong in our belief’ - in what sense? I believe you believe it, if that makes sense. I know that the belief is there that a person is ‘the wrong sex.’ That must be very distressing and disturbing for that person.

The problem is how to manage this.

Because when you ask and probe ‘why do you (the generic you) feel you’re a woman?’ The answer is never defined. People say they feel like they’re a woman - but how do women feel? They say they know they’re a woman - but how? When you break it down it comes down to stereotypes. I dont think think there’s a set of feelings that are unique to being a woman. What there are are two things:

1. Societal stereotypes that are attached to ‘women’
2. The sexed body -ie female biology.

The first, well that is something that changes over time and culture. And a man can do any of those stereotyped behaviours, it still doesn’t make him a woman, but I think men should be as free as women to wear/ act/whatever those stereotypes. Stereotypes are crap - they harm men and women.

The second and really the only thing that ‘makes a woman’ is biology. And that’s where you run into the wall - people cannot change sex, so where do you go from there? Nobody can change sex.

Telling a child they are the wrong sex is wrong. It’s pushing crap narrow gender stereotypes that damage us all. A girl is a girl, because of her biology, regardless of what she likes, her hair, her clothes or her toy preferences. She’s a girl. I loved dinosaurs, space, lego, chemistry sets and had a loathing of pink. Hated dresses, just wanted to climb trees and resented being told to sit nicely etc. The thought of what some people might encourage me to do with that now I find very disturbing indeed - because I am a woman, and girls don’t need to like pink, they can do all those things I did and it’s totaly fine (I can’t even believe i have to make that point in 2018, I find it quite shocking.)

Telling a child they can change sex is wrong, factually. They can’t.
Putting a child on powerful harmful drugs that are untested in children and being used off label, when those drugs set that child on an irreversible pathway to futures sterility and surgery? That’s IS wrong.

So yes of course transgender people exist.
Their belief is real to them
But like all beliefs, it’s a belief. Nobody can change sex.

You are totally right about that and the people that work with trans young people never tell they can and young trans people are also very aware that they can not do that either. There are a lot. Of misconceptions about.what the actual treatment of trans kid is and it really is a watch and wait approch in a positive and supportive way. It is slow and is often frustrating for young people and there families hence mermaids campaigning for faster treatment. Because when you meet a young trans person who this is who they are it does become very apparent this is what they need. When you meet young people who are working it out and maybe it is not the whole answer that is. Often apparent too.

In my long life I have probably only come across half a dozen people who have genuinely been born in the wrong body. One is our best friend. I don’t believe for one minute there are several children in every school. Ffs David Bowie and others flirted with this years ago, rock music is full of people who like to mix it up, but stay true to who they are. Let them grow up and then decide. Unless there is another agenda altogether going on

Also on the feel like a woman thing which is a whole thread in itself. I don't feel like a woman in the sense I can say that's what a woman is nailed it. I needed to be on hormones and get surgery to stop the voice in my head that kept telling me all my life that something was wrong. This was not my first course of action I tried may others to stop it but this is the only one that worked for me

The wrong body discription is wrong it was a. Short hand in a time when people knew nothing. About us and we didn't want to sit there and explain it to people. I wish we had never used it as it does not discribe our experiance very well and if often misleading the reality is. Often more. Complex and I can only compare it to that annoying warming light on ya dashboard that you can never get to turn off. But know. One day your car will break

Excellent post Bowlofbabelfish

needed to be on hormones and get surgery to stop the voice in my head that kept telling me all my life that something was wrong.

That sounds extremely challenging to live with.

At the same time many, many people live with that warming light. For anxiety, depression, dissociative disorders, other dysmorphic disorders and a multitude of others.
For them, it may or may not go away but the treatment route is never affirmative.

Here’s an example: Roughly 10% of the population who are perfectly normal and have no psychiatric illness hear voices in their heads. How do we treat this? We don’t tell them it’s real. We tell them that 10% of totally normal people blah blah... because a LOT of those patients are really freaked out it means they’re crazy and of course they aren’t.

I’d say a fair proportion of the population feels some sort of warning light. Our society is plagued with anxiety and similar type illnesses. It’s part of the human condition.

No other type however gets affirmative treatment. Why does this one?

Well said Bowl! Year after year, despite careful explanations, transgender advocates pretend that the fact that we do not share their beliefs means we do not think they exist.
This is not the 'gotcha' they seem to think it is. As Bowl just demonstrated.

I do not share my Christian friend’s beliefs. (She’s an evangelical, I’m an atheist)

I’m well aware she exists - I’ve had many a scone in John Lewis cafe with her and I’m fairly sure she manifests on the corporeal plane.

Bowlofbabelfish

I think.you see mental health in a very Stright forward way and while. Your definition of affermative treatment is not used. We do. Infact treat a lot of mental illness in a positive approach see cbt and other cognitive therapies. As with most of the general public it is not a easy thing to understand if you are not in it and we are trying hard to change this perseption that it is not Normal to feel like this there is no normal and un normal. Its just numbers of people.

I'm not trying to gotcha I'm not noel edmonds but where do you think we all come from we all keep telling you we knew when we where children what. Makes you think. This generation is any diffent to ours but just as better access to services

No this generation has grown up in a very different way even to mine. Vastly different socialisation. Different pressures

I had: no social media telling me that girl= sexy long swishy hair, pouty nude/semi nice selfies
No social media telling me what to wear, buy or do
No social media on 24/7 to police my words and behaviour.
Far, far more relaxed gender stereotypes- I don’t know how old you are but I cannot even begin to tell you how NARROW these are now compared to when I grew up in the 80s. EVERYTHING was different. Kids generally wore bright coloured hard wearing stuff that wasn’t gendered because we were too poor not to pass it down to siblings of either sex. There was No princess culture. None at all. Kids just played with toys. I’m fairly horrified at how kids are gendered from birth these days. I think it’s toxic

There was no porn culture. There was porn but it was hard-copy. Mags and videos only. It was seen as fairly seedy and shameful. It needed a trip to a shop to buy. It wasn’t woven through media and society like itvis now.
Again I don’t know how old you are but the difference there is huge. The change in the sexual climate is very noticeable - look at all the threads on here with young people being expected to do anal/choking atcthe start of a relationship. That’s been normalised by porn - what was once something restricted to an adult, consenting relationship (in which adults can do whatever they please just so I’m clear on that) is now first shag stuff. That’s toxic too.

The media and pop music is different. As a kid in the 80s you saw straight men in makeup all the time (Bowie, the cure) - and it was totally normal! They weren’t trans. They were just dressing up and pushing boundaries and it was great. Girls could wear and look so many more different ways, short or long hair, make up, goths, the tail end of punk (although it was the tail end for me) indie kids, whatever. So much less conformist.

And it’s that conformity that gets me now - that’s so obvious. There is one way to be a girl. That’s a headband and pink fucking frills on a baby, then princess culture, then the single teen look (long hair, cake day on makeup, pouty.) and if you don’t that, you’re a boy!

Well fuck that. Fuck it. Girls can be whatever they want, wear trousers and be a mechanic. Boys can wear dresses and play with dolls and be caring and feminine. The stereotypes are so so narrow these days

So no, I don’t think this generation ‘has better access to care’

I think they’re growing up in a highly sexualised, highly toxic, highly stereotyped society.

And I also think they are being preyed on by a small but disproportionately influential set of people who have hijacked the (totally Laudable) aim of getting transpeople accepted in society.

(Pulls up chair, passes round tub of popcorn.)

Bowl your posts are excellent.

Your last made me think of some thing trivial, the long hair. It used to be so normal to have short hair. You just don't see it now.

Pass the popcorn then AngryAttackKittens no one. Said to bring. Snacks. Bare with me I'm on. My phone and I'm a little busy also but I will get there.

My tween niece has never had hair shorter than her shoulders and I hope it's because that's genuinely her preference and not because of social pressure, but how would you even isolate that in a kid of that age?

I had short (and long and everything in between) hair as a teen. It felt so much freer then. Now all the teen girls I see have the same look - it’s vanishingly rare I see one with short hair, or different clothing.

And puberty is bad enough as it is. I remember the sudden ‘men are now leering at me wtf?’ Thing and it’s awful. Add in social media, the ubiquitous photographing of everything and I feel so sorry for teens now. It’s a toxic environment and rejecting the sexed body seems a fairly rational response to that pressure.

I’m a gen X and I think probably the last generation to grow to adulthood without the mobile tech and internet. While all that is fabulous in many ways it’s also troubling in others.

The need for people who don’t conform to gender stereotypes to be accepted is important - transpeople have always been around and society needs to be more tolerant of them in general.

I do believe that they have been / are being used by a small vocal and quite unpleasant group of people who are using this as effectively a men’s sexual rights movement. Breaking down the boundaries we have been trying to give young people to keep them safe, removing women’s safe spaces etc. It’s all moving towards women being pushed back out of the public sphere lest they become public sexual property and degrading children’s safeguarding and boundaries.

I need to stress very very clearly that this is not what the majority of law abiding transpeople are pushing for - transpeople should have protection as they do in law and society should be more tolerant of those who don’t conform.