Parents who won't 'affirm' 8 yr old gender change being referred to social services

[Wanderabout]

This is really, really disturbing:
mobile.twitter.com/cwknews/status/1022394312556990465

This isn't sensible NHS doctors who are training or advising professionals to do this, based on firm evidence.

This is adult transactivists such as this transwoman:

mobile.twitter.com/cwknews/status/1022397462114443265

Hasn't Tara Hewitt also been attacking the NHS GIDS clinic currently, for trying to have an evidence-based discussion?

Tara sounds exactly like Snappity on the ROGD thread.

This is worth a thread in AIBU or Chat

In the GIRES training linked by R0wantrees at the end of her post upthread you can see various pages advocating that teachers and other adults should maintain confidentiality in defiance of safeguarding guidelines and 'affirm' primary school children (as young as 4) without question and without sharing information.
Just in case the 'this never happens' brigade are about.

Beupstanding good idea I would want to know about this if I didn't already. Are you up for posting it?

Re the new Self ID 'consultation'.

What is being peddled is ideology of activists within the trans movement and Conservative ideology when it comes to social services, NHS and mental health provision.

The Conservatives want the latter to disappear under 'nhs provision' and the former facilitate this. Right wing ideology in action and winning.

Horrendous that this is happening.

The professionals involved display FII (fabricated induced injury) behaviour!

I totally agree here. Pushing their own issues onto vulnerable children. The ignorant people pleasers scarmbling to put them on a pedestal.

Please can I also just mention that there are other serious MH disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) which is very real and complex and often stems from severe abuse/ neglect, and has a specialised but underfunded NHS clinic, that can present as feeling like another person/identity including an identity of the opposite sex. This has the purpose of denying or masking overwhelming trauma and/or overwhelming confusion so that the person can cope and get by (and not kill themselves or go completely 'mad').

Sufferers do suffer great distress and chaotic lives at times but may be high functioning in certain aspects of life (a benefit of the trauma being 'split off' and hidden away inside the mind), meaning that contrary to the movie representations, DID can actually be difficult to recognise sometimes unless you are aware of the condition and are close to a person and complex in children.

I share the concerns posted on the thread above and it is also my concern that some children with DID will be misdiagnosed and herded into affirmative gender transition treatment, totally missing that there might be serious underlying problems.

It is one thing to try to stabilise someone in severe distress, but another to collude and reify (to make more real) a delusion or emergency coping strategy. (This would apply to ROGD too and I think I will start a thread on reification.)

I don't know why more MH professionals are not speaking up abut this trans stuff. But I don't know why I am surprised as too many of the MH professionals I have met over the years in various settings have been severely lacking in compassion and education and very biased against patients (dismissive and accusing of attention seeking etc) and especialy women, and the service is criminally underfunded.

Very frightening times for children, parents and those with MH problems.

As a new mother this absolutely terrifies me. I had no idea things were getting this bad in the uk. :(

I live in Ontario, Canada (from the uk originally) and the liberals made changes to the law a few years ago to allow children to be removed from parents who refused to affirm their gender under the guise of it being child abuse. I believe it was designed to target religious and conservative families, but I have no doubt that it will be levelled at anyone who tries to resist.

But, coupled with the fact that until recently they were teaching this gender identity stuff in schools from a young age as part of a recently updated sex-ed programme (which has since been axed by the new conservative premier) and the closure of the only big clinic which took a counseling approach... Affirmation is basically the only option available right now and I think that’s wrong, especially when you’re threatening to remove people’s children if they refuse.

I know Canada is not the UK, but it’s horrifying to see that SW’s in the UK are starting to push for removing children from their parents for refusing to affirm. It’s bad enough that activist groups are trying to drive wedges between children and their parents through pushing schools to keep things secret, and in some cases grooming children online in this ideaology, but this just makes things so much worse.

at the end of her post upthread you can see various pages advocating that teachers and other adults should maintain confidentiality in defiance of safeguarding guidelines and 'affirm' primary school children (as young as 4) without question and without sharing information.

Neither of the DC schools has mention trans anything to us.

Yet a recent now rare walk home with older two children and they started a conversation with me.

Yr 6 was confused - sex and gender hadn't be defined and most he has got from it was being trans was "good". He'd also been taught boy girl brains stuff which I pointed out wasn't backed by research.

Yr 8 - had been told she needed friends from diverse backgrounds - nothing bad about that as she friendly with people from different ethic groups, countries religions and social backgrounds - but apparently it meant gender and sexual orientations - though gay and lesbians hadn't been mentioned. On being question she wasn’t sure why only it looked good.

Other than promoting trans as good to my children the schools seem to have just really confused them - the idea that they could then without any input form us their parents go futher is worrying.

I've become increasingly concerned about this as a GP. I've only referred a couple of people to our gender clinics and both were of a Gillick competent age and very insistent at wanting referral. I didn't do much counselling or discussion myself thinking they'd get loads of that at the clinic.
I'm now concerned that clinics just go down the affirmation route with very little discussion of the disadvantages of being trans and exploring thoughts on sexual stereotyping, why they can't live the life they want and have the job and partner they want in their born sex etc and am thinking I'm going to have to book anyone wanting referral in the future a long appointment with me to discuss this stuff if no-one else is.
It does seem that anyone going on gender awareness courses just gets one sided brainwashing.

Your post has moved me, rather uncharacteristically.

It's such a relief when people who are in a position to gate keep see the problem for what it is.

Me too.
More professional people, as you say the 'gatekeepers' need to get on board with this.
I don't blame the ones who don't.
In the current climate, it can be professional suicide to raise one's head above the parapet.

Still, they can't police people's thoughts.

I think in primary care we're used to assuming the people in secondary or tertiary care know what they're doing and letting them get on with it. The exceptions are usually related to cost restraints where I have to battle to get patients seen who've been bounced back.
The trans situation is unusual in such one sided pressure being put on health professionals to promote a particular view of gender and transsexuality and particular treatments and with objective research being opposed.
I can't think of another field of medicine where the patient group has so much influence.

2rebecca - I too am relieved to hear a GP being sceptical. My child (born female identifies as male, has ASD) was referred to the adult gender clinic by the psychiatrist who was treating anxiety and depression. I have no problem with that. The waiting list is very long, but I am very anxious that when she gets to the end of it, no one will question her intentions. By that time she gets to the clinic she will have been living in her gender role (as a student, so not exactly real life). In the meantime, no input at all, except for a phone call from a gender support worker telling how to get her passport changed to "male". Oh and the GP practice changing all her medical records to male, without her asking.
Of particular concern, apart from the autism which was undiagnosed until 19, is the fact that she is way behind her peers in emotional maturity, but competent in other ways.

It is a strange world we live in when I live in fear of my child getting medical treatment.

Her non-binary friend, who has BPD and a history of suicide attempts, has just had a double mastectomy (privately), aged 19.

I know Canada is not the UK, but it’s horrifying to see that SW’s in the UK are starting to push for removing children from their parents for refusing to affirm. It’s bad enough that activist groups are trying to drive wedges between children and their parents through pushing schools to keep things secret, and in some cases grooming children online in this ideaology, but this just makes things so much worse.

It is horrifying and more so when you consider the utter crisis foster care and children's homes are in. To take children from secure homes and place them into children't homes or utilise the ridiculously overstretched fostering system (those under private ownership presumably benefiting financially) for something like this (not affirming and instead talking through ideas of gender etc) is nothing short of abuse of children by the very system purporting to protect them. There is not room for children to be removed for such 'transgressions' - our system is already broken and suffering badly, foster care in Britain (particularly England) is in a complete crisis - so it stands to reason that what we really want to be doing now is removing children from loving and supportive families for not affirming their child's gender confusion. You can still be supportive and loving to your child without accepting everything they think or feel without question.

I find the situation in Canada so frightening @ManiacalMagpie - I am interested in hearing more about it as I think we are in grave danger of following the same path. If you feel you can, would you be interested in starting a thread about it?

I can't think of another field of medicine where the patient group has so much influence.

Me neither.
Or where medical treatment is pushed despite such a high natural resolution rate.
Or where such powerful and damaging drugs are prescribed with no physical indication and against the contraindications they have.

It’s horrendous.

Dr Michael Laidlaw (endochronologist) evidence given to California senate Foster Care BIll June 2018:

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=0Lu1r1pyGFc

Tweets here: twitter.com/MLaidlawMD

There is a continued push to align trans with homosexuality which means that questioning that gender non-conforming behaviour in children is anything other than being trans is the same as subjecting gay children to conversion therapy.

Once trans* became a diversity issue rather than a mental disorder, affirmation became the only acceptable outcome. www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(15)00022-X/fulltext

April 2018 Sanchez Manning article in Mail on Sunday:
'NHS sex change drugs are putting hundreds of children at risk each year warns top doctor who says medication could lead them infertile or cause sexual dysfunction'

(extract)
'The health of hundreds of children is being put at risk by sex-change drugs doled out on the NHS, a leading doctor warns today.

Dr Lucy Griffin, a consultant psychiatrist at Bristol Royal Infirmary, says she is ‘extremely worried’ about the long-term effects the medication is having on adolescents.

She is the first NHS doctor to publicly voice fears about the damage being done by the huge increase in young people receiving irreversible medical treatments after declaring themselves transgender.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Griffin reveals that:

Patients are being given drugs to change sex after claiming they are transgender, despite having serious psychiatric conditions;
The NHS is ‘running scared’ of challenging requests for transgender treatments in case it is accused of bigotry.
Medicines being given to teenagers to help them change gender can render them infertile, cause osteoporosis and result in sexual dysfunction, Dr Griffin warns.

Two treatments are causing the most concern. One is ‘puberty blockers’ which are not classified as sex change drugs, but instead halt the onset of adulthood.

Their effects are completely reversible when patients cease taking them.

The other treatment involves the administration of ‘cross sex hormones’, that do start the physical process of changing sex.

Last year this newspaper revealed that 800 children in England who were unhappy being the sex they were born were being given puberty blocking injections.

Some of the children were as young as ten years old.

But Dr Griffin said that such medication was never designed to treat patients who are confused about their gender. (continues)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5642577/NHS-sex-change-drugs-putting-hundreds-children-risk-year.html

2rebecca - I also just wanted to add a word of thanks as your posts have given me a little hope.
It’s worth adding to maniac’s post that there has been huge backlash against the changes to the sex-Ed programme (and that while I am not a huge fan of the new premier, I find it interesting that he has the strength to make this type of change in the face of serious liberal opposition). There are also discussions developing in BC and Alberta with regard to curriculum changes in this area. What is disheartening is that most are still linked to religious conviction. It’s a little uncomfortable.
I’m interested in the research idea of trying to identify links between pro-trans outreach to schools (which is beginning to look a lot like grooming or cult recruitment practice) and referral upticks. Would Mermaids eat al have to disclose outreach details in their annual reports? FOI disclosure? As a charity they have to have certain details available, but I’m a few years out of date on UK charity procedure.

Link to thread discussing the interview with Dr Lucy Griffen:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3228447-Transing-children

I am lol at my autocorrect Mermaids are pretty dangerous, but afaik not cannibalistic. Poor old Al.

Once trans became a diversity issue rather than a mental disorder, affirmation became the only acceptable outcome.*

Absolutely this. ^

It was several years ago when I wrote a post on here culminating in something like 'gender dysphoria is a medical issue. It's not something that should suddenly be elevated and given extra civil rights.'

It felt extraordinary to me that something which was a medical condition, was being rolled out as a completely different issue.

Which is why when people like Snappity call it exploring one's identity, I see red.

You don't call schizophrenia exploring one's personality. Ffs.

OrchidInTheSun
That link you posted...

Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness; however, internal biological conflicts—a yearning to live in the gender role dictated by the brain, not the genital sex, or phenotype—might lead to a mental health diagnosis.

What does that mean? That gender dysphoria is simply a wish not to have one's life dictated by sex role stereotypes?

Many trans* people have chronic anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, agoraphobia, substance abuse, and feelings of low self-worth, detachment, and body dysmorphia.

To treat these mental health issues with affirmation of an opposite sex 'gender identity', leading to sterility, sexual dysfunction and a lifetime of medication is criminal.

“Trans* people are just ordinary people”, says Terry, but a minority that are marginalised and vulnerable to social exclusion. “We need to celebrate diversity not just tolerate it”.

But they're not doing that by pushing people into gendered boxes. The way to 'celebrate diversity' is to accept people as they are, not tell them they need to change sex.

As well as hormone treatment and surgery, adapting to a gender role that has not been part of your social conditioning, with changes in cognitive and emotional functioning, brings its own set of challenges.

Hormone treatment and surgery - so that people don't have to conform to the gender role which applies to their birth sex - this is just insane.

Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness; however, internal biological conflicts—a yearning to live in the gender role dictated by the brain, not the genital sex, or phenotype—might lead to a mental health diagnosis.

I think that means that GD is a natural thing - like being gay. And that if you're denied the opportunity to wear skirts and lipstick, then you'll become mentally ill. There's no questioning that gender stereotypes are a load of shit that trap everyone.

I don't know what the rest of that article means - it's a load of shit. If this was any other field other than trans* health, there'd be calls to show peer reviewed evidence. But this is all personal experience and shit surveys.

Having see how hard it is to get any kind of mental health issues addressed by camhs, I'm finding it hard to believe there are people referring 8 year olds without parents consent. I just can't imagine a school referring a child unless they were in extreme and constant distress. I'd like to know who has referred a child against the parents wishes at that age?

I don't know what the rest of that article means - it's a load of shit.

My thoughts exactly. Why on earth is the Lancet publishing stuff like that?

the amount of allogations that have been trown at trans people on this thread is staggering I hope you reported the people you felt were doing this to children as it would appear serious. if you didn't report them why not I'm concerned if you didn't.