Brendan O'Neill in Spiked: "There's no such thing as a "trans kid"

[welshbookworm]

Politically I'm a long way from Brendan O'Neill and Spiked on most things, but this is basically a balanced and thoughtful article. As Meghan Murphy has said, the issue of transgenderism is creating strange political bedfellows.

www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/22/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-trans-kid/?fbclid=IwAR0ePOVt3O75aQ-BEgstP_68ktypjr_99YJLxCFaiuPrDDNot69iI2i-K8c

Great article, I agree that there is no such thing as a trans kid.....there are confused children but everyone should be supported to go through puberty & mature into a young adult. Only then, and after considerable counselling should they be allowed access to hormones & surgery. Telling children they’re born in the wrong body is cruel.

I can't remember who said it, but I remember seeing a quote (maybe it came from a tweet?) that a transgender 3 year old is like a vegan cat; we know who is really making the decisions.

I understand that there is a particular concern in relation to children. But I would question whether it's possible to have a trans adult either. What do we mean by trans? A person who has a type of body dysphoria that means they wish they were the other sex? Clearly there are people like that. But trans in the way many trans activists would have it, that there are people who 'know' somehow that they are women/men despite being of the other sex? Who identify as the other sex on some unknown basis? I don't credit that. It seems to me that accepting that means accepting that there is a basis that is not biological to being a woman or a man and I think that is dangerous and supports social roles for men and women.

The vegan cat thing has been a useful analogy for a few years now. No idea where it came from.

Suffragettes on the one hand I get what you mean but on the other, of course there's such a thing as a trans adult.

It's someone of one sex who wants to be perceived by society as being of the opposite sex. Some go to extensive lengths to achieve that. Some go to lesser lenths.

Trans people do exist and they deserve protections such as protection from discrimination, abuse etc etc. I draw the line at agreeing to TWAW and TMAM. They aren't. TWATW and TMATM.

(It's VERY unfortunate that Trans Women Are Trans Women leaves you with "Twat women" so it's never caught on quite).

Obviously then you go deeper into GC thinking and you end up with... well, how are they not just men? So I get that too.