Bloody hell BBC

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

Reading the BBC news online this morning and there is not one, but two stories about transgender people. One promoting the transition of a small child, and the other promoting sport for transgender athletes. The latter in particular looks like a direct attempt to counter the news discussion over the last few days in sport.

This isn’t news, it’s wartime propaganda.

typing in a hurry - I mean (as I think you know) that giving cross sex hormones and puberty blockers, untested and with a swathe of side effects, to children and young people struggling with body issues (as most of us do at some point) is appalling.

giving cross sex hormones and puberty blockers, untested and with a swathe of side effects, to children and young people struggling with body issues (as most of us do at some point) is appalling.

How is that any different than pumping a child dealing with abuse or a teenager / young adult dealing with PTSD full of chemicals so that they can cope or feel better?

Very few antidepressants are licensed for use in children, Sarah. Ones with the potent side effect of long-term sterility would be rightly condemned.

(I sound like I'm attacking you. I'm sorry. I've been through almost the identical thought process you are expressing here, and come down hard on the side of thinking that the obvious harms are so huge that they should rarely be permitted.)

How is that any different than pumping a child dealing with abuse or a teenager / young adult dealing with PTSD full of chemicals so that they can cope or feel better?

I assume you mean prescribing anti depressants?

there is nothing wrong with Autumn's body - it's perfect. no need to prescribe any drugs to Autumn to change their body

changing a healthy body is very different to prescribing drugs to help someone with mental health issues

Those with families like those here have had severe mental health issues and really struggled to deal with it and instead turned to self harm, eating disorders and even suicide.

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. 'Families like those here' or 'supportive families' are going to make bugger-all difference to the medical outcomes of sterility or of cancer risk. They may or may not make a difference to current and future mental health, yes.

I'd argue, though, that thinking about a child's future health and relationships is part of being a truly supportive family.

Incidentally, when one of my children was having some fairly serious mental health issues he expressed those in part as what would now be seen as gender ID issues.

Be very, very careful not to lose all sense of probability when the magic word 'trans' is uttered. In his case, once he was happier, and yes, less inclined to self-harm and suicide threats, he was also happier in his own body.

Some of those 'unsupportive' parents may be recognising the gender issues as part of a pattern of mental ill-health, rather than causing it by their lack of acknowledgement.

Sarah I don't know about any of that but two wrongs don't make a right! And, as others have said, there is nothing wrong with Autumn's body.

and you really can't see an issue with a post-pubertal male, who could be 6ft and 12 stone, playing sports against girls? You have to be trolling. No-one is that daft.

My daughter (7) has PTSD (she survived a near fatal illness and has trauma related to her time in paediatric ICU). She regularly sees a psychologist who specialises in working with seriously ill children and attends a quarterly group with other children her age (mostly cancer survivors). She also sees a therapy-through-play specialist to help her prepare for upcoming tests/treatments/interventions.
No one has ever once mentioned any kind of prescribed medications in relation to her PTSD.

Ooh Sarah you do seem to be having a huge problem conglating gender and sex. Our concerns are exactly that. Change your gender all you want.

I will say it again, just in case you missed it. You cannot change your sex.

• conflating

for you and your daughter Betty

I am so sorry to hear about what your daughter has been through

Thanks Bernard

And thank fuckity-fuck for our wonderful NHS and all who work in her!

I only use one towel in the shower but my husband uses every bloody towel in the house given half the chance. We must be doing this gender thing totally wrong.

We did discuss this gender thing and agreed that, clearly, we were each the wrong gender. But then decided it made no difference!

Sorry about your daughter @BettyDuMonde

Yes of course @RiverTam because anyone who dares to have a different view to yours must be trolling

That's great @DodoPatrol that yours now feels happier. Not all will. Which is why I think all options should be explored.

Those with families like those here have had severe mental health issues and really struggled to deal with it and instead turned to self harm, eating disorders and even suicide.

Breast binding is self harm. Disassociating yourself from your body and wanting it changed with hormones and surgery are self harm.

Girls wanting to be trans are harming themselves, just as girls with eating disorders are.

Sarah so, to confirm - you wouldn't have any issue whatsoever with a 6ft, 12 stone teenage boy playing sport with girls? Absolutely no problem for you at all. Just to add some context, I stopped growing at age 11 at 5'2, weighed about 8 stone through my teens.

Still can't see a problem with this?

Bunbury suggests that people that think saying humans do not change sex is hate speech are not going to be receptive to other manifestations of basic knowledge. I believe she recommends not getting drawn into time wasting semantic discussions.

you wouldn't have any issue whatsoever with a 6ft, 12 stone teenage boy playing sport with girls? Absolutely no problem for you at all. Just to add some context, I stopped growing at age 11 at 5'2, weighed about 8 stone through my teens.

Thanks for that context, as if I'm not also a short girl who is around 8 stone. No I wouldn't have an issue. You could just as easily have a 6 ft, 12 stone teenage girl. Considering a third of children are now overweight or obese I wouldn't very much want a 12 stone female running at me and the same applies to a 12 stone male. You certainly wouldn't say the overweight or obese female couldn't play though.

I don't think that giving a child puberty blockers that will stop them going through a normal puberty, or giving cross sex hormones which will cause all manner of crazy shit to happen, including irreversible infertitily, possible bone issues, almost definitely sexual dysfunction, is really comparable to anti depressants And that is before we get onto double mastectomies, hysterectomies and castration.

These are children with perfectly healthy and functional bodies. Why anyone would advocate artificially altering or mutilate those bodies irreversibly, or giving a child the idea that that is a good thing to do, is beyond me.

Thanks for that context, as if I'm not also a short girl who is around 8 stone. No I wouldn't have an issue. You could just as easily have a 6 ft, 12 stone teenage girl. Considering a third of children are now overweight or obese I wouldn't very much want a 12 stone female running at me and the same applies to a 12 stone male. You certainly wouldn't say the overweight or obese female couldn't play though.

And if a young girl doesn't want to play with the 6ft 12 stone teenage boy, a boy who is almost definitely much larger, stronger, with a larger heart, lung capacity, hand span, longer legs and arms.... She is a bigot who needs 're-educating'?

You can be a mother in a number of ways including when you're not genetically related to the baby.

You are not the mother. You are the adoptive mother. The child refers to you as mother for practical and emotional reasons so that the adoption isnt front and central all the time. An adopted child still has an actual mother who actually got pregnant, grew the child in her body and gave birth. Mother is not just the name for the female parent or adoptive parent.

Just got past the first photo of Autumn and see Autumn has two brothers. Awful convenient Autumn turned out to be a girl.

Also, Autumn's mum makes Pagan spell candles. Which is . Actually no it's not , it's fucking stupid. AIR the Challenor family are/were well into all that shit as well.

She owns a tattoo parlour, which has all female staff. Which sounds nice, except that you could achieve the same effect by identifying blokes as women.

September 2017, the vegan cat: www.instagram.com/p/BZjdNfKAyQ_/

Let's just stick a microphone in your face www.instagram.com/p/BtwAw9UHu29/

The semantics of the word 'mother' are pretty irrelevant IMO.

That said, all humans who have ever lived on this earth ever, have been gestated and birthed by a female. All people who have been adopted, have lesbian parents, were born of surrogacy, were all gestated and birthed by a female. All of them will have a 'birth mother', a 'biological mother' as well as possibly having another mother. Obviously it's up to them how they want to see and use the term 'birth mother'.

No male, including a male who has transitioned to 'living as a woman' has ever gestated and birthed a baby.

To use the very sensible quote: 'We all know what a woman is, we all came out of one'.