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.

Through Northern Soul to Punk...

Indie kids, free festival ravers, goths...

Metal heads, emo kids, cyber goths, barely a gendered difference between us.

Yet suddenly we’re pathologising young kids to the point that we’re analysing how many bath towels they use? It’s complete fucking nonsense.

Hey! Transactivists - leave our kids alone!

Reeks!

That's a new one.

BettyDuMonde that's a splendid series of photos to show how much less rigidly stereotyped we were back then. DH and I were married in 1968 and on our wedding photos my hair was shorter than his.

Autumn is made up like a glamorous 1930s film star. I wouldn’t wear that make up, let alone permit a child to do so (unless dressing up at home on a rainy weekend).
Why clog a child’s pores with products designed to make adults sexually attractive to other adults?
This may though be because I am not a real woman, despite my chromosomes. I know this now because I have only one towel in the bathroom at the moment for myself and my children. We are feral. It is actually quite clean and dry though. And saves washing. I recommend it.

I love all those pictures betty
Bless all those youngsters!

Got a bit stuck in the 80s - Skinheads, Suedeheads, New Romantics, Rude Boys... lost any sense of chronology in my excitement!

Seems to me that we are just sliding backwards, giving our youth fewer and fewer freedoms...

I absolute love those Suedehead girls in the 3rd image above - wish there was a better quality image!

Just thought I’d add this one to your collection betty

Going off a lot of these responses I dread to think how some of you would treat your DC if they came out as trans

Encouraging any child to focus so massively on their own appearance can be expected to store up mental health risks for that child, as well as taking up the child’s their time and energy that could be better spent on something less boring instead.

Kids need acceptance as they are from those close to them but they also need to be equipped to deal with reality. Nobody can ever control how others see them.

Going off a lot of these responses I dread to think how some of you would treat your DC if they came out as trans

Bigots, transphobes and now unfit parents? Is there no end to the the strings to our bows?

SarahH12 with love and biological truth rather than tired gender stereotypes and proper, qualified therapists not jelly baby-peddling woo merchants.

And should it turn out to be the only path viable, support and acceptance. Love means asking the difficult questions and making yourself unpopular sometimes.

And should it turn out to be the only path viable, support and acceptance

And this is exactly how it should be. I don't disagree that asking difficult questions is the right path. But a lot of what is posted here is vile, that Autumn can't be a woman, a mother, find someone to get married etc.

I really don't know what a lot of you are trying to achieve. There's a reason so many people who are trans kill themselves and it's because of the way society treats them including with a lot of the rubbish and hate peddled here.

ODFOD. Some of us have kids who have identified as trans and you can stick your suicide peddling manipulation where the sun don't shine.

Autumn can't be a woman

A woman is an adult human female, so no, Autumn can't, because Autumn will grow up to be an adult human male.

There's a reason so many people who are trans kill themselves and it's because of the way society treats them including with a lot of the rubbish and hate peddled here.

Source? Actually, don’t bother. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that’s bullshit.

SarahH12 it's sad and not palatable and not what we're supposed to do, but it's the truth. Refusing to tell polite lies is not comfortable,but it's not vile.

Betty I love those photos. It makes me think part of the problem is the hugely strengthened gender stereotypes and expectations being forced on young children. When I look at young girls now they are all expected to be so glamorous in a clone-like way: the gorgeous diversity of women in those pictures you have posted shows the freedom young girls used to enjoy to express themselves however they liked.

It's no wonder girls are running away from having to look like a Kardashian and they are being given this damaging narrative that this means you must be a boy inside. We need to counter these awful stereotypes.

Urgh! Just seen that photo on the bbc front page. It does look like the painted black and white publicity picture of a 1930s starlet.

Children need to know they are loved and that comes with helping them to learn reality and how to deal with it if they are to survive adulthood and all the brickbats it throws. Imagination in children is to be treasured; no one wants to dampen that.

At some point someone is going to have to sit Autumn down and explain it's a lie that she can be a mother. The women who find out they're infertile when they ttc suffer horribly. Why is the poor child being built up to suffer that disappointment? At what point will they discuss this? It's not like finding out about the tooth fairy.

Sarah well, for a start I wouldn't even contemplate telling my child the monstrous lie that they can change sex. That would be my starting point. I find it rather horrific that any parent would consider telling this lie to be their starting point.

But a lot of what is posted here is vile, that Autumn can't be a woman, a mother,

Ummm. Let's say this slowly.

Males can't become women or mothers.

Mothers are females who have gestated and given birth to young.

Females are members of the sex with XX chromosomes, who bear ova (which were formed while she was still in her own mother's uterus) and are able to gestate and bear young.

Males are the sex who produce semen which can fertilise ova, but males cannot produce them or gestate or bear young.

Humans cannot change sex.

Therefore males cannot become mothers.

Sadly the facts of life are vile to some people. Ah well. Their opinion does nothing to change the facts of life. It does show them up to be a sandwich short of a picnic though. Reality itself must be very challenging to navigate.

find someone to get married etc.

Most people are attracted to someone's sex and prefer a partner with natural, healthy, sensitive and properly formed genitalia. Interfering with someone's genitals with medicine and surgery will reduce the number of people attracted to them.

Most people prefer a partner where they feel able to name reality and not tread on eggshells to enable them to live a lie.

But some still find love and partnership in spite of these reduced chances.

Autumn has a child's view of the future, probably built on Disney films and toys.

Of course Autumn isn't going to have thought through the implications of damaged genitals on future sexual pleasure or of cross-sex hormones on fertility and parenthood. But someone needs to make sure that Autumn knows the basic facts of life in an age-appropriate fashion.

(The child's mother may have said very few of the things she's quoted as saying, from second-hand experience of this sort of reporting.)