New blog post by Children of Transitioners

[EmpressLangClegInChair]

childrenoftransitioners.org/ reviews the recent book 'Nothing Ever Happens Here'. This is well worth reading (the blog I mean).

That's a really interesting piece. I was also struck by the bit at the end of the review, from Relate, about how parents shouldn't make children feel responsible for the parents' emotional wellbeing - the parents should be there for the kids, not the other way around.

I was involved with Stonewall in the early days. If you'd told me then that they'd be peddling this load of old nonsense, and would be actively homophobic, I'd have thought you'd lost your marbles. But here we are.

I used to volunteer for Stonewall & I wouldn’t have believed it either.

It's a great, and very thoughtful piece. All those school librarians who were queuing up to buy copies should read it.

I hope at least some of them do, Tinsel.

This school librarian will most certainly not be queuing up to buy it.

I also used to be in Stonewall - when they used to have lesbian mother's support groups. I never would have believed that they could be so easily turned against women / lesbians. That blog is great - the Relate quote should be shared everywhere.

Great writing on an important subject.

I'll share it and print it off and hide it in the library.

I was also struck by the bit at the end of the review, from Relate, about how parents shouldn't make children feel responsible for the parents' emotional wellbeing - the parents should be there for the kids, not the other way around.

This is what it all hinges on for me, ArcheryAnnie. As someone who was also brought up in an environment where I was 100% responsible for my parents’ emotional well-being, and expected to be there for them instead of them being there for me - not trans related at all, but the dynamic stays the same - this really resonates with me, and I’m glad to see Relate articulating it.

When parents do this, whatever the reasons, it is a form of emotional abuse, pure and simple. And child abuse in any form is never, ever justified.

It sickens me to see this form of child abuse being promoted, celebrated even - how deeply damaging it would be for the child whose parent is transitioning to be told that any negative feelings she may have about it are wrong and unacceptable and she should be putting her parent’s feelings first. Just at the time when she really needs support and understanding herself.

If current children of transitioners read this, and absorb the messages in it, it will harm them. If their friends read it and offer them “advice” and opinions off the back of this book, it will harm them. When they are already vulnerable.

The fact this is being peddled to children shows that as a society we still don’t really give a shit about child abuse. In a society where protecting the child actually was paramount, above everything else, this simply would not be able to happen.

Thank you for your excellent work speaking up on this, Children of Transitioners.

Oh, and If you'd told me then that they'd be peddling this load of old nonsense, and would be actively homophobic, I'd have thought you'd lost your marbles. But here we are.

Yes!!

That's a great post. And I'm really glad you found that piece from Relate because that's what I was trying to talk about on the thread on here about the book which earned me a strike and Lang her ban.

I have been curious why the author hasn't faced the backlash that the gay male writer did for his novel last year about a teenage boy transitioning for talking about trans issues when he isn't trans.

I thought it might be because sarah hagger-holt is stonewall but actually I wonder if it is because it is impossible to write about a late transitioning man with a wife and kids from a first person perspective without coming across as a massive self-absorbed narcissist?

"a massive self-absorbed narcissist" - You mean "Stunning and brave", surely Clymene??

I fell down a rabbit hole on BAILII where there is a ruling about an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family and a transition. Interestingly the religious rights of the children were upheld over the right of the parent to see the children while living in the new gender.