Today's Guardian - the trans kids helped by a pioneering project

[pachyderm]

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/15/trans-transgender-children-gender-family-project

Children of seven and twelve years old, just heartbreaking.

I would get banned for saying what I want to say about the writer of this piece.

or a girl that has been forced to wear dresses and have long hair.

That puzzled me in the article. When a girl asks to have short hair why not just say "Great, let's book an appointment at the hairdressers"?

Bryce’s transition started with cutting his then waist-long hair at about nine years old. “We first started by cutting off like the sides. We did it little by little and then eventually we just chopped it all off and now he had short hair,” said Emma. “I almost wanted to cry because the look on his face was like that of liberation. It was completely priceless

why on earth had the mother let her hair grow to that length, knowing what she did about her child's preferences?

I had short hair several times during my childhood, and when i had it cut short ( & had my ears pierced) for my 12th birthday, the feeling it gave me too was Liberation. I still associate short hair with liberation, and it gives me a thrill to have it cut.

A school guidance counselor suggested the GFP to support Emma, especially in dealing with Bryce’s father and older brother, neither of whom quite understood the need to transition

Aside from fathers who fear their son being gay, it does seem that it is mainly mothers pushing this stuff. Many mothers dress their daughters in the most ridiculous bows and flounces. Even months old baby girls have their few strands of hair forced into uncomfortable looking pig tails and hairbands.

If your 3 year old says they dont need dresses because they aren't a girl then you talk to them about how dresses are just clothes and girls can wear whatever clothes they want. You shouldn't think: right, time to get down the doctors.

Our society is so much more divided into blue and pink now! This is the opposite of what we were supposed to be achieving.

Absolutely correct. The stories on this thread of all girls in a class having long hair, for example - I visit schools as part of my work and I find myself looking to see if there's a girl - just one - with short hair. There hardly ever is.

Whereas when I was at primary school in the 60s, there were precisely 2 girls in my junior 4 (Y6) class with long hair - it was so remarkably the opposite to now that I can still remember their names (Carolyn and Susan).

The gendering of girls' and women's behaviour that has occurred over the last 20 years or so has been astonishing. And the willingness of some parents to weaponise this wrt their children is frightening.

But that example - which we've seen on two posts on here - that liking football in the UK is a "boy" thing, whereas in the States it's a "girl" thing, ought to be the first slide in staff training for people who work with children in any setting, social work and medicine.

Some kids may be forced into homes where each parent is at different stages of acceptance. One parent might be using one pronoun, and the other parent might be using another.You can’t leave that family unsupported,” said Malpas. “It’s literally a risk. It’s really dangerous

So the child is singles out for treatment and then their identity forms around being this highly unusual, special person - that adults fawn over and who nurture this new 'gender identity'.

No wonder they can become so fragile and in need of protection when their whole identity requires people to use the 'correct pronoun' - and their world falls apart when someone doesn't.

A very peculiar American malady.

Read an interesting book last year, ' Crazy Like Us:The Globalisation of the American Psyche Well worth a read.

Even months old baby girls have their few strands of hair forced into uncomfortable looking pig tails and hairbands

But remember! If they pull them out they’re trans! Because they don’t want their hair “like a girl”!

I’ll try and find that video of an actual professional saying this...

Even linguistically precocious toddlers are just as insane as any other toddler. My 2yo niece is a precocious talker and it's fascinating, because she's able to clearly articulate her 2yo understanding of life. The idea that she could understand her "gender" is beyond laughable - without being specific she doesn't yet understand the boundaries of her own body! Or the direction of time. If her parents took her worldview seriously their household would follow some strict religious observances focused on weewee.

Isn't there a massive psychological literature on childhood developmental stages? Has all of that been completely thrown out of the window to accommodate the myths of "gender identity?"

But that example - which we've seen on two posts on here - that liking football in the UK is a "boy" thing, whereas in the States it's a "girl" thing, ought to be the first slide in staff training for people who work with children in any setting, social work and medicine

Of course the US women's football team is very successful, far more so than men's football ( soccer) in the US. You will find, that many, even most girls who play football competitively are gay.

Lindsay told me that she purposely builds a bubble around Seph. She worries how he’s going to react when he realizes that there are so many people in the world who either hate him or wish he doesn’t exist

That's not quite what is going on, though, is it...and yet this is how criticism of trans ideology is framed. As hate rather than as legitimate and necessary questioning.

I refused to wear dresses from about 4. Had my hair cut short. Chose a boys names. Hated my periods starting a 10. Hated my breasts growing and wished I could get them chopped off (didn't know a mastectomy was a thing though)

Fuck this. And fuck people who continually tell me I wouldn't have eaten up this trans rhetoric if i was a kid now. It's terrifying. I would definitely have absolutely done anything to get rid of my periods and breasts. Binding, blockers, hormones would have been a dream come true for me as a kid/teen.

And here I am. A 43 year old heterosexual woman. And one that has just been diagnosed with autism to, which explains so much about my feelings about not fitting in despite wanting to, despite trying to.

These poor kids.

I leaned in and asked how she thought Seph would be now if she had decided not to ever accept his gender identity. She paused for what seemed like a few minutes. “I think I would see an unhappy, suicidal child,” she said. It’s a sentiment echoed by each of the parents I spoke with for this story

Suicide ideation has become part of the culture and operation of transgenderism.

Of course the US women's football team is very successful, far more so than men's football ( soccer) in the US. You will find, that many, even most girls who play football competitively are gay.

I know. It's led to a stereotyped belief that "soccer" is for girls. That's the point.

Back in a Lyft to head home, Seph was a chatterbox, bouncing from one subject to the next. “You can be trans and gay,” he said at one point

I wish that had been explored a little, rather than not at all. How did the child perceive this possibility; what did that imply or mean for them, personally?

That's not quite what is going on, though, is it..

But it's what the child is going to experience. Because the child's mother is going to communicate that message "other people hate you and wish you didn't exist."

How can people not see that this is abusive?

The hair thing is really bothering me too. My (narcissistic) mother made sure both her daughters had incredibly long hair. I still remember the pain of having the tangles combed out. My 5 year old daughter has shortish hair... a bob not even that short! Every other girl we know under 10, bar one, has long hair. My daughter now wants long hair.. which is fine as long as she looks after it... this put her off and she is back to her easy bob with no hairbands etc. I also have an older boy who is growing his hair... I am sad to say that I discovered I feel more uncomfortable about this (which surprised me)... but aware enough that this is my problem to deal with not his. No fuss made in either case IT'S JUST HAIR!

My 3.5 year old pretends to be a cat most days. Her friend at childcare pretends to be a dog. Also when asked what she wants to be when she grows up she either says a monkey or a squirrel.

I just smile and she carries on playing.

These people are scarring young children and young adults for life. We will be looked upon in years to come as monsters for allowing this to happen.

I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said, “You first.” I told him I had wanted to be a writer when I grew up, which turned out to come true. He smiled at that and said it’s good when kids know what they want to be when they grow up. “If you don’t know what you want to be, you have to marry a rich husband,” he joked

So, rather than thinking about what they'd like to be when older - in terms of job or occupation, this child secretly thinks, I want to be a man. The whole identity now revolves around passing as a man, and maintaining whatever that state is or means to them - both emotionally and physically via hormones and surgery.

Hated my periods starting a 10. Hated my breasts growing and wished I could get them chopped off (didn't know a mastectomy was a thing though)

Yes puberty sucks. Massively for everyone. All the time. It sucked in a world with one tv in the house and only 4/5 channels when it was just neighbours news and casualty worth watching. And it undoubtedly sucks even more now with hundreds of channels 24/7 being watched on phones tablets TVs computers etc and the sole requirement of
being on a tv show is to be orange with botox. Its sucks even more because you can wake up to 67 WhatsApp messages telling you how fat you looked in that skirt.

It sucks even more because the options we have to simultaneously be grateful for having to deal with it all, well the companies behind them thrive on making you feel shit about your body and it's natural functions.

A class discussion at 12 can pinpoint these reasons/possibilities as to why people behave how they do. Yet they seem to elude trained professionals...

Just frightening.

My thoughts were interrupted by Seph again. “I want to be a zoologist,” he said

His mom looked at him. “Maybe you will solve global warming, Seph,” she suggested. “You could change the world

No, Mom! That’s not it at all!” he said, rolling his eyes

"No mum, just let me be who I am for once, instead of trying to force me into friggin' boxes of your own desire and preference"

A class discussion at 12 can pinpoint these reasons/possibilities as to why people behave how they do. Yet they seem to elude trained professionals...

YES!

I just cannot understand why parents force gender roles on children of those ages .

Long hair, short hair, what does it matter? Dresses, leggings, jeans, who cares? Interests, why do these have to be gender specific?

We are very lucky that we can send our children to independent schools and they go to single sex schools (I initially found this weird, but my husband was for it).

I have to say, so far my oldest girl (11) thinks that there is a full spectrum of interests and styles for girls. She is very much into coding and was once at a coding course with a lot of boys from a co-Ed school. They started by telling her that “girls couldn’t code”, which she found strange as she always had found that some girls could code, some couldn’t. She was much better than the boys at coding.

I am terrified of her walking into this cesspit of stereotypes, I think she has been very protected.

Instead of snatching opportunities for unsupervised conversations with other people's children, this writer might have faired better to pay attention to the distress of their own very young children. Particularly when it comes during displays of 'femininity'.

archive.is/tGj2u

this natal female will not be able to reverse this deepening of their voice. At the age of 14.

And yet many 14 year old boys have squeaky voices.

The focus on the children’s hair may also reflect that of the writer’s, given that her own locks are affected by a particular type of hair loss that, in a male, would be called male pattern balding. Tough for a transwoman, I imagine.

It's fucked up is what it is.

My mum cut my brother's hair when he was about 6 and was about 4, I got a bit jealous of the attention he was getting so asked her to cut my hair like that too. She obviously said no to begin with.

I kept going on and on about it though. I really wanted a boy's haircut! I went on about it so much, drove her mad, so she actually cut my long girly hair off completely. She kept my ponytail in a ziplock bag for ever and was really upset! (Sorry mum).
I got asked whether I was a boy or girl all the time 😂.

Fact is, kids are mad.

They say crazy stuff. I probably would have said "I insist you cut my hair same as my brother because I AM a boy!" if the thought had entered my mind.
But then they grow up, which trans kids can't because they've had their puberty interrupted.