Moral Panic presented by David Cannadine R4 7/7/2020

[WinterIsGone]

Did any one hear this?
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kvmr

From the blub: "Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic.... But the term is often used - and misused - as a weapon by those who want to dismiss or trivialise the concerns of rival political or different cultural groups."

Towards the end, the programme included a transman who decided at 9 that she [as he was at the time] was a boy. The person was autistic, and was concerned that people should listen to autistic children who believed they were trans...

Yes, and it was disappointing that such an interesting programme had to end in such a sidetracked way.

The transman Felix Moore, twitter.com/felixmooreactor/status/1279037650532544512, is autistic and argues that people having concerns about the high rates of transition in autistic children is harmful to them because it removes their agency. If is harmful because it assumes that autistic children might need to be protected from making bad decisions.

Goodness. The radical notion that children should have parents concerned about them making harmful and irreversible decisions! Such fascism!

I caught the end of that - exactly the bit the OP mentions. I groaned inwardly (and probably outwardly too). It's once again dismissing legitimate concerns about harm to children as "moral panics".

It's a relatively new argument to me but I've seen it in a number of places. The wording is often along these lines:

people having concerns about the high rates of transition in autistic children is harmful to them because it removes their agency.

I assume that "agency" is in general actively discussed in the autism community, and now it's being used to counter alarm about statistics in relation to transition.

Felix Moore does come across as being rather vulnerable.

harmful because it assumes that autistic children might need to be protected from making bad decisions.

I don't see how anyone who has been an autistic child could not KNOW that autistic children need to be protected from making bad decisions.

I don't see how anyone who has been an autistic child could not KNOW that autistic children need to be protected from making bad decisions.

Exactly. Children in general need to be protected from making bad decisions of course. The idea that children are equipped to be making choices that will have life-changing consequences is itself abhorrent. That's why we don't allow eight year olds to smoke or drive motorbikes.

Children with autism are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and therefore to making bad decisions. We know that. Felix Moore certainly ought to know that.

All children, including autistic children, ought to be protected from making irreversible and potentially very harmful decisions.

When parents don't protect their children from serious harm, we usually call that neglect.

I've seen this type of argument before, in particular from an autistic trans activism supporter I know who is very vocal on the topic.

It makes sense in a way, her own thinking talking about her childhood (not related to trans issues) has a similar lack of self-awareness, she sees her perceptions at that time as accurate to what was going on when to an outsider that seems pretty unlikely. She absolutely sees worries about autistic girls identify as trans as being about discrimination against autistic persons and trans persons. In her view, the reason a lot of autistic girls identify as trans is they are more clear-sighted and don't buy into false gender categories. Generally she doesn't understand childhood development that well or how children conceptualise differently.