Do “trans kids” exist?

[Siameasy]

Following on from yesterday discussion:

With it becoming increasingly clear that we cannot define “trans”, genuine sufferers of Gender Dysphoria aside, how can there be such a thing as a trans kid?

Reading the “new rules” from Mermaids how would I know if my kid is trans?

Can babies be trans?

Who was that guy who said that you can tell babies who are trans because the girls will want to take their hair clips out? Can’t remember the name but it was definitely the only possible reason for a baby wanting a hair clip out of her hair

Please could we have a look at these new rules? Link, maybe?

Thank you.

According to that Dr who reckons you can just get breasts later and that unpopperimg a baby grow is making a dress and a pre verbal gender message it would appear so.

I'm still waiting for someone to answer how, when eveeyone elses toddlers are being yanked out thr cat food bowl, sleeping in dog baskets , and eating sudecrem how these toddlers are so articulate as to ask when God will bring them.a vagina and express their inner feelings so well.

Especially when, when you watch and listen to teens who have been down the medication route they are very immature fir their age

If it were any other mental or physical condition, especially one affecting wildly escalating numbers of young people, sufferers of gender dysphoria would be campaigning and fundraising for better understanding of how and why it occurs and evaluating the best approach to treatment. Since any such discussion is immediately branded bigoted hate speech, I think we simply don't understand the condition well enough to answer that. But I would say it does seem to be clear that there are some people who suffer gender dysphoria from a very young age, and continue to do so until they transition (and maybe after that in some cases - I don't know), and I would probably deem those people 'trans kids'.

But of course they represent a tiny minority of the trans community in 2020.

Well this is how professional hypochondriac Charlize Theron explains her 'trans' 7 year old, who became 'trans' as a 3 year old:

“They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide.”

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/charlize-theron-has-revealed-her-child-7-is-transgender/news-story/cad4f4922915202e3a0fd090813e89de

I think that contrary to Theron's public assertions, her child IS very much who Theron wants the child to be.

I don't think that children can truly be trans. You need to go through and finish puberty to discover how you feel about your gender. You don't have all the facts before that time. Plenty of non-trans kids have said they wanted to be the opposite gender once, doesn't mean that they are. It's part of exploring who you are within society. I'm still miffed that my brother could just go pee in a bush but I had to uncomfortably hold it in till we found a toilet. Doesn't mean that years later I still want to be a boy. I just didn't agree with the expectation of me based on my gender/sex. That is something completely different than thinking I am the opposite gender.

Until recently we were told trans gender people were born in the wrong body and that a way of telling a child is trans is that they’re gender non-conforming.

Now they’ve tweeted quite the opposite - and reading their new output, well I’m not quite sure how you can tell really.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/the-toys-and-clothing-question/

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/do-you-still-use-the-phrase-born-in-the-wrong-body/

I'm still waiting for someone to answer how, when eveeyone elses toddlers are being yanked out thr cat food bowl, sleeping in dog baskets , and eating sudecrem how these toddlers are so articulate as to ask when God will bring them.a vagina and express their inner feelings so well.

Well, indeed. At one point my then-toddler was trying to eat the cat. So what’s the magic age when they can say I’m trans (cos, according to Mermaids “they’ll tell you”) and it’s to be taken seriously?!

I don't think people realise how many disorders /conditions are created by our society. Like anorexia it is a symptom of an underlying disorder. Usually trauma or anxiety- both caused by family or society
If it's trans but not dysphoria then it's society telling the child their personality is wrong for their sex
Looking at how disorders present in different societies is interesting. I was looking at anorexia, it wasn't present in some societies until they got western TV. In other countries its presentation was very different

My niece insisted she was a boy for months and months at around 5 years old. No idea why (possibly to do with her worshipping her older brother). Nobody made anything of it and she no longer says this.

Personally, I don’t think young children have the capacity to understand their sex or gender. So no, I don’t think young children can be ‘trans’.

However, I do think they can be influenced or brainwashed by those around them, which I find really sad. Not the ‘being trans’, the brainwashing of a child.

Agree rorosemary, kids are just exploring and trying to make sense of gender roles imposed on us by society.

Of course there is no such thing as a trans kid. Children often struggle to feel they 'fit in' and may be confused by their emerging sexuality but no reason to label them as a transexual. (I know that word is deemed old fashioned but it's accurate.)

Religious people exist, even if god doesn't. The idea that not believing in a gendered soul is denying the existence of trans people is like saying that being an atheist means you think there's no religious people.

So trans kids exist, but the underlying explanation is not that this is a genuine, innate, fixed personality - it's that something is happening to them, things they are being told or exposed to. I can see the childish logic in "pink is for girls, I like pink, so I'm a girl." The fault lies with society and it's pink messages and the parents or peer group.

No.

Adults did not tell their children the truth and help them accept what cannot be changed. Adults imposed sexist stereotypes on their children. Adults wish they had a daughter rather than a son or vice versa. Adults obsessively seek attention or have Munchausen’s by proxy. Adults want children to be labelled and medicated to justify their own political agenda.

Thank you for the link.

I'm reminded of that old saying: A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

I'd love to see a mermaid backpedalling.

Hilarious.

Kids with rigid ideas of gender roles exist.

Autistic and LGB kids exist.

Kids with dysphoria exist.

That's as much as anyone can really say.

Daisies I've often thought that MBP could be a factor as well as good old homophobia.

Vegan cats exist. Don't they?

Children are children and they should be allowed to develop who they are safely without adults medicalising their process of growing up.

Adults did not tell their children the truth and help them accept what cannot be changed

I often wonder in what other ways the word "no" was avoided.

From the people we have seen/read about the one thing they all seem to have in common is a hufe sense if entitlement and no concept of boundries, and the word no brings on very toddler like tantrums and accustions of being attacked.

Being allowed to believe this does seem to lead to certain behaviours later on in life possibly avoided by the use of the word no.

My DS was a penguin for an uncomfortably long time. I had to explain to reception teacher that he liked making supposed penguin noises and walk like one. He used to be lots of different animals but stuck at penguin for his final and long lasting incarnation. I think he thinks he’s an adolescent boy now (and still can’t swim!)

Surely you can see though, it’s not the thought or behaviour that denotes a person with GD (or any other type of MH condition), it’s the intensity and effect of the thought or behaviour.

Comparing your niece/nephew/toddler/next door neighbour who would not meet the criteria for GD isn’t helpful. It’s like the people who like their tins facing outwards or their Christmas tree decorated neatly, who label themselves as “OCD”, it takes away from what is a life restricting awful condition.

unpoppering a baby grow is making a dress

I never understood how that blatant piece of utter idiocy got past anyone. I very much doubt children under two even know what a "dress" is or how it differs from a dressing gown or long coat.

My daughter only learnt she was something called "a girl" when she was about 3, and she only had a slight understanding of what that meant. I don't think she realised she was the same biological sex as me until she developed the capacity to process more abstract concepts.

And how would she know? From a toddler's point of view, all they realise is that they are different to adults because adults are bigger, taller and look after them. They may realise there is a difference between adult men and women, but how do they relate that back to themselves? They don't look like their adult parent, be that parent male or female.

From what I've observed, a child only seems to begin to recognise biological difference over two and a half when they come across other children who are labelled in the opposite way to them in a care-giving scenario: ie. a sibling is born, or they have begun to use the toilet at nursery or pre-school and notice some children don't urinate the same way.

I suppose it could be argued (using pomo's own arguing style) that 'trans' is a social construction and that some parents for some reasons choose to perform it with their child. The child has less social agency because they are a child than the parent, and if there are outside forces willing to encourage all this 'subversion' of norms ...

I was just reading this article from 2019 again, think it was linked somewhere on here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-47360102

It's so sad. A nine-year-old child is described as wearing loads of makeup and dreaming about one day becoming a mother "and getting married to the man of her dreams". As if these are obviously the things that all nine-year-old girls aspire to. It's such regressive female stereotyping and homophobia. Healthy, happy nine-year-olds of both sexes shouldn't have to worry about this stuff, they should just be allowed to build dens and mess around with their friends.