HBO documentary about transitioning children

[tackiestones]

The documentary maker has specifically chosen families in the American midwest where gender non-conforming people would have the hardest time, to show the sorts of struggles that they go through (such as the line between activism and exploitation), but one thing jumped out at me:-

"At seven, Avery, assertive about her gender identity as a girl since age four, is already a seasoned public speaker on transgender identity along with her Southern Baptist-turned-activist mother, Debi."

My little girl is nearly four and she is not assertive at all about her gender identity. She flips between gender conforming and gender non-conforming behaviours and presentation, like everyone else. She's beginning to be aware of sex and gender now but that awareness has very slowly come online, and she does make category errors still. Four is when they start being little sexists because they figure out more about how their society is structured but they're not experienced enough as thinkers to notice any nuances.

Seems to me it would save a lot of money on puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgeries if upbringings were a lot more low key about gender roles, and let the similarities between groups of people be more remarkable than the differences.

Obviously gender non-conforming children exist. I don't understand why it needs to be a big deal. Let them wear pink dresses or shave their hair or whatever. Why does that mean you need to become an activist for queer theory? Just let them be themselves without projecting adult hangups and prejudices.

Religious types like that would prefer their child to be not gay and in this way they believe this is the case. How this quite squares with the idea of god making an error I don’t know.

But then how would her mother get loads of attention & activism brownie points tackie?

It’s not Avery ringing up places to say she’s a great public speaker, it’s not Avery contacting the media

It’s all about Debi

Agree with all you’ve said above

Often the mums (usually) seem to enjoy the media attention and throw themselves into the whole ‘life’.

Southern Baptists define homosexuality as sinful, so it follows that having a gender non-conforming child might be distressing.

Parental activism (of many stripes, not just trans), reminds me of pageant moms. Like, your child maybe expressed an interest in something a couple of times and then you go ALL IN. It becomes more and more difficult for the child to lose interest, as their parents become more invested.

What’s the name of the doc please OP?

variety.com/2020/film/reviews/transhood-film-review-1234623153/

They don't seem to be 100% on board. That would have been unthinkable when Avery Jackson was on the cover of National Geographic four years back.

Transhood, sorry!

It's heartbreaking really.

DD's sexed identity was there by five - she understood that there were two types of body (for baby-making purposes) and that hers was the type called female, and that woman is a species-specific word for females. She doesn't have a gender identity at this point; she's pretty clear that "this is for boys and that is for girls" is bollocks called 'gender'.

How kids whose parents conflate sex&gender are meant to work this out is beyond me.

The Guardian is on board, of course:

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/12/transhood-documentary-growing-up-trans-middle-america

I am not sure I believe that young children can be 'trans'. I of course do know children can be, and many (most?) ARE 'gender non conforming', especially if the parent lets them pick their own stuff instead of shoving them into boxes, but, if thats trans, then it covers near every child I know. If that is not whats meant by transchild, then I would love someone to explain it to me without using the stereotypes, as honesty it comes across as just stereotypical nonsense which can in some cases lead to being medicated for simply not being the perfect feminine girl/masculine boy. I remember when I came across the disgnostic criteria for kids deemed trans, and all of the options bar one or two..were about stereotypes. Dressed in opposite sex clothes, has more friends of opposite sex, etc etc. Terrifying really.

One of the saddest tales I have heard of this is some extremely young child who was deemed trans, as they popped the poppers on the bottom of their babygrow to 'make a dress', so clearly they are actually a girl

Excellent OP especially this:

Obviously gender non-conforming children exist. I don't understand why it needs to be a big deal. Let them wear pink dresses or shave their hair or whatever. Why does that mean you need to become an activist for queer theory? Just let them be themselves without projecting adult hangups and prejudices.

I fully believe children can be 'trans' - it's all in what's required to qualify for the label. The diagnostic criteria are pretty clear: a child who is persistently distressed by their preference for things deemed inappropriate for their sexed body.

When you define 'trans' as some sort of innate predetermined facet of biology, or a feminine soul in the wrong body, then I agree, there's no such thing.

But kids who are super distressed by their personalities not meeting others' expectations of their bodies? Certainly, they exist! They just don't need medicalising, or affirming in their erroneously-developing sexed identity. There's literally nothing wrong with them except the sexist society they were born in.

So long as society places gendered expectations on kids, there will be some who struggle to greater or lesser degrees.

I prefer a more pragmatic approach. Can any particular pre-pubertal child be said to be trans? Looking at the rates of desistance, clearly not. Since the label "transkid" cannot be applied reliably but can have catastrophic consequences then using it is simply a bad thing to do.

These type of documentaries, and positive news stories, always involve precocious children who are articulate and able to make a strong case for being able to the choose medical pathway that’s hard to argue with. You rarely see documentaries or news stories on the children expressing trans identity who are autistic, intellectually impaired, in state care, victims of abuse, have homophobic parents, or suffering side effects of hormone treatment.

Funny that .

Anyone ever watch this documentary about a child 'prodigy' artist?

Very illuminating on the nature of parental coercion.

Our children want our love and attention and will go to great lengths to obtain it.

Most hauntingly sad and tragic quote from that trailer for me:

"I started off not really knowing who I was cuz, I mean, I was a kid and I'm twelve now".

This is what happens when ideology pushes the belief that children are able to make decisions that will have a have life altering impact.

At 12 I still thought that people were generally good, everything always worked out for the best and that I would never get married because I was too ugly.

There's literally nothing wrong with them except the sexist society they were born in.

Is this the crux between approaches? Gender critical feminism locates the problem in society's strictures; transgender ideology locates the problem in the body of the person/child.

GC feminists are trying to challenge and change sexist stereotypes; transgender ideologies posit that it is the bodies of those with dysphoria that needs to be changed.

That seems infinitely sad, to me.

That is indeed the crux.

But GC feminism doesn't say this in response to transgenderism specifically. We were saying it anyway, in response to the standard patriarchal pressure on women to submit to the imposition of the feminine gender.

Watching things like this makes me so sad, and so angry. When I was about 8 years old I wanted with all my heart to be a boy. I saw the way the in-crowd girls in my class were and I wanted none of what they wanted - the pink, the sparkles, the boybands. I loved football, and jeans and t-shirts, and playing games outdoors. If I’d known about trans stuff at that age I’m 100% sure I would have told my parents that I was actually a boy. I was so sad that I couldn’t buy clothes from the boys section in the shops because they were all the clothes I wanted (never occurred to me at that age that if I asked my mum, she’d have bought me ‘boys’ clothes with no hesitation, kids minds work in quite rigid ways I guess). I also know that my parents, being loving and compassionate people, would have been anxious to help me and would have explored the options with me. God knows where it could have gone. As it was, I eventually discovered strong female role models in rock and indie music who weren’t ‘girly-girls’ and I realised I could be a different kind of girl. I think there are genuinely dysphoric people who never ‘grow out of it’ - from what I’ve seen about 20% of kids who express discomfort with their gender persist in their dysphoria after puberty onset. But still that leaves a large majority who don’t. I’m not convinced the current system reflects that, and I’m so scared as to the consequences.

Sorry, that was a long message to have no paragraph breaks!

No - I think I we all were there/has siblings like that. It’s frightening to think what could have happened to them.