Surely this list of behaviours that challenge social convention are not THE list used by medical professionals to diagnos gender dysphoria?

[stumbledin]

Diagnosis of gender dysphoria involves children demonstrating at least six of a series of behavioural traits as well as an “associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months”.

Those patterns of behaviour include:

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender.

• A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other gender.

• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play.

• A strong preference for toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender.

• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender.

• A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender.

• A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy.

• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender.
_

With the exception of the last two surely all are fairly common, and in previous generations would just have been accepted as a phase.

How is it possible that in fact people who are educated enough to be in medicine are so unaware of how societies change over time.

Men used to have long hair and wear much more colourful clothes. Its only since the Victorian era that they had such a rigid and limited dress code.

If challenging current attitudes is seen as a medical condition, how is it that others who challenge the imposed narrative aren't also seen as having a medical condition.

And how is it that parents are themselves so limited in their view of how the world should be are not only playing along with this, but in some cases actively encouraging it.

Just think Billie Elliot might never have learnt to dance but instead become a trans girl.

(By the way it was a Guardian article which implies this is what they think is a rational explanation of a medical condition.)

Yes, Wee, but I feel that a lot of the narrative of gender ideology is actually doing a lot of work to create a more rigidly gendered society.

Yes, me too. I view gender confirmation surgery as part of that. It’s not allowing a masculine woman or feminine man to exist. It’s a war on the gender nonconforming.

Its very depressing isn't it? I would have fit most of the above criteria as a child. I wasn't a girly girl at all, I as really at odds with my body during puberty and most of my male crushes would now be considered queer icons and I had more than a few female crushes. I could have been sold into this so easily.

I met the first 6 and was happy to be described as a tomboy. Now when I look back, when I said 'I wish I were a boy' what I actually meant was I wish I were treated the same as the boys. I wanted the same choices and freedoms they had.

@SonEtLumiere - exactly! She often relies on the argument - She is just being pragmatic blah blah blah whereas I am chasing unicorns.

Yes to earlier post about how we are letting what is the never ending pressure of consumerism to create an idea of social norms, which aren't norms but a horrible bully telling people, particularly women how they should look.

Also, we need to understand how and why some families seem to be reinforcing these stereotypes. Are they just passive victims of advertising and tv shows? (On another thread some time ago I suggest that before any child is assess for gender re-assignment the parents are first of all assessed.)

And additionally, all this implies the teaching of (social) history must be really bad.

But above everything how thoroughly the mainstream has erased the arguements and analysis of women's liberation.

@Thelnebriati

I met the first 6 and was happy to be described as a tomboy. Now when I look back, when I said 'I wish I were a boy' what I actually meant was I wish I were treated the same as the boys. I wanted the same choices and freedoms they had.

I'm quoting this because I was told by a gender affirming therapist that there's a difference between kids who wanted what they thought the other sex had and those who really wanted to be the other sex.

I can look back as an adult and know I just wanted what boys had but 9 year me would have thought the only way to get what boy has is to be a boy. So, yes I would have said

I really want to be a boy. Is there something I'm missing?

All the parents I know who are caught up in this are absolutely against it so I really have no idea what parents who support this think.

My dad spent the 60s with long hair dressed in floral blouses. My mum was mainly in dungarees with a pixie cut.

I must get on the phone and tell them they are trans. They'll be flabberghasted.

You’d think feminism had never happened. Children now being squashed back into the stereotypes we broke out of in the 70s. Only now with added drugs and surgery.

in the United States soccer is more popular with girls and (I think) lacrosse with boys...

Yes, soccer/football in the US is basically gender neutral, maybe slightly more popular with Mostly Lacrosse is for boys and the girls’ sport equivalent (due to title IX there has to be) is field hockey.

@FunkBus

My dad spent the 60s with long hair dressed in floral blouses. My mum was mainly in dungarees with a pixie cut.

I must get on the phone and tell them they are trans. They'll be flabberghasted.

I had this conversation with my mum, who got asked to go home and change on her first day of work (in the 80s) because she'd worn trousers "ladies here wear skirts" was what she was told.

@Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud

If only she had told them she identified as male

In all seriousness, it is insane how quickly things have changed.

I’m still chewing over that list and thinking about it in relation to the decision on puberty blockers.

I’m not at all convinced that the trans allies expressing their shock on my Facebook page are aware of the flimsiness of the diagnostic criteria. I’ve no doubt at all that the kids they are going to battle for are distressed, I believe that is absolutely true. But based on this list, they’re being diagnosed with an inability to adhere to sex role stereotypes, and the concept that you ought to drug children out of that is astonishing.

Except mermaids say its not stereotypes

Nor is it the wrong body

Which leaves you with what exactly? Certainly not 6 points....

I think stereotyping is in some ways worse than it was when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s.

Back then, families had less disposable income to spend on children's clothes, toys and accessories like prams, so there was no point in manufacturers making pink and blue variants in the hope of conning parents into buying the pink one for their daughter and then ditching that and replacing it with a blue one when they had a son. Every baby in the family went into the bog standard black or dark blue pram. Every child played with the same Lego. The blue jumper that Granny knitted for little Johnnie was handed down to little Mary if it still had any wear left in it. Lots of little girls had short hair (I did) because it was so much more practical at a time when many families only had baths and hairwashing once or twice a week.

flashbak.com/lego-marketing-materials-from-the-1960s-1980s-encouraged-boys-and-girls-to-build-together-404973/ Interesting article here about Lego advertising through the decades. Skim it for the pictures. They tell their own story. Depressing.

I’ve no doubt at all that the kids they are going to battle for are distressed, I believe that is absolutely true. But based on this list, they’re being diagnosed with an inability to adhere to sex role stereotypes, and the concept that you ought to drug children out of that is astonishing.

I find it terrifying how much of the media has been incredibly keen to push increased stereotyping and then this.

Its a scary list. My son goes to a SEN school for autism and its unusual as it has lots of girls too.

The children often have less desire to confirm to social norms. That sort of social pleasing isnt a strong motivator for them.

This means the boys and girls play with what they like and pick friends who like similar things. They have a way bigger range of interests anyway as there is less 'cool' pressure too. Hair cuts fall into two groups. Short hair for those with sensory issues around hair flapping in their face, long hair for those with sensory issues about hair cutting. Clothes tend towards male norms as shoes and joggers are comfier. Its quite common for a child to have a favourite colour or character and dress entierly like that. Thats not to say there arent girls in pink, liking unicorns and boys in blue liking trains but there is more cross over.
This list is so neurotypical that its dangerous to children with autism. My son is very suggestable so if people keep saying long hair and soft toys means girl he could believe it.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

You’d think feminism had never happened. Children now being squashed back into the stereotypes we broke out of in the 70s. Only now with added drugs and surgery.

I grew up in the 70's though, and although women had much more rigid roles children certainly did not. I was all the things on that list, a classic tomboy. I played mostly with boys, role played soldiers and Cowboys, shot people with guns. Hated dresses and dolls creeped me out. As a teen I was the classic ladette, the only girl in a large group of boys, pubbing, playing snooker and darts, and racing around the countryside in clapped out cars. But I was and am strongly heterosexual, loved the company of men and boys, and very much enjoyed teasing them with low cut tops and big boobs. I just get on better with men, they are more straight forward. Having three older brothers undoubtedly had a lot to do with it too.

I can't believe how gender stereotyped girls and boys are now expected to be. We have definitely gone backwards, which is odd considering so much has been done to try to create an equal society for men and women.

I can't believe how gender stereotyped girls and boys are now expected to be. We have definitely gone backwards, which is odd considering so much has been done to try to create an equal society for men and women

I'm an 80s kid, I went to 2 schools who didn't allow trousers for girls, the sports were gendered too much to my disgust of course

The biggest difference i think really is you did as you were told. If you had ti wear your brothers old coat you did. You didn't expect your parents to go out buying extra stuff when you had siblings or someone had been kind enough to hand it down. If you had to shove a ghastly dress on for grannies birthday , you did it. You silently seethed and pulled it off when you got home and out it away for another Yr.

You'd have been ignored and sent to your room with no dinner if you'd kicked off wailing about how the dress didn't reflect your identity.

There just wasn't the tine or money to indulge it

I grew up in the 70's though, and although women had much more rigid roles children certainly did not. I was all the things on that list, a classic tomboy.

Yes, I was the same in the 50s and 60s. Classic tomboy, but adults smiled when they said that.

I identified with the male heroes of books and films because their lives looked more exciting. In real life I saw men doing interesting outdoor work whereas women did boring indoor drudgery.

Then in the 70s feminism broadened our horizons. And now, as you say, Baaah, we’ve gone backwards.

@WeeBisom

What is interesting about this diagnostic list is how much of it depends on us living in a particular kind of gendered society. If children all play with the same toys it’s nonsense to talk of “toys for the other gender.” If children all wear whatever clothes they like , then there will no gendered clothes. How much if gender dysphoria really is due to us living in such a rigidly gendered society?

It's been said on here before a lot, but they should produce a list of what, specifically, the items are that they refer to for each "typical of gender" category. List the toys that the diagnosers believe to be "female". Even better: study, research, produce data - without any influencing of the children - as to which toys are played with by each sex. Otherwise it's just anecdotal, surely?

It'd highlight even more clearly what a load of bollocks it is that only exists because of clumsy gender stereotypes in the first place.

Have been wondering assuming that most people go through some sort of denial / alienation from their body around puberty, but get through. Not always easily, but learn some sort of acceptance.

Is this where the overlap with autism comes into effect?

Have been thinking about this and having only recently read the statement from Gender Critical Autistics gendercriticalautistics.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/gender-critical-autistics-statement-on-tavistock-ruling/amp/

The DSM 5 (like all DSMs before...) is a deeply problematic document anyway. If people truly realised generally the degree to which its categories are just decided on by a small "task force", nearly all of whom are funded by the pharmaceutical industry, there'd be mayhem. It's accepted that the diagnoses are not generally scientifically backed (being neither reliable nor valid).
James Davies's book Cracked does a pretty good job of explaining it.

I have just contacted the NHS using the contact form on their website to ask about their updating their gender dysphoria in children info to reflect thd judgment in Bell v the Tavi.

Can they still describe puberty blockers as a "pause button "? Ill post any reply.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/think-your-child-might-be-trans-or-non-binary/

NoCureForLove - that's really good move. I wonder what they will say!

I found it interesting reading Stumbledin - and found myself wondering quite when it was written in its current form. The text I thought quite measured and balanced for the most part. Not quite sure it fits very well therefore with the "checklist' you started the thread about? Would it be too cynical to think its had a recent makeover? No mention of Mermaids etc.