Radio 4 Woman's Hour on Thursday - two mothers talk for and against puberty blockers

[nauticant]

I'll revive the thread on Thursday

@MoonPomme

I wonder if the pro mother will be the same as they dragged out on sky nees last week. Trans boy. Very obviously autistic. Being trans means nothing now they have transitioned they can just live a happy life. I hope these poor kids sue the arses off everyone who's been complicit in this bad experiment. Is it an experiment if no fucker even bothers to collect data? Shameful.

The BBC have also been selling that pot of gold to parents and children (including WH) with their 'Just a Girl' (4 series), I am Leo without any evidence, and the myriad of one-offs like the programme following the Welsh teenager recently.

Alex has been recording their 'journey' on Youtube.

"I first encountered the word trans when I was watching a documentary called "I am Leo" and it was quite basic, it was just like "Oh you are trapped in the wrong body" so I thought this is maybe me, this might explain some things. I always thought of myself as like a weird tomboy so I thought maybe being trans could explain being more masculine"

Pot of gold is so apt. Ie there isn’t one. It’s so cruel. And we are the ones on the wrong side of history 🤔

@OhLittleBoreOfWhabylon

The wheels are, at last, falling off the Affirmation-only bus and the poor bloody passengers have been left sitting in it with no one helping them to get off.

Along with the X% - is it 1% or 0.1% according to India's maths - who knows - of those who fell off the bus.

It is Affirmation or Nothing.

The wheels on the bus go drop, bounce, pop
Drop bounce pop
Drop bounce pop
The wheels on the bounce go drop bounce pop
All-fall-offfffffffff

Don’t mess with mums. We respond with rhymes.

Glad you’re treating the topic with the seriousness it deserves.

Anyway, back to an adult discussion..

Early social transition creates the need for puberty blockers and medical transition.

This is difficult isn’t it. Where do you draw the line between highly gender non conforming behaviour and ‘transition’? A child can adopt the stereotypical clothes etc of the other sex, but that can can lead to people starting to see or treat them as that sex, by contemporaries and new people.

So a male child wants to grow long hair and wear skirts etc.. would you ever forbid that? Assume most here would be ok with it. But what if more and more people start assuming the child is female and the child encourages that? Refers to themselves a she, or asks people to. Gets deeper and deeper into a life where they are practically living as a female - or rather with people treating them as if they were female.

Same for ‘extreme tomboys’. If they ‘act like a boy’, dress like a boy, tell people they meet their name is a boy? How do you stop them? Where is that line between GNC behaviour and ‘transition by stealth’ (as in incremental steps).

And at what point in that stealthy (almost) transition does a child start to become so set on the idea that they are that sex, that it becomes more and more difficult to persuade them they are not?

Social transition is more than that Types. It involves changing the child's name and encouraging others to use that name. It involves changing the child's pronouns. It involves repeatedly referring to that child as being of the opposite sex. That's not the same as stereotype busting kids just being allowed to get on with being kids.

Refers to themselves a she, or asks people to. Gets deeper and deeper into a life where they are practically living as a female - or rather with people treating them as if they were female.

If you don’t change their name, pronouns or their sex marker on school or health records, and you consistently and gently correct people when they get it wrong them there is no untruth told and no secret to reveal.

We’re talking about prepubescent children, parents get to set the rules and even GIDs clinicians say early social transition is a ‘big social experiment’ and that they are ‘a bit worried about it’.

Everyone thought my son was a girl because he has long, very blonde hair. I remember getting a call from a kind woman who had witnessed him fall off his bike on the way to high school, she insisted she was with my daughter, she wasn’t.
No big deal to have to say, ‘son’ a few times and not really any different to correct than a mispronounced name. Sure, sometimes you might decide it’s not worth it, but as a feminist, challenging other people’s sexist assumptions is pretty much a reflective Instinct anyway.

All of the above is absolutely fine typesofcatalogue and always has been except for the child lying (but then there not not many circumstances when they would need to declare their sex)

I know of several children and adults who believe they are living in stealth but the truth is everyone seems to know. Even a 9 year old grandson of mine has told me that Alice in his year " is really a boy but we have to say he is a girl'

So a male child wants to grow long hair and wear skirts etc.. would you ever forbid that? Assume most here would be ok with it. But what if more and more people start assuming the child is female and the child encourages that? Refers to themselves a she, or asks people to. Gets deeper and deeper into a life where they are practically living as a female - or rather with people treating them as if they were female.

this is where the parents need to be the grown ups in the room and be very kind to the child but make sure they know that they can't change sex. They can dress how they like, they can play with the toys they like but it is utterly cruel to encourage a child to think they can actually change sex.

I can't imagine the distress of the children (and in some cases deluded parents) that have believed the lie they have been sold that they can actually change sex. Now what do they do? They have built their entire lives around a falsehood. Everyone else has been encouraged to further that falsehood - talk about having your world crumble about your ears when you are told that a) the essential treatment that was your only option for a happy life has been withdrawn and b) you can't actually change sex and you will be going through a puberty that you believed was not going to happen.

A friend of mine who really should know better for many many reasons told me that hormone treatment actually changes your chromosomes and you change sex - the lack of knowledge of basic biology in many normal people is breathtaking.

Yes the problem is that it all seems to be affirmed so early on, by parents, schools and socially. No one seems to be saying NO you are a boy, you will always be a boy and you will always be our son and we want you to be our son, you may dress in whatever you want but you can’t change your name until you are an adult and there is no way you can become a girl . We will help you through things that are very difficult that all children go through, and will always be here for you. When you grow up you will be more able to take important decisions.

Angryrsister, I disagree about the name changes. I think it's fine to modify names or use pet names if the child is more comfortable with that. For instance an effeminate child called Jack may not think his name 'fits him' if he knows two other Jack's that are both boisterous Jack the lads so may prefer to be called Jackie or a pet name. That is not the same as telling a child they can change their sex.

If we had been kids today my sister would have been ripe for this - absolutely. She had to have ‘boys’ clothes, toys, activities and used a boys name when we played. I copied her a fair amount too.

It breaks my heart that such kids aren’t just told ‘fine - do you want the blue or red truck? Which game - subuteo or boxing robots? Ok go got the crew cut if you want’ (and this is what my parents did). Instead they are probed and questioned - and it seems as if some adults pretty much Get carried away and ‘lead the witness’ - with encouragement/praise - form a path where the child cannot possibly even begin understand the outcome or consequences and doesn’t know how to back out.

@Typesofcatalogue

Glad you’re treating the topic with the seriousness it deserves.

Anyway, back to an adult discussion..

Early social transition creates the need for puberty blockers and medical transition.

This is difficult isn’t it. Where do you draw the line between highly gender non conforming behaviour and ‘transition’? A child can adopt the stereotypical clothes etc of the other sex, but that can can lead to people starting to see or treat them as that sex, by contemporaries and new people.

So a male child wants to grow long hair and wear skirts etc.. would you ever forbid that? Assume most here would be ok with it. But what if more and more people start assuming the child is female and the child encourages that? Refers to themselves a she, or asks people to. Gets deeper and deeper into a life where they are practically living as a female - or rather with people treating them as if they were female.

Same for ‘extreme tomboys’. If they ‘act like a boy’, dress like a boy, tell people they meet their name is a boy? How do you stop them? Where is that line between GNC behaviour and ‘transition by stealth’ (as in incremental steps).

And at what point in that stealthy (almost) transition does a child start to become so set on the idea that they are that sex, that it becomes more and more difficult to persuade them they are not?

But this only arises because of what is going on now. In the past the worst that could happen would be that someone would be wrong about a child’s sex and would be corrected. No-one thought twice because children and adults all knew that there were two sexes and that was, well, fine. Just a fact.

It is only now, primarily because of social media, but also because of what has been peddled to children by the BBC and schools, that this would even be a consideration. It is so incredibly sad and regressive. Children being prevented from being exactly who they want because if they are, a label will be imposed on them, a social identity created for them and a medicalised pathway laid out in front of them.

Being trans is an adult notion for adults who

Listening to the programme earlier gave me the strong impression that the mother and child bought hard into the "more valid" identity and became hyper alert against anything that would threaten what they'd built. They developed an extreme fear of misgendering and male puberty. They were enabled to build a prison for themselves and now sit in it not feeling secure but feeling very afraid.

Now it's the turn of Not Nice Mummy. Let's see whether she goes for tearful emotional manipulation and gets ultra gentle questioning from JG.

The Not Nice Mummy is speaking so much sense.

'You have to sort out mental health issues BEFORE you start transitioning.'

Such an articulate woman

11 or 12 year old daughter upset about being a girl and wanting to be a boy. Socially isolated from the girls and found her place with the boys but as they grew up became isolated from them. Learned herself about the medical pathway online.

The mother says: she has a broader perspective, child is on the spectrum and is looking for something to solve all the problems in one go.

JG: I'm not criticising you but... and then suggests the mother is acting in the absence of medical advice.
JG: shouldn't we be respecting the pronouns?

This is a profoundly different interview. No emotional manipulation, the mother is examining what's going on rather than feeling she must seize one solution, JG happy to challenge.

Jane Garvey much more frosty with Not Nice Mummy than she was with Nice Mummy? I'm sensing an awkwardness and a note of challenge and disapproval which wasn't there yesterday.

I've always wondered where JG really stands on this and hoped that her lack of encouragement of GC women and arguments was down to the BBC gag, but I think this is showing otherwise.

Jane Garvey “The ruling doesn’t apply to 16 yr olds does it?”.
FGS, read the flippin judgement !

The mum is great. Well done. My heart goes out to her.

x-post nauticant

I was very struck yesterday with how the parents based it all around a little boy in y2/3 who wanted to play dress up and wear a dress and explore gender - like all little kids do. They took that idea and ran with it. I continue to find it was that that little boy couldn't just be left to grow up to be the man he actually is, be it effeminate, gay, gender non conforming, not a stereotypical man, or whatever.

JG: doesn't your child waver?

Ha, rather than the emotional manipulation coming from the guest in today's interview it comes from JG.

Such a strong articulate mother today

Garvey was definitely more critical, less sympathetic with this mum. The mum articulated so clearly the concerns that MUST be addressed for a young autistic girl. The social isolation that can occur with autistic young people play so easily into the gender Id narrative. I don’t know how ANYONE can‘t see this.