Desperate transgender teen's agony of 'being born in wrong body' - now he needs your help to pay for surgery

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At 14 years old, Nathan Blake begged the hairdresser to give him a short back and sides while his mum popped out to the shop.

It was an act of defiance as he took the first tiny transition step knowing he was different to his peers.
"I first came out as a lesbian in Year 8 but I still knew something wasn't right. I was suffering inside.

"I didn't even know that transgender was a thing. I was a bit of a loner and I met most of my friends online. Suddenly it all started to make sense.

"When I look back, it was always there. I hated my hair and my body, especially when my top half changed." www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/desperate-transgender-mans-agony-being-4940582

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1355612073724686341.html?fbclid=IwAR0fBtKzfpWe8KVAKRnBLvAhM-SC3Ku3PI_KSI1gGPxhGCoQMMUmsUuQ9xs

Seems a very sad counterpoint to the above story.

Also, I think this is possibly the first time I've heard a transman discuss the toilets issue:

'"I was at Festival Park and I went to the gents' loos. This middle-aged white man threatened me. It really scared me.

"When I'm out now I try to hold on as much as possible. If I'm desperate, I'll use the ladies' after that bad experience.'

So - using the toilet of one's chosen 'gender' doesn't actually sound like it's necessarily going to be safer after all, does it?

Nathan can afford tattoos Nathan can afford there own surgery

Plus you will get it on the nhs just not fast

Currently 19, but in year 8 (so, age 12-ish) "didn't even know that transgender was a thing". I find that a little implausible. Does the script need updating?

WRT the toilet incident - it's almost like men are a fucking menace to anyone that doesn't conform to a specific sort of masculinity and that the danger to people who don't conform to that might just be violent men, not women

Is this just creating a new binary of 'aggressive/violent men' and 'everyone else'?

It feels a bit like it, to me. The scary men demand what they want and they get it, everyone else scurries into the 'ladies' toilets that were once upon a time a safe haven. Probably less so, now anyone who fancies it can access them.

MAYBE TEH PROBLEM IS MALE AGGRESSSION EH???

Rather than older women trying to access HRT, lesbians excluding penises, mothers trying to encourage their children to accept themselves and their bodies as they are, feminists fighting for women's rights, maybe just maybe TRAs could direct some of the energy behind those rape and death threats and deplatforming drives towards violent, aggressive and toxic male masculinity? How about it, lads?

Sounds like Nathan's mum (parents?) wanted her child to conform to her expectations of feminine stereotypes and would not countenance any deviation from that with things like hair length etc.

Worked out well hasn't it? - sarcasm smiley.

She needs to know that the nickname "mimmymum" is already taken.

Yes, let's name the actual fucking problem:

Male Violence.

Poor kid.

And yes: more evidence that third spaces are the very obvious solution here.

@NoIDontLikeTrains

Currently 19, but in year 8 (so, age 12-ish) "didn't even know that transgender was a thing". I find that a little implausible. Does the script need updating?

This would have been around 2014, which is when the BBC started pushing transgenderism for children with 'I am Leo' on their children's channel. It's quite likely that most 12 year olds hadn't come across it before that.

Do you think so OldCrone? As far as I'm aware trans issues were fairly well embedded in general culture then, especially for an adolescent already identifying as a lesbian — though I can understand that the younger age group might not yet have been aware.

@BoobsOnTheMoon

WRT the toilet incident - it's almost like men are a fucking menace to anyone that doesn't conform to a specific sort of masculinity and that the danger to people who don't conform to that might just be violent men, not women

Though I notice that it was specifically mentioned that this was a White man, so what could we expect? (Only kidding).

I'm inclined to make a formal complaint about the paper's promoting the removal of healthy breast-tissue for someone who may be a little confused about their sexuality.

One of the comments:

"The LGB Alliance are also seeking donations to help fund their campaign for the removal of Trans Toolkits from schools."

Brilliant.

The part I don't understand is why as a lesbian, Nathan wants to look like a man. He is less likely to attract a lesbian partner surely? And from reading the article, Nathan wants a partner to "mix dna" with to have his own children. How does that work? Surely Nathan's eggs will still need sperm, if Nathan is a lesbian, presumably his partner will be a woman so mixing 2 eggs doesn't work. Obviously he can have sperm donation but that won't be with his partner. Unless his partner is a man after all and he is now a gay man or heterosexual? He also doesn't think bottom surgery is safe? What does that mean?

As someone who also didn't fit in at school, I feel so sad that kids these days can be convinced there is something wrong with them because they don't fit the gender stereotypes, to the point where they irreversibly damage themselves.

Sad but brave story at that link you posted, Arabella. A young woman whose mum loved and supported her while she went through FTM drugs and mastectomy, and then through detransitioning.

My mum didn't question or challenge me because she didn't want to lose me. The gender clinic had no such pressure. It was their job to question and challenge me – to evaluate my (clearly) poor mental health and treat me accordingly. Instead, they handed me HRT and surgery.

to that wonderful mum, and to her honest daughter. But not to the doctors and other professionals who ignored the principle of “First, do no harm”.

Irresponsible of the Stoke Sentinel to say NB is fundraising to get the body he so desperately needs.

A troubled alcohol-abusing teenager thrown out of single mum’s home at 15, shortly before mum’s death, pretty obviously needs sympathetic mental-health care.

And where the hell are one-time gay rights groups like Stonewall when young gays and lesbians are encouraged to believe they can or should be transformed into straight adults? Why isn’t Stonewall shouting from the rooftops that a lesbian is NOT a man ‘born in the wrong body’?

WRT the toilet incident - it's almost like men are a fucking menace to anyone that doesn't conform to a specific sort of masculinity and that the danger to people who don't conform to that might just be violent men, not women

Quite. Funny, isn't' it, how all the rage from the TRAs is directed at women worried about safety, not at violent men?

When I hear stories about schools that have gone full-on with the trans agenda, the ones that worry me most are not those where they allow boys who identify as girls into female changing rooms, shocking though that is, it's the ones that allow girls who identify as boys into boys' changing rooms and dormitories. It is putting those girls at huge risk.

@NoIDontLikeTrains

Do you think so OldCrone? As far as I'm aware trans issues were fairly well embedded in general culture then, especially for an adolescent already identifying as a lesbian — though I can understand that the younger age group might not yet have been aware.

A good guide to how widespread this was amongst children is the number of children referred to GIDS. Figures here go back to 2009.

tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/documents/1662/FOI_19-20148_GIDS_M-F__F-M_1967_to_2018.pdf

From 32 girls referred in 2009/10 to 1740 in 2018/19. In 2013/14 there were still only 257 girls referred. The enormous increase in numbers was mainly after 2014.

"This middle-aged white man threatened me."

Why was the man's race relevant?

And from reading the article, Nathan wants a partner to "mix dna" with to have his own children. How does that work? Surely Nathan's eggs will still need sperm,

I'm not sure there is any understanding of basic biology/reproduction these days.

Poor child

True OldCrone — but not even knowing what it is? I'm in my thirties and knew of the existence of transsexuals certainly by the time I hit senior school… it's an aspect of society that's not been hidden from anyone but the very young for decades, surely?

I worked with looked-after children in 2014 and we didn't have one single trans-identifying child then. Never even heard of the phenomenon. Knew of course about transsexuals and transvestites (Rocky Horror being a favourite film). Dread to think what it's like now in this vulnerable and troubled cohort.

2014 is definitely the year I recall trans issues hitting the mainstream.

In 2009 we found out after he passed away that a family member had been secretly trans*. It was a shocking discovery at the time, and a lot to process. Certainly, at that time trans was rarely discussed. You would occasionally hear of a middle-aged man coming out as a woman. There was no information about it. I wasn't aware of any known ftm transitioners.

2014 is when the BBC began to run news programmes and stories on it, and trans issues suddenly seemed to be everywhere, apparently from nowhere. DH and I took note of the year because we kept saying 'where was all this 5 years ago...?'

*Having now done a lot more research into the issues than I had in either 2009 and 2014, I can confidently say that the relative in the case of my extended family was definely a classic example of AGP. However, it took a while for me to find out that AGP existed, so until then I was trying to reconcile what I knew about that person with the notion that they had been 'born in the wrong body'. Once I discovered the existence of autogynaephilia, through cryptic messages and quickly-deleted threads on this board, everything made perfect sense.

"I didn't even know that transgender was a thing. I was a bit of a loner and I met most of my friends online. Suddenly it all started to make sense."

I bet it did when literally everything a human can do can be described as an "egg" cracking. Another soul sucked into echo chambers and propaganda to hate their own body by using the internet as a crutch. And how old were these online friends?