Britain's youngest trans child

[poshme]

Article in daily fail (sorry)

4 year old female twin says she is a boy (like her twin brother) and expresses interest in firefighters & police officers & doesn't like pigtails.

So the parents are transitioning their 4 year old and saying they have grown up conversations about gender with them.

Sigh.

My almost 4yo thinks she’s Chewvacca do you think I can register her gender as Wookie??

@Shizuku

"Sounds just like my 11 year old autistic daughter. She doesn't like girls clothes, hair slides, make up, girly toys and culture. Still a girl."

Same, except I wasn't autistic.

Are you suggesting that not conforming to gender stereotypes, alone, makes a person trans?

Or is it something else?

My daughter is aware of the transgender movement but knows she's a girl who doesn't like girly things and that's OK.

It's quite easy to see how a child like my daughter could equally be led to believe that being as she is means she's not really a girl.

And before you say it there is no anti trans message being delivered to her. She's has fully bought into the TWAW rhetoric that she has seen through YouTube and hates JKR (but loves the books), as she is autistic and gets stressed I haven't ever discussed it with her.

@Shizuku

"Sounds just like my 11 year old autistic daughter. She doesn't like girls clothes, hair slides, make up, girly toys and culture. Still a girl."

Same, except I wasn't autistic.

What was your childhood like? Do you have a female sibling?

How on earth have we got here. What do the parents think of girls, if they think they can't be fucking firefighters, for God sake.

It's sexism on such a scale it's difficult to believe.

Child abuse pure and simple.

This isn't a child deciding its parents making that choice
Girls can not like pigTails etc and can like firefighters and still be a girl ffs

So I should have transitioned my 3yo because he wanted long hair like Elsa and to wear pink and glittery shit? Nope. I told him boys can have long hair and wear what the fuck they like. I may not have said fuck.

My 4 year old constantly tells me he's Turbo the snail .... suppose it's time to make him a shell and feed him a diet of salad leaves ....

Oh God,
My Mother used to love telling people I'd said, "When I grow up I will be a boy"
I had 2 brothers, didn't like dresses, wore jeans, had short hair, hated Barbies, played cricket....
I am a woman with a husband & children

This kind of thing feels dangerously regressive. Why can’t you like trucks etc and still be a girl?

My 3.5 year old DS has been carrying a baby doll around with him. He knows that doesn’t make him a girl! He shouts I’m a boy for no apparent reason all the time!

@Mumoblue

Okay I’ve read the article now. Still yikes.

Asking the kid if they’re actually a boy is a leading question. And I never liked “pigtails or pretty shoes” in my entire life! And frequently get pissed off with long hair and cut it all off!

I understand there are adult transgender people who feel deeply that they wish to be perceived as men/women but when it comes to kids it all comes down to whether or not they like pink and sparkles and that just seems like sexist nonsense to me. I’m really trying to understand it but I can’t.

The developmental questionnaire that my health visitor did with my daughter afe 3 asked this. I have an electronic copy (question 5)

I wanted to be boy from around 4, right through puberty (my periods started when I was 10, I hated it and wanted to be rid of them and my large breasts), till I was about 15. Fuck knows how my life would have been destroyed if I were a kid these days.

As it was my mum let me have short hair, choose whatever clothes and toys I wanted and let me do the same stuff as my brother.

I read through the criteria for gender dysphoria and would definitely have fulfilled it all as a child. Hell, even now I do! Which just shows how ridiculous and based on ridiculous gender stereotypes the whole thing is.

@anguauberwaldironfoundersson

Well we're fucked. My 2 year old thinks she's a dinosaur.

Thank you, just made me laugh out loud despite this madness.

Jesus wept. I would bet £1000 that the little girl just wanted to be like her twin brother and if the parents had just let them dress the same/cut their hair the same/play with the same toys, she would have been just fine.

This is all so terribly regressive, sexist and sad.

This child does not need a GP appointment or referral to GIDS, the parents need some support in understanding child development and language acquisition. Also perhaps, guidance in twin dynamics.

Dr Katie Alcock (Lancaster University developmental psychology)
medium.com/@katieja/young-children-reality-sex-and-gender-3421f4f165f1

"Sounds just like my 11 year old autistic daughter. She doesn't like girls clothes, hair slides, make up, girly toys and culture. Still a girl."

Same, except I wasn't autistic.

I think we are largely agreeing with ourselves here. There are a wide range of reasons why a 4-year old might not want to wear dresses and hair clips:

• maybe they are trans, will experience gender dysphoria throughout their childhood and will want to transition socially or medically when they are older
• maybe they have autism or sensory issues and don't like the feel of clothes or the way hair clips pull at their hair and scalp
• maybe they want to have the same things as a male sibling or friend
• maybe it's part of their personality and they just prefer different things

Shizuku - it sounds like you feel a close relationship between your childhood preferences and your adult gender identity. However, that is not true for everyone here: some of us were gender non-conforming children who grew up to be gender non-conforming adults but without wanting a trans or non-binary identity. How we want to negotiate our identity in a gendered world is something we can address as adults. But, given 4-year olds' rudimentary understanding of gender (see the videos I linked to in my previous post), I don't see how anyone can look at the child in that article and decide that they are a trans boy, rather than just a child who likes fire engines.

My 5 year old daughter quite passionately wants to be a fire fighter. Do their parents realise women can be firefighters? And police officers too? We have only seen firefighters three times but every time there was a woman....

Their conversation is surely along the lines of, 'You know boys like fire fighters and police officers that's what being a boy means. Girls like princesses and sparkles. Are you a boy or a girl?'.

This kind of sexism is extremely regressive and dangerous for the children. Girls need to be empowered, not transitioned when they are a little more than a toddler because they like fire fighters, police officers and dislike people fussing with their hair. Surely this is SS remit?

Jesus wept. I would bet £1000 that the little girl just wanted to be like her twin brother and if the parents had just let them dress the same/cut their hair the same/play with the same toys, she would have been just fine.

Imagine being told at such a young age that no, you had to have hair, clothes and toys you didn't want whilst your twin brother had 'better' stuff, "because you're a girl"

"Recognised medical condition" .

Daft sexist parents isn't a medical condition.

They lost me at “posting on LinkedIn”. Along with the ostentatious announcing of pronouns.

@InvisibleDragon

"Sounds just like my 11 year old autistic daughter. She doesn't like girls clothes, hair slides, make up, girly toys and culture. Still a girl."

Same, except I wasn't autistic.

I think we are largely agreeing with ourselves here. There are a wide range of reasons why a 4-year old might not want to wear dresses and hair clips:

• maybe they are trans, will experience gender dysphoria throughout their childhood and will want to transition socially or medically when they are older
• maybe they have autism or sensory issues and don't like the feel of clothes or the way hair clips pull at their hair and scalp
• maybe they want to have the same things as a male sibling or friend
• maybe it's part of their personality and they just prefer different things

Shizuku - it sounds like you feel a close relationship between your childhood preferences and your adult gender identity. However, that is not true for everyone here: some of us were gender non-conforming children who grew up to be gender non-conforming adults but without wanting a trans or non-binary identity. How we want to negotiate our identity in a gendered world is something we can address as adults. But, given 4-year olds' rudimentary understanding of gender (see the videos I linked to in my previous post), I don't see how anyone can look at the child in that article and decide that they are a trans boy, rather than just a child who likes fire engines.

" it sounds like you feel a close relationship between your childhood preferences and your adult gender identity."

The opposite - I was a tomboy, not into pink or princesses or anything like that, but I felt I was a girl. Gender identity is not the same thing as gender stereotypes - that's why some trans girls are tomboys. I'm the same now - short-haired lesbian, don't own a pair of heels, never had my nails done (I do quite like make-up though).

www.newsweek.com/transgender-kids-living-identity-develop-cis-children-1471729

"Within both transgender and cisgender children, we find a wide range in the strength of their identity and preferences. For example, we had some 'tomboy' transgender girls in the study, just as we had 'tomboy' cisgender girls."

This kind of sexism is extremely regressive and dangerous for the children. Girls need to be empowered, not transitioned when they are a little more than a toddler because they like fire fighters, police officers and dislike people fussing with their hair. Surely this is SS remit?

These are areas where family resource workers and Sure Start Centres provided valuable support and interventions if needed. Its a great shame these services have been cut back so far.

@R0wantrees

Jesus wept. I would bet £1000 that the little girl just wanted to be like her twin brother and if the parents had just let them dress the same/cut their hair the same/play with the same toys, she would have been just fine.

Imagine being told at such a young age that no, you had to have hair, clothes and toys you didn't want whilst your twin brother had 'better' stuff, "because you're a girl"

" I would bet £1000 that the little girl just wanted to be like her twin brother and if the parents had just let them dress the same/cut their hair the same/play with the same toys, she would have been just fine."

You mean like they are doing.

They didn't include children who don't identify as either cisgender or transgender in that study.

No, they have only done so on the condition that she be referred to as a boy and announced to the outside world as a boy and be "socially transitioned" at the nursery the child attends.

Prior to this they seem, from the self provided evidence, to have heavily "gendered" the twins early childhood.