Guardian long read by Shon Faye about trans children

[Booboobadoo]

I couldn't find a thread about this already, thought would add:
www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/24/shaky-acceptance-transgender-kids-families-fight-for-inclusion?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@OldCrone

There's no explanation of what Alex thinks 'being a girl' is, or why Alex is so sure that Alex is a girl when Alex has a boy's body.

Alex doesn't like dolls, likes reading, isn't a 'girly girl' (whatever that means - it's an odd way to describe a male child...), but apparently likes to wear 'girls' clothes'.

Is this just another little boy who has been told that some things are forbidden because they are 'for girls'? Or perhaps bullied and told he must be a girl because he prefers reading to playing football?

Shon doesn't address any of this. Perhaps there's more detail about how you can tell that a young child is 'really trans' in the book.

Yes it seems to be that Alex says they're a girl, so because they say it, then it must be true.

If Alex had said they were a dog, (as so many children do) would the parents have been so eager to allow their child to alter their entire life just because of a few comments?

Experiencing something does not quality you as an expert???

"Lived Experience" is king. As long as you have the right experience and opinions.

Lived experience as a gender-nonconforming girl who was determined they were a boy until puberty does not count when discussing gender-nonconforming girls determined they are a boy. In this case men who identify as women once they have reached middle age and have had kids is the only lived experience that is deemed relevant when discussing these girls.

@Helleofabore

It is also important to remember what benefits can be derived from the dramatic increase in teenage females transitioning. Especially for those males pushing the narrative about trans children.

So, in this article (cannot access as poor WiFi ) do they discuss the significant health risks for transitioning young people and the significant difference in that risk for females vs males?

Any depth of acknowledgment at all?

Of course it doesn't. The words moral panic are used for starters.

@NotBadConsidering

I would read it but I doubt it would offer anything insightful. I suspect it will contain a heart wrenching anecdote about a family with a precocious articulate child, won’t mention all the girls presenting currently, won’t mention all the kids with ASD or intellectual impairment or trauma, won’t talk about the lack of evidence of medical transition nor the harm, and will probably have something about Section 28 and how we are all bigots or something.

I read the article before I found this thread. I've never heard of this person before but you've pretty much nailed the article.

I find it funny that the trans child narrative has shifted before our eyes. They seem to have learned that people aren’t buying the “my child is a girl because she loves dresses and Disney princesses and barbie!” So now this article takes pains to distance Alex from any gender stereotypes whatsoever, leading to the rather odd outcome of a boy repeatedly stating he’s a girl while being completely indifferent to all feminine activities. Ironically, this wouldn’t be enough to qualify Alex as trans under the dsm5 classification as I believe two or three of the criteria have to be hit, and they include wearing girls clothes or liking girls toys. So in their rush to distance Alex from stereotypes they have medically untransed him.

And here’s something else the article doesn’t address. Alex seems happy and content to just be referred to as a girl and to have female pronouns. He doesn’t need the trappings of girlhood - he doesn’t need female clothes or toys. So why is that not enough? Why will Alex need to go through painful surgeries and hormone treatment? Why does affirming his gender identity need any treatment at all, when he seems perfectly fine with how things are?

Finally it’s disappointing that shon hasn’t addressed the fact (known since the 1980s!) that there is no trans kid to trans adult pipeline. Trans kids do not become trans adults and the two conditions are not related. Trans kids mostly desist and become gay and bisexual. Trans adults who say they were trans children are mostly engaging in confabulation. Like I said, we’ve known this for a long time so why is shon pressing this myth that trans kids eventually turn into trans adults ?

He doesn’t need the trappings of girlhood - he doesn’t need female clothes or toys.

Except later in the article it says:

After one shopping trip to buy clothes – entirely from the girls’ section – Alex still got upset in the car home

So there is something important to Alex about wearing clothes from the girls' section.

Finally it’s disappointing that shon hasn’t addressed the fact (known since the 1980s!) that there is no trans kid to trans adult pipeline. Trans kids do not become trans adults and the two conditions are not related. Trans kids mostly desist and become gay and bisexual. Trans adults who say they were trans children are mostly engaging in confabulation. Like I said, we’ve known this for a long time so why is shon pressing this myth that trans kids eventually turn into trans adults ?

It's definitely a convenient myth for the trans lobby, and I think we all know why that is. But even if it were true that all trans adults were trans children (and there is certainly no proof of that), it still wouldn't make it true that all children who are now identifying as trans will grow up to be trans adults. In fact, there is evidence that the majority of children who identify as trans desist once they have gone through puberty if they don't have any puberty blocking treatment. It's also easier for them to desist if they haven't had constant affirmation in childhood.

Comments on FB are overwhelmingly along the lines of GC or WTF?

Like 80-90% of gender non-conforming children, my issues were resolved at puberty
The problem is this idea that a gender non-conforming child has issues that need to be resolved. It’s ok to be gender non-conforming. My son refuses to have his hair cut and at the moment he’s obsessed with dolls and Hello Kitty. That doesn’t imply anything about his sex or gender.

Has anyone ever sat down with Shon, or Owen Jones or any other TRA and asked calmly and politely...

What should we do about a child who is merely being a child (by exploring their identity, not fitting old fashioned stereotypes, expressing themselves). Do we have to ‘do’ anything, validate anything or just accept that child for who they are?

This is what pisses me off - a small boy who likes dolls and frills is not a bloody problem.

He's not gay, or trans, or confused. He's just a boy who likes those things. Everything else is imposed on him externally.

He might grow up and change his mind about those things. He might grow up to be a gay man. He might grow up and still love dolls and frills, and be heterosexual and there isn't anything wrong with any of these possibilities.

He won't ever be anything but male - a boy when he's small and a man when he matures.

This is so fucking straightforward it makes my teeth itch to have to say it.

Yup

@FloralBunting

This is what pisses me off - a small boy who likes dolls and frills is not a bloody problem.

He's not gay, or trans, or confused. He's just a boy who likes those things. Everything else is imposed on him externally.

He might grow up and change his mind about those things. He might grow up to be a gay man. He might grow up and still love dolls and frills, and be heterosexual and there isn't anything wrong with any of these possibilities.

He won't ever be anything but male - a boy when he's small and a man when he matures.

This is so fucking straightforward it makes my teeth itch to have to say it.

But they've changed the narrative now.

They've realised that when they say this, it's pointed out that it's all stereotypes, and nobody has to conform to stereotypes. And that children should not be medicated for not conforming to stereotypes.

So now it's not about the toys or the clothes (although it's still mentioned that the male child in this article wears clothes bought in the girls' department, so they don't completely get away from stereotypes).

And they don't talk about 'born in the wrong body' any more, because it's been pointed out that this is again reinforcing sexist stereotypes.

This (male) child isn't 'girly', but wants to be called a girl. That's it. That's what 'gender identity' means now. A boy who wants his parents to call him a girl.

But that just raises a whole load of other questions. Why does a boy think he is a girl and want his parents to call him a girl? What does he think it means to be a girl? He obviously doesn't think it means he has a girl's body, because he presumably knows he has a boy's body. Or, since his fantasy about being a girl has been indulged by adults since he was at nursery, does he understand that he is a boy, and that this is a permanent state, and that no amount of wishful thinking will turn him into a girl?

OldCrone, yes, which makes their narrative even more incomprehensible and like a metaphysical religious claim.

Shon was poo-poohing the idea that 'Gender Identity' is like having a soul on Twitter. Shon thought an adequate rebuttal was to say 'No, it isn't' but of course, withoit even that kind of metaphysical comparison, as you say, all you have is a child claiming, without any clear frame of reference or evidence beyond the claim, that physical reality itself is wrong. Which is a metaphysical claim in itself.

And still doesn't change that both the author and the child here are male, and always will be, whether they continue to wish otherwise or not.

@Truthlikeness

I was watching an interview with Blaire White the other day. She would describe herself as a classic transexual, i.e. knew from a very young age, persisted and is happier now having had some surgical interventions, but interestingly she said she is glad she never had any treatment pre-puberty as it would have completely messed her up and it was better for her to discover things in good time and deal with it as an adult.

It's also easier to detransition as a male to f. Blaire hasn't had srs for very understandable reasons.

Even as an adult, detransition from female to m is close to impossible, irreversible.

I just don’t believe there is such a thing as a transexual child.
Children have personalities/characters and different ways of expressing themselves. Some will grow up and realise they are gay. That’s fine.

It’s the adults around the children telling them they are trans, and that’s terrifying.

Yep.

@happydappy2

I just don’t believe there is such a thing as a transexual child. Children have personalities/characters and different ways of expressing themselves. Some will grow up and realise they are gay. That’s fine.

It’s the adults around the children telling them they are trans, and that’s terrifying.

The existence of 'trans children' is very important for adult males who transition in later life after fathering children.

As one TRA put it:
“I’ve always said there are two groups that are going to make change in transgender legislation and the “gender identity and expression” related language in legislation. It’s going to be trans youth because … they demystify it and take the sex right out of the trans experience.”

mirandayardley.com/en/this-is-an-all-out-political-war-the-gender-recognition-act-and-beyond/

This (male) child isn't 'girly', but wants to be called a girl. That's it. That's what 'gender identity' means now. A boy who wants his parents to call him a girl.

That would be confusing, but sort of OK. But then comes the absolute insistence that there is no difference of any kind between the boy who wants to be called a girl, and a girl.

Because any admission that these are two different groups - whether because they have different physical characteristics, different social experiences, different risk factors, whatever - introduces the possibility of separation/different treatment aka "exclusion" and "bigotry".

Thus the only way for anybody to be a woman or girl these days involves some indefinable essence which is unmoored from logic and physical reality.

Dismantling the basic definition of womanhood is "inclusive". Yay.

That would be confusing, but sort of OK. But then comes the absolute insistence that there is no difference of any kind between the boy who wants to be called a girl, and a girl.

And there's no indication in the article that this boy, still at primary school, fully understands that even if his parents, teachers and friends call him a girl, that he is actually a boy, that he will always be male, and that he can't change sex.

I don't think the adults should be indulging his fantasies to this extent.

That's an excellent point. If a child is too young to understand even just the concept of permanence, how can they possibly understand 'changing sex' and not being able to change back?

any admission that these are two different groups - whether because they have different physical characteristics, different social experiences, different risk factors, whatever - introduces the possibility of separation/different treatment aka "exclusion" and "bigotry".
Thus the only way for anybody to be a woman or girl these days involves some indefinable essence which is unmoored from logic and physical reality

Thank you Bessie. This really highlights how these people are using children to fulfil their own demands and underpin an ideology. Never has it been more important for women and parents to stand in the way of this and to literally protect children from the harm caused by this.

I wondered if this article would be discussed here. What struck me was the accompanying visual graphics to the article. It very much seemed to be a boy with a doll in their hand. Or at least a child with short hair holding a doll. Could be a sexist stereotyping for either sex.

It’s all so worrying for young people. A teen girl we know from from DCs junior school says she’s now trans (using female pronouns because she’s not ‘out’) but apparently not told her parents yet. This girl is very likely ASD, was always bullied for her weight and height and lack of ‘girlishness’. There feels to be so little space to discuss complicated and complex emotions about identity.

My DC is very supportive of trans issues to the point of complete acceptance of someone who ‘feels’ like a woman ‘is’ a woman regardless of their sex. After listening to Jamie Doightery (?) talking about how trans kids are "denied access to healthcare" because of Keira Bell who ‘wasn’t even a kid", my DC is now someone angrily reporting any ‘transphobic’ comments on SM.

And between us, it’s become such sacred ground that we can’t talk about it. Anything that I say about retaining female only spaces is transphobic and the retort is now ‘what’s in someone’s pants is none of our business’. A phrase I’ve seen used on some of these threads by some TRAs.

That upthread comment about trans youth being important to gender legislation because it takes the sex out of the trans experience was breathtakingly prescient as this is exactly what’s happening. My DC is a caring and socially aware person who abhors exclusion of any kind. But also too young to have experienced the silencing of women.

Just so worrying that so many adults responsible for our young people are badly letting them down by this constant use of the word gender when they’re talking about someone’s sex.

That upthread comment about trans youth being important to gender legislation because it takes the sex out of the trans experience was breathtakingly prescient as this is exactly what’s happening.

That comment was originally made by a TRA in a video on YouTube. There was a link to it on Miranda Yardley's site and it was also discussed on here. The video was eventually taken down. I assume it was because TRAs realised that spelling out so clearly what their recruitment of children was really about wasn't going to help them in the long run.

The TRA is called Autumn Sandeen.

mirandayardley.com/en/suffer-the-children-how-children-became-the-collateral-damage-of-transgender-ideology/

@mirandayardley

Excellent piece by Lily Maynard about Shon Faye's article.

lilymaynard.com/transitioning-children-how-young-is-too-young/