Creating panic about “trans panic” defence.

[NitroNine]

There is a very lengthy post - with multiple updates - on a popular online forum (not MN, obviously, but also open-access & high-traffic) from a parent whose child is trans & took advantage of a move (& resultant change of schools) to “go stealth”* & not disclose this to their new schoolmates. Child settled in at new school, made friends - and was, as it transpired, participating in the bullying of another trans student (bullying because they are trans) with this new friendship group.

Someone felt it was appropriate to reply that the - hugely stressed & concerned poster worried they had handled things badly on discovering their child was bullying another transgender child - also needed to worry about their child endangering themselves by participating in this behavior while secretly being trans…The murder rate of transgender folks is appalling, and often a defense used is blaming the victim because they were ‘lying’ about who they are.

It is one of the Top Comments, meaning other forum users have voted in support of it. I suppose it makes a slight change from throwing out Those Suicide Statistics - but what a truly dreadful thing to say to a concerned parent. (For avoidance of all doubt, the child in question is not a sex-worker in Brazil.)

As for the “trans panic defence” - happily it is being explicitly legislated against in multiple States (in combination with the “gay panic defence”, which was the original version of it). Claiming it is “often” used means either the poster has better statistics than the US Government**, which is quite something, or they’re just assuming this MUST be true. Obviously it should never be accepted as a defence, don’t misunderstand me - but telling a worried parent that their child is likely to be murdered by anyone who doesn’t agree TWAW & TMAM for this sort of deception is not, by any stretch of the imagination, realistic, nor is it helpful.

Someone else has managed to shoehorn in a dubious life-expectancy stat; & another poster came forward to say that trans people experience more violence than cis people do & (trans women experience more violence than trans men do).

Clearly clearly there are considerable challenges in the life of a transgender person; & to be the parent of a child who transitions (or wishes to do so) thus brings you a set of very specific worries. It might sometimes be impossible not to add to the things a parent worries about when you’re advising them because you advise them on a matter that hadn’t yet come up - but that’s not at all the same as responding to “I yelled at my child for participating in transphobic bullying & don’t think that was the right way to handle things” with “yeah they’re totally going to be murdered AND their murderer will get away it”. People aren’t even supplying accurate information while exploiting a parent’s distress. Indeed, I wonder how many people who talk about the “trans panic” defence in the US know how many States allow it & about the work being done to legislate against gay/trans panic defences being permitted. Because often it seems to be trotted out without actual comprehension - such that there is, in effect, a panic about the panic: not only will your child commit suicide if not instantly affirmed, now they are doomed to be tragically murdered & the culprit will get away with it via their transphobia…

• a description used by the child ** someone tried to track use of gay panic defence in murder cases

Nitro do you believe girls have the right to single sex changing rooms, bathroom, dorms etc?

How do you square that with male children not being honest about the fact they are male and using the single sex spaces created specifically for girls?

On the other side of the coin how can we safeguard female children if they are presenting as male and using spaces created for males? Such a female child would be at great risk....

I deliberately didn’t mention those issues, happy, in case it was seen as directly attacking the child in question &/or their family & thus got the thread pulled due to a complaint by Monitors.

The reason I posted was that it seems parents of children questioning their gender identity or IDing as opposite sex [may] now face (in addition to the “immediately affirm or your child will commit suicide”) TRAs bobbing up with “your child is going to be murdered AND THE KILLER WILL GET AWAY WITH IT” any time said child has a disagreement with someone. TRAs are again telling parents their children are at huge risk of death & pushing a narrative that suits their agenda but will cause harm to some of the people who encounter this lie.

Please don’t mistake me, I find it very worrying - for all concerned - that this child was able to find themselves in this position; & they are very VERY lucky that this didn’t all come out in a public way & that they have a supportive family & a therapist to help them work out what to do next. I’m worried about the child currently experiencing transphobic bullying; & I’m worried about the children doing the bullying - given the context, is the bullying some form of misgendering? Refusing to engage at all or to share certain spaces they feel should be single-sex? Making unkind comments in person or on social media? Certainly the school are failing very badly if it’s most of these, but “failing to act as a support human” =/= bullying.

There's a very strange narrative around all trans identified children, from many sides.

It's very odd

WarriorN
There is a seemingly-endless domino-fall of concerns & issues surrounding just the concept of a child identifying as trans. Which (again, clarity) isn’t to say a child doing so is some kind of horrible bad-person issue - lots of the concerns are for them; & it’s complex: the 6yo boy with dysphoria so severe he is self-harming is different from the 12yo autistic girl who is struggling with puberty, caught up in the school LGBT club & fixed on “my teacher wouldn’t lie & in her class I learned I’m really a boy”; & different again from the 17yo boy just discovering he enjoys cross-dressing (& is thus, according to Stonewall, trans).

Has also struck me just now that I forgot the gay/trans panic defence is very specifically linked to sexual encounters. We do know, obviously, that children assault their peers - but they’ve essentially suggested from nowhere that this child is going to do so. Or perhaps that [their hypothetical assailants would believe] them using toilets & changing rooms by gender not sex is equivalent to that? Or simply the act of going stealth?

It’s just another layer of awful on top of “the child we’ve told you will kill themselves if you don’t affirm is totally going to get murdered”.

I see what you're saying, Nitro--you're laying out a case that the trans issue causes a complex hole of vulnerabilities in which a trans child is always the loser, even if the trans child is the bully. And that there is literally no end to the accommodation trans people would therefore require from so-called cis-folxxxxxx to meet their need for validation or else they would be adding to the suffering of the wounded trans soul.

I suppose we can't forget that trans children are necessary to affirm adults.

And all the complex narratives around that.

I have covid brain so hoping you can make more sense of that.

Yes, it sounds like a recipe for a deeply unhappy and problematic life.

Victim complex by proxy?

it sounds like a recipe for a deeply unhappy and problematic life

Unfortunately this.

I also think that it is not necessarily unkind to tell the parent of a child they are transitioning and encouraging to lie about their sex that this lying could create more problems than it is solving, for example, when a certain type of man finds out that their sexual partner lied to them, that partner could be in danger and the assailant is not going to be thinking about the niceties of the law at that moment.

Lying about your sex seems highly problematic. Impossible to sustain over long term for a start. Other children may well be upset that they were lied to, but particularly may impact on certain religious groups who are bound by their religion to have different boundaries with the opposite sex. Plus how will school ensure appropriate sex-based safeguarding, safety and fairness in sport etc? (Will they even try?)

The parent should certainly be strongly advising their child to fully disclose prior to any sexual contact in all situations. Not because they might get murdered but because it's the right thing to do. Obviously nothing justifies murder. But a horrified reaction at being lied to, being asked to leave etc is not surprising and would be upsetting to the trans person, so even from a purely self serving perspective why would they want to put themselves in that position?

The school equivalent might be a girl spotting an unexpected penis in the school changing room and screaming in shock. Hurt feelings not murder. But avoidable by being honest and respecting boundaries. If someone really can't be honest it might be possible to still respect boundaries to some extent by using separate facilities "for medical reasons".

There's always the risk if you treat someone badly (particularly male persons statistically speaking) that they'll turn out to be not a nice person and their reaction will be violence not complaint to the authorities. I think the best reason to behave well is because it's the right thing to do, not because of the risk you'll do it to the wrong person.

The appalling murder rate of trans identifying people is a popular narrative. Unfortunately nobody seems to be able to come up with any figures to confirm this

@Georgeskitchen in most countries I think it's usually single digits, and most often that single digit is happily 0

Isn't it odd that sometimes the simple, old-fashioned values still make the most sense? Teaching children that lying is good will cause problems. A boy can play at being at girl, but if he says he is a girl, he is telling a lie. Isn't it a scary world, in the end, when little boys get praise and parties for telling the biggest lie of all?