This is what happens when you place a group of children outside of established safeguarding frameworks.
My mother who worked in safeguarding children for over 35 years once shocked me to the core when she told me that when it comes to safeguarding children, no one is above suspicion. "Not even my dad?" I asked her. "Not even him. Not me. No one." She replied.
I thought about this often since then. I thought but you can't live like that, suspecting everyone. Turns out you can. You can live very well and happily, too. It's a baseline minimum for safeguarding that doesn't mean you think that individual person - me, my mum, my dad - is an actual abuser. No, it means that you weigh up the bigger harm. Who does it accrue to if you apply or do not apply this minimum standard?
An adult feeling uncomfortable and upset because you're lumped into the broad category of adults, some of whom are abusers, and therefore having to be subjected to safeguarding measures as if you were one.
A child being abused if we fail to apply the standard.
There's no comparison, is there?
But this one group of children and adults has been placed outside our safeguarding frameworks, where applying the exact same minimum standard is taken to equate to hateful bigotry and transphobia.
This is like a beacon lighting the way for abusers to find vulnerable children. And there will be so much more harm done if we don't manage to get these children back inside our safeguarding frameworks.