Help with talking to a 12 yr old about trans issues

[GoingOnce]

My son has a friend whose sister is apparently now his brother. I sense my son wants to talk to me about this and I want to have the right language to engage sensibly in a conversation. He has swallowed whole the ideology that people can change their gender as this has been “explained” to them at school. The child does not attend my son’s school but still attends a girls school - whilst going by a new name, wearing an adapted and having a special toilet assigned just for them.

The child in question (and the entire family) is struggling. There is self-harm and have been suicide attempts. I do not want to criticise them or their child. But I do want my child to realise that they are being presented with one narrative here. (I am quite certain the parents are simply going along with the whole thing because they are terrified of their child’s mental state and what they might do next. I feel very sorry for them).

Any advice for how I can discuss this sensibly? I can’t believe at age 12 we are already having to talk about all this.

The sites can say what they like.

How many transgender people have you actually met?

Except - legally, I’m afraid, “gender reassignment” or transition (in the Equality Act, for example), covers any stage of transition - including simply proposing to transition.

Very few people have all the surgery and some cannot have it for medical reasons; yet they may well have had irreversible treatment in other ways. Binders have been shown to have a very high risk of tissue damage, both complicating future mastectomies, but also causing aesthetic damage to the breast that actually increases users’ reports of “dysphoria” about their breasts.

I would deal with it by telling your child that some people experience a condition known as body dysmorphia and explain in simple terms what that means.

Yes exactly. It’s like a revived form of dualism - very anti-materialist. The body is treated as alien but also plastic - it’s material to be reshaped and reformed.

That’s why the rise in cosmetic surgery is so key to the whole ideology - it could only coexist with the idea that it’s a moral imperative to reshape your body into its true, most “beautiful” state, whether that means via the whole Kardashian culture of contouring and plastic surgery, or by disavowing the body as unimportant or something that can be glossed over by changing language (as if changing one’s pronouns or name somehow reshapes bodily reality).

Sometimes “queer” culture likes to present itself as the opposite to “basic” Kardashian culture - but in reality, again it’s the flipside - similarly totally in thrall to the whole ideal that happiness can only be found via medicalisation, surgery, consumerism, makeup, body art and clothes; and “curating” your body into something that reflects a constructed idea of your “real” self. Actually accepting the material realities of the body is total anathema!

Medical surgery - do you mean double mastectomy? That's rare among children in the U.K. yes. Thankfully because the NHS won't do it on childrn.

But on www.gofundme.com/s?q=Top+surgery+U.K. there are over a thousand young women crowdfunding for mastectomies and breast reductions.

@nightwakingmoon Your posts on this thread have been so, so interesting, thank you.

But it isnt.

Very few have surgery.

Thank you.

You'd scoff at an emotional , confused child, especially your own?

course you would.

But honestly, how do you know?

I don't. No more than she knows it is. So why?

@stopwaitingforpermissiontobeyou - so what if 'very few' have surgery. What is very few? Is 1000 crowdfunding for a double mastectomy very few?

Graphic is the rise in referrals to the Tavistock ..

Is crowdfunding the same as having surgery?

LOLZ

So wouldn't it be better to say the equivalent of"yes dear", and do nothing irreversible? A child can change their name, dress how they wish, wear their hair how they wish, whatever, but why should adults around them tell them the lie that they can change sex?

I hope your 'school' never find your posts. Sad.

Yeah. there's only black and white, isn't there.

They have gender dysphoria.
As pp have said a generation ago distressed young women found solace and acted out their distress via eating disorders and self harm.
I’m honestly not sure what drives natal male pp with gender dysphoria.

I was asking that particular poster what they meant by 'transgender'. I think it has been established in their later posts that they are using it to mean exclusively those who have undergone medical transition, including genital surgery. In other words someone who in the past would have been called a transsexual. They don't seem aware that transgender has a much broader definition and includes those who simply change their name and/or appearance to something stereotypically associated with the opposite sex. Sometimes they make no changes at all and just declare that they are trans.

Is it really the case that rates of eating disorder have reduced as several PPs have said?
Is anorexia not common among girls who call themselves non-binary or trans?

Be straight about it. Explain there’s a rise in children identifying as the opposite sex and there might be several factors at play. Social contagion is one of them. By 12, the kids in my sons class are all pretty clued up on it - and most of the boys have rejected it as a fad the girls are into and are now sharing jokey memes about “gender fluid”. A lot of the kids start to filter out the attention seeking ones who need to constantly and tediously discuss their identity non stop, with the more vulnerable ones who are genuinely confused (and who really shouldn’t be being led down the garden path but then that’s a safeguarding issue of lying to children)

It doesn’t mean that anyone can change sex because they can’t. It’s a polite fiction designed to help people who feel uncomfortable with themselves socially feel that they are being seen as the opposite sex. No one really sees them that way of course but people try and “be kind.”

What does your son really think about it? Start there. Does he actually believe that people can change sex? If so why?

@OldCrone No. Incorrect on all levels.

I would use transgender on a wider scale - the examples you gave.

My point about surgery was in direct relation to the poster who claimed to work in a school and see the devastation of transition without being aware that it is acrually very rare.

Re your point about 'simply declare they are trans' - transgender people really can't win here. If they transition MN is up in arms, if they don't they're fake, or must have some kind of illness.

That's an interesting question. The data is so limited as until recently trans activists have barred so much research (hence the mess GIDs are in).
We do know that countless children presenting at CAMHs / GIDs have co morbidities. Tragically these are generally ignored in favour of gender identity issues, resulting in these vulnerable adolescents reaching adulthood with all their other mental health issues untreated. Dr David Bell talks about this in one of the excellent Nolan podcasts. Here's a link and Fair Play for Women have also transcribed part of it. It's well worth listening to:

fairplayforwomen.com/nolan-investigates-stonewall-5/