Children's Social Transition

[MalagaNights]

Given the closing of the Tavi and the conservative leadership candidates both speaking about concerns about puberty blockers, I've started to think more about social transition and how we challenge and change the assumption that this must be supported.

It is now totally assumed and supported by all professional organisations who work with young people that the correct practice is to use the pronouns young people request and to refer to them as the sex or gender identity they choose.

These assumptions of practice are now deeply ingrained.

They are shared by teachers, psychologists, social workers, mental health professionals. It is just stated as fact mostly now, without comment or challenge.

The assumption is underpinned by principles, or slogans, such as 'lived experience' 'young person's voice' and the idea that your identity is central and must be protected.

Understandably the focus has been on the devastating impact of medicalisation, but I'm wondering how we are going to change the embedded assumptions and practice around social transition which now exist within schools and all professions who work with young people.

I think we need to emphasis that if a young person says I think I'm not a girl - "you're right" is not a neutral statement, it is a powerful intervention that has a profound impact.

Socially transitioning children is not and never has been a neutral or supportive action. Feminists have said this all along, and the preliminary findings of the Cass Review have now stated this, too.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2022/03/26/the-cass-review-into-gender-identity-services/amp/

You make a really important point MalagaNights. Transgender Trend has two excellent pieces from psychologists about the awful damage done to children's mental health by social affirmation. Essentially it disrupts the body / mind alignment that's such vital aspect of puberty / growing up and leaves these children psychologically adrift for the rest of their lives:

Every parent, teacher and adult who works with children should read these:

www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

I think a lot depends on the age of the child. I'm not sure choice of pronouns is a bridge I'd want to die on with the average teenager, esp now that the door to medical transition is (please god) closed. Ds' have several female friends who are/were transboys ie took gender neutral names and used "they" for a couple of years, before growing out of it. I suspect active opposition would have had more negative consequences than positive. Then again none were experimenting with binders etc.

Does anyone know what will happen to children already on the transition pathway now? A friend's son ("daughter ") started with hormones earlier this year and I really fear for him. ?Asd, depressed, came out as gay before discovering he was really a girl and his parents have embraced his new identity with frightening enthusiasm. I really fear for him.

I think more widely this nonsensical narrative that anyone can be who they want or that they are who they say they are needs to be done away with as well. Reality denying nonsense

This is from the Cass Review Interim Report (p.62):

Social transition – this may not be thought of as an intervention or treatment, because it is not something that happens within health services. However, it is important to view it as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning.64,65 There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition. Whatever position one takes, it is important to acknowledge that it is not a neutral act, and better information is needed about outcomes

cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Cass-Review-Interim-Report-Final-Web-Accessible.pdf

A key problem is the concept of a "trans child."

I've read a couple of 'Educational papers' recently (academics or PhD students who are TRAs) and from the outset, they discuss the "needs" of a "trans child."

As soon as the child acquires this label they've been socially transitioned.

What's wrong with socially transitioning?

Totally agree. A good start would be to normalise the idea that NOT agreeing to socially transitioning is a reasonable response and should be a choice. That parents (and educators etc) can sympathise and pay attention and listen to a young person's distress, without agreeing to pretend they are a he or she.

1. It increases the likelihood that a child's present dysphoria will become embedded in the long term, making it less likely that the dysphoria will resolve itself.
2. It increases the likelihood that the child will move onto hormonal or medical transition, both of which are known to be harmful.

Essentially, it makes it harder to change their mind. Because when a girl announces that she is trans/n-b and wishes to be known as Kye, she is made to feel heroic and brave and special. But if she decides she wants to be called Keira again, she feels like a bit of a pratt telling all the whole school and all the teachers.

One aspect never mentioned is the coercion this places on other in the social group to agree that x is a different gender. Politeness and respect must be upheld. But the cheerleading that I hear from some adult figures supporting groups of children is unhelpful. "Hello, everyone, please announce your name and pronouns". I don't think it is fair to assume that all children will go along with these ideas. In the same way adults can refuse pronouns at work, the same should be extended to kids in school. Or at least an alternative, like using names, should be found.

It can also be extremely detrimental to an adolescent’s mental health where they are using being seen as the opposite sex as a maladaptive coping mechanism (whether through trauma, internalised homophobia etc). Having trusted adults such as teachers affirm their belief that they really are “trans” will only teach a child who hates themselves for whatever reason that they are right to hate themselves. Where a social transition is supported by school staff while the parents are taking a more cautious approach, the child’s sense of security within the family unit (because of the message that the child gets from the school that they are supportive of the child but their parents are not supportive) can be undermined and it can lead to a whole host of mental health issues.

social transition is absolutely not benign.

Thank you gotosleepffs that makes sense, although I have to admit that of all the trans people I know, only three have gone on to transition medically, but I don't know any trans children. Is there evidence that socially transitioning as a child makes it more likely that they will transition medically?

This is a quote from the Transgender Trend link I posted upthread - it's a clinical psychologist talking about working with teenagers and the consequences for them of social affirmation:

Agreeing with young people that they were born in the wrong body and organising their life around that belief is not a low risk thing to do. It’s a serious psychological intervention based on denial and avoidance. Believing their happiness is conditional on denying reality puts young people in a fragile state, dependent on the pretence of others for their psychological wellbeing. Affirmation feels like such a relief, but it’s a seductive illusion. Holding options open and sitting with uncertainty has never felt more difficult, or more important.

I'm not sure there's much evidence yet about the link between social transitioning & medical. Very limited data been kept as the Cass review has pointed out.
There's some anecdotal evidence that numerous children are seeing this as a "phase" - just as teenagers always have with fads and will move on from it. Trouble is the vulnerable children (those with other mental health challenges, autistic, in care) are getting caught up with the adult activist groups who have cynically targeted vulnerable groups of children and have the capacity to do much harm with their determination to separate children from families & other sources of support.
Sorry if this sounds cynical about these groups, but everything I've said can be evidenced from their actions.

One aspect never mentioned is the coercion this places on other in the social group to agree that x is a different gender.

Indeed. Children are explicitly taught that it is wrong - disrespectful, unkind and harmful - not to agree that Johnny is now a girl.

It's hard enough for adults to stand up to this sort of coercion, let alone children.

It is now totally assumed and supported by all professional organisations who work with young people that the correct practice is to use the pronouns young people request and to refer to them as the sex or gender identity they choose.

Imagine if we did this with anorexia? I know it's a much-made comparison, but I think we need to ask the question repeatedly, as body dysphoria and anorexia are so parallel - both demonstrate an extreme example of the mind/body split which is at the heart of these problems.

The Tavistock is not closing, I wish people would stop saying that.
You mean the gender ID clinic within the Tavistock is closing.
There is far far more to the Tavistock than that one clinic.

There is.
There is a recent study which shows that only 6% of young people who socially transition desist, vs the 80% which used to happen under watchful waiting. ( It's on transgender trend I'll try to link tomorrow when I have more time.)

Dr Zucker predicted this: that the 'treatment'would be actually exacerbate the condition.

Socially transitioning is likely to worsen mental health as you are placing a young person in a position where they are seeking to be perceived as one sex but they have a developing body which signals to them and the world this isn't true, so the dysphoria worsens.

Also young people who want to deny reality need adults who kindly maintain the reality for them and who don't support delusions which cannot be fulfilled. Definitely likely to damage mental health.

But schools have been utterly captured by this practice being best, this is all the advice they get, and I'm thinking about what needs to happen to shift the practice to: kindly stating reality, exploring distress, and watchfully waiting. We are a very long way from this, and it's harming young people.
The harm is not just the blockers, it's in the schools.

I really hope that schools will start to take notice of this. There are too many children being let down by setting them up on this conveyor belt.

The statutory safeguarding document (that everyone working in schools has to read every September), ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, has nothing on ‘trans’ children. It is an unacceptable omission.

Over the last decade, it has become quite common to receive emails saying ‘— student should now be known as — and is now using the —pronoun’. One might lazily assume that a sound apparatus of multi-agency consultation and sensitive dialogue with primary carers has been in motion long before this email is sent to the whole school but, actually, no: it usually means that a busybody / gossipy type of teacher has been approached by a vulnerable child who has told them that they think they are ‘trans’, and in a flurry of heroic virtue-signalling, that teacher has socially transitioned them by whole-school email before the child has even got home that evening.

The Keeping Children Safe in Education document needs to advise teachers in these situations to contact the Designated Safeguarding Lead. And this moment that we seem to have reached where it has finally been recognised that socially transitioning a child is not a neutral act and may affect a child’s outcomes, needs to be clarified for schools in this September’s KCSIE document. This is long overdue. Come on, DfE!

Do any of them define what they mean by a 'trans child'?

Is this a child who self-identifies as trans? Or is it a child who has been diagnosed by professionals as suffering from gender dysphoria? If so, what are the diagnostic criteria (all the ones I've seen are based on stereotypes)?

Do they believe that a child can literally be born in the wrong body?

Up until about 10 or 20 years ago, 'transgender' didn't exist. There were transsexuals and transvestites. Nobody would have suggested that children could be either. The terms 'trans' and 'transgender', like the idea of 'trans children' itself are designed to "take the sex right out of the trans experience" in the words of American TRA Autumn Sandeen.

Before ex-husband my transed my beautiful gender non-conforming gay son I used to think social transition was nothing to worry about, But now I realise the evil that it is social transition has to be banned in every way

Do any of them define what they mean by a 'trans child'?

Nope.

It's assumed you understand that they are 'trans' from the outset.

The statutory safeguarding document (that everyone working in schools has to read every September), ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, has nothing on ‘trans’ children. It is an unacceptable omission.

Nothing will change until it's embedded in that.

But that can't happen until there are clear uniform guidelines across the nhs and also until there are clear guidelines from the dfe regarding the approach to take - which will have to go hand in hand with KCSIE.