Page 4 | Parents with inconvenient truths about trans

MrsOvertonsWindow · 2022-08-26T17:01:40+00:00

This article was posted earlier today but the thread was deleted with the invitation to *"feel free to discuss the article but avoid sweeping generalisations based on that" * The article raises all sorts of important questions about the nature of public discourse in relation to "trans" children and (according to the lesbian mother writer) details the hazards of social transitioning very young children which she now sees as "*an intentional process of concretizing transgender identity in children as young as 3 years old - the age of the youngest child in this group. When identity is concretized at this young of age, children will grow up actually believing they are the opposite sex. How could medicalization not follow?"* I'm not sure if it's possible to discuss this powerful piece without drawing conclusions and there's evidently a lot of unease about the words of this lesbian parent being openly heard. Which perhaps makes it even more important to ensure a site "by parents, for parents" allows this important discussion? Maybe we can try another discussion and keep within the talk guidelines - or just have the freedom to read her words? https://pitt.substack.com/p/true-believer

Pinkyxx · 27/08/2022 09:59

Very brave and powerful article, should be read by all parents!

Musomama1 · 27/08/2022 10:04

Very glad to read this. A few years ago it became a bit of a thing with a few earnest parents to raise their child as gender neutral.

Before I knew of any of the issues my instinct was, why would you conduct a huge social experiment on your child?

One of the issues coming up seems to be the child getting attention and praise from the parent if they are trans. And I wonder if the second sibling saw that and wanted to please their parents too?

BreatheAndFocus · 27/08/2022 10:07

The writer seemed more interested in ‘being progressive’ than doing the right thing. I’m sorry but how thick and gullible must you be to swallow this crap? If someone told you that children could pick their species and some children were human while others were actually puppies, would you just nod along? Disengage your critical faculties because you think it’s ‘cool’??

What really gets me is that lesbians are often GNC and taunted as being ‘mannish’ or ‘not a proper woman’ and yet here we are, promoting idiotic stereotypes left, right and centre. I know we’re supposed to read the article and sympathise with the OP but I don’t. I think they’re making excuses for the harm they did and because they’re now embarrassed at how they were taken in.

Ironically, instead of the parents ‘being their true selves’ they were more concerned with the outward appearance of being ‘progressive’ and scoring brownie points as a ‘queer family’. My sympathy is only with their children. IMO, it’s actually evil to f**k with children’s heads like this.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 27/08/2022 10:10

@MrsOvertonsWindow "I am told that this has now changed completely; other professionals recognise that it is not helpful to exceptionalise gender identity issues, and that they have the transferrable skills to work in this area".

I think Dr Cass was specifically talking about Finland - she goes on to say "There are useful lessons that we can take from their experiences."

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 10:20

I’m sorry but how thick and gullible must you be to swallow this crap? If someone told you that children could pick their species and some children were human while others were actually puppies, would you just nod along? Disengage your critical faculties because you think it’s ‘cool’??

I do wonder how we got to this point.

I don't know about the author, but lots of people spouting this stuff are well educated. I guess that doesn't mean their critical thinking skills are much cop. But for such large numbers of people and organisations to be taken in by this. How did it happen?

angeltop · 27/08/2022 10:27

Kanaloa · 26/08/2022 18:50

At the nursery I work in we often make the kids line up in smaller groups to avoid a stampede to the outdoor play area. Sometimes we’ll say ‘if your name begins with A’ and do it by letter. Sometimes ‘if you are wearing wellies.’ Sometimes ‘if you are a boy please line up/if you are a girl.’

Inevitably no matter what you do Isaac will try to line up with the ‘if your name begins with A’ and Alice will go with her sandals to line up with the ‘if you are wearing wellies’ and Evie will line up with the ‘if you are a boy.‘ Because they are preschoolers. Their comprehension skills are still developing, their sense of self and identity is still fluid and often confused by their lack of understanding. So how on earth does it come to a 3 year old being sure they are born in the wrong body, when most of them don’t have a clue what day of the week it is at circle time?

👆this, all the way.

lizziesiddal79 · 27/08/2022 10:47

Kanaloa · 26/08/2022 18:50

At the nursery I work in we often make the kids line up in smaller groups to avoid a stampede to the outdoor play area. Sometimes we’ll say ‘if your name begins with A’ and do it by letter. Sometimes ‘if you are wearing wellies.’ Sometimes ‘if you are a boy please line up/if you are a girl.’

Inevitably no matter what you do Isaac will try to line up with the ‘if your name begins with A’ and Alice will go with her sandals to line up with the ‘if you are wearing wellies’ and Evie will line up with the ‘if you are a boy.‘ Because they are preschoolers. Their comprehension skills are still developing, their sense of self and identity is still fluid and often confused by their lack of understanding. So how on earth does it come to a 3 year old being sure they are born in the wrong body, when most of them don’t have a clue what day of the week it is at circle time?

This x1000.

When I was 3, I apparently used to tell people my name was Malcolm. My daughter at 3 said she wanted to grow up to be a fire-engine. Not a firefighter. An engine. My niece at 3 believed she would be the tooth fairy one day. My friend's 3-year-old wanted to be a picture frame! 🤷‍♀️

TheClogLady · 27/08/2022 10:48

I hope health visitors aren’t resorting to plotting child growth on the opposite sexes charts (growth trajectory sex different from birth so I don’t know why sports are obsessed with male puberty as the cut off - it should be being born male).

Toboggan · 27/08/2022 10:52

Seems that to be the wokest of the woke you need a trans child?

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 11:10

Seems that to be the wokest of the woke you need a trans child?

Whats shocking is that being woke seems to be more important for some than the well-being of their children.

The author saw the light and thankfully was able to roll back. But others won't.

Farmageddon · 27/08/2022 11:22

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 10:20

I’m sorry but how thick and gullible must you be to swallow this crap? If someone told you that children could pick their species and some children were human while others were actually puppies, would you just nod along? Disengage your critical faculties because you think it’s ‘cool’??

I do wonder how we got to this point.

I don't know about the author, but lots of people spouting this stuff are well educated. I guess that doesn't mean their critical thinking skills are much cop. But for such large numbers of people and organisations to be taken in by this. How did it happen?

I suppose certain types, who base much of their identity on being alternative (i.e. special, and look down on conventional types), want to carry that on when they have children. The fact that she's educated just means the is more arrogant in her belief that she is right.

They way she describes herself 'social justice organiser and facilitator....the cool kids, the vanguard of revolutionary work to change the world...' It's all self important dribble, the kind of stuff you hear from teenagers.

Because she's alternative, she may have viewed having a family as a very ordinary and conservative and conventional thing to do (it's not really, for most people it's wonderful), but for the alternatives, who when they were younger pictured the 2.4 family in the suburbs as the ultimate failure of specialness, when they find themselves as just another parent, they need to augment that with a special parent identity.
Actually many parents have one - the super eco warrior hippy parent, or the pushy over achievement parent etc. so it's not unusual.

So she became a queer parent (gaining special identity points) because lesbian parent isn't cool enough anymore, whose children were very definitely going to be special also (trans - extra bonus special identity points), because she sees her children are a reflection of her, and not as individuals. It's all an ego trip.

Thankfully she gave her head a wobble before she damaged her children even further.

ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus · 27/08/2022 11:24

A person I know through a family connection - a child psychologist - asks her daughter every day whether she feels like a girl or boy. How the daughter is meant to know what a girl or boy sounds like isn't questioned.

A child psychologist. That is terrifying. Not only for her daughter but for every child she encounters in her work. Truly terrifying.

TheSunnySide · 27/08/2022 11:26

I recently saw a post from a person I follow on Instagram who is crowdfunding to have her teenage daughter’s breasts removed. It is just so upsetting to hunk that in a few years this child is probably going to regret all of this but may be too scared to say so because it would mean turning against the cult.

each day I see these things happening and feel so powerless to intervene. We need to be able to talk about it.

RedToothBrush · 27/08/2022 11:26

My sibling transitioned later in life.

One of the biggest problems there's been for me is my mother's role in this.

When we were little she made a huge deal about how we had 'been born the wrong way round and I should have been the boy and he should have been the girl'.

I'm older and it resonated. It affected me in my late teens and early twenty.

My sibling said that he had 'felt like this since he was a child'. From right slap back in the middle of when my mother was constantly saying this.

Wellies54 · 27/08/2022 11:30

At around 3, my son used to wear a dress. At roughly the same age my daughter would put a toy car in her pants and say 'look I have a penis '! Spoiler alert - I hadn't accidentally got their bodies the wrong way round in my womb. They have both turned out perfectly happy with their biological sex.

Limesodaandice · 27/08/2022 11:44

Wellies54 · 27/08/2022 11:30

At around 3, my son used to wear a dress. At roughly the same age my daughter would put a toy car in her pants and say 'look I have a penis '! Spoiler alert - I hadn't accidentally got their bodies the wrong way round in my womb. They have both turned out perfectly happy with their biological sex.

Your comment really resonates. 20 odd years ago my son aged from 3-4 went through a stage of wanting his quite long hair in pigtails, he liked wearing dresses, he used to take my heels out of my room and try them on. Sometimes when we were out, people would assume he’s a girl and be shocked when I told them he’s a boy. He did look very “girly” due to his features so I can see why people thought it.

At no stage did I ever think any of this meant he was “really” a girl. It was unthinkable. He was born a boy, was happy describing himself as a boy, and no one else ever suggested he might be a girl trapped inside a boy’s body.

I dread to think these days what kind of pressure he would have come under. He’s now an adult, very much happily a straight man, he likes to experiment with nails and makeup occasionally when going out, but is very obviously a man, and I’m just so relieved he was born when he was, otherwise I’m certain that at school he’d have been under pressure from certain influences trying to tell him or me that he may be trans.

I worry so much for the similar young boys and girls growing up today.

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 11:46

I just can't understand why common sense doesn't kick in at some point.

Children think all kinds of crazy things about their identity. It doesn't mean we take them as gospel.

There have been kids gravitating towards stuff more stereotypically associated with the opposite sex since the dawn of time, to no great implications.

Haven't we all felt uncomfortable in our bodies at some points in our lives?

Do these things not occur to parents heading down this road? Are they that limited in their thinking? Or do they override these thoughts for the cool points?

BreatheAndFocus · 27/08/2022 11:47

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 10:20

I’m sorry but how thick and gullible must you be to swallow this crap? If someone told you that children could pick their species and some children were human while others were actually puppies, would you just nod along? Disengage your critical faculties because you think it’s ‘cool’??

I do wonder how we got to this point.

I don't know about the author, but lots of people spouting this stuff are well educated. I guess that doesn't mean their critical thinking skills are much cop. But for such large numbers of people and organisations to be taken in by this. How did it happen?

I think there’s a psychological word for it - when people go along with something they know is incorrect because other people are going along with it. They change their initial answer to fit in. Maybe that’s part of it?

But in this case, I think the parents were too busy wanting to be ‘queer’ and ‘progressive’ for the sake of their self-image rather than the approval of others. A gay friend does that. It’s posing for points. The more Likes he gets, the more ‘progressive’ he is. Some people are really hung up on their image because they have a weak sense of who they are.

Original poster

MrsOvertonsWindow · 27/08/2022 11:48

The casualties of all this are unfathomable. The role of parents is critical and I feel for those who feel unable to challenge their child's decisions as they're aided and abetted by those in power who should know better. Another thoughtful piece from Transgender Trend relates to older children than the writer's children:

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

Extract:

"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."

OP posts:

Limesodaandice · 27/08/2022 11:49

Just to add, what’s worrying is that these days, if all this was happening and I’d said to his teachers “Oh he’s feeling like he identifies as a girl at the moment”, they possibly would have just taken my word for it and started referring to him as ‘she’, and almost rebranding (sorry don’t know if correct word) him as a girl in the class to the other pupils.
And then possibly the pressure of beginning puberty blockers - doesn’t bear thinking about.

RedToothBrush · 27/08/2022 12:07

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 09:09

Another thought I had reading this is what are autism experts and charities doing about this issue? Given that those with autism are so over represented in this area.

One of the autism charities in Manchester has a prominent TRA who is a prominent LD activist as one of its leading activists.

How do you unpick that?

Toboggan · 27/08/2022 13:04

As has been pointed out, this mother doesn't seem to know how to think for herself. She went with Woke ideology, and then moved to believing what she read about "attachment". There has to be a theory for her to follow, apparently.

TheKeatingFive · 27/08/2022 13:08

How do you unpick that?

Christ. I have no idea. What a disgrace.

ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus · 27/08/2022 13:51

Kanaloa · 26/08/2022 18:50

At the nursery I work in we often make the kids line up in smaller groups to avoid a stampede to the outdoor play area. Sometimes we’ll say ‘if your name begins with A’ and do it by letter. Sometimes ‘if you are wearing wellies.’ Sometimes ‘if you are a boy please line up/if you are a girl.’

Inevitably no matter what you do Isaac will try to line up with the ‘if your name begins with A’ and Alice will go with her sandals to line up with the ‘if you are wearing wellies’ and Evie will line up with the ‘if you are a boy.‘ Because they are preschoolers. Their comprehension skills are still developing, their sense of self and identity is still fluid and often confused by their lack of understanding. So how on earth does it come to a 3 year old being sure they are born in the wrong body, when most of them don’t have a clue what day of the week it is at circle time?

This is such a good example. Perfect illustration.

LaughingPriest · 27/08/2022 15:26

RedToothBrush · 27/08/2022 12:07

One of the autism charities in Manchester has a prominent TRA who is a prominent LD activist as one of its leading activists.

How do you unpick that?

Show quote history

I know exactly who you mean. They were involved in publicly bullying someone at Pride. They and their mates specifically target "Terfs" over and above actual transphobes. Something about labelling and denouncing people as the wrong kind of feminists clearly appeals to them more than tackling actual issues. I find it depressing.