The dreaded issue arose with my son…

[HeadAgainstWall0923]

Today my 9 year old son told me that boys can change to girls, and girls can change to boys, and they can choose whether to be a boy or a girl whenever they want.

When I asked him where he’d heard that he said he’d been told it at school.

I feel so disheartened.

@zeibesaffron 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I’ve read a few books by trans adults (Elliot Page being the latest) and it seems a lot of them knew when they were very young that they were different in some way.

It’s worth a chat with the school but I’m sure this topic would’ve been covered in an age appropriate way. (Or did your child just overhear something in the playground?)

I personally have no issue with them teaching from a younger age. It can only help children’s understand that we aren’t all exactly the same. They are going to meet a lot of people in their lifetime, especially at secondary and universities where young adults really get a change to experiment and find themselves.

Perhaps all this will eventually lead to lower suicide rates amongst the trans community?

Just explain the xy and xx chromosomes in a simple way, there lots of good websites for biology for kids.

I have an example of how this gender identity ideology causes people to split from reality.

A relative who is old enough to know better once said 'ooooh a trans [insert animal species]!' in response to being told about a male animal that had penile cancer and needed to have their cancerous penis removed. The animal's waterworks were also 'rerouted' due to the removal of the tumour and the resulting tissue loss.

So their thought process was:
animal + penile cancer + life saving surgery = human being + trans identity + elective genital surgery

This is a good approach

The issue arises when he knows teachers are pretty much lying if they teach gender ideology

I’ll use science in the same way but teachers are in a position of authority and we tend to foster trust with them

My 10 year old sprang something similar on me after hearing about discussions on whether sex in the EQA means bio sex or not was on the news.

We have always been very “anyone can do anything there’s no such thing as boy things or girl things” but he asked what transgender means. I told him it can mean different things currently. That some people like to dress in clothes society says are for the opposite sex and feel that makes them transgender and other people feel like they should have a girl body or a boy body and they have the opposite. Being autistic he took this literally and said ‘I think I am transgender then because I think about what it would be like with a girl body like X (his friend who is a girl).’ We then talked about whether he’d also wondered what it felt like to be our dog or any other person and that helped him see that it’s normal to wonder about what it’s like being someone or something different.

In the end we talked about the fact no one can change their sex or their species regardless of what they wear or do to their body but thats fine because there’s no such thing as girls or boys clothes or men/women’s jobs but that sometimes women and girls and boys and men need spaces away from each other if they are vulnerable or naked because everyone deserves privacy.

Or they were sad, anxious, abused, had an undiagnosed neuro-diversity....

The current and apparently only acceptable approach is to Affirm Affirm Affirm. Exploration is considered to be 'Conversion therapy'. So instead of asking the confused and distressed children if there are any other issues such as being sexually attracted to the same sex or feeling disgust at the sexual attention they are suddenly subjected to once they start to grow breasts. We are told that we are wrong if we question anything and that instead, we should load the kid up with puberty blockers and find them a surgeon to cut their breasts off, all while celebrating that they are "being their true selves and living their true lives".

It's insane, disgusting and we are already seeing the kids now in their mid twenties who were mutilated and now have body parts missing, life long medical conditions, infertility and a complete lack of sexual function.

"I’m just trying to find a way to explain such complicated information at a level a 9 year old will understand. If I make it too technical he’s just going to switch off."

@HeadAgainstWall0923 I thought the example given above about pets being neutered was a great one.
Ie "do you remember when xyz's puppy had his testicles removed so that he couldn't impregnate other girl puppies?". Did that turn him into a female puppy?

lilyblue5
Thats an interesting comment regarding suicide given that the statistics in the UK don’t back up the often ill informed assertion that trans people have higher suicide rates than the general population and that transition does not appear to change that.

Perhaps you have some new stats available the rest of us aren’t aware of?

😂

I’m a Brit, living overseas for years, surrounded by people of many nationalities. The level of transphobia in the UK is interesting, to say the least. I don’t see it elsewhere to this extent.

I’d have no problem with trans topics being discussed in school. In fact we have already mentioned to our DS (4 at the time) that some people choose to change their gender.

Factually speaking, some people do choose to change their gender, and since 2004 it has been legally possible in the UK to change their gender.

I know of only 3 trans people in my distant family/friendship/colleague circle. This is a tiny %, and is representative of the overall trans landscape.

So, it happens, it’s legal. Talking about it happening shouldn’t be an issue. It just helps make people more understanding of the topic, which can only be a good thing given how difficult a transition journey can be.

What transphobia? Can you give examples?

Gender is a social construct. Sex is immutable and can't be changed. Children need to be taught that and not be peddled a lie that men can become women and women can become men.

In fact we have already mentioned to our DS (4 at the time) that some people choose to change their gender.

Did you explain to him what it means to "change their gender"? I'm all ears.

What you are calling Transphobia is actually Britain leading the way on this issue. Where Britain goes, others will follow.

Justtochat
Can you explain to me what is transphobic about saying to a child that humans cannot change sex please? I genuinely don’t understand why telling my child something factually true, just like I tell him about gravity or the Big Bang theory?

I have never said trans people should be discriminated against, treated badly and that everyone should be treated with respect whether we agree with their beliefs or not. How is that transphobic? Am I also Islamophobic for telling him what Muslims believe but that I don’t? Or that Hindus and Buddhists believe in reincarnation but I don’t as there’s no evidence to support it? Is that bigoted too?

A person may change their gender but they cannot change their sex.

No matter what a person does to themselves to try and change their gender, a male will always be a male and a female will always be a female. Biological sex can never be changed.

I just think it’s very important that children are taught this and understand the difference.

You're not sure why its a big deal that young children are being taught in school that boys can actually turn into girls and its up to them to check?

Do you want to think about that a bit more? Maybe think why schools teaching lies as fact might not be ok?

But it doesn't happen, does it? Nobody changes SEX. You know this. You know transwomen are still male.

Lying does not make people more understanding of the topic. Biological reality is not transphobia.

You know all this.

Being mortified that someone mentioned the topic of transgender to your children is transphobic in my opinion.

From what OP said, it’s not like someone came to school and asked her child “do you want to stay a boy or become a girl, here’s how if you want to change, it’s totally possible”

No, OP’s “dreaded” moment is that someone (she wasn’t sure who at the time of writing - friend or teacher or someone else) had just mentioned the notion of sex change.

To my earlier point, it is legal to change your gender. So to be alarmed by the sheer mention of this, is transphobic.

I don't get the agonising, tell him that some people think they would be happier living as the other sex, so they wear different clothes and haircuts etc. But that adults disagree about whether they should be seen as entirely that different sex so allowed to go into changing rooms, recorded as that sex on passport etc.

It's a good opportunity to talk about law and parliament and politics too.

Some people are trans (they live that way, see themselves that way etc) - that's an absolute fact and your child will encounter them. You might not believe that they can change biological sex, you can discuss that too and say people have different opinions about it and it's a tricky subject. Reiterating that everyone should always be treated with respect and people have different views.

I think it's a bit like how I don't believe in Islam, but I know Muslims exist, my children mix with them and I want my child to show them respect. As to how the law should approach things like sharia law, honour killings, FGM etc - that's something political that can be discussed with acknowledgment of different viewpoints.

Being mortified that someone mentioned the topic of transgender to your children is transphobic in my opinion.

Except that isn't what the OP said, or what's being discussed here.

Try reading the thread and it's all explained.

Tell you haven't read the OP without telling me you haven't read the OP.

How do you think we did it? How would you approach it, if you were trying to foster a basic understanding of the concept?

We mentioned that some people, as they get older, realise that they aren’t happy being a boy/girl, and they choose to change. But that most people are happy, and they stay a boy/girl.

Apologies @fearfuloffluff quoted wrong post!

I think you misunderstand. The mother in question has a child who has had it suggested that boys can become girls and vice versa. This is not true. It is an untruth and a confusion for the child.

Children are not capable of adult thought processes - and even if an adult manages to hold to such levels of cognitive dissonance in pursuit of conformity with an ideology ( a constructed idea) - it is not desirable to expect a child also to do so.

This would be to encourage them to be utruthful and not to trust their own instincts. It also confusing when an adult who is supposed to be responsibile repeats and reinforces this untruth.

This is what the mother in question now has to deal with. How to talk in an age appropriate way with a child that has been given false information - which responsible adults may also be enforcing or encouraging too.

Nobody here is bothered name calling and accusations. It is meaningless. the more it is repeated, the les power it has.