School nurse advised autistic 14 yr old to take puberty blockers

[WarriorN]

And detailed how to access:

Two twitter threads, one by the parent of the child who found the notes the nurse made for the child on a pamphlet:

x.com/callie43916570/status/1717617008798314691?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Child was directed to mermaids and Mother shows details of gofundme budgeting child made in order to access gender Gp.

And a second linked thread by Clare Page / No Secret lessons, exploring who was involved in writing the pamphlet:

x.com/nosecretlessons/status/1717643770525622578?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Particularly Sci:dentity - linking to a horrifically sexist schools drama workshop whereby children took a quiz and worked out their gender identity score based on questions such as "I can knit" and "I have more oestrogen than testosterone in my body" and a description of teaching children that they don't need to have a penis to be a man.

Which a young boy repeats readily and thanks his 'teachers' for helping him understand this.

(Of course, what is not said is the inverse; you can be a woman with a penis...)

Ooh that quiz.

Male I circled 4
Masculine 5
Female 5
Feminine 2

So what? I'm slight more female than male but more masculine than feminine?
It's all nonsense! What's a kid today going to take from that? Probably that they really should be a man.

I'm the one who has the excellent sense of direction - it's an innate ability, I only have to go somewhere once to forever after remember the way. DH is bloody useless, he can be going to a grocery store he's been to 100 times and still get lost. He's 6ft3, muscular and male and I'm 5ft5 and have had 2 kids with the body shape to match.

Bloody ridiculous, regressive bollocks. Breaches so many school guidelines it's untrue. And, for all the bleating about the equality act when it suits them, this is very clear discrimination on the basis of the protected characteristic of sex surely? In both directions? Boys don't cry? FFS.

I bet the creators of the GRA didn’t foresee this gravy train they allowed for

Fab post. Thank you @RedToothBrush

Its just about how they organise the world - so affirmation is probably just about the worst thing you can do, rather than unpick this and teach that things are not gendered. If this is all true, to affirm at all in a medical capacity isn't just irresponsible its actively grossly negligent and discriminatory.

This is precisely why I fought very hard to get a safeguarding statement in to my daughter's EHCP (school) document and also why I refused mental health care under CAMHS for my daughter until they would agree to a) correct the misinformation in her notes from her hospital admission (they had said she "identified as a boy" even though they subsequently agreed that she never did) and b) agree to a discussion about the safeguarding statement. I did accept that CAMHS couldn't sign agreement to the statement, because that's against their own protocol, but equally I saw far more risk in her receiving mental health care when it would lead to an affirmation journey than I did in her not receiving the care. It's the most difficult decision I've ever had to face as a parent. She was at crisis point. Hospitalised 3 times in a month due to self-harming (mental health admission, not the physical impact) and also talking about suicide. But even then, I knew there was far more danger in her being put on an affirmation journey.
With a LOT of effort I was able to get medical backing for the statement. It's not a statement which pushes sex immutability as a truth. It's a statement which lays out the impact of being autistic and having confusion over gender identity, broken down by a series of needs and how these can be met. The number one item being about pronouns and the impact of asking her about what pronouns she'd like to use. The summary of that being that it is effectively like asking someone if they are happy with their body or would like to change that. In the context of being a girl with autism, who is struggling with the concept of breast development, periods and similar (and never really felt particularly "girly"), this simple question creates a signpost to identifying out of girlhood.

I'll definitely buy that book now. I follow the author on Twitter too, having been pointed in his direction by another Mumsnetter.

Here's my pinned tweet which breaks down the conflation of autism and gender identity in adolescent autistic girls, in case it's of interest to anyone on this thread:

https://twitter.com/BonfireLady/status/1697126765687099612?t=mrBpKVr-jBhwysxTNb92Iw&s=19

Also, here's what I wrote about my and my daughter's experience with CAMHS. I've shared it before but not for a while. The only thing I didn't cover in it was the Subject Access Request that I raised when CAMHS weren't responding to me. It was incredibly frustrating that I had to hammer them with letters until they would engage in conversation, but once they did it went very positively. Not easy. Lots of difficult conversations, but positive. Even today, my daughter doesn't go to any new person in the CAMHS team until I've had a discussion directly with that clinician about safeguarding using our statement. Likewise any other health appointment and any youth group that she attends. I'm not taking any chances on her being pulled in to gender identity belief as an absolute truth. It's been very interesting just how many doors I am opening when I have these conversations, not just ones that will help her but ones that will help other autistic girls too. The ripple effect of the conversations has been great to see. There is more to be done of course (and more that I'm still doing).

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenage-gender-identity-crisis/

Gosh @BonfireLady , your communication skills are amazing, thank you so much for those links.