Gender GP podcast - poor, poor kid

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Fighting For Care For My Trans Child - The GenderGP Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

Saw a link to this on Twitter. It's from two years ago, which almost certainly means the poor kid featured is now well established on puberty blockers at the age of 12 or 13. It's about 55 minutes long. Features Dr Helen Webberley, Marianne Oakes, Head of Therapies at Gender GP, and a mother called Lindsay who has a child called Danny. She explains how Danny transitioned at the age of 5. Danny was 10 at the time of the podcast.

Danny is female and Lindsay is keen to get her child onto hormone blockers asap. It's like listening to a mirror version of Susie Green from 20 years earlier. Lindsay explains at length how delighted she was to have a daughter. She bought her child girly clothes, insisted on the child having long hair, tipped off Danny's dad that it looked as if their child would be a lesbian when she was older because she liked boys' games and toys and hated the pretty clothes, etc etc. Not surprisingly, Danny became very upset and angry with the world and at the age of 5 told her Mum that she wasn't a girl, she was a boy.

Now, to most of us, it would be obvious that a child of 5 struggling to make sense of the world has jumped to an erroneous conclusion here. Told repeatedly that all the things she likes are for boys and all the things she hates are for girls, she sees an obvious solution - I'm a boy! What is so desperately sad is that Lindsay thinks Danny is right and when she talks to the SEND co-ordinator at Danny's school she's referred to the Tavistock.

To be fair to the Tavistock, it sounds as Lindsay jumped the gun at this point and socially transitioned Danny immediately, and in the teeth of objections from Danny's dad, who wanted to take things slowly. (They are now divorced.) When they were eventually seen at the Tavistock, after a long wait, caution was advised but it was far too late. Lindsay has 'done the research' and feels she knows far more about what's happening to her child than anyone she sees at the Tavistock. If Lindsay has a background in science and/or health care, she doesn't mention it. Accordingly, I'm amazed that she feels able to say she has fully understood the medical implications of her child transitioning.

Now she's with Gender GP because she can't get puberty blockers through the Tavistock. She's cross because her GP won't administer them because of Dr Webberly being struck off. Imagine the gall of a GP refusing to work with a struck off doctor!

Danny has ADHD and has been through a family break up. Another couple of markers often seen in cases like this.

I will just add that Marianne's contributions are very useful, not least because of Marianne's voice. Marianne is the one on the left below.

Marianne Oakes gives unsurprising image search results.

You're not wrong!

That reminds me of Child J - so many similarities. If you haven't read the judgement (it's from 2016) it's a devastating indictment of what happens to children when a mentally unwell mother gets caught up with an organisation like Mermaids and an ideology that is age inappropriate for children.
Mother lost custody to the estranged father and the child suffered repeated emotional abuse when the authorities followed the dogma instead of safeguarding the child.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html

'tipped off Danny's dad that it looked as if their child would be a lesbian when she was older because she liked boys' games and toys and hated the pretty clothes, etc etc.'

Jesus actual Christ. Are people really seriously this stupid? Or is it just wanting attention and being seen as 'special' at any cost? People who think that they know the sexuality of their very young child really disturb me. Why are you even thinking about it in any serious way? And it's always based on BULLSHIT

Don't agree and nor do the experts. Gender non conformity i.e. effeminate boys and macho, tomboy girls often grow up to be gay or lesbian.

I'm sure they do, but not invariably, and from my understanding very few girls/young women are completely sure about their sexuality until well into puberty, or even beyond. I agree with @Lottapianos that it's inappropriate for parents to be wondering about their children's future sexuality based on their behaviour and emerging personalities when they are tiny children. Just let the kids be kids and do what they like, as long as they're not hurting anyone else, and help them to grasp what's real and what's fantasy.

Agree. Don't know if you saw a Mirror(?) post about the Strictly star Layton Williams making it OK for a kid to be his "true self" or some such, and wear a sparkly dress. It filled me with horror because the kid was about five. When my DS was little he used to wear his sister's clothes, because he liked dressing like her. He wore them to Playgroup but had grown out of this by the time he started school. I hate to think what the outcome might have been had he been five now...

People really are this stupid. Children need protection from these parents. Its sad.

It’s shocking how stupid some parents are. My son was constantly in Disney Princess dresses and cuddling dolls when he was 4. I’m so grateful that no-one in the family saw anything wrong or strange in this. Nobody mocked him or suggested he might be gay. They just saw a little boy who was (very understandably) drawn to the same things his older sister liked as she was quite a big character and he thought she was wonderful!

My son had a thing for wearing the pink tutu and heels from the dressing up box when he was around 4. Thankfully I am not a massive bigot so I did not see this as anything to think more about. He liked it, he wore it. I didn't care, and still don't, whether he ends up gay, bi or straight. Thankfully, he was not exposed to the kind of regressive nonsense which sees this as something to pathologise including through the trans lens. It would have been abusive for me to make more of it than it was.

I’m pretending the kid is ok

These people are despicable. Both my children; DS 25 and DD 17 fannied about with princess dresses and Bob the Builder stuff , fireman Sam and larked about in my makeup and high heels. Both are straight . I couldn't care less if they weren't straight either. Every guy I knew when I was in my twenties borrowed my eyeliner at parties ( Goths then Pulp etc including my DH) . These people are absolute dangerous, unimaginative and just plain dodgy. They should have be investigated by social services but yeah ,I know - captured to fuck!

It's all grounded in sexism and homophobia, isn't it?

Utterly. Here's another one. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a43702/transgender-child-kimberly-shappley/

Tomboys and effeminate boys would often turn out to be autistic instead of (or as well as) gay because they are often gender non conforming. I think "the experts" might well be quite wrong.

In years to come, I do think we'll look back at journalists of this period and say 'Why didn't you ask more questions?' Not just journalists, of course - politicians, doctors, psychologists, social workers, teachers, plenty of other professional people have accepted some jawdropping nonsense from activists and lobbyists and utterly failed to ask some obvious questions. But journalists are paid to be professionally curious, and mostly they haven't been.

Why aren't they saying directly to these parents they interview 'What's wrong with little boys having long hair? Why can't a little girl enjoy muddy games like her brothers? How can you possibly think that any of this is a problem at all, never mind one that needs a medical solution? Have you talked to adults who've spent years on cross-hormones and have had the surgery your young child thinks is going to enable them to change sex? You started thinking about your child's future sexuality when she was a toddler, based on her not liking frilly dresses - have you thought about what kind of sex life she will have if she has the medical treatment you're angling for, and is unable to have an orgasm and is living with chronic pain, struggling with urinary continence, and so on? Who will want to date her? How will she be able to have children?' Hard questions, but absolutely necessary ones. It sounds as if GIDS wasn't getting any of this across to the mother in the podcast, not least because they were so overwhelmed by the huge increase in their caseload and high staff turnover.

The podcast I link to in the OP is obviously a marketing tool, so we all know that 'Dr' W and Marianne O will not be challenging anything the mother says, quite the reverse. But the journalists who've interviewed this poor kid Kai's mother and Susie Green and Amanda Jette Knox and all the other parents who've enthusiastically transed their kids at an early age seem mostly just to have nodded along and published these testimonies with no challenge whatsoever. And of course hardly any investigative journalists have dared to look at gender clinics and similar obvious topics. I imagine many look at what's happened to Jesse Singal and steer well clear.

Meanwhile, their readers look at articles like this and, while some move briskly to the top of the Matterhorn, a lot of others think 'Really? This doesn't seem right' but then 'Oh well, not happening in our family, so I won't worry about it' and/or 'All these professional and powerful people are going along with it, so it must be me, I just don't understand it because I'm not educated enough. They say this is an extension of gay rights, I don't have a problem with those, so I'll just go along with it.'

I know of a boy (biological) who insisted he was a girl from age of five...now in the teens and presents as female.

Psychologist report from the(female) psychologist supporting the child has advised the parents to normalise the belief of their "daughter" and to present the idea that "some girls have a penis"

Said "daughter" is autistic. Well colour me surprised!

And that's what the official stance is these days.

I could weep.

Omg Peppa pig likes jumping in muddy puddles, is she trans? I think we should be told.

That’s very different from the confident assertion that it looked as if their child would be a lesbian.

I was a tomboy like lots of my friends. We made dens, climbed trees, played cops and robbers, ambushed each other … and grew up heterosexual females. Later, I met plenty of lesbians, many of whom were more elegant than me.

Girls’ toys and games were bloody boring back then! As I grew up, Women’s Liberation opened up possibilities denied to earlier female generations. I’m sad that things have come full circle with all the pink junk forced on girls now.

@Ofcourseshecan yes, girls toys in my childhood were My Little Pony and Barbie, baby dolls and Care Bears (to show my age!) and I basically stole my brothers' cars and garage, lego and meccano until my parents gave in and bought me my own (just the Lego - they weren't that progressive!).

Really liked the mum saying something like 'how can the clinic think after only seeing my child 3 times they know what's best!'. Indeed!

Now she's saying ' a child should not have to to worry about how they look or what they wear to disguise their body'. I'm always struck but how much we agree but our solution would be 'cool so she's a girl who gets to dress how she likes and feel confident in her body' and her is 'cool give the child surgery/medication '

'That’s very different from the confident assertion that it looked as if their child would be a lesbian.'

Well exactly. I think some people think that being a lesbian is all about flat shoes and short hair and being a gay man is about pink and sparkles, rather than both actually being about who you like to HAVE SEX WITH! Children should be left alone to work out their own sexuality in their own sweet time, in age appropriate ways, and with absolutely zero projecting or stereotyping from adults.

And a little girl who likes (for example) trains and cars may well just be a little girl who likes trains and cars. She may not be gay or autistic or anything else that needs a label. It's not a problem that needs solving. Just let her be. Ditto little boys who are into dolls / glitter / princesses etc.

Well exactly. I think some people think that being a lesbian is all about flat shoes and short hair and being a gay man is about pink and sparkles, rather than both actually being about who you like to HAVE SEX WITH!

This. I remember Owen Jones saying something like the LGB Alliance conference attendees weren’t really queer, because he saw a picture and they just looked like standard middle-aged people. These people can’t countenance that you can be gay or lesbian without dying your hair or being “queer presenting”.

'I remember Owen Jones saying something like the LGB Alliance conference attendees weren’t really queer, because he saw a picture and they just looked like standard middle-aged people'

Oh dear god, he's such a chump! 🤦🏻‍♂️ And boring old middle aged people having sex - ugh, gross 😂