Where were all the 'transchildren'?

[Mmmnotsure]

For those not on Twitter/X - a brilliant summary by
Read some Piaget please!
@ prof_curiosity1:

A question transactivism cannot answer.

Where were all the 'transchildren' from 1920-2000 when Piaget, Kohlberg, Bandura, Vygotsky, Erikson, Bowlby, Steiner etc along with their students (and their vociferous critics) were spending tens of thousands of hours doing empirical research on children?

Research that involved studying children at home, in nursery and at school. Studies that involved writing down every action, statement, or question that the child asked. And then analysing these recordings for patterns and insights.

Not one of them observed a 'transchild' in all this time.

So where were all the 'transchildren'?

The logical answer is, of course, nowhere, as they were not yet required. They were not invented as a typology until the 2000s when the trans movement needed children to validate the sexual fetishes of autogynephiles and make transgenderism palatable for the public.

The other answer is a conspiracy theory. That research showing transchildren existed was suppressed; rather like alien conspiracy theorists talk about Area 51 in Nevada USA.

If we ignore the conspiracy theory, we are left with the answer that no child was trans until the 'transchild' was needed, in the 2000s, to demonstrate the universality of 'gender identity'.

Children, sadly, were the logical choice due to their undeveloped brains/thinking and their vulnerability. It is not hard to persuade children that Santa exists or even that sexual abuse is a normal part of family life. 'Gender identity' can easily be packaged to appeal to the magical thinking of children.

'Transchildren' have thus become the main focus of transgenderism. For the activists know that without the winsome, photogenic 'transchild', groomed to repeat adult phrases about 'gender identity' the movement consists in the main of adult males with a fetish for dressing up as women.

Transgender ideology needs 'transchildren' to survive. It needs them to harm themselves and kill themselves to demonstrate that the ideology is real.

We need to protect our children. And we can start by debunking the idea and existence of the 'transchild'.

And yes transsexualism and transvestitism did exist through history. What is extraordinary is how these historic identities have been erased by the modern blokes who wear dresses and call themselves transwomen. Where are the transvestites and transsexuals now?

And yes again...
Children experimenting with sex roles and pretending to be the opposite sex is well documented.

This was always historically regarded as a playful phase of experimentation and growing up. It was ignored just as children pretending to be dinosaurs, horses, airplanes etc

What is new is adults stepping into the playful pretences and pathologising them for their own gratification. And insisting that one particular iteration of pretend play is an adult 'gender identity'.

This is child abuse.

And another question that cannot be answered by transactivism.

Where are all the children pre 2000 who killed themselves because their 'gender identity' was not affirmed?

(As we are frequently told "better a live son than a dead daughter" in order to bully parents into allowing their children to be prescribed puberty blockers. Parents are terrified into allowing transition.)

So what happened before the advent of 'gender affirmative care'? According to the current transgender narrative, there would be thousands of children from 1920-2000s who had killed themselves because they were misgendered - and btw what a historic scandal that would have been. But there are no records of these deaths. Mass suicide by misgendered children is yet another transactivists fabrication unless, of course, you believe conspiracy theories and believe all these deaths of 'transchildren' were hidden.

There is no part of scaffolding that supports the 'transchild' fabrication that can stand up to the remotest scrutiny.

And if you are thinking what additional force apart from transgenderism is driving the transing of children, look at this link. Transing children and young people is a highly profitable business with revenue forecast to double by 2030. https://grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-sex-reassignment-surgery-market…

Really? Because if you look at literature going back centuries you find references to people identifying very strongly as a different gender. Just to pluck a random example, George from the famous five has a "boys" haircut, wears "boys" clothes, insists on being identified by a "boys" name, loves being mistaken for a boy and tries to have her prefix changed to "Master". Sounds pretty trans to me.

What do you think 'trans' means?

Trans is defined as someone whose self-identified gender does not correspond with the sex they were identified as at birth. George absolutely identifies as a boy, despite being identified as a biological girl.

What is a 'self-identified gender', and how does a 'self-identified gender' correspond with a sex?

I'm not getting involved in a disingenuous argument, you know very well what it means.

Yes,, you're right, I do. Gender is all about stereotypes.

Why do children need to be medicated because they dislike the stereotypes for their sex?

Well I don't. I don't accept the idea that femininity has to align with femaleness or that masculinity has to align with maleness, and if they don't someone is somehow to be seen as the other sex. For a start, femininity and masculinity are (to oversimplify) on a spectrum, and sex is binary. I say "to oversimplify" because I, for one, am stereotypically masculine in some respects and rather feminine in others. So am I something other than a man? Absolutely not.

I didn't mention medication anywhere, and I don't agree that "gender is all about stereotypes." I'm a woman, I was born a woman and I feel that I am a woman. I would be upset if someone called me "he" or mistook me for a man. I think there are more differences between men and women than merely our sex organs.

Marsupial because to have given birth on 25th December to a (very underdeveloped but viable) offspring conceived on 8th December Mary would have had to be a marsupial with a handy pouch. A mammal couldn't do that.

That would really melt the male theologians' brains even before we got to the two vaginas, bifurcated penises stuff.

My starting argument against Mary being without sin is that Jesus clearly had a capacity for sin or the devil wouldn't have been able to tempt him. Though I do always enjoy the throwing the first stone joke.

Why would you be upset if you were mistaken for a man?

Because I'm not one and I don't feel like one. I would hate to think people thought I looked like a man or was a man. I can't imagine how distressing it would be if you felt like that but had a man's body. I am only in the minority on this on Mumsnet. The entire fashion industry is based around emphasising your feminine/masculine traits, so lots of other people are clearly wanting to appear to be the gender they are.

But you know you’re not a man, so it hardly matters if some stranger glances at you and makes a mistake.
A male bodied person can hardly be surprised if those around him see him for what he is.

There are over 100 genders apparently, life's too short to care too deeply about how they're expressed.

Sex is binary and real, I try not to conflate the two these days.

Absolutely it was. This is why I don't think we can disregard the experience of these children as a new phenomenon but we absolutely need to push against the 'trans child' and medicalisation of those suffering with gender dysphoria as it is linked to same sex attraction, autism, trauma etc..

I think the distress that children feel is real and I do agree with the OP that this is being hijacked, but I don't think it's helpful to say that these children didn't exist pre 2000 and it was just playful, as it wasn't, it was a core part of who they were for a while, and that was okay because no one tried to give puberty blockers and it resolved itself through puberty.

Entire point of most posts on this thread went over your head, did they?

This isn't difficult.

We know that people don't necessarily feel they fit the sex stereotypes of their era.

The question is, is this the same as what "being trans" in the modern sense is?

If I don't feel I fit conservative sex stereotypes or "femininity" of what people of my sex (women) are supposed to be, am I not in fact, really a woman? Am I something else?

Do you believe that kids can be "born in the wrong body" and that it's a health issue that requires urgent medicalisation to make those who don't seem to "fit" according to a set of pink/blue criteria, into a simulacrum of a member of the supposedly "correct" sex based on likes/dislikes, looks, hair length, toys they wanted to play with as a child, interests, and who they're sexually attracted to?

Because that's what "trans" ideology has been pushing for. Do you think not fitting society's conservative sex stereotypes is a health problem that needs medicalising and "curing"? What would the ideal result look like for you?

To add to this, I can conceive of a society where the attributes considered "feminine" and "masculine" are reversed. In such a hypothetical society, I would still be a man, as a matter of objective reality, and it would make just as little sense to define my maleness based on my "masculinity" as it does in our society. I also note that notions of femininity and masculinity have changed during my lifetime; my maleness is not dependent on what society tells me about how men should or do behave.

What does a man "feel like?"

The OP wasn't about the detail of whether a person has a right to feel that they are one gender or another.

It was whether transchildren- i.e. children that consider themselves boys when their sex is female or consider themselves girls when their sex is male- existed prior to 2000 and the evidence is clear that they did.

I wouldn't disagree that more children are experimenting with the concept of being a different gender, and that some children are cosplaying as a different gender (or, according to Mumsnet, as a cat) and trying on a new name for a while and will probably grow out of it at some stage. It's definitely a fashion statement in some areas and will eventually go the way of skinny jeans and neon stud belts. I don't see any harm done, and I do not believe that giving children hormone blockers because they're playing with the concept of gender is happening on any grand scale, so I'm not impressed by all the hand-wringing about it.

I'm not sure it is disingenuous to ask what 'trans' means, because its meaning is difficult to grasp for those without faith.
The very basic explanation is that it relates to someone whose 'gender' does not align with their sex. But the question then is: what is 'gender'? Something inate? But how is it possible, when born one sex, to 'know' how the other sex 'feels'? And therefore know that your gender doesn't align with your sex?
George is a female so in what sense can she 'know' that she is gendered male? The brain, where she 'knows' this, is not separate from, but an intrinsic part of, the sexed body.
George may, within the British cultural norms of the early to mid 20th century, feel that she is not 'feminine', but she cannot ever know what it 'feels' like to be a boy, because she is not one. Therefore the best she can say is that she wishes to live her life more like, for example, Julian and Dick, and less like Anne and other female characters, ie she wishes to live her life outwith the British cultural gender norms of the time.
She may not have felt at all the same had she been born in Benin a few centuries earlier, when she could have been a warrior.
So there are real issues with the concept of gender - where it is claimed to be opposite to sex - being inate, as opposed to a social construct.
Of course it is perfectly possible to be on any stage of a spectrum from Barbie to butch, where most will be somewhere in the middle, but being culturally more or less 'feminine' doesn't mean a person is more or less female.

If your child was demanding or considering medication and/or surgery you might suddenly find that you became a "hand-wringer". That is what happened to me (though my child is an adult). Hence my username. Before it came so close to home, I was mildly intrigued, and happy to do as the trans identity activists demanded and "just be kind". I no longer think it is straightforwardly kind to pretend, and certainly not kind to women who are expected to share their spaces with men who say they are women.

And I do not see how it is healthy for a society to operate, particularly in the legal sphere, on the basis of people's feelings without regard to physical reality. Replacing sex with gender identity in law is nonsensical and has real negative consequences.

@MrsSunshine2b
"I wouldn't disagree that more children are experimenting with the concept of being a different gender, and that some children are cosplaying as a different gender (or, according to Mumsnet, as a cat) and trying on a new name for a while and will probably grow out of it at some stage. It's definitely a fashion statement in some areas and will eventually go the way of skinny jeans and neon stud belts. I don't see any harm done..."

I don't see any harm done

What?! Are you being serious? Do you know no young people?
None so blind, etc.

Yes, I know a lot of children. My SD14 is non-binary, she uses she and they pronouns, wears "boys" clothes, has a "boys" haircut and is using a more masculine shortening of her given name. It doesn't seem to be a phase since she started saying she didn't want to be a girl pretty much when she learned to talk. No-one ever made a big deal of it, she picked her own clothes and her own haircut. If at some point in the future she goes back to a more feminine name, grows her hair, wears more girly clothes, no-one will make a big deal of that either. Who cares?

You may not have mentioned medication, but it's a fact that we are constantly told that children who identify as transsexual need to be put on puberty blockers as soon as they start puberty, otherwise they will kill themselves.

14? So her biological reality is usually menstruation/pregnancy risk, boobs, hips/changed sporting gait. It's a rare boy who goes through that puberty. I wish her well.

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