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…

Nobody's dismissing that distress. Some children do have severe distress about their sexed bodies, for multiple reasons, and many more, to varying degrees don't feel that they fit regressive, conservative sex stereotypes regarding supposedly "proper" behaviour for boys or girls (aka "gender"), and some of them get a lot of shit for that, from parents, other kids etc . Does that mean either group of children (and there's quite a bit of crossover) are something that should be referred to as "trans kids" though? Are any of them "born in the wrong body?"

Because there are quite a lot of people in society at the moment (not nec on this thread) who insist that these are ALL "trans kids" and don't match the sex they were born as.

Except I may well have done as well.

Not sure why you are you making assumptions? What "errors"?

Nobody's body is the wrong body. It's the one you have.

As said upthread, its odd that it moved from trying to help the mind to mutilating the body.

I spent most of my childhood in trousers, cricket with my dad, meccano, chemistry sets, building dams etc and hated being forced into dresses. Especially the horrid knitted ones made by granny. This was the 80s. By 1993 I was appalling my dad by the shortness of my skirt and my make up. Both parents just let me be. They didn't try to trans me, as I was just a kid, then a boundary pushing teenager, and it all came out in the wash.

So when I declare I would have been trans, and that there’s no evidence because no-one asked/did the research … how do you get to suggesting no one disagreed when the whole thread is about no evidence of trans kids?

if the choice had existed at the time I would have identified as trans

But you don't identify as trans now. So you weren't a 'trans child'.

I asked whether a child not conforming to regressive stereotypes and/or additionally experiencing dysphoria or severe distress with their sexed body is something some people would now call "trans". We know there are plenty of the former and always have been.

You appear to be saying that I and others are denying that the more serious dysphoria even exists, and you are also saying that is definitely the same as the modern understanding of the label "trans" and all the ideological belief that comes along with that currently?

My view is that "gender" is backwards sex stereotypes, while gender dysphoria and distress exist, and are perhaps increasing for reasons already mentioned as per Cass Review, but giving it the label "trans" comes along with a whole heap of beliefs (such as "it's the same as being gay" "it means you're born the wrong body" and "you need corrective medication and surgery to be your authentic self" "you have a girl's brain in a boy's body/a boy's brain in a girl's body') which is utter bullshit and is causing active harms right now.

What do you think "being trans" means?

Plus there'll be a great many kids who won't remotely move to be more gender-conforming as adults and it STILL wouldn't mean they were "born in the wrong body" or aren't really the sex they are.

This was the original description from the early iteration of Mermaids (pre Susie Green). Thought it might be an interesting addition to the conversation.
As far as I understand it, it was originally set up as a parent support group for children presenting with various gender distress issues, and they were not referred to as 'trans children'.

This thread is also very relevant to this discussion I think:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5057269-5057269-puberty-blockers-how-exactly-did-we-get-here?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I was a commited tomboy in 1980s. Refused dresses/skirts - would go mental if one was required. No dolls, but would if required on a playdate with girls. More sports & outdoor oriented. Copied dress style of boys in my class thru middle school. Went to girls secondary, not my choice.
I never for a moment wanted to be a boy, because I knew I was a girl.
Not one person ever called me trans,a boy or lesbian. My world was ok w tomboy label & there was no shame.
If I were doing this in these last 5 years, the world would be telling me I was a boy. No doubt I would be on the pathway to trans. The messaging to me and pressure to conform to trans ideas would be huge. Imagine dressing like a boy but not being trans????? That would be some sort of “appropriation “! The hate I would get!

Once in secondary/high school, all girls, I discovered boys and became boy crazy and happily wore make up,girl clothes and had boyfriends from high school onwards. Never questioning.

Whatever caused me to reject dresses and dolls from early childhood / I’ve no idea the cause. But I am so happy that this current generation is NOT mine - that no Lobby is telling me who I am or should be because I prefer sports, t-shirt, jeans and Puma Clyde trainers.

Child of the 60s. There was nothing to trans from / to. Clothes and most toys were not ‘gendered’. There was no school uniform until secondary school. Children’s TV was minimal and completely unsexualised. The TV watershed meant something.

At some point children became commodified, in the sense that selling children’s stuff to parents became the next big market once the initial peak of post-war consumerism had been reached. Split clothes and toys in two and you’ve doubled the market.

The collision of capitalism and queer theory coincided with the internet - which brought an explosion in graphic porn and enabled ‘niche’ sexual tastes to congregate. Add in big pharma and cosmetic surgery’s growing ability to create almost passable outward imitations of sex change. It’s a perfect storm that might not have had child abuse as any kind of intention at the outset, but opportunism is the hallmark of abusers.

Are you trans now?

Do you wish you'd been transed as a child?

You seem to be a bit confused about what people's arguments are against the idea of transsexual children.

Like many of us here, you didn't conform to gender stereotypes as a child. That doesn't mean that you were a transsexual child.

You seem to agree that you might have fallen for the notion of being a transsexual child if such a thing had existed when you were a child. Many of us here have said the same.

You're glad that didn't happen to you. Many of us have said the same.

Transsexual children were invented by males who identify as transsexual in later life in order to validate and sanitise their lifestyle choice.

Children are not transsexuals. Transsexualism is an identity which some adults choose. The notion of transsexual children was invented to assist those adults. The adults who promote this idea don't care how many children are harmed by it.

So not trans children then.

There were Tom Boys and Sissy's that were bullied mercilessly 🤷‍♀️.i have not heard those terms in 15/20 years

Ok.

I suspect we arearguing about definitions, and you seem to be using words in a way where I'm not clear what they mean.

But yes, I worked in mental health services (not specifically for trans people although I'm not sure how you are defining it) and I met trans children.

I am defining that as - under 18 (so a child) and they said they were trans.

If you are using different definitions then please explain them and I'll happily tell you whether I met and trans children under those definitions.

This.

Of course there are gender non conforming children. Plus children distressed by their sex (one girl wanted to be a boy so her father would stop raping her).

Girls who don't want to be objectified. Boys who aren't 'macho'. Autistic children who feel as tho they simply don't fit in.

Normal, totally understandable reactions to a sexiest, rigid society.

And all exploited by adult men to justify their adult choices as being 'innate' and nothing to do with sexual fetishes.

See all the retconning going on in the trans widows threads and upfront AGP's claiming it's merely a sexual orientation.

Not 'trans children' . Children with varied and diverse issues being targeted by adults pushing an ideology to serve their own interests.

Interesting as an idea. I think that trans ideology represents a coming together of end stage capitalism and the power of the internet. There have always been gender non confirming people, obviously there have always been children who would grow up to be gay, and there have always been people (mainly of course men) with sexual 'perversions.'
As society becomes more desperate to create money from nothing, as science 'progresses' to allow us to do more things we don't have the ethical capacity to deal with, as the Internet allows both connectivity between people with the same desires and globalised mass neuroses; perhaps even as we lose the old religions leaving people to want (need?) a replacement, we end up with things like trans ideology.
And then it gains force and speed because it happens to make a bit of money, and cleaving to it happens to make some people feel virtuous (just like religion used to) and brave, and politicians start using it to prove how good and kind they are, and corporations start using it to show how ethical they are so they can sell more crap to more people at vast social and environmental cost. And so it goes on.
(And yes, the men with perversions probably think Christmas has come early.)

I have exactly these musings looking at the big picture of all this HitchhikersGuide!

The fundamental human needs and motivations don't change, it's how they are met by and reflected in the culture that changes.

I think your point about us not having the ethical capacity to deal with the scale and speed of progress and the technology is pretty key.

Social contagion is a big part of it, as far as I can see. My daughter's large secondary school had umpteen teens identifying as trans or non-binary. I strongly suspect most of them will not be trans or non- binary in a few years and will probably be rather embarrassed about the whole thing.

before, these children would be mostly have underlying biological sex development situations. Now, I don’t know to what extent this could be vulnerable youth being confused and want to find a way out.

When she became an adult she transitioned to be a boy. Hes now living a fulfilled life and I truly believe that very sadly she was genuinely born into the wrong body.

How can anyone be born into the wrong body? You are your body. Brains don't float around separately and then get plonked into a body.

I am defining that as - under 18 (so a child) and they said they were trans.

That's interesting. Children who "said they were trans" in the 1990s.

I thought "trans" as a term (along with "transgender") was first coined by adult campaigners like Christine Burns and Press for Change around that time. Before that, there were only transvestites and transsexuals.

How did children get to know the new terminology so quickly? Or do you just mean you worked with girls who wanted to be boys and boys who wanted to be girls?

Of course, the huge increase in numbers only started around ten years ago after CBBC showed "I am Leo", and children were encouraged to believe that they could actually change sex.

I suspect we arearguing about definitions, and you seem to be using words in a way where I'm not clear what they mean.

Which words are you unfamiliar with? I'm sure we can help with some definitions.

This is the Why ‘Gender Dysphoria’ is a lie article (by a long-qualified and very experienced Clinical Psychologist) in case it hasn't been linked to yet.
https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1808825717204922755

The people with anorexia I've known were all very controlling, not just of their own bodies but also of those around them, particularly, but not exclusively, their mothers. That was one of the things their treatment attempted to tease out and move them past. No surgery was ever going to fix that mental health problem.

Tomboy was usually not a pejorative term (in fact there are many many characters in books where it is viewed entirely positively, often by men who are admiring the woman or girl so described - and seen as entirely feminine), and was also fairly situational. I might have been described as a tomboy when I was out playing with my friends, but not when I was dressed to go out to dinner or the theatre (a treat from the age of 10).

Sissy was more critical, but it 'soft boys' or 'mother's boys' were seen as - just that, a product of family circumstances. I was fascinated to read recently about General MacArthur: Douglas was extremely close with his mother and often considered a "mama's boy." Until around age 8, she dressed him in skirts and kept his hair long and in curls. (from wiki)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur

No one suggests he was 'trans'.

Something toxic like social media, which gives children ideas.