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…

This thread is about the perceived lack of evidence that trans children existed in previous decades. That lack of evidence has been presented as evidence of the argument that none existed. This is the most basic of errors when assessing research.
To make it easy I used myself as an example:

• if the current dialogue around trans issues had existed then and research had been done I would have identified and been counted
• a trans discussion did not exist then and, not surprisingly, the research was not conceived/funded/reported/done

To suggest something did not happen because there is a lack of evidence is a basic but very common error. You are trying to start a debate on a different topic suggesting my present day identity negates how I felt as a child. This is incorrect.

Totally agree with this. My experience was the same. The commercialisation point is spot on too. Clothes were relatively expensive in the 70s 80s in the UK and only available in what I’d call specialist shops (much like alcohol TBH). My younger brother had to make do with my cast offs and quite often we had the same item, just a different size. Dresses were only for parties and I had only one. Cheap and available crap, combined with the rise of me me me social media attention, has given rise to the pink and blue gender stereotypes we see today that are so damaging.

The strength of your belief system is very clear
It seems you are posting here to promote your black and white thinking
I am speaking to the topic of this thread not to your thinking style.

If you wish to start a thread on the complex issue gender dysphoria or ‘thanks children’ I’m sure you’ll get a debate with lots of judgements in it.
For now you’ll have to go preach to someone else. Bye.

The topic of this thread is, Where were all the ‘transchildren’?

@TeatimeForTheSoul, you say,
“if the current dialogue around trans issues had existed then and research had been done I would have identified and been counted”.

You might have identified and been counted as a ’transchild' then, but that would have been wrong. A basic but very common error, if you like. Because you are not now a transadult, if I understand correctly; you were simply one of many, many gender nonconforming children.

Yeah, from my memory of the 70s and 80s, it's not that we didn't have some quite strong gender stereotypes. In particular I remember that boys would quite casually get called poofs if they were into books or art and didn't like football.

But on the other hand, we were a lot more unisex in terms of clothes and hair and so on. There wasn't this strict pink and blue segregation. Probably in part because clothes and toys were expensive.

And what was also the case is that lots of boys loved tomboyish girls. I think they saw the tomboys as cooler and more relatable than the girly girls. If you were a girl who liked a stereotypical boy thing, like comics or heavy metal, you were never short of boys who wanted to be your friend on the basis of a shared interest. But nobody ever thought the tomboys were anything other than feminine.

That's also why, with Helen Joyce, I dislike "effeminate" as a description for camp, swishy boys who will almost certainly grow up to be gay men. They aren't copying women or girls. It's just an alternative form of masculinity.

Indeed.

Hello @Mmmnotsure
Not sure 😉 how your point relates to the original post where historical evidence was the subject? I was providing evidence about why historical research does not exist. This is a research question.
Again, your strong beliefs about me, my life, and my experience probably belong on another thread. Or possibly regale us with your research experience.
But you are still not addressing the question starting this thread, just criticising eveidence.

Yeah, from my memory of the 70s and 80s, it's not that we didn't have some quite strong gender stereotypes. In particular I remember that boys would quite casually get called poofs

But that was nothing to do with gender, which had not been invented and would have been a word and a concept that meant nothing to people, it was about homophobia.

What about the evidence that many women on here lived through that time?

Lots of gender non-conforming children, none of whom thought they were born in the wrong body.

“Regale". Really?

I have no strong beliefs about you or your life etc. That is a strange assumption with, I would suggest, little evidence.

When ever 'trans children' are mentioned, my thoughts turn to the utterly heart breaking case of a girl born Makayla Lynn Sivret.

The article asks where are the transsexuals, they are still out there but they are a group that is being suppressed by the current trans ideology.
As it is a label that the current Ideology doesn't want.

Sure, not "gender" in today's queer theory sense. But - bearing in mind this was often from boys too young to know what homosexuality was - I think it does relate to an old prejudice about there being something shameful in a boy or man having feminine traits.

Whereas a girl or woman having masculine traits was often praiseworthy. At least until our current generation where girls who like football are convincing themselves that they're boys.

Please describe a “gender non-conforming” child from 1970-80s.
How would the researcher have “defined” and identified said child?

I posted earlier that I was a tomboy … I would be shocked if anyone at the time would have described me as “gender non-confirming”. Tomboy was within the definition of girl. Girly girl, Tomboy are girls. I bought my clothes in the girls dept, except for jeans at the time were mainly unisex.

Today, they would put a big non-conforming rainbow next to my name …
the children are the same, it’s the adults who are labeling the children and telling them who they are.

We often ask here where all the young lesbians have gone. For me that's kind of a subset of asking why the tomboy demographic has collapsed. (Yes, I know that more traditionally girly lesbians exist - broad strokes here)

There are a lot of really weird things happening among girls who don't conform to a very rigid view of femininity. There's a subset of young lesbians who call themselves gay men, who only date other lesbians who call themselves gay men. What they have in common is an interest in a particular genre of Japanese erotica.

What's even stranger is young straight women who are into the same genre, who also call themselves gay men, who sometimes pop up online complaining that their boyfriends won't accept that they're having "queer" sex, and sometimes hang out on Grindr pretending to be men to find a gay man who might hook up with them.

I try not to be censorious about youth subcultures. Like I don't really get why so many girls are into cosplay, but it seems to make them happy so as long as they stay safe they can knock themselves out. What I really struggle to see is the argument that these aren't socially formed subcultures but some innate "authentic self".

And I think adults projecting their adult selves back into childhood are often creating an illusion of that authentic self.

It all sounds incredibly confusing @StainlessSteelMouse

How on earth do teens navigate all this bonkerness. No wonder anxiety is on the rise. It was all so much easier when people were just gay, straight or bi!

Easier still when no one needed to announce who they had sex with on their name tag.

@Fishgish I recognise the kind of child and the context you are describing. I agree that tomboy/sissy would have been commonly used for children in the UK in the 70s, not gender nonconforming.

Teatime said s/he would have been identified as trans if the current dialogue had existed then. I was trying to make the point that s/he was not a transchild, but gender nonconforming (like you and many others). I was not saying that s/he would have been identified as gender nonconforming at that time, using that term.
[edited for a missing /]

It's all a bit nuts. My daughter went through a brief spell of panicking about what she should be "identifying as" and cycled rapidly through various "identities" - she was literally about 13. I just nodded along and none of it lasted more than a few weeks.

There seems to be a strong element of wanting to be special and different, but also wanting to belong, wave your flag and proudly announce your pronouns to the world.

How do you define ” not conforming” … I don’t think I was not conforming to girl ... , I was conforming to a female specific gender dress code of “tomboy”. Sporty, athletic playing outside and naturally More comfortable and more able to climb, kick, & run in jeans and Puma Clyde trainers.

IMO “gender non conforming” is a made up term which cannot be applied historically.
Or
It might be more correct to describe other girls as being too rigidly conforming to a gender dress code inhibiting their access to athletic pursuits.

Think you are missing the point.

I'm reposting an edited version of my deleted post which you replied to. I hope I have removed the offending parts which resulted in deletion (if I've got that wrong I may be deleted again and reprimanded.)

I'm not trying to start a debate on a different topic. What do you think a 'trans child' is? I don't believe that 'trans children' exist.

There have always been children who defied gender stereotypes and/or wished they were the opposite sex. This is not the same as the current narrative which says that such children should be 'affirmed' in their trans identity and given powerful drugs to stop their natural development through puberty otherwise they will kill themselves.

You may have been a gender nonconforming child or a child who wished they were the opposite sex. You didn't get this 'treatment' and the fact that you no longer identify as trans (which is what I have understood from your posts) means that you grew out of this phase, as nearly all children do. I am not denying how you felt as a child.

This is relevant to the topic of this thread. I don't understand what you mean by "[my] black and white thinking". Perhaps you could explain. I agree, however that my belief system (as you call it) is very strong. People are not born in the wrong body. There have always been people who don't conform to gender stereotypes. There have always been people whose feelings about the stereotypes are so strong that they sincerely wish they were the opposite sex. Which parts of this do you disagree with?

If you wish to start a thread on the complex issue gender dysphoria or ‘thanks children’ I’m sure you’ll get a debate with lots of judgements in it.

This thread is about the existence (or non-existence) of so-called trans children. What did you think it was about?

At a time before 'gender' was a concept/description that was applied to human beings - in other words before about 2005 (I'm setting it very early there btw) - it would have been impossible for a child or an adult to be either gender conforming or gender non-conforming because neither concept existed.

I grew up using gender as a polite word for sex, I was corrected when i was educated in PSHE thinking at my sons' school a decade or so ago.

The only 'trans' in my youth were transvestites and the odd Marie Claire article about transexual surgery. Both were adult issues. Anorexia was the self loathing du jour and the adults in our lives quite rightly did not affirm that, they treated it as the psychological struggle that it was and tried to help us learn to be comfortable in our skins.

Boy George, Marylin et al were described as 'gender benders' in the 1980s.

But that view of gender was that there were silly, restrictive sterotypes that could be subverted and played with - not that it formed some innate core of identity.