Trans toddlers......

[impossibletoday]

‘Trans toddlers’ allowed gender treatment on NHS

www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1502309cba7288df

My thoughts exactly

My 3 year old has cried bitter tears repeatedly since christmas because she isnt a bird and cant fly.

If you want to see the process by which very young children are encouraged along a genderwoo path, how's this:

In 2015, when I was just starting a PhD in women’s studies, my twins Jamie and Zack (these names are pseudonyms) were starting primary school. Although my twins are identical, Jamie expressed a very different gender identity to their brother from as early as they could express themselves, and we embraced this. Still, I was a parent with limited expertise or understanding of these issues, and I had many questions.

This is an 'intelligent' (as far as book-learning is concerned) woman who doesn't seem to know that children, even twins, are different little human beings and may well have different interests and tastes. She has boxed those differences into a box marked 'GENDER IDENTITY', although it should actually have said 'GENDER STEREOTYPES', and has proceeded to shape the children's lives accordingly.

Note that she frames it as her, the parent, learning from her very young children, or what she interpreted as the 'identity' of her very young children. Shouldn't parenting be the other way round?

This article is from Ireland, where there has been a noticeable ramping-up of pro-trans articles [about 4 so far, 3 on consecutive days!] in this online news site since the UK SC ruling,
Although the Irish political establishment embraced trans rights and self-ID with uncritical enthusiasm in a fog of enthusiasm after the referendum vote in favour of marriage equality, I don't think the grassroots or the population in general every really bought into TWAW.

If you want to read what else she has to say -
Opinion: Trans lives aren’t black and white, our conversations about them shouldn’t be either

@MarieDeGournay
I find it really weird, the idea that a child knows best. Since when?! By definition, children don't know much about anything. That's why the onus is on adults to protect them and make decisions in their best interests. If my parents had followed my lead, I'd be dead and they'd have been prosecuted for neglect. When did it become unacceptable to tell a child "No"?

I know some twins who are about 6, one of each sex. Both generally wear dresses and leggings, and have long hair. it's not immediately obvious who is the girl and who is the boy

Even if she'd stayed wearing trousers, not wearing maje up it still doesn't make her male.
And I know a few who have stayed more masculine presenting right into adulthood. But they're not trans

Please can we all agree to use inverted commas around 'trans toddlers'?
I don't want this phrase to be accepted as real

The devil is in the detail on this. If the service is genuinely child focussed, (not affirming as demanded by Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, Gires, Stonewall and all the other dodgy groups trying to influence child healthcare) then a therapeutic approach is appropriate. Especially if there's a readiness to involve social care / safeguarding services when the it's a parent led Munchausens / emotional abuse issue - which it will be in many cases.

Trouble is until the above groups are prised away from influencing child healthcare, captured medics will be joining in with the abuse of these very young children in fear of upsetting the lobbyists. I'm cautiously hopeful that the new centres in Children's hospitals used to working in an ethical, evidenced way will mean that the anti safeguarding lobby groups are frozen out. But this needs to be transparent and to date the NHS shows limited signs of understanding this.

I have identical twin DCs. There is a very well known phenomenon with ID twins: they strive to carve out their own identity from a very young age - it would be absolutely no surprise to me that often one decided they were trans knowing this. Mine chose which colour was 'theirs' as toddlers and woe betide you if you gave DT1 a green top, or DT2 a red one!

surely the right (cheaper / better / more accurate / more caring) process would be:

if a parent rocks up with a child (under 18) then there is a printed form of guidance which is give to them along the lines of:

• under-7 a child is likely to play act at all sorts of things - being a dog or bird, pretending to be a cat, lion or dinosaur - play acting the opposite sex is totally normal - think nothing of it and let them play and dress and be as they wish.
• 7+ but pre-puberty - children are starting to explore who they are and what that means. Being a boy or girl has stereotypes in society (blue v. pink / dresses v. trousers / the sports and hobbies you do etc.) Do encourage your child to be the (natal sex) boy / girl they want to be - a girl who digs in the mud and plays football is still a girl - just their version of being a girl - a boy who likes pink and frills and makeup is just a boy with those interests...
• Puberty+ - this is a confusing time of many hormones, you are still a boy / girl as you were born - but your body may tell you 100 different things all at once - it is a tough few years to get through, but there are lots of people here to help you (parents / teachers / gp / etc.) - in a couple of years it will make sense!

If after all that they believe that they are born in the wrong body, then treatment may start to make sense...

the issue we have though is that the process above (which many good parents do automatically) is torn down by those with a point to make and a need to be validated in their own choices... I reckon it would hugely reduce numbers being referred...

Until you have grown into the adult man / woman - you can not fully know yourself to determine what your feelings mean - no children should be referred for trans at any age under 18.

Yeah, at that stage it doesn't really matter does it. Kids are just kids wearing kids stuff. Unless you know them personally you don't need to know their sex.
I don't think it's 'munchausens by proxy' to put a pink and a blue hairclip on a child of three of either sex. If they like to wear it why not?

I think you are reading far too much into it. Pink and blue is a normal colour combination.

Loads (maybe even the majority) of stuff aimed at kids is pink or blue.
I don’t think most parents who let their kids wear stuff that goes against gender stereotypes are making a trans statement about their child.
My son is wearing blue and pink today and I didn’t even consider the symbolism when we were choosing his clothes:

• Pink t-shirt (it had Skye from Paw Patrol on, she’s his favourite character because he loves airplanes and helicopters- as the main female character most clothes with her on is pink).
• Light blue leggings. They came in a ‘boys’ multi pack from next with lots of other pairs of blue and beige/grey leggings.
• Hairclips- I have no idea what colour. He has short hair but he absolutely loves his sister’s/female friends’ accessories because he likes glitter and cute characters. They might well have been pink and blue because he’s just discovered the concept of matching.

Absolutely no statement was being made (other than ‘I am too lazy to fight a toddler when it comes to choosing what they wear and I don’t give a shit about gender stereotypes’ and ‘I love Paw Patrol, being comfy so I can climb/run, and glitter’). It certainly isn’t child abuse!

My nephew in law is trans and “came out” as a preschool child I’m told, refusing to wear dresses, cutting hair off and saying that they hated their feminine name, all long before this was in the limelight, now a young adult they have fully transitioned, I only know them as a he, I had to be told as it’s certainly not obvious. I’m not saying this is common but it does happen, parents certainly can humour their children by not making it a big thing but allowing them to wear what they want when appropriate and perhaps using a unisex nickname

How do you even bring yourself to speak to the parents?

Genuinely

I refused to wear dresses and wear pink from the age of 6.

It's such a regressive ideology. My children(now up)DS and DD played with cars, dolls, mud, space stuff, Bob the Builder things( daughter's fav - she still is handy with tools) and paraded about in my old clubbing stuff (glittery dresses and hot pants - I was a 90's chick). Both are on the "spectrum" . I dread to think what could have happened to them if times had been different. My son loved my sandals but he is very much a hetrosexual male. These parents are utter narcs. I have met a couple in the past. I fear it will take years for to uncapture SS . There should be an inquest or inquiry or whatnot into how that happened (WE all know how that happened but the British public needs to know and that applies to Scotland as well, where it is knee deep).

They are up against people thinking their baby is trans because it grabbed a pink muslin once, it can't be ignored.

Pink muslins? Whatever next.
In my day you boiled them, so they had to be white.

The thing is, I don't think these kids do have gender dysphoria in the way these clinics define it.

There is some other underlying issue that causes some sort of obsessive behavior. Which if it's serious enough to be really disruptive may need psychiatric help, but I am not convinced they should be anywhere near a gender clinic with people who believe in innate gender identities.

@TempestTost I agree in most cases there is another underlying reason and the right help, including psychiatric, is key.

According to Hansard in 2009 only 51 children were referred to GIDS. That is the sort of level I would expect, a very tiny number. By 2016 there were 1766 referrals - there is something else going on to drive such a rapid increase.

Reading the Telegraph article this is what shocked me the most, stated as just totally natural by the NHS....

The original guidance, published in 2023, was clearly correct when it stated that “an interest in clothes or toys of the opposite sex… is reasonably common behaviour in childhood”.

What on earth are TOYS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX???? Toys don't have a sex.... surely we moved on from dolls for girls, trucks for boys... Im 64 and even my Mum gave me an Action Man as well as a Barbie, and bought me cars and trucks from an early age....

I know @loveyouradvice it's nonsense isn't it? I remember the toys thing started when my kids where young and I was shocked by it. My DD (now nearly 19) was about 7 or 8 and really into Star Wars at the time and it playing at imaginery light sabre battles etc as you do. And these wee boys in her class told her "You can't play with Star Wars cos it's a BOYS game" and she was so annoyed . So was I ! Since when ? I was right into Star Wars when I was a child(showing my age )cos it was the " big" film when I was young (and being autistic -unknown at the time carried it on for far too long into my adult life, lol. )but it was never a BOY thing I don't think. I was into Sindy too but we just played with whatever was around. It's so restrictive and horrible and boring for children. It's no childhood.

Yeah. That's the opposite isn't it of what we're hoping for. Branding children inappropriate for wearing the wrong coloured hair clip? Clothes are for everyone. You can wear what you like but you can't change sex.

Succintly put.