Gender concerns for children under 9 - the R22 project

[ArabellaScott]

https://remedy.bnssg.icb.nhs.uk/children-young-people/gender-identity/gender-incongruence-in-children-and-young-people/

Based on Recommendation 22 in the Cass Report.

No lower age limit.

There is a set of questionnaires for parents, which will form a 'holistic' assessment of each child. The project team will offer support that may extend to school.

The age is specific : 'we have .... chosen an age cut-off ... likely to capture many, if not all, younger children before puberty is substantially underway'

Family will be seen by a senior psychologist or therapeutic practitioner and a family support social worker.

The referral form asks for details of:

Safeguarding risks identified
Referrals made to social care
Other risks - bullying, 'risk due to social transition', 'behaviours that make the young person more vulnerable to harm', 'accessing other sources of gender treatment', additional needs, other agency involvement.

https://archive.ph/sTswW

Blog here from a parent who says they have a gender incongruent child.

'This pilot is designed ...
To educate parents to reject their child.
To deny social transition.
To ensure schools do not support social transition at primary school.'

The parent claims this pilot is 'conversive' - akin to conversion therapy.

Having thought about this, it seems that the NHS is treating parents' reporting young 'trans' children as a safeguarding red flag. So I do to some extent agree with the blogger's suspicions.

They don't seem keen, then.

No. This.parent did a PhD in prepubescent 'gender incongruent' children. This is his or her paper. Its heartbreaking reading about children, some as young as 6, who have been 'transitioned' and are then in dreadful situations - bullied, confused, and 'wishing they weren't trans'.

bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjep.12540

I read this - some of the so called bullying was using the wrong name/pronouns or asking fairly innocent questions like "so are you really a girl then?". Some was nasty, and should be stamped out (same as e.g. for a disabled child).
It's the mum by the way but calls herself "they".

Based a whole career on her child's 'identity'.

That tragic Methods section has me horripilating already. Think I'll leave the rest for much later this morning.

I find the rage in that parent's blog quite disturbing. This study undermines the life they've forged for their child.

There's a child in my family that's been raised as the opposite sex since the age of three, now 14. The stress involved is truly damaging for everyone involved, not least the child. Children raised in denial of reality have no hope of reaching an undamaged adulthood.

I can see why this study is seeking to intervene before ideology gets its grip, but I don't hold out much hope. The desire to make a child happy in the instance is a powerful drive in a parent.

Yes.

The pilot project from the NHS is interesting, though. There's very little info on it anywhere. Mayhe needs a bit of FOIing

The Japanese Soldier who will fight to the death.

If you trans your own kid at 3 everything in your life forever is defending that position the you didn't willingly and deliberately harm your own child due to your own reasons.

Glad to see it being correctly identified as a safeguarding risk.

A rather “eugh safeguarding “ tone being detected in this article.

This section interested me.

Only trans kids?
In the past I would have confidently said that the only kids getting through to the NHS gender service are trans kids, or kids who are seriously considering whether they are trans.
In this new world, I am less confident.
The service cannot even say the word trans. It talks frequently about gender non-conformity.
Will little cis boys be sent to the service just because they like dolls and makeup? Will little cis girls be sent to the service just because they like sport?
Is the NHS taking gender non-conformity back under clinical scrutiny? Are we going back to the 1950s? Who knows.

Is this a level of projection that could be seen from space?? Boys playing with girls toys was literally one of the internationally promoted ‘diagnostic criteria’. I wonder how many ‘trans kids’ (and adults) are in that activists household?

"The primary sample included 30 parents whose children had socially transitioned under the age of 11 in the UK"

Note the absence of the phrase "had been socially transitioned" which would have correctly placed the emphasis on the responsibility and actions of the parent, not on the child. Young children do not have the capacity to understand, let alone sanction such practices.

This is totally an adult project. That one child in the table who was transitioned aged 9 - and has a 'non binary' identity.

No child ever said to their parents " Mummy, I think I'm non binary". You can believe that some children imagine themselves to be girls or boys, but 'non- binary' is utterly an adult conceptual construction.

Can only imagine how one would diagnose a non binary nine year old.

What most people refer to as "being happy" relates to the temporary satiation of desires; and desires by their nature are never satiated; they feed on a sense of loss or discomfort; they multiply; they shift focus.

Contentment, rather than 'happiness' probably more accurately reflects a felt state of maximum comfort and security - and fewer restless desires. A contented child is not likely to be driven by an urgent desire to fundamentally change something in their life.

No matter what people say to the contrary parents absolutely do live through their children.

Yes, but their trans child is a "genuine" trans child. A very special one.

I'm wondering whether the psychologists and therapists will be assessing the parents, as much as the children.

From my understanding of the Tavistock process they definitely assess the whole family. I would assume the same would apply here. Family trauma is an extremely common event in the lives of these children. Often unavoidable, death or illness of a parent or sibling for example. The family dynamic can't be dismissed, even though parents will often deny its influence because they think it means their parenting is at fault. More comforting to believe trans is a normal variation in nature than a result of parenting.