Parental responses when children declare they're "trans"

[SylvanMoon]

Nick Wallis interviewed Erin Friday, a parent of a trans desister about the “patterns” which cause children to announce they are trans and parental tactics to deal with the situation. It would be very useful, I think, to any parent in such a situation.

genderblog.net/detransing-a-parents-13-point-guide/

What stands out to me in Erin Friday's interview is that as part of the non-affirmation strategy she advises parents to remove their children from the association that may be causing the contagion. Just like parents who have transed their child will be reluctant to admit they've ever made a mistake, so too, a child who has insisted that school and friends all call them the wrong sex will find it difficult to step away from that on their own. Some of the parents in her survey changed the child's school, some moved house. She also made any friends of her child feel uncomfortable when visiting her house, refusing the not only affirm her own child, but them as well.

I'll be interested to see what some of the parents here who are handling this feel, it seems a bit intense and harsh when there may be gentler ways to achieve the same thing. The basic principle of trying to keep all the doors and options around the child open as long as possible without the child getting locked into actions with long term consequences (particularly by enthusiastic friends/school staff), and stopping internet seems sound, with the aim that it establishes whether these are social online choices from encouragement/soaking in material, or is this within the child. In both cases, stopping everyone else pushing their opinion and interpretation on the child, clearing the space around them and giving the child time and breathing space to find out what comes from within them and how it looks, would seem a very good idea. I've often seen parents talk about the importance of not putting big reactions or energy in any one direction and taking the steam out of it, not least as these are so often children having a hard time in many ways.

See also this German study that suggests that (in girls at least) nearly 73% of those claiming to be trans had desisted by 5 years, which is far from the "less than 1% regret rate" the trans lobby like to claim.

The German longitudinal study says that "There is a need for further research into what causes the low diagnostic persistence and the observed increase in prevalence. In the meantime, diagnostic stability and the high prevalence of concomitant mental disorders should be taken into account in the recommendations on the initiation of gender reassignment treatment in adolescence."

di.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/239563

Considering the average age of female detransitioners is early to mid 20s, I'd bet that percentage increases in a few years.

These are problems created by transactivism, which flip-flops around with its definitions at the drop of a puberty blocker.

All children who claim they are trans ARE trans. They know exactly who they are and nobody can interfere… until they’re not.

So if they claim they are trans and then stop doing so, they were never trans at all. They may have had “gender dysphoria” or whatever the latest name is, but were never trans.

Yet at the same time, trans is an inner feeling or identity and you don’t have to be medically transitioning, or even have “
gender dysphoria” to qualify.

Even if clinics were following patients, they would need to define exactly what the diagnosis is and how it relates to the ethereal “being trans” identity.

The whole thing is nonsense from start to finish. That an entire medical industrial complex has opened up and been taken seriously is a frightening indicator of the fact that medicine is no longer being practiced safely, scientifically or ethically.

"The 72% Desistance Rate: In the largest group of concern—females aged 15–19—72.7% of those diagnosed in 2017 no longer had a gender diagnosis five years later. If we "affirm" a child with permanent medical interventions, we are interfering with a condition that, for the vast majority, resolves on its own within five years."

The German longitudinal study says that "There is a need for further research into what causes the low diagnostic persistence and the observed increase in prevalence."

There's an obvious answer to that: social contagion.

I suspect having a home where children can be themselves fully without parents gendering interests (along with an appropriate school that also supports this) is the answer. A boy that likes makeup or wearing dresses likes dresses and makeup. He doesn’t have to be a girl to like them.

Three cheers for Erin! This really nails it for me, and gives me a lot of confidence that not affirming is the right path. I wouldn't affirm any other teen social contagion either.

That it's Nick Wallis saying this is super powerful.

@pottylolly I wish to goodness that you were right. But honestly, my family did all those things; my boys wore dresses as toddlers in 2005-2015, they all wore nail varnish if they wanted to, I've done all the house maintenance (electrics, plumbing, plastering, you name it), they are all on their own for make up as I wouldn't know one end of a make-up brush from the other, my husband cleans the bathroom and is a lovely man. The main womanly things I've done have been giving birth and earning terrible wages. As teens/young adults, my kids can wear whatever clothes they want - I bought/buy them clothes, but there are enough shops in our vicinity that they could sort themselves out. Secondary school sold the gender idea big time - I've recently found PSHE school workbooks from 2018-2020. I was a million miles off peaking then because I'd not heard of any of this stuff. Once you've got a kid who ticks the boxes that Erin lays out, if school are pushing it then the family background makes no difference.
[hope that doesn't come across too harsh pottylolly, I don't mean it to - just to say, for lots of us, there's honestly nothing families could have done different]

This may be true, but I’ve seen the opposite to be helpful.

When the child/teen starts to talk around the trans issue, talking about maybe being trans or maybe feeling trans etc the parent does two things. One they start subtly affirming sex based interests. This doesn’t have to be suddenly encouraging girls to look like the Kardashian’s but encouraging single sex based sports or single sex based friendship groups or the parent speaks to sex based differences, praising positive aspects of sex based implications etc.

The second, alongside the first, is that the parent takes them out of their heads and off social media and back into physical material realities with taking their teens camping, hiking, swimming, volunteering etc. Both of those can be helpful in the early throes of gender dysphoria to help them feel more comfortable with their sexed body.

It was a surprise to me as someone who has resisted gendered norms to realise some aspect of those norms can help a confused teen to develop an appropriate sex based identity.

Which is exactly why the advice given by Erin Friday to keep the child as far away from that contagion as possible by whatever means is the right advice.

One of the interventions that Erin Friday's group of parents did was to let a child who thought they were trans (or whatever) to wear whatever they wanted (apart from binders and I would assume whatever it is that boys wear to tuck), but to not be active in facilitating the opposite gender stereotype in terms of buying stuff for them. That to me seems to be quite a reasonable response and signalling that we are more than what we wear or do.