a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality?

Well that's the most ridiculous statement yet! Boys and girls bodies are very different and children are aware of that. It's why they enjoy playing doctors and nurses and "I'll show you mine if you show me yours". Looking at the differences.

P.s. a toddlers body isnt that physically different to the opposite sex until puberty.

A young child who doesnt want to be a boy/girl isnt talking about anatomy.

The high % of autistic children being referred for transitioning services suggesests that perhaps this feeling of not being comfortable in their own skin is not actually because children are born the "wrong sex" hmm?

There are many reasons why a child may feel uncomfortable in their own skin. Transitioning them is no magic pill!

You can modify your body all you like, it doesnt change your sex.

notanan2 it isn't about gender stereotypes,Believing you have the wrong body is simply that, thinking that you have the wrong body. All the associated stuff is peripheral. And just as there are women who dislike artifice and adornment there are men who like it. And there willl be boys who dress as girls but don't want to be one,just as there are girls who dress as boys but don't want to be one. Why are you so opposed to recognising that it isn't a one size fits all situation, that some children will want to change their body?
It would also seem if we applied logic to the situation that if boys have an easier time than girls most transitioning would be Girl to Boy, but it isn't.

My kids would always be quick to disassociate themselves with things they dont want to do. Threats never worked e.g. "clean your room or we wont go to the park later" = "I don't want to go to the park then"..

... see how easily it would be in child logic to say "I'm not a girl! I'm a boy!" if they have observed boys getting what they see as an easy ride?

This snowballs if parents latch on to it in the wrong way and takes the kid along with it..
... imagine if I had done that every time Dd2 said she wasnt a kid she was a puppy! (a lot!!)

Its the adults job to pick that apart. Ask "what is it about being a girl that you dont like" and "why do you think life is better as a boy" & then work from there.

Dont lie to them that they can change sex, and "transition" away from mysogyny and gender steriotypes. They cant, listen to transmen, older transmen. It doesnt work Transmen still experience mysogyny which is a HUGE shock to many of them.

Children take in more than some adults think they do. My girls were allowed to play with what they liked at home but we did not live in a bubble.

Do you think it had no effect on them that if their dads brought them out on his own to playgroups etc he was either patronised or praised for being a man who did "mum stuff"

Do you think it didnt effect them that I had to go to the school office several times to remind them that DH was "first contact" on our contact forms as due to me being main earner, he was more available to collect sick children at short notice, yet the scrolled down the form to call "mum" first anyway..

That toyshops have girl isles and boy isles

That their boy cousins are praised for their boistrousness but their girl cousins get told to "settle down" and keep their dresses clean..

We dont raise our girls in a bubble. And a particularly bright or literal little girl might make the connection that boys have it easier, and say "Im a boy" to avoid the drip drip drip of mysogyny they see around them?

There are other videos on the physical scars of having transitioned young too.

This woman (detransitioned transmsn) speaks well

youtu.be/bu-giO6d5ww

"Hating being a woman did not make me a man" & "if you detransition, your community, the transcommunity, will not support you"

Transitioning children who are at odds with gender expectations and telling them they can become a sex that "matches" their hopes/dreams and behaviours is akin to gay conversion therapy. Some in the gsy community see it as actually BEING gay conversion therapy: make gay kids pretend they are in straight relationships by living as the opposite sex etc

^ this is only going to increase as more transkids mature, and they turn back and ask us "why did you let this happen to us?"

Youtube is FULL of FtoM detransitioners in their late 20s and 30s who were encouraged to transition as children or teens because they were gender critical non conforming girls, and are now dealing with the horrendous side effects of transitioning

youtu.be/1-UmP1inIFo

but it certainly isn't the result of anyone else's actions

Unless a child has been raised by wolves in an isolated wilderness, society affects them!

If a child thinks they are not matching what they are learning that a girl is/should be, then the problem is not the child or their body.

Trisher so much of current trans ideology is actually HOMOPHOBIC so no, being gender critical is not the same thing, at all!

I am in favour of PROTECTING and supporting children who dont conform to gender steriotypes, which is why I am gender critical and opposed to trans ideology (as are many from the gay and trans community as it happens!)

notanan2 do you not realise that exactly the same reasoning you are applying to trans-genderism was once applied to homosexuals? So it was once the mother's fault that a boy liked other boys, because she was controlling, or the father's fault because he was absent. We now accept that liking the same sex is just part of someone's make up. That there may be something in the brain which dictates this but it certainly isn't the result of anyone else's actions. Until we can accept that some people believe they have the wrong body and even children may know this dealing with this issue is impossible.

A CHILD who states they are "in the wrong body" has picked up from somewhere that their chosen behaviours or feelings are not what society expects from their sex

Transitioning these children is not progress. Nor is lying to them that they can change sex.

Progress would be a world where non conforming girls arent made to internalise the feelings that they are "wrong"

In the wrong body for what?

You dont think children pick up on society's expectionions of women and what they should be?

I dont disagree that being a man could feel like the path of least resistance through innocent eyes, but as many FtoM detransitioners bitterly point out, being a transman doesnt give you male privilidge

In the case of that child she was never told the things she wanted to do were "boys things". She had a sister and a brother who all shared toys and activities. What she felt so strongly about was much more fundamental. She felt she was in the wrong body and now, fortunately, it has been possible to change that.

I can only think of a very small number of transgender people I have actually come across, as opposed to reading about. One is a young man, born a little girl, who expressed a strong wish to become a boy from the time she was able to speak.
Sad that that child was led to believe that the things they wanted to do were "for boys" from such a young age

In the future I hope that boys can play dolls and girls can shun dresses without society telling them that that miss matches with their sex!

When we were young I suspect a lot of us underestimated the number of homosexual people in the population as sexual relations between men were illegal and so homosexual men had, in the main, to keep their private lives very private.

Thinking back, nobody really discussed lesbians, but there seemed to be quite a number of single women, including a number of teachers at our all-girls school, who lived together as pairs. We tended to put this down to having lost their fiance/boyfriend in the war, which of course might have been true in some cases.

Fast forward fifty years and I guess that most of us now have friends or family in same sex relationships. It seems quite unremarkable.

I can only think of a very small number of transgender people I have actually come across, as opposed to reading about. One is a young man, born a little girl, who expressed a strong wish to become a boy from the time she was able to speak.

I suspect that if we fast forward another fifty years (most of us won't be around to see it) there may be many more transgender people and again that will have become unremarkable.

Hugshelp in my workplace when they collect protected characteristic data (race, disability etc) on the staff satisfaction survey, they no longer ask sex. They ask gender identity.

There already have been instances of sex offenders being counted as female rather than male transwomen. Top tip: in this country "rape" legally can only be done by a penis. There is other legal jargon for object penetration. So ALL "female" rapists are transwomen.

Alexa self ID isnt progress it is regression. Those of us who are critical of it arent opposing moving forward, we are opposing moving backwards.

Gender steriotypes should not define our being as women.

Current trans ideology isnt about doing and wearing what you want, whatever your sex.

A thorny complicated problem.
I find it chilling that people can be sacked or arrested for an opinion.
I think stereotypes need strongly challening, gender shouldn't be defined by stereotypes anyway.
I wonder what the point is of collecting statistics on sex or gender anyway. Eg a biological male can commit a crime, self-ID as female and it will be listed as a crime committed by a woman. What does the figure actually tell anyone?

notanan2 I believe the Communist Party also does not agree with current transgender ideology.

Trisher, when the culture undergoes any big change the conservatives and other intransigents get panicky. This is uncomfortable for all concerned of course. I am sure that "more acceptability of differences to the norm" will happen to cultural notions of gender as in other cases of cultural change.

When I wrote "joyful" I was thinking of the film 'Kinky Boots' That was a comedy of course, and your "not sure about the joyful" is probably the more correct perception. I don't foresee the cultural change as growing into a tragedy.