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Trans Children

(152 Posts)
FarNorth Tue 17-Sept-19 19:00:57

Can very young children know that they are trans?

Here is Magdalen Berns commenting on a YouTube video about a 5 year old girl whose parents say she is actually a boy called Jacob.

https://t.co/SXcFlM69jC?amp=1

hugshelp Sat 21-Sept-19 10:45:03

children and young people are choosing
But some people are questioning whether the trans ideology that is being taught in schools is influencing SOME children to make a decision they would otherwise not make.
I don't have any evidence one way or the other on this one, I don't know that studies have been done to conclude on this yet.
However, if you think that people don't choose to do something because they are influenced easily when vulnerable I refer to the fact that 900 people chose to join a cult and kill themselves.
"Reiterman has argued that it is impossible to separate Jonestown from its political and social context. The “Peoples Temple was – as many communes, cults, churches and social movements are – an alternative to the established social order, a nation unto itself”, he wrote in Raven. “The Temple I knew was not populated by masochists and half-wits, so it followed that the members who gave years of labor, life savings, homes, children and, in some cases, their own lives had been getting something in return.”

He “recoiled”, Reiterman added, “when outsiders took the attitude that they or their children would never be crazy or vulnerable enough to join such an organization. Such complacency is self-delusion.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on

Once more I include a link which you are of course free to ignore.

I think most people are just trying to have a healthy, honest, debate which doesn't try to simplify it down to trans is all good or bad but to look at what is actually happening, and to try and ensure everyone gets the best help they can, and to acknowledge that what is the right help for one person or child might not be for another.

Doodledog Sat 21-Sept-19 10:48:18

No I'm saying that children and young people are choosing to be defined as non-binary which effectively answers those who are posting about gender roles being less defined
Thanks for responding. Sorry if I am being dim; but I don't understand, and would like to.

If gender roles were less divided (which they aren't just now), then why would there be a need for anyone to define at all? They could just 'be'.

Doodledog Sat 21-Sept-19 10:49:42

I think most people are just trying to have a healthy, honest, debate which doesn't try to simplify it down to trans is all good or bad but to look at what is actually happening, and to try and ensure everyone gets the best help they can, and to acknowledge that what is the right help for one person or child might not be for another.
Yes, I agree.

FarNorth Sat 21-Sept-19 11:35:22

Hang on now we are saying that teenagers don't know their own mind?.

Of course not; that's why teenagers are allowed to drive, drink alcohol, smoke, have tattoos etc etc just as soon as they want.
Or did I get that wrong?

FarNorth Sat 21-Sept-19 11:42:43

Possibly a 12 year old? 13 1/2 before seeing the first doctor.

After 6/7/8 years of everyone 'affirming' the new identity, the young person is likely to be quite consistent, insistent and persistent in their assumed identity.
Just what the doctor ordered.

GagaJo Sat 21-Sept-19 12:39:36

Well, if it is their choice, WHY would you have a problem with it?

Their body. Their choice. The average 13/14 year old is VERY aware of who they are. Yes, they engage in risky behaviour due to their frontal lobe developing later than the rest of their brain, but gender/sexuality/outlook is pretty confident by that stage.

GagaJo Sat 21-Sept-19 12:46:03

Hugshelp, plus others...

the trans ideology that is being taught in schools - Anyone that thinks a school has TIME to do this, given the government / OFSTED / profit making academy pressure (all push to improve exam results) is deluded.

We work from 8-6 most days FORCING kids through the sausage machine of the holy grail of grades 5-9 at GCSE.

No teacher has time for social or emotional education anymore.

Gone are the days when I could teach boys to respect girls OR to enforce basic manner rules of not belching or farting in public. LET ALONE discuss deeper issues.

If you doubt what I say, VOLUNTEER in your local school. Within the first day you'll see the pressure teachers are under and understand they have NO time do engage in the indoctrination you seem to think they do.

I genuinely don't mean to be rude, but most of you are SO out of touch with what education is like these days. Schools are 100% results driven. Children that don't conform are expelled. Wrong, I know, but this is the state of UK education today thanks to YEARS of Tory rule.

pinkquartz Sat 21-Sept-19 13:02:47

I am just making an appeal really for greater acceptance and less of putting young people into boxes .

I don't agree that 13 and 14 year old know their own mind....I think they are beginning to but not the entire picture yet.
I base this on being a mother, grandmother and knowing many other young people through my friends.
That is why I have concerns.

It is very sad to hear the poor state of education and I am not surprised as I am not a Tory supporter they are the cause of most of the rot in the UK IMO Also from our family experiences.

GagaJo Sat 21-Sept-19 13:19:05

It is pinkquartz. Given that teachers join the profession to help children and no longer have the time available to do so. Very, very sad.

hugshelp Sat 21-Sept-19 13:29:21

GagaJo I worked in education for quite a few years and am aware that teachers can convey all sorts of information and opinion without having the time for lessons on those subjects.

I agree that I am out of touch with exactly what is happening today but if schools are not in a position to influence pupils why is material and guidance for schools being put in place on this?

I also am really annoyed at what years of Tory rule have done to this country. We are certainly in agreement on that.

GagaJo Sat 21-Sept-19 13:38:48

I really don't know why, hugshelp. Delusion / covering their a**es, on the part of the government?

It is my very firm belief that the reason we have gone back to boring old-style chalk and talk teaching, rather than continuing to try to develop students as 'self-led learners', is because the elite want OUR children to remain at the bottom of the heap.

Churning out a 5 or 6 at GCSE is useless if you don't know how to study independently. Or if what you learned for your GCSE is useless. Which is it these days, thanks to Michael-bloody-Gove. Even the very dedicated, very skilled teachers are SO overworked there is no time for extra OR interesting teaching. UK education is at an all time low.

Working class kids are being deliberately kept at the bottom of the educational chain. It CAN'T be coincidental.

hugshelp Sat 21-Sept-19 15:28:48

You have my sympathy on all that gagajo - I know all too many people who have left teaching in recent years. Some young, very bright minds who stayed a very short time.

As for 'keeping the working classes in their place' - I see more and more how this is achieved the older I get. I watch the 'deserving poor' rip to shreds the 'scroungers' and see who actually gains from this dynamic. I see people blaming the lack of jobs, low pay, and overcrowded hospitals on immigration then ask myself who is actually gaining from low wages and why aren't those lovely profits helping to build hospitals? I'm not going to digress into the whole question of immigration and Brexit etc as there are too many things to consider and this is not the thread.

I think one thing that needs saying on this thread, is that regardless of whether some children are being unduly influenced with regard to questioning their gender, and this is something I do think needs to be looked at, I don't think anyone is saying that this influence is all coming via teachers or schools. Some is via TV and much is via social media.
I doubt there are many teachers going out of their way to reinforce gender stereotypes like, 'girls wear dresses, play with dolls, wear make-up' etc etc, but the message is out there. (ooh the power of advertising and those invested in maintaining the status quo) And many of us think it needs challenging.

FarNorth Sat 21-Sept-19 18:19:17

trisher, please can you explain to me what sort of things are being said by trans children and their parents, whom you know, that are different to the sort of things being said in the video I linked at the start of this thread?

trisher Sat 21-Sept-19 19:41:23

FarNorth had you read my posts you would already know. But anyway- girl child who has consistently preferred 'boys' activities. Her mum is not a 'girly mum and often behaves in 'laddish' ways. Her behaviour has been accepted without any criticism BUT she also insists she is really a boy. Parents are very laid back about the whole thing. So actually the complete opposite of what is described on your video (she must be one of the most irritating women presenters anywhere)

FarNorth Sat 21-Sept-19 20:25:41

The whole film of the family, without Magdalen Berns' comments, was also posted early in the thread.

I don't understand that as meaning that the child is trans.
Do the parents think she is trans?

My 6 year old GD says she is a cat. Her parents humour her but do not believe she actually is a cat.

FarNorth Sun 22-Sept-19 09:50:35

One of the UK's youngest trans children -

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7490035/Mother-one-Britains-youngest-transgender-toddlers-hits-critics.html?fbclid=IwAR1cYiISxZZzOuq6ZjD0KyBnWfh5r7t4nAofaB64d9DBusLTnbsIGEo_wKI

trisher Sun 22-Sept-19 10:33:32

Great! A happy loving family who are supporting a very much loved child.
FarNorth you seem to be hung up on the trans label. Perhaps if you just viewed this as a child living as they want to and stopped trying to pigeon-hole them you might feel better.
You really don't understand about how important this is to some children do you?

Lynnieg Sun 22-Sept-19 10:54:14

trisher Magdalen Burns died last week from a brain tumour at a tragically early age.
So she won't irritate anyone anymore.

trisher Sun 22-Sept-19 10:59:01

That's sad but doesn't give her any right to comment about other people and their children. Am I supposed to say something else?

trisher Sun 22-Sept-19 11:23:48

Having read up about her I do wonder how she would have felt if someone had told her parents that lesbianism was just a phase and she would get over it if they ignored her.

hugshelp Sun 22-Sept-19 12:30:34

I don't think there's any doubt that there are some children who present early as being trans and some of those will go on to have life-long body dysmorphia.

The problem seems to be that there are all sorts of other things going on that people are largely ignoring because the focus seems to be so narrow, they are ignoring that other harms may be being done.

What about the couple in Ontario who filed a human rights complaint against the school board because of the traumatic effect they say the teaching was having on their child?

caldronpool.com/school-traumatizes-six-year-old-with-gender-fluidity-lessons-parents-file-human-rights-complaint/

And some children DO go through different phases (and I hate the way that word is sometimes uses to minimalise what they feel, that is not my intention). Here is one young woman talking about how being unpopular and bullied led her to become depressed and led to body dysmorphia and how she transitioned and is now de-transitioning.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYHfiy4STwA

FarNorth Sun 22-Sept-19 15:20:54

From another, longer, newspaper article about the same child :

“Everyone was so accepting. Other kids would ask why she was in a dress, and she’d reply, ‘Because it makes me happy’, and that was it."

The child doesn't say 'Because I'm a girl.'
Certain things make him happy, that's all.
It's only adults who think that liking those things means he must be a girl.

FarNorth Sun 22-Sept-19 15:23:57

Here's the link for that article :

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/my-girl-became-youngest-trans-20138358

FarNorth Sun 22-Sept-19 15:30:27

Possibly a 12 year old? 13 1/2 before seeing the first doctor.

We learn from the article that Luna, aged 8, has already had 5 appointments at a gender clinic.

trisher Sun 22-Sept-19 17:24:12

Did you actually watch the video? Seemed like a pretty good idea to me giving cildren the right to wear what they want and be what they want. What's wrong with that? It does seem to me that we are getting the same element of blame attached to parents of trans children that used to be given to the parents of gay boys. Gay boys the theory said were often the result of a controlling mother. Mothers of transchildren it seems are being treated in a similar way.