Parents of 4-year old transgender child - This Morning interview.

Iam64

This ‘interview’ is my first (and last ) experience of the Good Morning programme.

Why do these parents think it’s ok to go on this programme to discuss their child in this way? The child isn’t able to give informed consent.

My feelings exactly. What about the child's privacy? Irrespective of one's views on gender stereotyping, this child is being discussed on national TV and this programme will forever come back to haunt them. Are the parents just trying to show how wonderful and understanding they are?

Something is seriously wrong here- and not the child.

Kali2

Something is seriously wrong here- and not the child.

In a nutshell!

GillT57 : You said "Are the parents just trying to show how wonderful and understanding they are?

No they are showing there is something seriously wrong and to have had these weird notions that the child was transgender since it was 18 months old needs to be investigated.

Katie59 I absolutely agree with you. I was a tomboy, the 'boy' in the family. I wanted to be a boy until mid teens. I was always comfortable in my body, I had a slim build and am small busted anyway.

Even as an adult I have been accused of acting and thinking like a man. I spent most of my working life in a male environment and enjoyed it there.

My reaction is that you come to terms with who you are and if that means you are often at odds with the world, so be it.

Parading children around because they are different or trying to make them be what they are not is equally damaging and unproductive. Just let them be themselves and treat that as normal, their normal.

I see it as raising awareness and normalizing being transgender.
Am I the only one?

Wow what a lot of judgemental and critical posts. I don't see any reason to question the parent's story. I met the child I know when he was about 2 and was still named as a girl although he was quite vocal and insisting he was a boy Neither of the parents influenced him, they simply adapted to his wishes. He now has a boy's name and is living as a boy.
By all means criticise the parent's decision to go on the TV, but their story is perfectly credible.

If this was an 18 year old adult raising awareness then it would be different.

This is a 4 year old child being paraded on national television by the parents.
Awareness can be raised about the subject without using a child as an example, a young child who cannot give consent.

My post was in answer to Hithere

Hithere

I see it as raising awareness and normalizing being transgender.
Am I the only one?

I thought that was probably their aim, and possibly to help other parents who have to deal with this.
Judging from the comments on this thread I don't think they've managed it.

Consent is the operative word

Hithere Would you go on television and reveal your four-year-old son’s personal issues which may or may not be permanent to the whole world? Once it’s out there it can be shown again and again, no matter how he might feel later.
If your husband wore your clothes at home and your undies when he goes out, would you both go on television and discuss it with Philip Schofield to raise awareness?
Yes or no. If yes to both, are you able to see the difference?

trisher

So if your child born a girl insisted he was a boy what exactly would you do? Ignore him, insist he is a girl?

Go along with it but not apply to go on Good Morning television so that the parents can have their 15 minutes of fame.

If it helped my child when he/she grows up, yes, I would.
I wouldnt want to feel my child he/she is the only person going through it

This is not different that any posts in social media - the kids do not have any call on whether pictures are posted of them or not, together with private information about them.

That is wrong too.

trisher in what way did 'living as a boy' change that child's life at the age of 2?
In what way does the child 'live as a boy' now?

Hithere and the husband situation? Did I miss your answer to that?

FarNorth

trisher in what way did 'living as a boy' change that child's life at the age of 2?
In what way does the child 'live as a boy' now?

When he was two and still called a girl's name, he stated quite often that he was a boy and objected if he was called a girl. He now has a boy's name, dresses as a boy and attends school as a boy. If you met him you would assume he was a boy and had always been a boy.
If you imagine that girls and boys look the same or act the same even in primary school you are completely wrong. Perhaps in an ideal world they might but they don't.
It's typical of those who don't want to acknowledge that transgender people exist to pretend there are no norms in society, when there obviously are, and to pretend that a child is just being a tomboy, or enjoys dressing up, when the child is quite obviously saying he/she feels they are not the gender they have been designated.
This "How can someone live as a boy?" is just pathetic.

But s/he is FOUR years old. So don't try and change things, but don't enforce this forever either. Give the child time and support- not such 'encouragement and support' which will make it impossible to ever not...

You think its pathetic because you cant answer it trisher. Or you can only answer it with regressive sexist stereotypes.

Sorry, what husband situation?

Agree 100% with Callistemon’s posts.

"If your husband wore your clothes at home and your undies when he goes out, would you both go on television and discuss it with Philip Schofield to raise awareness?"

Why should a fetish be raised on television?

Sorry, I do not see the comparison at all with the 4 year old boy/girl case

I get so fed up with people saying "gender" when they mean sex! Sex is immutable, it`s biological. We are almost all xx or xy. You cannot change sex. Gender, however, is a continuum of socially constructed stereotypes. These stereotypes can be performed by anyone, male or female. So if a little boy wants to wear a dress and play with dolls, he shouldn`t be made to feel that he`s really a girl. And if he says he is, just go along with it for the time being (as I did when my four year old grandson did just this). He`s given up being a girl now and "identifies" as a cat! We have to let children use their imaginations instead of rushing them off to the Gender Identity Clinic.

Gender is a social construct though

No it is not! Gender is a biological fact!