Trans children

Esspee

In the 70s I tried to be gender neutral with my two. I bought them a doll, taught them to sew…I simply tried to allow them to be themselves and expose them to different experiences.
They turned out to be stereotypical boys. Did I fail?

My DSs are the same, they can knit ,sew, cook etc. One of them irons better than me. But they are also football fans and that's not something I encouraged!!!

That is exactly what I did with my daughter, and what my daughter is doing with my grandson. He has dolls, pushchairs, a dolls house, a kitchen, cars, dinosaurs, Lego etc etc. He can do whatever he likes.

He sometimes wears 'girls' clothes, although how basic kids clothes can have a gender I don't know. What a load of BS.

He's his own person. Cis, trans, hetero, gay, non-binary, bisexual... Whatever. He's lovely and as long as he's a good person, it's the ONLY thing we care about.

I think, Esspee that is what most parents did in the seventies. There seems to be much more rigid definitions now about what toys should be played with by boys and girls. It is as if we have gone back to the fifties or something, where they was something to be remarked upon or concerned about if a child enjoys playing with the "wrong" sort of toy.
You only have to look at the difference in the advertising for Lego between the seventies and the present.

In the 70s I tried to be gender neutral with my two. I bought them a doll, taught them to sew…I simply tried to allow them to be themselves and expose them to different experiences.
They turned out to be stereotypical boys. Did I fail?

If that is what they have chosen, and your GC is happy with it, that's great. Home as a supportive, kind, environment is so essential when a child has such a difficult path to tread.

Luckygirl It sounds as if your family are doing the very best for her. I hope whatever happens you find a way through this and she grows up into a world where she is accepted and happy whatever gender she decides to be.

The whole pronouns thing is very difficult. Her immediate family refer to her as "they" which causes me momentary confusion every time they say it and I have to remind myself who they are referring to. It feels very contrived, and I confess to getting it wrong all the time.

GagaJo why are you using different pronouns from those used by Luckygirl for her DGD?

It sounds as if your family is doing the very best they can Luckygirl. Your grandchild is showing the same distress as the student I had. Puberty, periods, developing breasts caused HUGE distress. Your family is already doing well though. My student couldn't talk to family members. His friends told me (with his permission) and it was discussed in school on a confidential level, although until the student disclosed it personally, obviously we didn't intervene.

Have you considered contacting an organisation that supports trans children, so he could at least have others who are going through the same thing, peers, as it were. It might help him feel a little less alone in what he is experiencing.

Luckygirl What a dreadful situation. As far as the self harming goes do you know of anyone who has been through this? A child I know of who was doing this (for very different reasons) was helped to stop by an adult who had done the same thing. The very practical advice about the long term effects and the positive help and support about how to stop was so valuable.

The provision of mental health services for children is appalling.
I hope your DGD gets the help she needs.

That is a terrible situation Luckygirl and it sounds as if you are all doing everything you can.
I hope your DGD can come to terms with being a female person who doesn't fit into 'feminine' stereotypes.

Trying to get help from children's mental heath services is like trying to get blood from a stone. Private help was sought in the end and the therapist of course went down the route of total validation of the need for gender change.

How to find a therapist that will not jump to "affirming the preferred gender" almost straight away.? Impossible frankly. Believe me we have looked.

I share the concern about puberty blockers; but the other side of that coin is that male to female gender change is very difficult after puberty because the child will have masculine bone structure in their hands, feet and jaw, and it will be almost impossible not to finish up with a pantomime dame look. I am not advocating puberty blockers at all, but recognise the argument put forward by those in favour.

My DGD's desire to change gender arose along with her first period, at which she was horrified. I have some sympathy with that. None of us are exactly thrilled by them, but most of us bite the bullet and get on with this bloody design fault.

Parents are in a real bind and treading a tightrope. Some go overboard with the affirmation route; others in the opposite direction. We are trying to find a middle way, with love at its core. But it is not easy.

I am going to duck the flying bricks, but I feel you should wait until after puberty at least to alter gender. Too many do gooders get involved much to early. I never had dolls or girl friends before I was 12, always with the boys out on my bike and exploring. Then I discovered the happiness of getting a girl best friend, doing each other’s make up, going shopping etc. Then I got really keen on boys and dancing, . Glad I wasn’t in therapy. I married had children and grandchildren, very happy.

Mental health services for children are overstretched, understaffed and therefore difficult to access. In an ideal world, there would be far more availability of good quality care for all those going through crises. If your daughter had anorexia or was self harming for whatever reason you would seek help from mental health services, you wouldn’t say - ok starve yourself or cut yourself then, we’ll support you. Playing along with falsehoods may not be the easy road it appears. A child who is desperate to change gender should be able to explore their feelings about how they think they will be different in a different gender. The fiction that it is possible to change biological sex should not be supported by professionals, unfortunately this isn’t always the case.

That describes the dilemma of many families, it is an impossible situation, what we need is a calm examination of the situation society wide, to get the best outcome for children, but that's not what is happening. The issues of the tavistock, the whistleblowing by health visitors, social workers etc shows this. It is the families who are left in the middle with an impossible situation.

I would hope that the parents would look for gentle, exploratory counselling for the girl.
Admittedly, that is very difficult to find nowadays as most therapists of any kind will jump to "affirming the preferred gender" almost straight away.
Indeed there is a campaign to ban "conversion therapy" which seeks to make it illegal not to immediately affirm someone's gender identity.

However, there is an increasing number of people, especially young women, who are now realising that they should have had much more in-depth counselling and that they do not truly believe they are the opposite sex.
Keira Bell was one of these and it was found, in her court case, that the Tavistock Clinic was not taking proper care in its dealings with children and young people.

I very much hope that your DGD is having some help to explore her feelings Luckygirl.

(The comment about parents being to blame was not mine.)

Personally I believe that parents ARE mainly to blame for confused children.

And what do you do if your 13 year old DD tells you she wishes to be a boy? - and she is seriously depressed and self-harming, not leaving the house?

How are the parents to blame? What are they to do? How can those who love her best help her? Do they ignore it and tell her she will grow out of it? How do they avoid minimising how much this means to her, whilst gently trying to stop her doing anything irrevocable from which she cannot retreat without losing face?

This is my DGD, now 16, and very clear about her desire to change gender.

trisher

FarNorth when the child reaches puberty there will be a lot of things to discuss and decide. But if the child realises his parents have supported and understood his problem from an early age he is much more likely to be able to discuss the options

I don't believe the parents have understood the problem since they believe the solution is to encourage belief in a falsehood.
Because of that, the options you mention are unlikely to include "wait & see, because puberty hormones might well change your viewpoint".

What I'm wondering is this an issue that affects children worldwide? I can't really imagine that little ones in war torn countries are going through this.

*Deedaa
I hated dolls and dresses. I've got the long third fingers that indicate an excess of testosterone in the womb but when I was 13 the oestrogen kicked in and I changed practically overnight*

could you explain more about this. I was also very much a tombiy girl until puberty.
I didn't know about the third finger and testosterone in the womb thing

Agree trisher. One student I had who was unable to talk to his parents developed an eating disorder. When he eventually saw a psychologist, they said they thought it had been a subconscious attempt to limit the development of female characteristics such as breasts and public hair. By staving off puberty, he could remain a boy.

FarNorth when the child reaches puberty there will be a lot of things to discuss and decide. But if the child realises his parents have supported and understood his problem from an early age he is much more likely to be able to discuss the options

I always wanted to be a boy. I played with boys and with boy's toys. Dressing as a boy was a problem straight after the war because there weren't the sort of unisex clothes that children wear now but I spent a lot of time in shorts. I hated dolls and dresses. I've got the long third fingers that indicate an excess of testosterone in the womb but when I was 13 the oestrogen kicked in and I changed practically overnight.

trisher once a child who has happily believed themself to be a girl / boy, affirmed by all around them, reaches puberty - what happens then?

They can't continue just to believe, they have to take action in the form of medication in order to maintain the fictitious belief.

Your stating that "No-one is suggesting giving medication to young children" doesn't alter the fact that it's not going to be good enough for the child and all around them just to keep believing really hard.

Just google 'trans child youtube' and you'll find videos about how parents were really afraid their (very young) child was going to be gay.
This is based on the child's preferences for toys and clothes etc.
It's often made clear that the parents tried to force the child to behave in certain ways because that's what they expected of a girl / boy.
Clearly the child thinks "If a girl has to do all those things, I must really be a boy." (or vice-versa)
So the child tells the parent this, and the parent (maybe not instantly) takes it as 'proof' that they really have a 'trans child'.

In fact, they have a child who wants to escape bullying by the parents.

Then the child gets to be how they want and the parents are so happy that they have a real little boy / girl who fits their expected stereotypes.

That is very much how things went in the family of Susie Green - CEO of Mermaids - who can be found on youtube giving talks about her son.

Likewise for Kai Shapley - poster trans child in USA - whose mother states that she 'really spanked' him for not being macho like his brothers.