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Trans Children

(151 Posts)
FarNorth Tue 17-Sep-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

FarNorth Tue 17-Sep-19 19:01:12

t.co/SXcFlM69jC?amp=1

EllanVannin Tue 17-Sep-19 19:19:39

It's scary to think of all the sick people around.
What about the couple who've not told anyone the gender of their baby, not even grandparents ?

GagaJo Tue 17-Sep-19 19:21:11

I find bigotry a lot sicker, personally.

FarNorth Tue 17-Sep-19 19:32:05

Here's a link to the whole video of the child and parents, if you'd like to see it.
It's about 5 mins long.

youtu.be/kVmau1cM5TU

EllanVannin Tue 17-Sep-19 19:32:20

I couldn't care less what you think, GagaJo.

Tangerine Tue 17-Sep-19 19:52:41

I can't imagine not telling the Grandparents of a new baby about the gender.

Will they never look after the child?

I think it's the sort of thing that would be very hard to keep a secret.

Smileless2012 Tue 17-Sep-19 19:58:28

I find it rather disturbing TBH. Your child is male or female. You don't have to have their bedroom, clothes and toys coloured or chosen according to their gender but you can't pretend their neither male or female.

They are by virtue of their biology at the time of their birth, one or the other.

notanan2 Tue 17-Sep-19 20:10:50

You need a different style of change mat for boy nappies and girl nappies I find:

Girls need the narrow ones with the high padded sides, boys need the wider flat ones.

Refusing to tell people the babys sex is stupid.

notanan2 Tue 17-Sep-19 20:15:57

Can very young children know that they are trans?

No. They can know that they do not live up to gender steriotypes though, in which case the adults around them should change the steriotype/gender expectations, not lie to the child that they can change sex to escape gender stetiotypes

Sara65 Tue 17-Sep-19 20:25:31

I agree with Smileless, whether they like it or not, their child is either male or female, you can bring up a child in a gender neutral way, and avoid stereotyping, but eventually they will have to acknowledge that their child is either a boy or a girl

love0c Tue 17-Sep-19 20:32:03

I think refusing to tell people the baby's sex is very worrying. I would worry about the child growing up with those parents.

trisher Tue 17-Sep-19 20:35:39

I know a child who has consistently insisted she is a boy since she first spoke. The parents are quite laid back and very sociable. They haven't encouraged her but they have just let her dress and behave as she wishes. Perhaps she doesn't know she is "trans" She does know she wants to be a boy.

FarNorth Tue 17-Sep-19 20:37:22

Isn't there already a thread about that couple and their baby, none of whom are claiming to be trans?

Why not discuss them on there?

EllanVannin Tue 17-Sep-19 20:38:15

It's all this brainwashing that's creating confusion and depression in children and I find it truly dangerous of those who drill this sort of thing into a small child.

I agree with that Muslim community who objected to the teaching of " gender issues " in their children's primary school.
No wonder there are so many depressive youngsters !!

FarNorth Tue 17-Sep-19 20:40:26

trisher, perhaps she isn't trans, just a girl behaving in a non-girly way.

And perhaps that was the case for Jacob too, until her parents made a big deal out of it.

GabriellaG54 Tue 17-Sep-19 20:55:09

Without even seeing the couple, you only have to know their names to arrive at several conclusions which will prove correct.

EllanVannin Tue 17-Sep-19 20:55:17

So children are branded trans if one of each happens to have a role-reversal ? Girls climbing trees, boys playing with dolls ??

agnurse Tue 17-Sep-19 20:59:40

The brain isn't fully developed until age 25. The evidence suggests that at least 70% of children who believe they are trans will identify as their birth gender after puberty.

I think that, for the most part, we need to get away from "male" and "female" stereotypes. There's nothing wrong with a boy wanting to play with dolls and to feed or diaper his baby. There's nothing wrong with a girl wanting to play with tools or build things. My cousin is an architect. She's a woman. She's married to a man and she's currently pregnant with their first child. She's still very feminine. As my username suggests, I'm a nurse. I teach nursing. I have taught, worked with, and been taught by a number of wonderful men who are nurses and aides. The ones I knew or suspected were gay were vastly outnumbered by the ones I knew or suspected were straight. There are some areas of nursing that are particularly well-suited to having men working, such as psychiatric nursing, occupational health and safety, and emergency room nursing. One of the universities in our area had a really neat program for high school students once. The students were sex-segregated into classes for a week, but the girls were taught engineering and STEM subjects, and the boys were taught nursing and human ecology (this is a discipline that encompasses the physical and social environments in which humans live; many human ecologists work in areas such as supervision of textile manufacturing or with families, for example). The goal was to encourage students to consider pursuing "non-traditional" areas of continuing education.

Sara65 Tue 17-Sep-19 21:03:07

My girls often behaved like tomboys, my son occasionally played dolls, one of my grandsons has a doll he loves dearly, but never once have any of us questioned their gender.

I’m not being flippant about trans children, my daughter has a good friend whose child is going through this, but we mustn’t assume it’s lying dormant in every child.

GagaJo Tue 17-Sep-19 21:15:15

in which case the adults around them should change the steriotype/gender expectations Which if you watch the whole video, is exactly what the parents are doing.

not lie to the child that they can change sex to escape gender stetiotypes Which is DEFINITELY not what the parents are doing.

Literally ALL those parents want to do, is allow the child to grow up being who they are, without damaging gender stereotypes forced on them by the outside world.

notanan2 Tue 17-Sep-19 22:01:01

They are telling their child that their sex = gender steriotypes if they think not telling people the child's sex is the way to challenge gender steriotypes

That is like saying, well if people knew you were a boy, you would have to bahave like a boy
And
If people knew you were a girl, you would have to behave like a girl.

Rather than say, yes you are male/female, now wear what you like and play with what you like.

Doodledog Tue 17-Sep-19 22:03:06

Yes, notanan2. That is how I see it, too.

Gonegirl Tue 17-Sep-19 22:12:08

I can't get my head around that thing about changing mats that notanan said.

Why? confused

They'd only invented one kind of changing mat when I had mine.

LondonGranny Tue 17-Sep-19 22:16:12

I don't know any trans children although I have had trans colleagues (not that I've discussed trans stuff with them). One thing I do know is every gay adult I have known knew they were gay from a young age (five or six). Also it is a mistake to say children are either male or female. A suprising number of children are born who have very ambiguous sexual organs and DNA.
I also once, long ago, had a boyfriend who was definitely outwardly male but discovered he didn't have XY genes but XXY which was only discovered years later when he went to an infertility clinic after he and his wife had conception problems and discovered he couldn't produce viable sperm. Seminal fluid but no spermatazoa. Gender is a complicated thing. I do think all people should be treated equally and with respect. That's the bottom line for me.