Transgender toddlers

In My Humble Opinion
81

Labeling a kid as trans before they are old enough to even understand the implications is not a benign thing. A while back I found out about the detrans subreddit over on reddit and it is pretty eye opening to see some of the stories posted on there about how people who no longer identify as trans view their transition experiences. It seems like many of them did not feel fully informed of all the potential risks and permanent effects of hormones/surgery. A lot of them also have commented there are things they did not realize about the social implications of transitioning. For example, I have seen several stories from female-to-male transgenders there about how they didn’t realize until they transitioned that many gay men are not willing to date female-to-male transgender people, and now they are trying to deal with how to find companionship when their potential dating pool is much smaller than most people’s. A toddler is not capable of truly grasping the meaning of such things and making an informed decision about them.

Personally, I think that the rate of “detransition” is probably going to go up as this current generation ages. We never really saw that before because in the old days it was much harder to get hormones or sex reassignment surgery, so you had to be pretty damn sure that it was what you wanted to go through with it. Now, you don’t even really have to make the choice for yourself - your mom or grandma says you are a trans toddler, and by God you are. Anyone who questions it is a bigot. Honestly, my first suspicion when someone says they have a trans toddler is that someone has Munchausen syndrome by proxy and is using the kid to make themselves feel special, to show off how “tolerant” they are, to get attention for themselves, etc.

82

Well now I’m confused. Gender is something people can swap at will now? I work in daycare and that would never fly at my work, one month we are calling a child ‘he’ and the next month saying ‘she’. Are we behind the times?

83

I don’t know what it would mean within the child but the parents need to be in counseling, regardless. That doesn’t mean the child isn’t cared for. It means, conversely that the child will get cared for.

Just to clarify: I consider myself an advocate for children, not parents, or sexuality, or the assigment of sexuality onto others.

84

Since I posted the above, there have been a few more posts that show why it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming the worst when someone asks questions. See post #81, for example.

All too often, it goes like this: someone expresses concern that transgender kids are making a huge mistake. You explain that transgender support at that age does not involve surgery or hormone treatment, there are thresholds that must be met before anything happens, and it takes years of therapy and exploration. And the “concerned” person ignores that, continuing with arguments about “swapping gender at will” and “toddlers making informed decisions.”

Or maybe they switch to the next argument, that hormone blockers are pumping kids full of chemicals. And you explain that their effect is reversible and they have been demonstrated to be safe in multiple studies. So they switch to reddit links of people who regret transitioning. And you explain that yes, any decision will end with some people regretting it, but the people who are happier post-transition greatly outweigh those who regret it. So they switch to yet some other argument.

Eventually, you realize these people aren’t really concerned about the children; they just don’t like trans people.

I think the OP was asking in good faith, and I think some other participants in this thread are also willing to learn about the topic. But it’s easy to become jaded when you are constantly running into people like skyr and Ají de Gallina.

85

I will note that the whole detransition thing is a mess, socially. To be clear, in this specific context I’m largely referring to people that were a binary trans person who underwent some physical changes but then reverted back to their original gender. There are some classes of “detrans” that merely include reversing some changes but still identifying as nonbinary. They face some of the same issues wrt medical access and guidance, but far less social issues with their old communities.

Detransitioners are not well supported by the systems in place to help trans people, and the tumultuous history between trans and detrans people means there’s not as much movement as there should be to remedy this. Now some people may argue that detransitioners are a small minority, and while that’s not wrong… I mean, so are trans people. I think detrans people perhaps overrepresent themselves, but that’s a combination of things like certain groups looking more common than they are when you hang out in communities full of people like that, and a desperate need to scream at people to just listen to them and help them, since they’re often in pain.

If anyone should be a natural ally of detrans people, it should be trans people. After all, make irreversible changes to your body with hormones? Your voice lowered? Facial structure changed? Heeeey guess who else got the wrong effects of hormones. Regret your breast implants/removals and want them reversed? It’s the same (or extremely similar) guidance and treatments, especially for people with a form of surgery that permanently removed their hormone producing sex hormones, who now need HRT guidance… Just the opposite gender of what’s normally needed by trans people.

HOWEVER, there are reasons for the current state of affairs. Firstly, there is a lot of concern trolling among bigots about detrans people that’s used to harm trans people. Not all of it of course, I think some trans people legitimately jump on the “transition now” train too fast when giving advice because it was so positive for them, personally, but you need to carefully consider these things. Some of it is just low-key fear on the part of trans people that THEY themselves made a huge mistake, because trans people are fed the regret narrative often enough it can be hard to tell if you did or not (which sucks for both trans and future detrans people). And if this were the ONLY barrier I’d say to get over it, but it’s not.

On the detrans side, there’s a lot of issue with TERF and/or general bigoted rhetoric against trans people. Some of this is philosophical shifts (i.e. you detransitioned BECAUSE you came to hold these ideals). Some of it is just people with profound regret can swing extremely anti-trans because it was such a NEGATIVE experience for them and they’re trying to prevent others from going through the same pain and handling their own grief by tearing down what hurt them. Some of it is TERF and bigot interference. The detrans subreddit is full of TERFs rubbernecking the whole thing and trying to reach out and actively recruit detrans people, especially recent ones at their most raw and disillusioned. The rules and moderation don’t help either. For instance, the detrans subreddit has “no advocating continuing HRT” rules that, while perfectly understandable, skew the narrative towards never being able to acknowledge that sometimes, for some people, that may be the best thing. It also theoretically has a rule about only trying to speak about yourself and not others, but due to subreddit culture it’s at best unevenly enforced.

So you get this horrible distrust ouroboros. Trans people distrust and shun detrans people for being weaponized (and weaponizing themselves) against them and often falling into becoming anti-trans bigoted themselves and directly harming their old friends, and detrans people distrust and grow to dislike trans people because trans people defensively kick them out of their communities and support networks and refuse to listen to them. It’s really horrible and I hope there’s a way to reconcile some day, but I don’t think dismissing detrans people as merely a weapon bigots use is fair to them, even if pointing at them and yelling “WHAT ABOUT…” is a common diversionary tactic often used by bigots that needs to be acknowledged and labeled.

86

This is a great post, and thank you.

I hope it doesn’t oversimplify to say that the world is hard as hell, and the best thing we can do is to respect the decisions other folks are making about how to navigate their way through the world and the identity they sincerely claim in doing so. I don’t have to have a gut-level understanding of transgenderism, nonbinaryism, detransitioning, or gender itself in order to respect folks and their identities. Trans folk should give de-trans folk the same respect they want themselves, and vice versa, and cis folk ought to thank our lucky stars that of all the shit-shows life throws at us, having a persecuted and misunderstood gender identity ain’t one of them.

87

So that was me (‘swapping genders at will’) and I am not skyr, or Aji de Gallina and I have not said anything about surgery or hormones or anything else. I haven’t switched or continued anything.

The thing I wanted to know, since I work with that age group, and it could actually happen, is what I am supposed to do if a child expresses to me that they are a different gender to what I think they look like biologically? 5 years ago, I would have just treated it exactly like them telling me they are a dog (i.e. as pretend play), even if it went on for months. Now I have learnt a little more about trans-gender people (mostly from this message board) and it seems like that is maybe not the best response. I’m OK with not getting an answer to my question but I would rather not be misrepresented.

88

I mean, calling a child by the gender they’re acting as/think they are doesn’t really cost anything. I feel like people get hung up on this notion that if a child thinks they’re a different gender than what they were assigned at birth and it’s just a phase and we humor them they’ve done a disservice. This is, maybe, true if you get overly invested in the new gender, same as how it can hurt a trans person by being too invested in their old gender. Don’t go overboard and bend over backwards to reinforce this new exciting gender experience and talk about how great they are and oh do you want a barbie now and oh i was looking at bracelets and thinking of you (not to mention even if they’re, say, AMAB and want to be a girl they may be a tomboy or something anyway).

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting them explore their gender on their own terms, until they’ve figured out where they lie, making it clear implicitly if not explicitly (for a child that’s not your own) you’re supportive wherever they end up.

Like nobody is asking you to inject T into the 5 year olds at your daycare because they want to try on being male for a while.

89

look, my whole thing here is someone trying to ascribe gender to a 3-year-old. I’m a guy. when I was 5-6 years old, I was into Strawberry Shortcake dolls… Why? because they were scented, and I thought that was neat. I didn’t play with them or anything. I’m sure my older relatives made cracks about it. But if I had the parents/grandparents the OP describes, they would have tried to funnel me into being gay or trans just because I was a boy who collected dolls for like a little bit.

how about let the kid be and see how it turns out? 'cos it kind of sounds like the people OP is talking about actuall want this kid to be trans.

90

I mean, I’ll grant there’s a world of difference between “my child likes stereotypically femme things so they’re a girl” and “my child said they were a girl so I’m just gonna go along with it and be supportive of their identity until it sticks or passes.” The latter I think is an important step for parents to take, the former is just stereotypical nonsense. The latter isn’t necessarily stereotypical either. Again, trans girls can be tomboys, trans men can wear dresses. They’re disjoint concepts.

91

This stuff isn’t easy and IMHO there isn’t one defined way.

I’m going thru this now with one of my teenage kids, who just came out. He’s got a buddy from 2nd grade who came out with us about 2 years ago, and a couple of acquaintances. There seems to be a lot of anxiety and self-doubt around whether “I am just a poser, or I’ve simply got body issues, and am not a true trans?” Throw in a mix of puberty and teen angst on top of that…I’ve been coaching him not to judge if someone changes later in life. (At the same time, cognizant that I don’t want to feed his self-doubt, yet get him professional help to navigate his way).

I don’t know if its the right approach, but drama free acceptance is the way I’m going about it (while pulling the levers of help at school, medical evaluation, support groups for both of us, educating myself, etc).

92

Teen trans stuff is super weird because all the counseling in the world doesn’t fix the fact of “time tables”. I wanna be super clear, I support groups like Mermaids in the UK and other organization that get trans and questioning youth counseling, blockers, and eventually HRT etc.

However, the primary issue with gender questions at puberty is that going through the wrong puberty can be pretty bad. And that is true whether it’s a trans puberty or a cis puberty. You’re stuck with some stuff forever after a certain point of development. Puberty blockers buy time, but at the end of the day you don’t want to delay puberty until they’re about to graduate high school. You kind of have a time limit, and that puts a lot of pressure on questioning teens to make a decision either way.

Some people see this and say that this is why teens shouldn’t be allowed to transition, and I’ll grant that going through a trans puberty is slightly worse than a cis puberty for the time being (because of sexual development wrt fertility/virility), and if surgery gets involved the general risks with missing school or activities for surgery, financial pressure on the parents (with or without insurance), and general surgery related risks and complications.

The awkward thing is that going through the proper gender puberty can also help reduce those issues later in life. Trans women likely won’t need breast implants if they transition during puberty, for instance (all trans women grow breast tissue but as a general rule ones that transition as adults do not go through all the tanner stages and end up with small, misshapen breasts and need implants for them to look fully formed and natural) and trans men won’t grow them (if caught early enough). There are some benefits that can only be gained via puberty for the time being, such as hip size. Trans women will have their hips expand if undergoing HRT during puberty, trans men’s hips won’t expand as much Trans women won’t grow thick male facial hair, requiring painful electrolysis to remove. (I don’t know much about low-dose T/blocker sort of NB puberties and I feel like it’s medically irresponsible to assume it’s just “somewhere in between”).

To some degree not wanting any trans kids to go through transition in puberty is just valuing cis bodies over trans ones. That an accidentally cis body is “better” than an accidentally trans one. People often express this even without thinking of the real concerns about fertility and such. This makes some sense, people often feel more guilty about something they chose to actively pursue rather than something they chose to let happen, even if letting it happen is technically just as big a choice (is there a name for this phenomenon? it applies to way more than just this). It’s probably the main underpinning of what makes the Trolley Problem so contentious, except in this case one of the tracks has cardboard cutouts of real people and you might not realize which track that is until after the fact.

I’m in firm favor of offering kids guidance and allowing them to go through puberty on their own terms after as much deliberation as needed, but I also recognize there are significant risks in having to make a choice in such a short window, especially when both routes have so many potential future consequences if you guess which side to err on incorrectly.

93

I know very little about this. I do however know how to google for reputable researchers who know quite a bit. Informing a discussion with some actual experts’ research based opinions is not a bad thing.

Labelling a three year old as “transgender” is more often than not a very premature assessment.

I like how the what I linked to concludes its brief review:

Neither parents nor their young children need to feel they are making a decision forever in early childhood. The decision as well as the identity can be fluid for quite a while and rolling with it with unambiguous unconditional love may be all that is required to be supportive. Phoebe Waller Bridge’s parents provided a good template.

To further clarify and emphasize - hormonal therapy in early puberty is specifically about stalling and buying more time, not changing genders physically.

94

I had long heard that most doctors who deal with transgender issues used to require people to live as their preferred gender for at least a year, preferably two, before proceeding with hormonal and/or surgical treatment, and that isn’t necessarily the case any more.

95

These are the old WPATH standards and they were walked back for a ton of reasons. One primary issue is that “living as your preferred gender” was very, very strictly regulated and had so many things attached to it. Under the old classification you had to be exclusively straight (that is a trans woman interested in men and vice versa) or you’d immediately be thrown out as not serious. Therapists would not accept anything other than full-on dress/makeup/heels as dedication enough to start transitioning for trans women, and similarly stringent requirements for trans men (no crossdressing. no, not even if you like it). You actually had to be rated by the doctors approving you for HRT as “potentially passable” to even quality. They’d literally rate your passability before HRT to be allowed to have it. If I recall correctly you legitimately had to be willing to move and abandon your former life to be considered, because they considered integration as an out trans person impossible. That may not have been a written requirement but I know it was often an at least unofficial litmus test.

People had scripts they pretty much had to stick to to be considered. It’s literally where the bog standard “I always knew I was a girl. When I was 5 I wanted dresses and played with barbies and thought boys were icky and had cooties…” stuff. It’s largely where the “trans people are entirely based on stereotypes”… er… stereotype came from. You literally could not transition if you were not a stereotype. In fact, old school “transsexuals” as they still generally call themselves still have some survival mode over this and get real mad at the kids these days not doing trans PROPERLY. I’ve known some women with older “trans moms” so to speak, and the older ladies will only mentor people who they think can pass, and even then only so far as they’re willing to “play ball” so to speak with makeup, heels etc. It’s very respectability politics oriented. (This isn’t to say all old trans people are like this, but the way the medical system was structured means only people who could act like this, whether feigning it “for the cameras” or full time, actually made it through transition).

And that’s not getting into the real dangers of having to be “full time” for a year. Firstly, again “full time” is not something you can define without a strict definition of what a woman/man is (see above). But also, it’s incredibly dangerous and taxing. Living as a woman without HRT means they are very visible and exposed pretty much 24/7. Some lucky people can pass without HRT, and some trans people are very in your face rebel types that flaunt their transness, but many trans women and trans men elect to not go “full time” presenting female/male (whatever that means for them, personally) until it’s safe because they think they can pass. It’s thought a lot of the causes of suicide among early transitioners, as well as many who chose not to go through with it, was because they were forced to transition far earlier than they would’ve liked to, making them very visible and open to abuse. Transition before you pass? Oops, nobody will hire you! Now you’re homeless and can’t afford the therapy or HRT to transition anyway. Oops.

I understand the implication that trans people should show a very good understanding of the risks, and some semblance of dedication… but the old way of doing things ain’t it.

96

I read there were some problems with Mermaids – like they were doing what you talked about, rushing kids in immediately, those who were merely just gender non-conforming, or non binary. They did have a HUGE security breach, and a lot of e-mails and private data was released.

I can sort of see doctors not just wanting to pass them around right away – I’ve seen people on sites like tumblr (WHICH IS WHERE YOU SEE MOST OF THIS STUPID SHIT), claiming that hormones should be over the counter, that it’s okay to just experiment with them, because like, you can just quit when you want. Sadly, these are the kinds of people who get all the spotlight.

(I don’t know how familiar you are with tumblr.)

97

I am exceedingly familiar with Tumblr. I don’t use it but my generation in general is fairly familiar, it’s hard not to be Tumblr adjacent lol. I mean. Tumblr is tumblr, there can be some forces for good there but that’s also where you see the concept of “AFAB privilege” (“assigned female at birth trans people have privilege compared to assigned male of birth ones”) which is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and everyone I’ve floated the idea to IRL or online, regardless of age, has thought the concept was nuts.

Anyway, the Mermaids thing. Okay yeah, the data breach was bad and there’s mismanagement, or at least there clearly was around 2016 when the emails that were leaked were sent. I actually didn’t know some of this, I’m not sure how I feel about them pushing for there to be no waiting period on HRT (eliminating puberty blockers in essence). Instead of saying I support Mermaids in particular, let’s say I support the thrust of the work in guiding and consulting trans youth and helping them until and through the transition.

That said, I read the Times article about the Mermaids leak and I have some comments:

  1. This is the UK which… okay some context here. The UK often gets the charming nickname “TERF Island” because uh… the UK has a dodgy history at best with trans acceptance even compared to other anglosphere nations. There’s a pretty good article on it here (with a similar Op-Ed in the NYT here that cites that one). It’s a bit too complex to get into but it boils down to the fact that in the UK the “asshole skeptic” sub-movement in the early 2000s that sowed the seeds of the anti-feminist/MRA crowd and alt-right here instead become part of the feminist left there, and that spiraled in peculiar ways that affected the nation’s trajectory wrt trans issues in healthcare. This isn’t to discount the article just because of this, I’m just setting the tone.

  2. The emails that leaked I believe were after the first time Mumsnet got involved with Mermaids. In particular, the language “cult-like” is an extremely, extremely common for bigots and especially TERFs to talk about trans people in general. I’m not saying no actual parents said that to Mermaids, but the language is very suspect when combined with the timing of the brigaiding and harassment by outsiders. It’s very likely some of that wasn’t “parents” so much as harassment from random people, or else UK parents that googled “help why is my child suddenly trans” and ended up on Mumsnet or a similar part of the internet.

  3. The emails leaked are from 2016, and most of the good I’ve heard about Mermaids is far more recent. It’s possible it still has some of these issues (or more), but it’s also possible they got ironed out, or were overrepresented by complaint emails (after all you generally talk about things that are notable, like bad experiences). In particular, some of these issues seem more cultural than missteps (i.e. Mermaids and its staff don’t condone anything, but certain things are inadvertently impressed by trans youth onto other trans youth at the support meetings). In particular the whole “pressing bottom surgery” thing seems like this. I do think Mermaids and other groups should perhaps have some voices gently and compassionately pushing away from these norms just to provide a counterbalance.

  4. As for pressuring the NHS on puberty blockers. Again, I say I’m not sure how I feel about this, but as a counterpoint the NHS is unusually inflexible about HRT and is a noted pain to try and get through. It’s not even technically gatekeeping, so much as when you apply for HRT it gets bureaucracy and you spend 3 years waiting for any treatment anyway. Note that while it’s not explicit gatekeeping it is somewhat targeted, there are other similarly easily treatable things that don’t take nearly as long. It’s a kind of “off the books” form of bullshit that places have been fighting to change. If I were to speculate, it’s possible (but I don’t know for sure, this is a guess!) Mermaids trying to negotiate the blocker length down is partially because it takes 1 or 2 years to get on them anyway and/or it takes so long to approve HRT after blockers it’s redundant.

  5. I’m somewhat skeptical of the article’s bias because it interviews/quotes the creator of a transgender hate blog that was part of making up a fake disease related to a scare about how ALL THESE KIDS ARE JUST SUDDENLY TRANS IT’S A CRISIS. Julia Serano did a Medium article on this, but honestly I prefer her post on her blogspot page tracing the origins of the 3 sites involved and the myth itself. Apologies for not naming the site and being coy about the “condition” name. I don’t mind on principle, but users of these blogs occasionally search the blog names or the specific name of the non-condition for mentions and then pop up and start harassing people. (I don’t know the reputation of The Times in general, or the specific author of that piece, and I can look into it more before talking further).

98

I find it appalling that parents would consider permanently manipulating their pre-pubescent child’s hormonal levels to effectively stop them from becoming fertile, growing full testicles, full bone structure, and changing their physiology for life.

It it’s a sad and disturbing little social experiment going on that I have no doubt will be looked at in the future as a dark time in history.

99

Why is fertility more important than being comfortable in one’s own skin?

And what the hell does “full bone structure” even mean?

100

What the fuck do you think happens to a pre pubescent male child if you stop him from going through puberty? His bone structure. His reproductive organs.

You think they are going to grow up completely normal, structurally? No.

Same with female to male hormones. What the fuck do you think happens if you alter a growing child’s hormones?

What the hell do you think is happening? They are gonna grow up exactly the same as natural? No.