Transgender

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  • Ohher wrote: »
    Even in some worst-case scenario where parents insist that a kid with the physicality of one sex and the self-awareness of another sex continue to live in conformity with her/his physical nature, the kid grows up, eventually takes charge of his/her own life, and can take action on her/his own behalf.

    Assuming that child is not one of the 50% of transgender young people that attempts suicide and that they survive the suicide attempt - Reuters report from Sept 2018

  • Some people describe transitioning as suicide prevention.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    The suicide stats are indeed appalling. But the Reuters report does not claim half of transgender youth attempt suicide. It claims half of those identifying as male but labeled female do. Assuming roughly equal numbers of labeled-male and labeled-female transgender youth (an assumption which could, of course, be wildly off -- I have no idea), that's roughly 25% of transgender young people. Another 30% identifying as female but labeled male attempt suicide, or (assuming that roughly equal split), 15% of transgender youth. That's 40%, not 50%, against the 18% of cis youth who attempt suicide -- so a rate a little more than double that of cisgender youth. Again, appalling. But it also means that the majority of transgender teens, like the majority of cis teens, are coping somehow with the sometimes extreme stresses of adolescence and gender identity.

    This is not to downplay the plight of transgender youth. But it's also important to keep in mind that, even at 18 and legal adulthood, we are dealing with people who are still in their developmental years. The pre-frontal cortex is still maturing; hormones may still not quite be stabilized; even the bones and muscles, especially for physically-male individuals, have yet to reach full development, and some personality traits are still in their formative stages. I deal with 18-to-20-year-olds all the time in my professional life, and wow! They are a constant source of surprise, challenge, and inspiration. But I have also seen such young people swing 180 degrees around some given circle of intense and vital concern to that individual within the space of a few weeks. Caution, communication, and confirmation are all called for.

    It's a daunting enough challenge to respond to a 3-year-old's question, "Am I a girl or a boy?" with "Why do you ask," or (my choice) "What do you think?" (or maybe, "If you could be whatever you want, which would you like to be?") and then trying to help a toddler grasp the differences among roles and sex and gender -- something many adults don't "get." But dealing with such questions with teenagers who are simultaneously struggling with academics, career choices, new intense emotions and relationships, and on and on -- I personally think we need to remember that, as with every other marginalized group I've ever learned about, it is almost never the actual characteristics of that group which presents the problems: it is the reactions of intimate (and not-so-intimate) others to those characteristics which create the horror stories.


  • But just think, the parents of dead trans kids and adolescents will have the satisfaction of knowing that they were socialized to be normal. What a triumph.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    That's 40%, not 50%, against the 18% of cis youth who attempt suicide -- so a rate a little more than double that of cisgender youth. Again, appalling. But it also means that the majority of transgender teens, like the majority of cis teens, are coping somehow with the sometimes extreme stresses of adolescence and gender identity.

    This is not to downplay the plight of transgender youth.

    But it is downplaying the plight of transgender people. I grabbed the first statistics I found last night, looking more carefully this morning, the figures from the Stonewall School Report from 2017 (link is to the page, not the pdf report) for the UK are:
    More than two in five trans young people (45 per cent) have attempted to take their own life. For lesbian, gay and bi young people who aren’t trans, one in five (22 per cent) have attempted to take their own life, (p7)

    Transitioning in the UK (link to NHS site) does not mean surgery for young people, it means psychological support and may mean:
    If your child has gender dysphoria and they've reached puberty, they could be treated with gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues. These are synthetic (man-made) hormones that suppress the hormones naturally produced by the body.
    <snip>
    GnRH analogues will only be considered for your child if assessments have found they're experiencing clear distress and have a strong desire to live as their gender identity.

    The effects of treatment with GnRH analogues are considered to be fully reversible, so treatment can usually be stopped at any time after a discussion between you, your child and your MDT.

    So what is being given to young people is psychological support and maybe some reversible hormone treatment. As adults the young people may access more possible treatments, but surgery and irreversible changes are not offered until the person has lived socially as their preferred gender for a year to two years.
  • Being socialized to be normal reminds me of Clause 28, which forbade the "teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". This not only led to the narrowing of sex education in English schools, but the closing of many LGBT support groups in schools. It seems like ancient history now, but wasn't it intended to socialize kids to be normal, i.e. not gay? I suppose the battle lines have shifted to trans kids, and the "teaching of the acceptability of trans identities". Don't be trans, be normal.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    @ Curiosity killed: thanks for reading what I actually posted with the same careful attention you gave to your original stats.

    @ quetzalcoatl: For a parent to respond to an apparently male or female infant as though s/he actually belongs to the apparent sex is perfectly normal i.e., a "norm." This is how parents are socialized. What would you have parents do instead? Pretend from the get-go that nobody can possibly know what sex this kid is until the kid sorts it out himself/herself (when the overwhelming odds are that there is in fact no mismatch)? Is it possible this might be as worrisome, stressful, and upsetting to the child as facing, at some future point, some parent's outright rejection of the child's dawning realization that s/he experiences a mismatch between her/his body and psycho-sexual identity? (How frequent is such parental rejection, and what role does THAT play in trans-kids' suicide rates? Have you raised any teenagers? Do you know how often adolescents, far from confiding in their parents -- especially about hot-button issues -- go to great lengths as part of the normal individuation process to conceal such issues from parents and confide in friends -- who may reject the confider -- instead? How frequently do parents, instead of rejection but perhaps after some initial confusion or even dismay, come to their transchild's aid? How does THAT play into the child's ultimate successful transition?)

    Is anyone on this thread capable of processing the facts that childhood is a 2-decade-long process of constant change, that parenting and responding to a growing, changing child is also a process requiring constant adaptation which most parents have varying degrees of success with, that all social, behavioral, and psycho-sexual norms are fluid to varying degrees and always have been, and that the kinds of black-and-white thinking (plus our ever-diligent searches across this forum for shipmate villains to excoriate with our outrage) on this thread may actually produce more harm than help?

    I'm done with this conversation.
  • 8 questions, not bad going, errm, well...
  • Incidentally, the idea of black and white thinking, seems odd. Most people I know in gender studies talk about gender and sexuality as a spectrum, or I should say, spectra. This is one reason that LGBT keeps having letters added, so LGBTIQAA, and so on, intersex, queer, asexual, and allies, being the extras.

    In fact, gender clinics see people who gender non-conforming, non-binary, genderfluid, agender, and others, as well as trans. This is one reason for not rushing things.
  • Ohher is addressing well the things we're tumbling through in my extended family.

    The idea of spectrum is a construct, something used to explain a perspective. It might be quite useful and it might not apply. It depends on what we're trying to explain and understand. The idea of spectrum re gender identity is something those who don't have the biology/gender congruence deal with. The rest, the majority, don't seem to deal with at all. The question of whether they should deal with it is what we seem to be aiming at. Children being different than adults on this.

  • Violet and red are the extremes but they're still part of the same visible light spectrum as green, orange and yellow.
  • It's interesting that gender and sex were traditionally seen as binary, although presumably everybody noticed that there are feminine men and masculine women, and shades in between. But for various reasons, the binariness became politicized, I suppose partly the effects of religion (God didn't make Mike and Steve), and also patriarchal structures, (men hew coal, and women make meals). Also, complicated rules around property, children, virginity, primogeniture, etc.

    All of this began to be prised apart by women, see the Married Women's Property Acts, and of course, the vote. Gay liberation began to explode the binariness of sexuality, and trans people, both gender and sex identity.

    Of course, some people find this threatening and undesirable, just as mixed race sex was seen. From binary to polymorphous variety, quite a journey.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    quetzalcoatl: Is anyone on this thread capable of processing the facts that childhood is a 2-decade-long process of constant change, that parenting and responding to a growing, changing child is also a process requiring constant adaptation which most parents have varying degrees of success with, that all social, behavioral, and psycho-sexual norms are fluid to varying degrees and always have been, and that the kinds of black-and-white thinking (plus our ever-diligent searches across this forum for shipmate villains to excoriate with our outrage) on this thread may actually produce more harm than help?

    Wow! I'm glad nobody told me this before we had our kids! Had they done so , we might have had second thoughts.

    Anyhow, quetzalcoatl, you settle one contentious question in asserting that childhood lasts for 20 years. So much for the social construction of childhood. We also discover that some voters are still children, adding yet more to those in their second childhood.

  • Yes, but that's not my text.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    It was Ohher who said that, Kwesi, addressing quetzalcoatl.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    OK, guys, apologies all round!

    Here's looking at you, Ohher!

  • IkkyuIkkyu Shipmate Posts: 19
    Ohher wrote: »
    Again, appalling. But it also means that the majority of transgender teens, like the majority of cis teens, are coping somehow with the sometimes extreme stresses of adolescence and gender identity.
    https://reuters.com/article/us-health-transgender-teen-suicide/trans-teens-much-more-likely-to-attempt-suicide-idUSKCN1LS39K

    While it is true that being a teenager especially these days is hard, claiming that trans youth are not having a particularly harder time is not accurate.

    The idea of spectrum re gender identity is something those who don't have the biology/gender congruence deal with. The rest, the majority, don't seem to deal with at all. The question of whether they should deal with it is what we seem to be aiming at. Children being different than adults on this.
    As a cis male I never questioned my gender and this probably fits with the experiences of most people, What is being proposed is not making cis children question their identity,
    that would be absurd.
    All the stories from the parents of transgender kids I have heard are the opposite. The parents usually at first, either ignore the gender questioning hoping it will go away. Or push back against it. They end up been forced to take it seriously because the kids insist on being taken seriously. And I only hear from accepting families. I suspect that the kids being forced to conform are probably the majority. Nobody is forcing cis kids to deal with anything related to this. I would hope that they learn about it so they can be supportive of their trans peers. But that's not being forced to "deal" with it, is it?
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Ohher wrote: »
    Is anyone on this thread capable of processing the facts that childhood is a 2-decade-long process of constant change

    Absolutely - what's helpful for one child at one age may not be helpful for the same child at a different age or a different child at the same age.

    At one age, setting clear boundaries may be really important. At a different age, helping your child to develop the skill of negotiating for what they want may be far more helpful than sticking rigidly to previously-stated boundaries.

    A norm is not the same thing as a boundary, but ISTM the same truth applies. Knowing that you have a place in the world, a destiny - that you're a boy who will grow up to be a man like daddy and go out to work like daddy does, or a girl who will grow up to be a woman like mummy is and have a life like mummy has - is just as important at the appropriate age as it is at a different age to know that you don't have to follow in your parent's footsteps, that you can forge your own path.

    No sane person wants to see children damaged, either by norms too rigidly imposed or by an absence of the security that comes from accepted norms of behaviour.

  • Russ wrote: »
    ...
    No sane person wants to see children damaged, either by norms too rigidly imposed or by an absence of the security that comes from accepted norms of behaviour.

    That sounds so wise and compassionate, probably because it's a Doublethink version of "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". "Absence of security" is a pretty passive way of saying trans and non-binary kids get plenty of messages telling them what's wrong with them, up to and including murder. "Norms too rigidly imposed" and failing to support or even punishing kids that don't conform to norms are matters of degree, not an either/or. Their security is absent because of how other people treat them, not because they are trying to discover who they are.

  • Yes, for trans kids, and in fact gay kids, and gender non-conforming kids, it's the accepted norms that throttle them and imprison them, especially if they are reinforced in a spirit of "we know better".
  • Ohher wrote: »
    @ Curiosity killed: thanks for reading what I actually posted with the same careful attention you gave to your original stats.

    @Ohher - in your first answer to me, your answer read as someone theorising without an evidential basis. I would be interested where you found the 22% figure for attempted suicide rates in normal cis teens, as there was no link to that data in your answer.

    22% is the figure I found, and evidenced, for attempted suicide in LGBQ youth, and the attempted suicide rate for transgender youth is double that at 45% (link - Stonewall School Report 2017). The figure I can find for attempted suicide for teenagers, generally, from the CDC Healthy Youth report (pdf, p47) is that the rate of attempted suicide of young people in 2017 was 7.4%*. So LGBQ youth attempt suicide at three times the norm and trans youth attempt suicide at six times the norm. And you still think that is normal and acceptable?

    Actually, I also have spent the last two decades working in education with troubled teenagers, most of that in special needs in mainstream or special needs provision, so have experienced the volatility and pain of young people.

    * over the 10 year survey the rate of attempted suicide for teenagers varied between 6.8% and 8.6%, but comparing 2017 figures as that was the figures compared earlier.
  • Russ wrote: »
    ...
    No sane person wants to see children damaged, either by norms too rigidly imposed or by an absence of the security that comes from accepted norms of behaviour.

    That sounds so wise and compassionate, probably because it's a Doublethink version of "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". "Absence of security" is a pretty passive way of saying trans and non-binary kids get plenty of messages telling them what's wrong with them, up to and including murder. "Norms too rigidly imposed" and failing to support or even punishing kids that don't conform to norms are matters of degree, not an either/or. Their security is absent because of how other people treat them, not because they are trying to discover who they are.

    Capitalising Doublethink makes it appear I said that, which I didn’t. I assume you meant it an (improper ?) noun.
  • Orwell's Doublethink, not you. Apologies for the vagueness.
  • The suicide rate and transgender is correlational not causal. In my nighttime insomnia, CBC Overnight carried something from BBC World Service which indicated that symptoms of ASDs (autism spectrum disorders) and young people seeking transition are associated. This is also apparently correlational. So causation is not assumed.

    The information above in this thread that transition might be a treatment for suicidality seems irresponsible. The causal link isn't shown. Either direction. People who are troubled may be suicidal. That's about as much as can be securely concluded.

    I was led to understand the infancy of research and information about transgender, and the links to other mental health and social issues, means that any summary statements linking transgender to the cause of mental disorders, and as mental disorders as the cause of transgender, aren't supported by much except ideas.

    I was also led to understand (again) that social pressures and information about transgender are associated with greater epidemiology of children and youth inquiring about transgender, with developmental traits within the children and youth being important in their asking about it. The general understanding that the simple theories about transgender, development, social influence, other mental health disorders, are mostly too simple.

    I'm certain now, wasn't earlier, that the deficits in health care here, with publicly funded health care being doctor care and hospital care for the most part, and much less on social and mental health except through poorly funded clinics or by better funded physicians, that some of the controversy I've created is due to our frustration at the provincial situation in the locale where this member of my extended family is: not being able to get much other than facilitative services.
  • I don't think anyone has suggested that transitioning is a treatment for suicidal thoughts and feelings. But trans people who transition are less likely to suicide; in simple terms, they feel happier.
  • I don't think anyone has suggested that transitioning is a treatment for suicidal thoughts and feelings. But trans people who transition are less likely to suicide; in simple terms, they feel happier.
    Do you have data for that? I can see it as a logical assumption. But some things don't follow reasoning, which is why data is helpful.

    Perhaps I over-interpreted this?:
    Some people describe transitioning as suicide prevention.

    I'm getting that there may be several populations involved: persons who are trangender identified as a pure type, persons who are troubled otherwise and the expression of transgender is tangled with other problems or pathology, persons who may be socially influenced in developmentally vulnerable times of their lives. Then we have a second class cross-cutting categories of social acceptability where the person lives, family variables and response, response of medical care providers and psychosocial care providers as might exist.

    <tangential>
    As someone who spends about half of each week reviewing data for public policy reasons, I've seen that there are different standards for it to be considered accepted, with funding and political factors requiring only a modicum of data so long as it is presented well by people who can respond to questions, present persuasively with emotional appeals, provide reassurance about best practices. Some best practices turn out not to be, opiod use for pain, stimulant use for school behaviour problems, GMOs and pesticide use come to mind immediately.
    <tangent end>
  • CarysCarys Shipmate Posts: 25
    Ohher wrote: »
    Why wouldn't we -- in the service of assisting a child's secure development -- assume that a very young child belongs to the sex s/he appears to be, and help the child "fit in" with that scenario? That is exactly what most of us do with most of our kids, and most of the time, that works out reasonably well. We don't require pre-schoolers to guess which sex they are, or force them to choose; they have too little experience, don't know what it means, have no concept of consequences, etc. They've barely developed selves yet.

    I'd rather we spent a lot less time on gender with small children. Until puberty, there is not much difference between girls and boys - things like men being stronger start with Testosterone. So why do we divide toddlers into girls and boys?

    The answer is because of our language/socialisation. I've noticed how much with my Godson I'll say things like "good boy" etc where his gender really isn't relevant.

    There are various studies which show that we impose gender stereotypes from birth. And that limits both boys and girls. The BBC did an interesting programme called "No more boys and girls" which showed a lot of this. The girls underestimated themselves and lacked confidence and spatial awareness (boys were better at tangrams) and the boys had no emotional vocabulary except for anger. After half a term of outlawing gender stereotyping and grouping them as boys and girls and daily practice of tangrams, the girls were more confident, there was no gender related difference in tangrams and the boys' behaviour had improved tremendously because they had learnt to deal with their emotions in ways other than blowing their top when things got tough.

    Carys
  • Yes, I saw that film. It made the idea of helping kids "fit in" seem rather repressive. If anyone is being forced to choose, we can see it here, with conventional gender traits. But there are various anti-trans myths, for example, that trans kids are impelled into being trans, when in fact, it seems like the other way round, and conservatives actually praise the old binaries. Sometimes, we seem close to Kinder, Kirche, Kuche, (children, church, kitchen). But it's doubtful that you can become trans.
  • Carys wrote: »
    The girls underestimated themselves and lacked confidence and spatial awareness (boys were better at tangrams) and the boys had no emotional vocabulary except for anger. After half a term of outlawing gender stereotyping and grouping them as boys and girls and daily practice of tangrams, the girls were more confident, there was no gender related difference in tangrams and the boys' behaviour had improved tremendously because they had learnt to deal with their emotions in ways other than blowing their top when things got tough.

    Carys
    I'm sceptical of such things. I'm never convinced the differences actually exist unless encouraged. The program isn't available here AFAIK.

    Group differences among groups of boys and girls will obfuscate the differences between specific individuals and subgroups of boys and girls. The questions I'd have of such data: what are the mean differences and variations around the average on measures of confidence, spatial ability, emotional expression etc, and are the measures themselves fair. There's a lot of situational demand with a video to make points for a popular audience. We saw an awful lot of claimed racial differences on characteristics until at least the 1970s and these re-emerged in the 1990s, early 2000s, which were small in significance but these meant nothing because the measuring was inherently biased so as to find the differences in the first place, cf Mismeaure of Man.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    ...
    No sane person wants to see children damaged, either by norms too rigidly imposed or by an absence of the security that comes from accepted norms of behaviour.

    That sounds so wise and compassionate, probably because it's a Doublethink version of "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down".

    Not saying anyone should be hammered down. I'm saying that there is an appropriate age (which will vary between individuals) for giving a child the message that "you can be whatever you want to be".

    And an appropriate age (ditto) for giving the message "this is how things are, and it's no big deal, and no-one's asking of you anything that's too hard".

    A time to instruct and guide, and a time to listen.

    Do you want your children to have the option, when they're old enough, of going to live in a foreign country and taking a different nationality ? If that's how they want to live their lives. Doesn't mean you don't teach them the culture they grow up in...
    "Norms too rigidly imposed" and failing to support or even punishing kids that don't conform to norms are matters of degree

    Yes. Pressure to conform can be excessive. So can loading kids with existential responsibility sooner rather than later. A matter of degree.

    There should be a happy medium - kids who grow up to know and understand their culture and wear it lightly.

    I don't remember who it was said it, but knowing your place is a positive thing; it's being kept in it that is negative.
  • amyboamybo Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    I keep thinking about Kavanaugh, and what he thought it meant to be a man. I trust we all agree he's despicable? [DELETED POTENTIALLY LIBELLOUS COMMENT - Eliab]

    I really don't want that for my baby. I want him to have the empathy and self-awareness (two traits that are somehow considered "feminine" in Kav's hyper-masculinism) to know he is loved and make the world around him a better place. So yeah, we're ditching gendered "norms". He knows he's a boy, (he's found that bit), but there's no toxic suck-it-up or be-a-man language around him.
  • CarysCarys Shipmate Posts: 25
    Carys wrote: »
    The girls underestimated themselves and lacked confidence and spatial awareness (boys were better at tangrams) and the boys had no emotional vocabulary except for anger. After half a term of outlawing gender stereotyping and grouping them as boys and girls and daily practice of tangrams, the girls were more confident, there was no gender related difference in tangrams and the boys' behaviour had improved tremendously because they had learnt to deal with their emotions in ways other than blowing their top when things got tough.

    Carys
    I'm sceptical of such things. I'm never convinced the differences actually exist unless encouraged. The program isn't available here AFAIK.

    That's the point of the programme. The differences were because of socialisation and didn't last when the socialisation changed.

    Carys
  • EliabEliab Shipmate, Purgatory Host
    amybo wrote: »
    I keep thinking about Kavanaugh, and what he thought it meant to be a man. I trust we all agree he's despicable? [DELETED POTENTIALLY LIBELLOUS COMMENT - Eliab]

    A direct accusations of a serious criminal offence (there being no admission or court decision to substantiate it) is potentially libellous. Please do not post such material.

    Discussion of matters in the public domain is permitted, but there is a line between that and stating outright that N is an X. Your comment crossed that line.

    Eliab - Purgatory host

  • Carys wrote: »
    Carys wrote: »
    The girls underestimated themselves and lacked confidence and spatial awareness (boys were better at tangrams) and the boys had no emotional vocabulary except for anger. After half a term of outlawing gender stereotyping and grouping them as boys and girls and daily practice of tangrams, the girls were more confident, there was no gender related difference in tangrams and the boys' behaviour had improved tremendously because they had learnt to deal with their emotions in ways other than blowing their top when things got tough.

    Carys
    I'm sceptical of such things. I'm never convinced the differences actually exist unless encouraged. The program isn't available here AFAIK.

    That's the point of the programme. The differences were because of socialisation and didn't last when the socialisation changed.

    Carys

    I think you misunderstand, I'm sceptical of the data not what the program wanted to convince about.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Nature, nurture. We all know the answer's a mix. And are right to be suspicious of those who argue for one or the other for essentially ideological reasons.
  • Russ wrote: »
    Nature, nurture. We all know the answer's a mix. And are right to be suspicious of those who argue for one or the other for essentially ideological reasons.

    Point is your second sentence is wrong. We know no such thing.
  • One of the interesting developments with gender is that feminists largely argued that gender is a cultural product, or social construction. However, some trans people argue that there is a biological foundation, separate from sex. There is also an issue with ambiguity, as sometimes gender is conflated with sex.

    I would suggest that we don't understand gender, research is on going in various areas, and it's correct that there are ideological positions on gender, but I would agree with Karl, our lack of knowledge stands out.
  • Confirming without assessment sounds bizarre. If they don't assess, how do they know what they are dealing with?

    And yet, schools readily and frequently tell their adolescent (child) students that they can be confirmed in their new gender, and socially transition, without any form of assessment by any professional whatsoever, and without telling parents.

    Social transitioning leads to young people being more likely to persist in their "new" gender; without it I think it's 80% who desist.

    In reference to several earlier points, the rate of suicide attempts in young trans people is no higher than in any other mental health population (see Tavistock Clinic - the NHS's only child and adolescent gender identity clinic - statistics).

    Murder rates are also no higher than the general population taking into account other risk factors (e.g. many Latin American transgender individuals are prostituted and prostitutes have higher murder rates).

    Feminists aren't "attacking transwomen". They are just refusing to believe that a man can become a woman. Some transwomen are upset about this. Others are confident in their identity as a transwoman, and are also aware that they cannot become women.
  • Chukovsky, any links to all those claims?
  • chukovsky wrote: »
    And yet, schools readily and frequently tell their adolescent (child) students that they can be confirmed in their new gender, and socially transition, without any form of assessment by any professional whatsoever, and without telling parents.
    Can you back up this comment? that schools are allowing young people to socially transition without discussion with parents? Because schools normally work with parents, as best practice. They may be working with social care to support a young person, or as part of a TAC (team around a child) or TAF (team around a family), but schools are usually aware of their limitations.
  • All the main transgender activist groups tell schools they must not tell parents. See GIRES, Mermaids, Allsorts etc. Girlguiding tells leaders this too.

    GIDS on self harm and suicide

    http://gids.nhs.uk/evidence-base

    Murder rates

    https://fairplayforwomen.com/trans-murder-rates/
  • Incidentally, that 80% figure for desistance is often trotted out, but refers to a mixed group of trans and non-conforming kids, so is not about trans kids reversing. Be warned, there are lots of bogus statistics out there, in fact, people now talk about the desistance myth.
  • Are you sure that the Guiding policy says that parents should not be consulted? The GirlGuiding policy on supporting transgender girls and the Equality and Diversity policy, includes several references to including parents in the conversation and this comment about parents:
    We understand that if a young member is transitioning from female to male that they will be experiencing a great amount of change and uncertainty. Flexibility and the Leaders’ discretion in conversation with the parents must be used to determine how long the child stays within the unit.

    School and Guiding safeguarding policies tend to refer any concerns to social care, and best practice is that parents are consulted too. It's not a pleasant conversation to have with a parent, explaining why you are referring their child to social care, but that is what happens.
  • chukovsky wrote: »
    All the main transgender activist groups tell schools they must not tell parents. See GIRES, Mermaids, Allsorts etc. Girlguiding tells leaders this too.

    GIDS on self harm and suicide

    http://gids.nhs.uk/evidence-base

    Murder rates

    https://fairplayforwomen.com/trans-murder-rates/

    That's different from your earlier post, where you said schools frequently tell kids they can transition without parental knowledge or professional help. Which schools, and when?

  • I must say, I'm shocked and dismayed that such inaccurate statements are regularly trotted out in relation to trans people. They need help, not distortion.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    quetzalcoatl: Be warned, there are lots of bogus statistics out there,

    Yup. And they don't all come from the same perspective, do they?

    One suspects that much of the data on this issue is tenuous both in terms of its provenance and analysis. The contribution of a skilled statistician would be more than welcome. Extrapolation from small self-selecting data sets, for example, is impermissible.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    I heard a discussion on Women's Hour (BBC) a yesterday in which the speaker who was supportive of young people transitioning stated that schools could accommodate that without informing parents as part of safeguarding the children. The speaker from the other side, and the presenter, were somewhat taken aback by this, but the trans supporter was adamant.

    Whether this happens or not, or if it does whether it happens frequently, I don't know, but there is clearly one person who thinks it should.
  • Where I've seen it happen in schools - child desirous of transitioning, parents unaccommodating - the school passed their concerns to social care, because the child wasn't safe to go home. (And I have seen it, the parents were Jehovah's Witnesses.)
  • Penny S wrote: »
    I heard a discussion on Women's Hour (BBC) a yesterday in which the speaker who was supportive of young people transitioning stated that schools could accommodate that without informing parents as part of safeguarding the children. The speaker from the other side, and the presenter, were somewhat taken aback by this, but the trans supporter was adamant.

    Whether this happens or not, or if it does whether it happens frequently, I don't know, but there is clearly one person who thinks it should.

    That's not what chukovsky said, which was that schools are frequently telling kids to transition without parental knowledge or professional help. It also puzzles me, how do you transition without telling parents, assuming you live with them? Dad, I'm living as a girl for reasons entirely disconnected from trans, so just ignore.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    quetzalcoatl: Be warned, there are lots of bogus statistics out there,

    Yup. And they don't all come from the same perspective, do they?

    One suspects that much of the data on this issue is tenuous both in terms of its provenance and analysis. The contribution of a skilled statistician would be more than welcome. Extrapolation from small self-selecting data sets, for example, is impermissible.

    I agree, but the 80% figure has woodworm running through it.
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