Transgender Law Concerns was a meeting held in the House of Commons on October 31st, hosted by David Davies MP, on the impact of self-declared gender legislation on women and girls and children. Many more people had the opportunity to speak during the event, which was well-attended by cross-party MP’s, members of the press and invited guests including members of Fair Play for Women and Womans Place UK. We are very grateful to David Davies for convening this meeting and for inviting us to give the talk we publish here, along with Judith Green, Miranda Yardley and James Caspian, whose excellent talks are linked to below.
Self-Declared Gender Identity: The Impact on Children and Adolescents
by Stephanie Davies-Arai, Transgender Trend
I would also like to express my thanks to David Davies MP for setting up this event and to everyone for attending. I will be speaking on behalf of parents of all political persuasions and I would like to express their gratitude too.
The parents I am representing are not the ones you see celebrated in the media. I speak for those who describe their experience as akin to having a son or daughter lost to a cult, with a devastating impact on siblings and on the family as a whole.
These parents are not bigoted, they are caring parents who would describe themselves as liberal and tolerant, parents who would always love and support their child no matter what the outcome.
I also speak to urge caution on behalf of the children of this generation who are caught up in the teaching of a new rigid, anti-science belief system presented to them as fact. [1]
If Gender Identity is established in law as a Protected Characteristic, it will apply to children of any age. But a child’s identity is not fixed: it changes over time, and it is shaped by factors like parental approval and societal influences. If all trusted adults are reinforcing daily a little boy’s belief that he is really a girl, this will have an obvious self-fulfilling effect. Puberty blockers supply the ‘answer’ to the created fear of a puberty he now believes to be the ‘wrong’ one.
Almost all children on blockers progress to cross-sex hormones at age 16. [2] Very few come off this path of increasingly invasive medical treatments once they are on it and so-called ‘social transition’ is the first step. This approach clearly works to prevent normal resolution of childhood gender dysphoria and foster persistence of opposite-sex identity.
While trans activists call for the de-medicalisation of ‘transgender,’ in the case of children they campaign aggressively for social transition, blockers and cross-sex hormones at ever earlier ages.[3]
The surge in sex hormones at puberty triggers the enormous changes in the teenage brain which don’t complete their job until the mid-twenties. [4] The brain /personality is not fully-formed until then. The effects of blockers on adolescent brain development are unknown [5] although studies on adults, including men taking the drug for prostate cancer, indicate risk of memory loss, depression and cognitive impairment. [6] Recent reports from the US indicate long-term serious health effects for women who were administered blockers for precocious puberty, such as excruciating muscle and bone pain, depression, weakness and fatigue. [7]
Preventing a child’s sexual development in early puberty, followed at 16 by cross-sex hormones, results in sterility as viable eggs or sperm have not developed. [8] These children are prevented from ever experiencing puberty: hormones can only superficially feminise or masculinise secondary sex characteristics, they cannot create the puberty of the opposite sex. Risks of cross-sex hormones include cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, strokes, diabetes and cancers. [9] Some significant effects are irreversible, such as male-pattern baldness and body and facial hair, masculinised voice and compromised fertility.
There have been no clinical research trials into the long-term effects of this treatment on children: this is a non evidence-based practice [10] to treat a non evidence-based diagnosis of being ‘a girl trapped in a boy’s body’ and vice versa [11] and this generation of children are the guinea pigs.
‘Transgender’ is an ideological label distinct from the clinical diagnosis ‘gender dysphoria.’ To call a child ‘transgender’ is to make both a claim that the child’s feelings represent material reality and a prediction about that child’s future: they will not change.
An analysis of all published research studies of children with ‘gender dysphoria’ shows that 80% will naturally come to be happy as the sex they were born [12] and this is true of even some of the most severe cases, we can’t know which children will persist and which will desist.
Opposite-sex identity in childhood is overwhelmingly predictive of gay or lesbian sexual orientation in adulthood, not transsexualism. [13] Affirming a child’s ‘gender identity’ can therefore be seen as gay conversion therapy by another name.
There has been an almost 1000% increase in children referred to the Tavistock clinic in London over the past 6 years. [14] These figures are inflated by the unprecedented rise in the number of girls – nearly 70% of the figure overall and over 70% of adolescent referrals last year. [15] By comparison, in the late Sixties 90% of adult transsexuals were male. [16]
We are aware that teenagers and young adults are susceptible to indoctrination, brainwashing and social contagion which is why we block online anorexia and self-harm sites. The internet, however, is chock-full of Tumblr bloggers and Youtube vloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers, who are selling vulnerable young people the myth of transformation through cosmetic alteration of their bodies, including amputation of healthy body parts, and a lifetime’s dependency on powerful off label hormones.
Recent reports of girls’ mental health indicate that girls and young women in the UK are in crisis. [17] Recently published evidence of the rate of sexual abuse and harassment in schools across the UK is a matter of national shame. [18]
Reports such as the recent Stonewall Schools Report [19] which indicate high suicidal ideation in ‘trans’ youth serve to cover up the fact that the vast majority of these youngsters will be teenage girls, now hidden in the category ‘trans boys.’
A PSHE teacher and Head of Year at a large comprehensive told me that in her school the kids who identify as ‘trans’ are, without exception, either lesbian, autism spectrum, have mental health problems or have suffered sexual abuse.
Parents are also concerned about the relentless gender identity propaganda their children are subject to today – across the media, [20] the internet and in schools, through organisations such as GIRES, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids and Educate and Celebrate. The belief that gender is an innate identity is taught to children as truth, with no alternative views offered, in contravention of the UN Rights of the Child.
The ‘transition or suicide’ trope is repeated endlessly, against all Samaritans guidelines. There is no evidence that children will commit suicide if their parents fail to support them in taking a medical pathway, but of course the threat terrifies parents into feeling they have to.
There are over 260 trans support groups across the UK [21], which provide the ‘tribe’ where our most vulnerable young people will be accepted, maybe for the first time, as long as they identify as trans. All transgender organisations advertise their support for ‘gender non-conforming’ youth, sweeping up all children who are ‘different’ and don’t fit in.
These organisations claim to support ‘diversity’ but of course they do the opposite: a girl who rejects feminine stereotypes is transformed into a ‘boy’ who conforms to masculine stereotypes. Gender non-conformity is erased. Regressive and reactionary sex-stereotyping is being sold to young people as a progressive social justice movement.
To teach children that their ‘authentic self’ is something in their heads, split off from and in opposition to, the body, is to create gender dysphoria. Mind-body disassociation is recognised as a state of mental ill-health: in this case uniquely, it is presented as a normal variation and something to be celebrated. Mental health is based on being equipped to accept reality.
Since children have been taught that it is their ‘gender identity’ which makes them a boy or a girl and not their biological sex, calls to Childline from young people confused about their gender have doubled in a year – eight calls are now received every day from children as young as eleven. [22] The concept of ‘gender identity’ is clearly – and inevitably – causing mental health problems for young people.
Any child who suffers genuine gender dysphoria must of course be sensitively supported in schools and youth organisations. But teachers, professionals and other children cannot be asked to collude in the reinforcement of a child’s belief which contradicts reality. Recognition of biological facts is not bigotry.
When girls are told that a male classmate is now a girl, their sense of their own reality is shattered. If a biological male is a girl, then it is not female biology which makes you a girl, it is something else. Girls must look to a male classmate to find out the invisible magic quality they need, and the boy is given the power to define what a girl is. We cannot predict the long-term practical or psychological effects on girls taught to deny their own biology, without the right to even define themselves correctly as the female sex.
If teenage girls must consent to a male classmate using their toilets and changing-rooms they learn that their boundaries may be violated and their consent is unimportant. Girls learn that they are not always allowed to say ‘no.’ This is grooming; lessons on the importance of consent become meaningless.
Girls who are coached at school into ignoring their own discomfort and intuition may go on to put themselves in risky situations with any man who claims to be a woman, out of fear of being seen as transphobic.
In the case of public swimming pool changing rooms a young girl cannot name a male with a penis as a man: voyeurism and indecent exposure cease to exist as crimes if a man claims to be a woman. Normal child protection protocols effectively become unlawful.
I urge ministers to vote against the implementation of self-declared gender legislation, pending full investigation into the operation of transgender youth organisations and the impact on children and adolescents, including the implications for child protection and safeguarding, especially for girls. Expert testimony from professionals, including experts in child and adolescent development and psychology, and specific feminist analysis on the impact on girls is essential.
What I typically hear from parents is:
“I feel like I’m going through a death of my child and everyone is just cheering her on. When I found your website I cried with relief.”
But I am also contacted by young people themselves and I will end by quoting the most distressing message I received, from a young woman who asked simply this:
“Would you know how to get my body back? Would you know if anyone’s yet sued their doctor?”
References
[1] https://www.gires.org.uk/classroom-lesson-plans/
[2] Hot Topics in Child Health conference, 12 June 2017, evidence from Dr Polly Carmichael, Tavistock clinic
[3] http://www.gires.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GIRES-Young-People-Elsewhere-Observations-regarding-cross-sex-hormones.pdf
[4] https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/teenage-brain1.htm
[5] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444866417301101
[6] http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/03/im-pediatrician-transgender-ideology-infiltrated-field-produced-large-scale-child-abuse/amp/
[7] https://californiahealthline.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/
[8] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/
[9] http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/03/im-pediatrician-transgender-ideology-infiltrated-field-produced-large-scale-child-abuse/amp/
[10] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26119518
[11] http://www.ozy.com/provocateurs/the-modern-master-of-sex/67782
[12] http://www.sexologytoday.org/2016/01/do-trans-kids-stay-trans-when-they-grow_99.html
[13] https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/262671
[14] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-35532491
[15] https://www.transgendertrend.com/from-adult-males-to-teenage-girls-the-movement-from-etiology-to-ideology/
[16] http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/transgender-equality/written/19532.html
[17] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41671060
[18] https://www.women2win.com/news/women-and-equalities-committee-chair-maria-miller-responds-girls-attitudes-survey-2017
[19] http://www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/the_school_report_2017.pdf
[20] http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/46/my-life
[21] https://www.tranzwiki.net/
[22] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/13/childline-eight-calls-a-day-gender-identity-issues-children-nspcc-helpline-transgender?CMP=share_btn_tw
I’d like to facebook some of these articles out, but there is no facebook click button, is there a reason for that?
Can you see the Share buttons at the end of the post? There is a Facebook button there. Thanks.
Re the young woman at the end who wanted her body back and wondering if she could sue the doctors who had ( you insert verb)
Isn’t it time there was such a court challenge by a trans victim?
Pingback: How Transgender Became ‘The New Black’: Presentation in Parliament on 31 October 2017 | Miranda Yardley
This is all exactly how I feel about my own child. But what should we do? What should we parents do, who are in this now, dealing with this now? It is not possible to keep saying no to a person of 13 who is determined that she is really a boy. She will just go ahead with ot without our support. We have said no to anything invasive or irreversible, but we can no longer, after 3 years, say no to name and pronoun changes, and everything that goes with it in terms of physical identity. There is a lot of hand-wringing, it seems, but precious little – nothing, actually – in the way of clear, sensible guidelines for what parents can do when their child presents as the opposite gender. Probably that’s because no-one knows what to do, though?
It is very difficult, as in any area with teens who are at the age when they don’t want their parents’ advice. You are wise to say no to anything invasive or irreversible, otherwise the most important thing is to keep channels of communication open and let her know that you’ll always love and support her whatever she does – but she can’t expect you to always agree with her and you have an adult responsibility to look out for her. Parents respond in very different ways depending on the personality of the child and their relationship, there’s no one-size-fits-all. All teenagers are in the process of separating from us, and they need their space and our trust, so it’s a balance between that and maintaining your authority as you would in any other area – you don’t have to pretend to accept the things you don’t, or give in to demands you don’t agree with. Teenagers do grow out of it, as they do with any other fiercely-held identity in the teenage years. Trust yourself, you know your daughter best, and good luck.
Thank you for your kind, sensible words. That is really helpful.
Brilliant talk, wish I’d been there to cheer Judith on.
Where have all the tomboys gone???
I never hear the term now. I was a tomboy all through my childhood and into my early teens. Never once did I think I was a boy, I was a tomboy and that mean I was a girl doing boy things and wearing trousers because they are better than skirts when climbing trees, riding bikes and playing football.
My friend used to pee down toilet rolls so she could pee outside like her brothers but did she ever want to be a boy? No of course not, she knew she was a tomboy.
My friend and I grew up into confident adventurous women, me teaching abroad and my friend becoming an engineer. We both married and have lovely children, all grown up and doing well. Thank goodness transgender mania was way in the future as we grew up!
I have utmost sympathy for all these parents of confused girls and I am incandescent with rage over the media’s take on all this.
Good luck to everyone involved in trying to turn back the tide and introduce some much needed common sense before more young lives are ruined.
I was a tomboy and was also smart, loved bugs and snakes, and became a scientist. An adolescent girl today who has these traits is told by teachers, peers, and school counselors that she is REALLY a boy because those are boy things. She is told that she must take a boy’s name, dress like a boy, amputate her breasts if she has them, take puberty blockers, and then testosterone for life–just so she can be a scientist. This is child abuse and abuse period. It is so weird that I had to fight to become a scientist at a time when there were few role models of women scientists and certainly the few I knew had no children and weren’t married, as that was the price they had to pay to follow their passion. Now that there are lots of women like me who are professional scientists and who did marry and have children, doors are closing again and smart girls are told that they must give up any kind of female identity to become a scientist.
Such a good talk. Well done!!
I especially like the part about stereotypes; something I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of weeks. Society WAS progressing by saying that just because a boy likes pink, it doesn’t make him a girl, or because a girl likes sport or mountaineering, it doesn’t make her a boy. Unfortunately, this new trend demolishes that progression and effectively says, “You’re a boy who likes pink? Are you sure you’re really a boy?”
By the way, can I have permission to put this talk up on my own blog? (I will put a link to this page, too.)
Yes please do with a link back. Thanks for your comment.
I am SO grateful. Thank you so much for being one of the few speaking up on behalf of us parents and our vulnerable children. I feel I have no voice – because I am ‘transphobic’, ‘bigoted’, ‘in denial’, or ‘unaccepting’. My daughter had rapid onset of gender dysphoria,following mental health issues, when she was 12. Still living the nightmare almost three years on.
Thanks again, it gives me some hope to hear such sensible arguments.
What an excellent…concise…clear and evidence led piece of writing…thank you so very much for doing this…you cannot know the positive impact of this statement on my life!
This is the most powerful thing I have read to date about this issue. Please keep writing about this. I feel like you are my only hope. I feel like I have lost my beautiful daughter to a cult. Never an issue with her gender identity until the age of 16 when she met another girl in 9th grade and then she slowly started to change things about herself to appear more male. No one will help me. All of the psychologists I’ve seen about this tell me that is who she is and I either accept it or she may hurt or kill herself if I don’t accept it. These kids are not given any other suggestions by these “health professionals” that anything other than transition will help them. I am exhausted with thinking about this issue as all I do is search and search for anyone to help me to help my daughter. Any mention that I don’t agree with any of this and I am told by doctors and psychologists that I am transphobic and how this is who she is. Accept it or lose her. But I am losing her. Day by day. Who knows what she has seen on Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram day after day. The girls taking testosterone are glamorizing it online and they call it Vitamin T. They show themselves giving their testosterone shots and how happy they are and how that and top surgery are the best things they have done. And they tell our girls to be strong and to do what makes them happy and they can transition and that they are here for them to support them. Our teens don’t have a chance. They see this stuff on the internet and have a support group there. I am beyond sick about this and feel there is no way out as no health professional will help me. They always side with my daughter and whatever she says she is and wants to do with her body. The gender doctor refused to listen to me when I tried to tell him that this isn’t true. This isn’t who she is. She was influenced. There were no signs at all and I know my child the best. He saw her for two, one hour sessions behind my back while she was still a minor which infuriates me. She never ever mentioned this before the age of 16 when she dated a girl with the same issue who started binding her chest. Then all of a sudden my daughter started binding. But 3 years later they are no longer dating but the girl now identifies as lesbian and isn’t binding but my daughter is running with this and identifying as male. My heart is broken and I feel like I am losing her slowly to a cult. If her ex had seen a gender doctor at the same time when she was also having these gender dysphoric feelings then she would now be on the path to transition like my daughter and given the green light to start testosterone. They are told and think this a miracle drug they need to be themselves and then they have their breasts removed and then hysterectomies done. Some by the time they are 19. It’s sickening. They will never have a biological child because their reproductive organs are thrown away like garbage. But I am transphobic if I dare speak out and disagree and think for myself. I will never change my beliefs. I was told to accept it and join a parents support group for Trans teens. No. I will not. There are thousands of parents like us who are devastated and told to just accept it and shut up. Parents please keep posting your comments so we can read each other’s stories. We need to have some hope. Please please keep posting about this issue. You are our only hope as no one is listening to the parents who know and love our children more than anyone on his earth.
Google 4th Wave Now. It is a safe haven for parents like yourself dealing with this issue.
This was so clear piece and what a heartbreaking statement at the end by the young person.
I live in Canada and want to meet with my MP here. Would you mind if I use this piece as a basis for what I write to them?
Please do, I’m very glad if it’s helpful.
Thank you for such a well-argued, concise and comprehensive summary of the problem. I hope that the attendance was fair – I asked my MP to look out for it – and from different parties.
We are not bigots or dinosaurs. I for one can reconcile myself to my autistic adult (but still adolescent) child changing her name, and her pronouns, if she thinks that is a good way to live her life, but I am just so scared it will lead inevitably to taking artificial hormones and surgery.
This is probably your clearest, most concise, impactful article yet. Please continue this good work. So many of us are relying on it.
Thank you for providing us with a life line, you can never know how much we value your determination to highlight this destructive and harmful trend. I lost my son to this cult who went on to try to kill me, this is not the loving child I raised. His personality has been systematically deconstructed and he is now full of hate and rage. Please help all of us to rescue our children who have been harmed by this horrendous agenda and to challenge those groups and individuals who get some sort of perverse power trip from destroying families and young people.
Jess, it’s not clear that aggressive behavior toward a parent is the result of a conflict over gender identity. There are other possible underlying causes of such strong anger, aggression and, often, oppositional defiant disorder; one such cause is Asperger’s Syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder).
I confess I haven’t read this yet, just glanced over it–but want to send my regards and support for the speakers while it’s fresh! Will read and listen to it all.
This is phenomenally well done. You’ve managed to include all these disparate bits and with such concision! One of the powers that the transgender ideology has is to understand it fully there are all these different things, you just know peoples eyes glaze over. Even if they’ve gotten past the idea we are all “transphobic bigots”. This serves as a superb introduction.
What a wonder article! Thank you! I live in the US and the transgender trend is hitting us hard and fast! I am a Grandparent who believes my grandson (8) is trapped into this cult! I have started a FB page which has more of my story and it is to try and stop the madness of puberty blockers for children! I hope it is ok to post the link? I will be sharing this on my page! https://www.facebook.com/Muttmere/
Thank you for starting the Facebook page, happy to share it here.
I’ve been reading quite a bit about what’s been going on in the US, especially on college and university campuses. Honestly, I’m glad I don’t live there, because I am horrified at how far down this dangerous road the US (and Canada, actually) have gone.
I’m just so glad a site like this is there for people, and I’m thrilled that it’s reaching beyond the borders of the UK!
Thank goodness for common-sense! Thanks to you, Stephanie, for attending and to David Davies MP for hosting the meeting. I will read Judith Green, Miranda Yardley and James Caspian’s talks later this evening. You don’t know how much hope this gives me. I have watched the trans-train careering out of control over the last 4 years. I am resigned to the loss of my husband, but I will not rest while I see the mantra that he uses to justify his one-sided decision making affect a generation of beautiful gender non-conforming children and the fundamental rights that women have worked so hard for over the last 100 years be eradicated.I have been appalled at the Women’s Committee on transgender fronted by Maria Miller and now Teresa May swallowing the “gender-identity” ideology.
I do not see how “gender-identity” can work as a legal category. If it’s followed through it makes a fundamental change to marriage laws. I have not been protected by the current laws. My husband has the backing of a powerful lobby which is well funded. I want nothing more than to be divorced from him so that he can live his life and I mine. He is determined to change his identity whilst still married to me.
Thank you.
I would like to support the comments of “a transwidow”. I am another transwidow.
Stephanie Davies-Arai has been doing a magnificent job for a number of year providing an on-line platform to parents who do not want their children to become or continue as victims of the “transgender cult”. She has done excellent work, as this submission to David Davies’s one-day conference shows.
More needs to be done by transwidows to expose the mental difficulties of transsexuals. There has been absolutely no support for wives and children (and other family) left behind nor research into their psychiatric trauma, which is more complex than abandonment. Since Dec 2015 (Serious Crime Act – Controlling or coercive behaviour) transwidows can now describe the taunting and intimidation which they suffer during their husband’s “transition” (what a euphemism!) as a criminal offence: coercion to agree to a psychopathic control (as in Kafka’s novels). But it is too early for cases – I tried but was told that the legislation was not retrospective. I did qualify on one key requirement for a successful prosecution: I needed psychiatric intervention over a period of three months to help me get over panic attacks brought on by his prolonged attacks. From the evidence which I have seen in comments under articles there is much long-term anguish and suffering (there are few sites specifically for transwidows so they comment under articles about transgender matters or feminism). We do behave like proper women: we take the blows quietly and we do the best we can for our children first and then maybe for ourselves. And we seek solace with other women. But we are of course intellectually able to speak about it. It’s just that male narcissism is so pervasive. A documentary which is sympathetic to the families of the transsexuals and their feelings of loss would be a welcome change.
I will posting on FairPlayforWomen.
No one should be in your position. All the best, I hope you have good friends to support you. Keep strong and good luck for the future.
Pingback: Proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act
Pingback: Des trans féministes s’insurgent contre une proposition de réforme législative au Royaume-Uni | TRADFEM
Pingback: C of E Anti-Bullying Guidance – Send us your reckons! | Growing Up Transgender
The changes to the GRA are as good as dead in the water. In government speak when something has been delayed or deferred it is generally because it is going to go away quietly. That said, this is small fry compared to the apparent medical and social acceptance of it all. Rest assured there are people within the profession who will do their all indirectly to slow and eventually stop this madness. I’m heartened to see that 2017 appears to have seen the start of a turn in opinion. Admittedly, this has been helped along by some very close to the wire reporting in a bias sense by the right wing press but I find it surprising what sort of deplorables I’d be willing to get into bed with(metaphorically of course) to put a stop to all this madness. 2018 needs to see more of the same from the press, if the two most powerful politicians in the world don’t like it, it must be wrong.
Good to hear that people with the medical profession are concerned. I know how hard it must be to speak up.
Whilst the juggernaut is speeding on, however, our children are being celebrated as they transition and are applauded for getting their hormones.
There are some concerns in the professions and some people will even try and have you believe that this could all be related to bio-chemical processes and the exposure to certain levels of hormones during gestation. That sort of scientific exploration should definitely be stopped, if it turned out to be the truth sadly, our arguments against it would look a bit weak. Anyone would think there’s adults around who felt like it as children and hid it due to fears of social rejection and stigma in years gone by and this rise in referrals is a correlation with a generally more accepting society as oppose to 0.3 percent of the worlds population going through a phase. I’m personally stunned, they’ll even try and tell you many of these people go on to lead normal lives in careers such as lawyers, doctors, soldiers and sailors not even being noticed never mind derided by their peers; complete madness!
Appreciating the time and effort you put into your blog
and in depth information you provide. It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same old rehashed
information. Fantastic read! I’ve bookmarked your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to
my Google account.
Thank you!