How young is too young...Follow

It's a fairly common assumption by people who aren't well informed on how trans therapy works that overprotective/paranoid parents will force a non-trans child into trans therapy and scar them for life. It isn't baseless, no, it does happen, as in the book I mentioned, but it happens so rarely now that it is almost a non-issue, due to the way the doctors handle it, and the actual treatment itself.

It's not something that just any doctor can diagnose. It's not something you go to your general practitioner for. If a GP were to try to diagnose it without a proper understanding of how the therapy itself works, they would be a fool and probably liable for malpractice, thus the way it's typically handled is by finding and referring the parents to a specialist. And I don't just mean "a child psychologist", I mean a psychologist who specializes in, or at the very least has done a significant amount of research on, the study of gender.

It's also important to note that the way the treatment is handled, there is absolutely nothing permanent done until the child is in their teens, by which point most people are comfortable enough with it to think the child should be allowed to choose. Even hormone blockers, which stop the onset of puberty, are not permanent. If a child were to stop taking them, even after several years, their body would readjust and begin normal puberty once the drugs worked their way out of the child's system. The only permanent changes occur after the child begins full hormone replacement therapy, ie; a male child receiving estrogen, or a female child receiving testosterone, and that doesn't typically start until, at the very youngest, 11~12 years of age, unless the doctor is clinically insane. It's far more common for the child to receive only hormone blockers until around 15~16, and simply live as the opposite sex, and THEN start full HRT if they're still certain it's what they want after several years (which is nearly always the case, and on the very rare occasion it isn't, the child simply ceases treatment and returns to living as their birth sex)

Basically, gbaji is expressing a fairly common, overly used, played out concern that is made worse by idiots like dr. phil spouting it and thinking they have some idea as to what they're talking about. It's a very assbackwards misunderstanding of how the treatment works, and what the repercussions are for a child who is trans not receiving it, vs a child who is not trans receiving it.

Here's a brief summary of what actually happens in transkid therapy:

- Child between age 3 and 10 expresses desire to be the opposite sex

- Worried parents ask the GP/Pediatrician, who refers them to a gender specialist

- Gender Specialist speaks with the child and determines whether or not the child is genuinely trans or just going through a phase; and yes, they do find kids who are just going through a phase, and those kids will not receive treatment

- If the child is genuinely trans, the doctor will help the parents come up with a way to allow the child to express themself properly. Typically, this is starts by allowing the child to live as the opposite sex while at home.

- Depending on the child's reaction to this, and their life circumstances (area they live in, age and school, other family members reactions), it will further develop, eventually reaching the point of living as the opposite sex full time

- Until the child is within a year of puberty's onset, this treatment is purely social. Also note that up to this point, the treatment allows the child to live as the opposite sex. It does not force them to. This lets the child develop their own unique level of gender expression, as obviously not all children will be complete girly girls or total borish boys. Many express some degree of interlap. Regardless of the interlap, though, even if the child is, for example, an incredibly masculine tomboy, the child still identifies as a member of the opposite sex. THAT is the key to the treatment. If the child does not have this, they probably aren't trans, and if this feeling weakens to the point of disappearing, the treatment will likely stop.

- At or near the onset of puberty, at the discretion of the parents and the doctor working the case, the child will start hormone blocking medication. This medication works by preventing the large surge of estrogen or testosterone that signals the start of puberty from taking effect. This will prevent the changes in body hair, significant alterations in bone structure, changes in voice pattern, etc. Essentially, these blockers prevent primary and secondary sexual characteristics from developing. In a child who has already begun puberty before they start taking them, they will prevent any further development of the characteristics, but they cannot reverse what has already happened.

- If the child has identified as the opposite sex for a long period of time, the parents and doctor may decide to begin the child on full hormone replacement early, by which I mean the child will have the pubertal changes of the opposite sex around the same time as their peers, rather than remaining primarily androgynous through their tweens and early teens. This usually only happens for children who have been undergoing trans therapy since they were 3~6 years old.

- If the child did not begin trans therapy until they were older, between 7~10, it is more likely they will simply stay on blockers until they are in their mid-late teens. Depending on the family and the doctor, they will start fully HRT around the time they start high school, so as to not fall significantly behind their peers. Some people will choose to wait until the child is 18, but that happens less and less frequently these days.

- At the point the child begins full HRT, if they are not already living full time as the opposite sex, it's normal for them to start, since it would be difficult to continue living as their birth sex while undergoing the pubertal changes of the opposite sex.

- Absolutely no reconstructive surgeries are done at any point throughout this process. Almost universally, those don't occur until after the child has turned 18, though there are a few notable exceptions, such as the case of Kim Petras.

Essentially, no matter how early the child starts the therapy, they have until they are 11 or 12 before anything permanent can even be done. They are never forced to become the opposite sex, they are allowed to act as accurately as they feel. It's common for them to pull a 180 initially, going hard core into being a girl or a boy, just because they haven't been allowed to prior to that point, but once they've been at it a while, they will stabilize and develop into what feels right for them. Usually, they continue the significant change in behavior to some degree, but there are exceptions.

I'm not saying caution shouldn't be used, but completely dismissing the entire treatment due to the effects it may have on less than 1% of its typical recipients is just silly. The effects of not giving a transkid proper treatment are far, far more devastating and common than the incredibly rare cases of ciskids who undergo this treatment. This is because, as I said, there is a trained professional present the entire way through, and if the kid is obviously not trans, they won't force them to continue the treatment.

This was pretty much my exact conclusion when I posted the thread.

And on the other side of the spectrum, look at the momentum the anti-vaccination movement garnered in the last 10 years. I think the reality of the falsehoods that popularized the movement have started to set in and people are realizing how stupid it was, but that doesn't negate the potential harm done by parents who may have rejected the notion of vaccinating their children out of popular fear.

When proceed with caution actually means just that, it wouldn't. But in gbaji world, it means "You are a terrible parent and should be ashamed that you are forcing this on your child."

And why do I think that?



One of my personal favorites:


For gbaji, this was never about forcing people into different gender roles. It was abhorrence of the fact that we were letting them challenge those systems. It was unacceptable to allow a trans child to be a trans child until pressures on them to conform had reached a critical impasse. By then the damage is done, but who cares because only the gross transvestites would suffer.

I would urge caution for parents to not pressure their child one way or the other. Gbaji wants to caution parents from allowing a child to explore transgenderism by pressuring them to conform to a heteronormative system. That's a WORLD of difference.

Disclaimer: Haven't followed this thread. Just skimmed a few of gbaji's posts and noticed this blurb:



This is fundamentally wrong.

I'm talking about the full transition, which is not an easily reversible decision. Over prescribing H-blockers doesn't cause permanent harm, leveraging that into further treatment can, but that's what the years of therapy prior to treatment is for.

Sidenote: I'm not quite sure why so many people are under the impression that Gbaji is being malicious, he's just uninformed of the checks and balances already inherent in the system.

Because of statements like this:

Still not malice. It's a logic error.

This is equivalent to trumpeting a "gay agenda" scenario, where we are out to turn all those innocent heterosexual children into raging flamers.

He's actually claiming that this clinic is turning a huge sum of male-born males into male-born females purely for the sake of possibly helping a few trans kids.

That's not a logic error. That's spitting in the face of logic and trumpeting the same bigoted crap he always does. And he is simultaneously stygmatizing trans peoples for violating social norms.

It's no more malicious than any other ignorant anti-gay crap-spewer. But it's not any better either.

I completely missed this. I have no words to use in response to something of this level of ignorance.



if gbaji were to admit he doesn't know anything about transgender issues, and is absolutely incorrect on all the assertions he's made about therapy for transchildren, people would probably not be giving him such a hard time. I can't say anything with 100% certainty, but I know I'd probably ease up a bit.

You have to remember in the case of people like tailmon and myself, this is not the first time, or honestly even the fiftieth time we've had this conversation. I know I'm well into the hundreds in terms of how many times I've heard a different person say the same things and make the same assumptions as gbaji, and others in this thread. It's hard for me to be patient with people in topics like this any more

my point exactly.

I still don't believe a three year old has enough understanding of the differences between boys and girls to be reliable on whether or not they're, as the phrasing has been, in the wrong bodies. I'm not saying kids aren't smart, as I find myself constantly being manipulated by one at every turn, but that kind of mindset has to require some experience first. Maybe after first grade, when they've had time to figure out a little of themselves and have had time to mingle with both sexes and they still feel the same way then they can start the therapy and such.

I'm also a fairly suspicious individual, so I have no problem considering that when a three year old says they're a certain way that there could be parental manipulation involved.