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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Cub & Boy Scouts To Allow Trans Kids To Join
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Gender identity is an adult concept. 6 year olds have a sense of their identity as a person, which includes that they are a boy or girl, part of a family, who they have play dates with. They know who they are.
I wonder if there isn't a reification issue going on along with a confirmatory bias.
I am not interested in us telling each other we do or do not know children and understand them. Irrelevant and ad hominen. My assertion here is that 6 years old is too soon developmentally to agree with a trans identification. It might be the start of some data collection and information from the child, but we'd better see some ongoing repeat, and know the other psychological and social issues involved.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
No prophet you're confusing two things here. It's true that no 6 year old has ever identified as "trans"' or "genderqueer" or any other such thing. But it does happen, rarely but consistently, that 6-year-old (and for that matter 4-year-old) natal males identify insistently and persistently as girls. And vice-versa. And after several decades of clinicians actively trying to figure out how to deal with this, the clinical consensus from most practitioners is that their gender identification needs to accommodated, at least tentatively, and possibly permanently by way of transition if it persists into adolescence.
You're discussing this as though it was some new thing that some oddball gender theorist invented last year. It's not.
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I am not confusing anything. You have stated approximately what I think should happen. Collect info. Don't presume that a 6 year old knows.
Clinicians often advise based on their judgement in matters where data isn't available or robust. Some are advocates. There are differences among evidence-based, clinical judgement, and advocacy.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Having been an early modern church historian I not only know the [OED frequency band 3] word prelapsarian, I've used it a fair bit and indeed it has been used in these boards, but I've never ever seen it disputed or problematised the way 'cis' or 'cisgender' is. If I decided I wanted to make an argument about the state of Adam and Eve before the Fall, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be attacked for using the word people who write about that normally use, even if it isn't something you generally read in The Sun, The Telegraph or Harry Potter.
I have seen another OED frequency band 3 word that gets problematised with similar arguments about etymology and usage - 'homophobe' and the people who problematise it and 'homophobia' inevitably turn out to be, how shall I put it? A tad anti-gay.
It's made me very suspicious of these kind of etymological quibbles where the vocabulary of marginalised groups is concerned. I think they're proxies for deeper stuff. It's worth examining why if I started a jolly discussion of contumacious opinions on the prelapsarian state and even if I started in on (Band 2!) supralapsarian Calvinism, i'd be unlikely to get it in the neck to anything like the same extent, but maybe that's because there isn't the same prejudice towards church historians and their vocabulary that there is towards LGBT people.
Just a thought.
[ 10. March 2017, 00:55: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
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# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Gender identity is an adult concept. 6 year olds have a sense of their identity as a person, which includes that they are a boy or girl... My assertion here is that 6 years old is too soon developmentally to agree with a trans identification. ...
So you think that a six-year-old knows whether or not they are a boy or a girl, but cannot possibly know whether they are a trans boy or trans girl. That makes sense to you?
See, I think kids are very much aware of the "adult" concepts of gender and sexuality. They may not know all the details, or be able to give textbook definitions, but they're as accurate as a cruise missile when it comes to picking on kids that aren't perfectly cis and straight. And it's not just the kids - this teacher apparently couldn't tolerate a boy with <shock!> <gasp!> long hair. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re six year old:
Not a parent, but I might say some of the following if I had a little kid who approached me about this:
--"Wow", and not push further unless the kid did.
--"Wow, really? What's that like for you?", and not push further unless the kid did.
--If the kid told me, then asked why their outside and inside selves don't match: "Well, some people know right away that they're a boy or girl, and their bodies match up with that. Some people take a little longer. And, sometimes, a person's inside and outside don't match, and it may take a while to work that out. Keep talking to me about this, when you want to, ok? And if we find out, down the road, that we need to get some advice, we'll do that, too. I love you. Now, let's have some cookies and watch a movie!"
Would adjust according to age and child.
FWIW.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
See, I think kids are very much aware of the "adult" concepts of gender and sexuality. They may not know all the details, or be able to give textbook definitions, but they're as accurate as a cruise missile when it comes to picking on kids that aren't perfectly cis and straight. And it's not just the kids - this teacher apparently couldn't tolerate a boy with <shock!> <gasp!> long hair.
Right. I think children are much more complex and individual than adults often give them credit for. They're naive, of course, but they're not blank slates waiting for the right imprint of characteristics to be given to them. If that were the case, there wouldn't be trans kids in the first place, because the pressure on kids to BE gender conforming is immense. As I said, nobody wants their kid to be trans. Even the parents who'd love and accept them don't actively want it, because who wants that kind of struggle for their kid?
I remember quite a long time ago now, there was a thread about severe mental illnesses in children. I said some fairly dumbass thing about "I don't think young children need those labels" and was schooled by the mighty Josephine along these lines: "Why is it that children get labels that they don't need, but when it's adults, they get diagnoses that they DO need?" I had no answer and made the very rare SoF move of changing my position on something! The stupidest thing is that as a kid I was diagnosable with depression, if anyone had cared, and I still made that argument.
I think many of us would like to perceive children as having a simpler inner world with fewer of the complicated things that make it really tough to be an adult. We want to believe that they just don't need to think about any of this stuff yet. But is this a position supported by the evidence? Because that really is what matters. If they do, in fact, have to deal with some of the more complicated things that show up in life, we need to be supporting and helping them.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
... I think many of us would like to perceive children as having a simpler inner world with fewer of the complicated things that make it really tough to be an adult. We want to believe that they just don't need to think about any of this stuff yet. But is this a position supported by the evidence? ...
I know for a fact that some kids begin masturbating long before puberty. In other words, long before most parents start worrying about their kids learning about masturbation.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
{Hope this is an appropriate thread.}
I'm watching ABC's "20/20", an investigative news show. The episode is "A Boy Named Lucas". It's an expose' of "Christian" turn-your-kids-straight camps. Very, very abusive. Think prison camp.
Lucas was dropped off by his mom at his first camp when he was 13. "Is it ok if we spank your son?" "Oh, yeah, beat his ass!" He eventually survived the various camps. When he got out, he worked hard on healing, and met with journalists.
Sarah, a lesbian, was sent to a camp at 17, I think. Her cousin is a celebrity, and got people and money and publicity together to get her out. And it worked.
The show's about half through. Not light and happy, but worth watching, IMHO.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
My assertion here is that 6 years old is too soon developmentally to agree with a trans identification. It might be the start of some data collection and information from the child, but we'd better see some ongoing repeat, and know the other psychological and social issues involved.
And that's what actually happens. You start with your 6-year old consistently and persistently telling you that she's really a girl or whatever. And you have conversations with her about what that means, and what she wants, and she says that she wants to grow her hair and wear pretty barrettes in it. And maybe later she says that she wants to wear skirts, and maybe at some point that she'd like to be called by some female name, and have female pronouns used, so you do that.
And you see how it goes. And when she's older, you can have discussions with her about whether she wants puberty blockers to prevent her from going through male puberty, but that's a long way away for a six-year-old.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Right. I think children are much more complex and individual than adults often give them credit for. They're naive, of course, but they're not blank slates waiting for the right imprint of characteristics to be given to them.
Children are neither miniature, ignorant adults or mindless larvae waiting to pupate. Understanding how they process at what age is key to successfully communicating. Children tend to really like me, because I communicate with them at their level. Neither from on high or underestimating them.
Well, that and they do not have to crane their necks to look me in the eye.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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