Lawerence. U are a plonker!!

If you accept GID exists, then don’t make such a ridiculous mockery of it by comparing it to wanting to be a hair dresser. Your mistake is writing it off as “wanting to be something”, rather than it being a real condition that can be diagnosed, even in a 5 year old.

In a child this young, nothing permanent is ever done until they’re 18, so it’s largely irrelevant.

I don’t think it’s intolerant or oppressive to say that the criteria for diagnosing this condition cannot apply to a 4 or 5 year old child in the same way that they will apply to a young adult who feels issues regarding their gender identity.

If I believed that there was a monster waiting under my bed I might be classed as some type of schizophrenic, if a four year old displayed the same belief it would be meaningless.
The same criteria simply do not apply.

That’s not how schizophrenia works at all. Both transgenderism and schizophrenia are neurological conditions. Soon it will even be possible to screen, to some extent, for transgenderism.

I don’t think anyone’s doubting that a diagnosis made by a child who’s identity is in constant flux does not hold the same weight as one made in a competent adult, but it’s irrelevant as nothing permanent is being done here. The only thing that might happen is once puberty starts, they are put on blockers to postpone it. This doesn’t really cause any major side effects, and is safe to do. The alternative is forcing them through puberty, which means they end up aging as a male, and end up with facial hair which is painful and difficult to remove.

I’m quite well aware of how schizophrenia works. My point is, as you said yourself, “a diagnosis made by a child who’s identity is in constant flux does not hold the same weight as one made in a competent adult.”
I disagree with you though when you say that it is irrelevant. The child is being diagnosed, labelled and then shoved out into the spotlight as some kind of mascot or example based on diagnostic criteria that are, at best, ill suited for their purpose.

Transgenderism in children is a real issue and one that doesn’t get near enough attention. I don’t see how “spotlighting” it in that regard is wrong and as far as I know this is being reposted from the Sun which no doubt gave negative connotations to it, so it’s not the pro-trans camp that are doing that.

And again schizophrenia is a neurological condition, it’s not just based on whether or not someone claims to see monsters under the bed. If there’s real evidence that the child is actually hearing or seeing things that aren’t there, then it’s possible they’re schizophrenic.

Isn’t it best to leave whether or not the child should be diagnosed up to the professionals? You can make the argument that we shouldn’t be diagnosing something so simple so early, but such a thing is necessary if they are going to be taken seriously by the school and other institutions – something others aren’t considering here. I don’t like needing a piece of paper to confirm I’m really a woman on the inside either.

Psychology may not be perfect, but neurology is fairly solid, and it’s sad how little faith people have in these fields.

The story is from the Telegraph and Sun and to be fair the article I read on the Telegraph site seemed entirely balanced, not sensationalised, and had a lot more of the salient details, including that the child attempted to cut off his/her penis which suggests that the version of the story posted here is highly watered down and trivialised.
On reading the original article the child obviously came across as exhibiting a lot of the signs of having a genuine transgender issue as opposed to the “she likes pink things and dora the explorer” version that we see here.

In response to your comment, I don’t see anything wrong with spotlighting the issue but I don’t see how it is healthy to put the child out there in the public domain to be reviled by the intolerants and glorified by those who are liberal for the sake of being liberal.

Cop on, Leigh. Just cop on.

Yeah, cop on with my actual relevant knowledge and experience in the field on which I am commenting.

I should just accept that ignorant asshats such as yourself should have the final say on issues you have no clue about.

I think that if the story printed here had contained more of the relevant details of the case as printed in the original article, the comments might have been a bit more enlightened

Adam, I doubt it. Look up the article on the Paddy Power transgender add. Some serious scumbags in there.

Saw them yesterday. Not too pleasant.

You were complaining about the existence of the label in the first place. Also, trans kids don’t get enough recognition at all as is. If nobody ever gets “paraded”, then as far as the general public is concerned, they don’t exist.

I don’t know why some people are so intent on silencing trans issues.

Leigh, don”t assume to know what my intent is..

It’s pretty fucking obvious to see how that comment would be taken. Complaining about labels means you were complaining about the label of GID and we’re all too used to this kind of Daily Mail whinging. It’s not my job to clarify your intent for you.

Well I can see you studied the book how to make friends & influence people. Get over yourself, down off your high horse & stop insulting people because their opinion differs to yours.

That doesn’t justify the offensive nature of your comment whatsoever. What I said in reply is irrelevant. You shouldn’t have made a comment that implied that the label of GID was somehow unnecessary.

It’s not a case of opinion here when we’re dealing with medical facts, and that’s a cop-out argument regardless. If your opinion is worth anything, you can back it up and defend it. I don’t have to respect opinions that are disrespectful towards me.

Don’t think god comes into the equation here, luckily enough

Agreed Ross, just my sarcastic request for some punctuation.

And maybe it’s an uncomplicated as the child is just copying older sisters. A 3 yr old is still making sense of the world and is only aware of what he/she sees. My son often talks about when he was a grown up and I was a child. Should I contact the sun for an exclusive on parent and child in reincarnation role reversal?

Ross its got zero to do with puberty

I can’t imagine why people downvote comments like that. If you read up on transsexuality and the neurological case for it, it’s true. We live in an age when facts and science have become even more subjective than before and the almighty ignorant opinion is more important than educated, informed viewpoints.

No wonder we’re so fucked as a country. Yeah lads, more of that Austerity stuff will get us back on track, don’t listen to those commie economists.

@ Leigh Walsh. Putting YOUR words into MY mouth is not the same thing as making an argument. I have an opinion that happens to differ from yours; this does not make me a dumbfuck or a sociopath as you allege. Mature people are able to have discussions without resorting to childish accusation. If you ever manage to graduate from the ‘Schoolgirl Debating Society’ you can come back here and engage with adults.

It’s not a matter of opinion. Your remarks are highly offensive and represent an understanding of psychology outdated by perhaps more than a century.

The idea that the supposedly “feminist heavy” media can somehow manufacture transsexuals is absolutely bizarre, and deeply insulting. As far as I can see, you can say the same thing of any transgendered person.

The idea that someone is only transgendered because of some corrupt societal influence is no better than asserting the same of homosexuals as Fundamentalist Christians do.

The complete lack of empathy for those in situations different to your own is what leads to me calling these views sociopathic, and they really are.

@Leigh Walsh. Thanks for the clarification. Let me summarise. Any opinion that differs from yours is ‘offensive’ and anyone who disagrees with you is a ‘sociopath. GOT IT!’

Thanks for not reading my post at all.

That’s incorrect, and I would do some reading on brain sex, intersexuality, transgenderism, etc.

I am not saying girls should wear pink and boys should wear blue. But it’s possible that certain behaviours or methods of self-identification are inherent to one gender or the other(With the obvious exceptions in between).

Actually Giovanni, the hypothalamus in the brain is shaped differently for in men and women. In transgender individuals their hypothalamus will usually more closely resemble that of the opposite gender.

> implying that if I disagree with you I must not be well read

And another thing:

Think of the plight of gay people over the past – say 50 years, when homosexuality stopped being thought of as “an abomination” and became medicalised as a “disorder” or “mental illness”.

Of course a lot of gay people were unhappy about their “condition”. But the problem was not their homosexuality but the fact that it was not accepted. In the parts of the world where gay rights have been asserted, there is no issue about it being a “disorder”, something that is in some way diminishing. In fact it’s considered offensive.

I suspect that many transgender advocates coin terms such as “GID” because it makes it easier to elicit sympathy rather than saying “I will behave the way I want irrespective of received gender roles and sc**w you if you try and stop me”.

@Adam – I know there are physical differences between males and females, thank you very much.

Unless the mother of this child is thinking of surgically altering him into a girl (whether by modifying his genitalia, his hair follicles, his hypothalamus, whatever) what we are talking about here is behaviour and that is not predetermined for girls and boys.

Less an implication than a statement of fact, at least in this case.
Don’t worry about it though, you know now.

Maybe you only read the first half of my previous comment about the hypothalamus. I’ll give you a moment to catch up and then you can try again

@Adam – um, that “implying” comment was for Leigh’s previous invitation to “read up”.

@Adam, let me see:

“the hypothalamus in the brain is shaped differently for in men and women. In transgender individuals their hypothalamus will usually more closely resemble that of the opposite gender.”

So are you suggesting that if a person has the genitals of a man and the hypothalamus shaped like a woman’s, he will be a man that feels like / wants to be a woman? So maybe we should not look at the crotch of a baby at birth, but measure its hypothalamus? And how should that influence the way we raise the child? I challenge you to do that without falling into gender stereotypes.

Yes Giovanni. I must obviously be saying that when a baby is born it should be taken to an MRI machine and it’s hypothalamus should be measured just on the odd chance that the baby is one of that tiny percentage of people who happens to be transgender.

Or I suppose we could carry on with the tried and tested method of checking what’s between the baby’s legs and leave out all of the MRI business and only use it as a diagnostic tool for people who feel the necessity.

“> implying that if I disagree with you I must not be well read”

Who are you quoting?

Giovanni, the trans community has heard your argument many a time and it’s something that’s been done to death. Gender roles and gender identity are separate and gender identity is something there’s real scientific backing for.

Just because the idea of gender being complete nonsense is more “Liberal” and progressive doesn’t necessarily make it more correct, just because liberal things tend to be more scientific.

well gender *is* hardwired in your chromosomes and in your genitalia… or did you mean “gender identity”?

Are you suggesting that being “girly” is a necessary consequence of having a vulva? But then transgenderism could not exist!

(PS I didn’t downvote the comment so it wasn’t me)

There is such a thing as brain sex. There’s a lot of interesting studies done into this, especially with regardles intersex individuals.

Ah yeah Rathminer, beating a child is a great way of teaching them the basic tenets that they’re going to need to get through life.
Tenets such as;
* Fear Me, I’m bigger than you!
* Violence is the solution to all conflict
* People that you love will sometimes give you a thump to let you know who’s boss

Partially correct, Adam.
*Yes, fear of discipline is of paramount importance to it’s effectiveness.
*Violence will rarely, if ever, be resorted to. It is the aforementioned fear thereof that is the key.
*People that you love will sometimes discipline you to keep you on the right path, BECAUSE they love you.

Many thanks.

You’ve come a long way from your original, “nothing a few good smacks wouldn’t fix” comment.
Anyone who is familiar with the mechanisms of conditioning will tell you that promise of reward is a far better incentive than threat of punishment in children.
Threat of punishment teaches them only to misbehave when they won’t be found out.

rathminer, you are an evil human being.

Transgendered people, LGBT people, people who are gender variant in any way are regularly subject to abuse and violence, and you’re endorsing that? You’re dressing like a girl! Time for RAPE AND BEATING!!1

You’re a vicious, transphobic authoritarian.

If you treat your children this way, you should be locked up. it’s child abuse. Letting your kid dress the way you want, apparently though, is what’s child abuse to some idiots, not physical violence.

Rape? Where did Rathminer mention rape?

No-one mentioned rape. He mentioned parents smacking children. To read rape into that is to trivialise rape

No, I’m speaking from real life experience of how the abuse many transgedered people face.

Endorsing violence towards trans people is always wrong.

And once again, you take more issue to my posts than you do someone advocating something that’s actually morally wrong. “Beating the gay” out of someone doesn’t deserve your attention, but calling someone on it does?

This sheds further light on our conversation on the other thread. You have some of the worst principles I’ve ever seen.

Great. Where did you get rape from?