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This story has nagged at me. The underlying problem here is the idea that there is such a thing as a trans child. There is not. Once you believe there is, it changes how a parent responds to such a kid. Being trans is not a diagnosis. It's a subjective description. https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1264145922751160321
This is especially true for children. If the path for this child didn't include life altering medical intervention, most rational people wouldn't care what this mom does to her kid. Parents aren't required to parent to any particular set of parameters, aside from the legal ones.
I could, as a parent, take my kids and live in a cloistered cult and it would be me right to do so. I'd expect others to be judgmental. Going against cultural norms gets that reaction. This particular mother isn't going against cultural norms and that's the problem here.
The very notion that it's ok to label and box her child into this dangerous pathway is the very problem here. No child put on this pathway will desist if they end up on PB and xsex hormones. It's one thing to allow a child the freedom to explore and express themselves.
It's quite another thing to agree with a child's fundamental misunderstanding about their physical body and to allow that child to believe they can actually change their sex. This is a cruel lie to tell a child. Why didn't this mother commiserate with her child?
Her child was in distress, as children often are when their ideas don't match reality. It is not our job to attempt to change reality. It's our job to help children live and accept reality in a gentle way in which that child feels safe and loved.
For a child who experiences continued distress over their sexed body, it's a difficult path for both child and parent. However, placing a child on a path that leads to lifelong medical intervention, with no ability to outgrow their current understanding of self, is wrong.
We can look at a child like Jazz and see that Jazz looks sufficiently feminine enough, but also recognize that Jazz will never experience normal sexual function, has not ever, will not ever. It does beg the question, who gets value from a hole created from a micro penis?
And this is the path this mom has created for her son. If the mother sees this danger and attempts to change course, good luck getting the kid on board. Kids are susceptible to magical thinking and it can take a lot for kids to come away from it. Think about invisible friends.
A belief in an invisible friend is very persistent, even when parents go along with it, in a fun and playful way, and even when they don't. It eventually goes away, after the need is served. It doesn't create a medical pathway for a child, in which that child is locked in.
Kids will persist if a parent affirms. There is a middle ground here that so many parents are missing because of the current narrative that champions mothers like this. To gently allow a child to simply BE, gets no accolades, no attention, but allows that child to grow...
Without prying eyes of others, with the acceptance of the parent, in any direction the child shifts and changes. But the mother remains invisible, like most mothers who go about raising normal and healthy children. Which brings another issue, where is this child's other parent?
I will never concede the idea that children should grow up as innocent as possible, as softly and gently as possible, with a healthy relationship with their parents in which they can bounce ideas off of, and receive reality based, calm, and rational feedback. This is not that.
