4 year olds able to change gender in Scotland

Well your point that nobody has a problem with 18-year olds identifying themselves as their preferred gender is absolutely and demonstrably untrue given we know that there ARE people for whom adults identifying as their preferred gender is a massive issue!

And it’s not that anyone is drawing the line at four year olds, that’s generally the age at which most children will start school, sometimes as late as five or six, but generally around four years of age, and some of those children are identifying themselves as transgender, or identifying themselves as their preferred gender, and the whole idea of the guidelines are to provide schools with the means to be able to support those children.

Your agreement simply isn’t required, nor are you being forced to enroll your own children in any schools which are inconsistent with your world view. The idea in any case of children learning about gender and identity and so on isn’t in any way different from exposing children to ideas which you do support, which other people disagree with.

I think arguments based upon the idea that children will invariably become transgender if they learn about the concept undermines how notoriously and naturally skeptical children actually are from an early age about concepts which they cannot relate to, which is why their favourite question is “Why?”, and their cognitive abilities with regards to skepticism are far greater than most adults.

Gatling - I too am beginning to wonder if anyone actually has experience working with or dealing with young children

10 years ,

And yet people are making stuff up like they actually know whats taught to preschool /primary school

If you don't have kids or experience with children in any education setting why try to dictate what you think actually happens

by that logic it mean most people here don't have a right to comment because they don't have experience of trans either.

Luckily I have both so I will chat away to myself!

Thanks for your input.

I'll quote your stealth edit in full (EDIT - except I wont because the new boards.ie doesn't quote the edits!). Do not presume you know things about me. You know absolutely fuk all about me, my family, my personal situation or anything. Additionally, I don't need to explain sh!t to "Gatling from the internet" in order to have an opinion. Same reason I don't expect you to be explain anything (aren't you also a self appointed expert - or does having a well timed ride give you more credence?).

Ah maybe so - although I haven't really made insults - apologies if I have or it's been taken that way. I'm just not interested in the usual roundabout discussion points, and it winds me up when things get to a petty level (yes, my own behaviour too!).

My point tho - it seems to be a criteria (from @Gatling and a couple of others that dropped in) to "have experience with 4 year olds" - which I think is nonsense, but which I also do.

I was using @Gatling's same logic to say (mockingly) in that case, we should extend that to people who either are or have experienced issues directly around being trans (which I also have). I don't actually believe that to be the case and the discussion should be open to all.

Seriously - let it go. You are making assumptions here - I didn't at any point say I was "only seeking answers" on this thread (maybe I did a year ago on the thread you got banned from, because I was genuinely seeking answers and understanding - and that was genuine, not passive aggressive at all - again YOUR assumption and bias at play).

Additionally - you are trivialising my own experience based on YOUR assumptions. For all you know, I might actually be trans (as if anyone would actually admit that on this place..).

It would be a bit like me saying "Well done, you managed to get someone pregnant, but it doesn't make you an authority in any way" (it actually doesn't, its just your own experience of parenthood, one of many billions on this planet).

Your clumsy stereotypes about boys and dresses are completely missing the point.

Anyway if I get the gist of your points, you don't seem to believe in transgender children and want to keep the current status quo - correct me if I am wrong and lets leave the assumptions aside and we can draw a line under this?

What's your experience with kids Gatling.

According to you 3/4 year olds don't use pronouns and only refer to their friends by name.

Anyone with kids would know this is nonsense. So I guess you dont have kids right?

Why are you in this thread then?

Jaysus that's a bizarre Mish mash of ideas.

Firstly you throw in preferred pronouns but it's completely irrelevant as what you actually meant was that in some preschools kids are taught to use names instead of ANY pronouns but only during conflict resolution.

And what teachers try and teach kids to do has nothing to do with their ability. So kids understand and use pronouns at age 3/4 but you're saying for a particular context (conflict resolution) they are educated out of it.

So it seems you agree with me that kids understand and use pronouns.

However you seem to think it's ok for teachers to force kids not to refer to boys as "he".

What a crazy mass of contradictions.

@LLMMLL completely irrelevant as what you actually meant was that in some preschools kids are taught to use names instead of ANY pronouns but only during conflict resolution.

And what teachers try and teach kids to do has nothing to do with their ability. So kids understand and use pronouns at age 3/4 but you're saying for a particular context (conflict resolution) they are educated out of it

that's some amount of reaching and mental gymnastics to try say what I meant ,

But it's hardly surprising now

Lol 😂

@Anne_Widdecombe this exactly..

It's not necessary for the child to be assumed to be trans-. It's not necessary for pronouns to be changed. Let's take a step back and assume that the child is simply behaving as a child, and not how adults are interpreting their actions to be otherwise.

People randomly presuming a child is trans if they play with dolls or dress in a football kit in preschool ,

Then looking for gotcha moments 😆😆😆

I think the numbers are increasing due to greater awareness among adults of issues relating to gender and so on. These ideas have existed throughout history, but because people were for the most part secluded from the rest of the world so to speak, they didn’t really know any better, and didn’t want to be sent to the nuthouse so they kept shtum. Effectively there were a number of people who felt the same way, but didn’t talk about it because they were aware of the fact that anyone who did was generally sent to the nuthouse. Granted they all weren’t sent to the nuthouse depending upon their position in society where some people were celebrated for what were seen as their eccentric behaviours. Oscar Wilde is at least one well-known example who pushed it just that little bit too far, was sent to prison and died a pauper in Paris.

What’s changed is simply greater acceptance with each generation, and the advent and growth of the internet and social media has enabled ideas to be disseminated, shared and participated in at a faster rate than ever before, can find an online community for literally anything these days, which means people are no longer feeling like they are alone in their thoughts as they once were. Take for another example the rise in the number of people who are no longer identifying as religious in greater numbers than at any time in history. They always existed, but knew better to keep shtum, because they were aware of what happened to heretics. They didn’t just get “cancelled” 😒

When it comes to children who are transgender, it’s not so much that they are aware of the differences between boys and girls to the extent that they have the same understanding or awareness as adults have of the concept. Their understanding is generally limited to “well I know I’m not a boy”, or girl, as the case may be. Externally for sure, they’re aware that they possess the requisite physical characteristics of their sex, but in their minds it’s an entirely different perspective. Their parents politics are irrelevant, and many children will choose to keep their thoughts to themselves, which either causes them no distress at all, or can cause them considerable distress, depending upon their environment and the society they are raised in. Consider for example the case of one father who when his son didn’t start bleeding at puberty, brought him to the doctor thinking there must be something wrong with him -

The point I’m making is that if one doesn’t know any better, how would they actually know any better if they were never introduced to the concept in the first place? There’s absolutely an argument to be made for ignorance is bliss, and believe me I’d be far happier with not knowing and not being aware of half the shyte that swirls around in my brain, but if what I didn’t know was causing me distress because I couldn’t understand it and I thought there must be something wrong with me on the basis that I don’t observe it in anyone else, I’d probably want to know more, while keeping it to myself for fear knowing that people tend to fear what they don’t understand at best, and seek to eliminate any evidence at worst, a la John Money back in the day and what he did to David Reimer, then tried to cover up the evidence and managed to convince the families involved to lie and all.

It’s true I don’t like the slippery slope, but I would argue in this case that the slide has been rather liberally greased decades ago, and we’re well down the slope at this point, nearing ever closer to the point of acceptance of gender identity and less discrimination. I say less discrimination because I’m not lodged so far up my own ideological fundament that I imagine we will ever reach a point in society where what will always be a vanishingly small minority of any given population will ever be fully accepted in society. They’re always going to be rather like atheists in that respect - people who tend to be perceived within Western society at least with a rather unhealthy degree of suspicion and untrustworthiness based upon nothing more than good old prejudice.

I do have concerns of course, particularly in relation to people who are openly hostile towards people who are transgender, I mean if someone’s a cnut fair enough, I can understand why people would be hostile, but of the people who are transgender that I’ve known, being transgender wasn’t what caused them to become hostile towards others, it was the way they were treated by other people. I have no time whatsoever for anyone who takes their shìt out on other people, no matter how other people treat them, it’s not an excuse for them to take it out on other people. I have plenty of other concerns too, but I prefer to keep things in perspective. You won’t find for example the people championing detransitioners and claiming autism could be the source of a child’s confusion about their gender identity championing this particular individual who claims that being cured of autism led them to detransition -

Eccentric, or your garden variety fruitcake? Tbh I can’t make a call either way, but they’re completely harmless in any case, unlike anti-vax types for example who absolutely do encourage other people to put their lives at risk.

What happens in a decade or two decades time is that with heaps of science/psychology and let’s be honest a greater degree of exposure to people who are transgender by way of popular media (though whoever thought “it’s raining them” was a good idea will be long forgotten about and we can pretend it never happened), is that people will gain a greater understanding of what’s currently all a bit of a mystery, and frankly and understandably frightens the bejesus out of most people, particularly when it involves anything to do with children, which is why the Daily Mail in reporting on the guidelines chose to focus specifically on four year olds - they knew exactly how to put the frighteners in people who are susceptible to that kind of behaviour. The likes of the Daily Mail could never be accused of having anyone else’s best interests in mind but their own, and I don’t expect that will change any time soon. Just as there have always been people who are transgender in society, there have always been many more naysayers and predictors of all sorts of doom and gloom and every indication of the downfall of society.

In that sense, while I’m all in favour of the idea of ignorance is bliss for myself, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea for any society to remain ignorant, or for a small number of people to maintain an ignorance in society which is where they derive their power from. Organised religions have been doing that for millennia, and it’s generally never worked out well for anyone who wasn’t prepared to participate in upholding a narrative which in their minds made absolutely no sense whatsoever. But in Western society at least we’ve kinda moved on from drowning, hanging, executing, and nowadays people’s greatest fear is being “cancelled”. I reckon they’ll live if that’s the worst they imagine could ever happen to them.