I have done a two series on research into the experiences of parents of “trans” kids. The latest one was funded by Oxford University, amongst others, and endorsed by trans-activist Katie Montgomerie. {You can access the full series via this thread. Parents of “Trans” kids}
The research is also sponsored by Mermaids and includes a roll call of trans lobby groups on the steering group.
For this post I want to look at one of those parents. Let’s meet Georgina.
Georgina’s daughter “came out” as trans while at school. Georgina says her “son” was expressing a diverse gender identity from three years old (sometimes she says age 4). How did she know? She liked sex stereotypical things associated with boys and the colour blue. Then she started to ask when she could go to the doctor’s to get “boy bits”. Georgina talks, a lot, about conflict with her ex-husband and the father of her child.
Her daughter told her mum she wanted to “present to the world as she really was”. Georgina embraces this, with alacrity, saying she had put her little girl to bed and “he” would wake up in the morning. That night she searched for transgender support groups, joined a parent’s forum and made a check list of all the things she needed to do. First on the list was to tell the school, the next day, and by the end of the day her daughter was being addressed by a male name and given male pronouns. By the teachers!
On Georgina’s check list was getting a referral to the Gender Identity Service. She makes an appointment immediately and consults Mermaids, trans lobby group, so the doctor would comply with her wishes.
The doctor was co-operative and her daughter was referred to GIDs with few questions asked. The doctor had to prompt Georgina to tell the father to avoid any trouble. Yes, she did all this without telling the dad. She explains that he was the last on the list for the actions she thought were important.
Georgina tells the interviewer that she was new to the issue of transgender children but she had read lots of magazines and watched a documentary by Louis Theroux. What she had actually done was respond to a marketing campaign.
She gets very emotional when describing the trans “rite” of cutting her daughter’s hair short.
Here she is frustrated with the therapist, for not asking the “right” questions, and her daughter, for not giving the right answers. Georgina knows how to elicit the “correct” responses. 🚩🚩🚩
Georgina prefers to use a tick box so her daughter can “choose” her adult body. Calls to mind the phrase “meat lego” as used by Mary Harrington, writer for unherd.
The discord between the parents figures prominently in this parent’s story. He does comply with the new name and pronouns and attends clinic appointments. However, his girlfriend is described as “transphobic” and Georgina worries he will be a barrier to medical intervention. I, on the other hand, hope he is a line of defence for this little girl.
I am somewhat perturbed that this did not raise any red flags for the researchers. They were perfectly comfortable putting this in the public domain. This is in marked contrast to the treatment of a parent who was more “gender critical”; who I will cover next. Elijah expresses concern about social and medical transition for his thirteen year old daughter. As you will see the researchers make their feelings about “Elijah” very clear by adding caveats to make it clear his parenting style was found wanting.