This is the time when children need to affirm their identities as to who they are, says UKIP spokesman David Kurten. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, says half of transgender children in the UK have attempted suicide.
A book published in Sweden for toddlers and preschoolers depicting a transgender man who wears women's clothes and lipstick, as well as a horse who believes it's a dog, has sparked mixed reactions.
RT discussed the book and transgender issues with
Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner, and
David Kurten, UKIP London Assembly member, and UKIP spokesman
RT: David what's not to love about a book like this? Isn't it preparing children for the richly diverse world we live in with all sorts of people, minority groups? And this is one of the minority groups, isn't it?David Kurten: It is a minority group. When you're an adult, when you're over 18 you're entitled to do what you want in the privacy in your own home, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But propagandizing this kind of thing to children, you can damage them and their natural development as boys and girls. Nature is binary; nature creates male and female - there are boys and girls. And we hear, as well as the book, moves to try to ban the words: boys and girls, men and women, mothers and fathers in primary education. This is the time when children really need to be affirmed in their identities as to who they are. This is something that is far too much, too young, it is going to confuse people.
Children are imaginative. They play. They pretend to be all kinds of things. They pretend to be footballers; they pretend to be aliens, spacemen, unicorns. They maybe pretend to be men and women as well. But you have to separate imagination in play from objective scientific fact. And the fact is that your gender or your biological sex is defined by your anatomy and by your chromosomes. That is the science that we need to be making sure that children know, and the science that we need to be teaching children.
RT: Peter, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think this is too much emphasis on those minority groups?Peter Tatchell: Transgender people exist in every society and have done all throughout history. When there have been scientific studies of animal species, transgenderism has also been found in non-human animals. So it is part of a natural spectrum of life for all animal species - human and non-human. This book is not about promoting or encouraging transgenderism; it is about trying to affirm young people who don't feel they fall neatly into the male-female roles and trying to tackle bullying and prejudice.
We know that in Britain, for example, nearly half of all young transgender people have attempted suicide. Nearly half! That is a shocking statistic. We need to try and reduce that. Not just in Britain, but in every country. Any book like this one that seeks to promote understanding and respect for people who are different that is fantastic, because we want to live in a kind, gentle and compassionate society.
RT: David, surveys show the number of children questioning their gender identities in Sweden, where the book was written, is doubling annually - surely there's a pressing need for books like this? Do you agree with this?DK: I don't. Yes, the figures at the moment are doubling every year in Sweden. That is because children in schools are being exposed to this kind of material, and that is very, very new. All through history - yes there may be a few very small number of people, who are transgender and then particularly when they are adults, but it has never been an issue in primary school until about 2015 - if you look at this country. The law has changed, I think in 2002 to allow people to register to change their gender if they wanted to - they had to go through a two-year process of living as the opposite gender.
Now in 12 years, there were 4,500 people in total, who registered to change their gender. Since we've started bringing this teaching into schools, the number has rocketed in the UK. This is a problem that is entirely artificial because people have tried to do this first of all to children who are 14 and then 15, then children who were 10, 11, then seven, and now it is five years old, and four years old. And this book in Sweden is going to two-year-old children, three-year-old children in preschool.
When children are two and three they are not thinking about this kind of thing - they want to play, they want to be imaginative. But exposing children to this kind of idea that they are not boys, they are not girls - that is something that can come later on if they want to think about it - 16, 17, 18 when they are adults.
And the most damaging thing about this is they are encouraged to take puberty-blocking hormones, and in some cases encouraged to have operations, where they have procedures done on their reproductive organs. That is something that they can never reverse. We do hear situations that people who have been encouraged into that, and then they changed their minds - one or two years later. But they stuck with what they have done...
RT: What's your answer, Peter? Does David have a point here - that if children are given that power to choose what gender they want to be, that they mind change their mind?PT: No one is going to change their mind just because they read a book. It is something that comes deep from within, and no amount of propaganda or proselytizing can make someone transgender. I think our starting point has to be the welfare of the child. And my concern is that we know in countries all across the world pupils who don't fit the gender stereotypes, who are Trans or gender variant - they suffer teasing, name calling threats and bullying. That is truly shameful, that is not good for the child's welfare.
What we have to do is to create an atmosphere and understanding, where it is ok to be different. That doesn't mean we're saying it is a good thing, or bad thing, or something to be encouraged, but if people are different - that they are not picked upon and bullied. And from there, then of course eventually children will come to their own conclusion. If they are Trans - that is their choice, that is fine. If they are not - they will change their mind, that is also fine...
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Fear of offending trans people ruining healthy debate, says radical feminist
Reader Comments
You make it sound as though they cut little boys' privates off at 4 and 5 years old - wow
HERE'S HOW IT'S DONE:
Nothing AT ALL can be done (nor is done, at least in Canada) until puberty and even then they don't break out the scalpels or bonesaws
I understand there are some very strict guidelines before giving the child hormone blockers, but that's all that can be done and can be undone just as easily - the child can simply stop the hormone blockers and carry on as usual (this would occur within a very very small percentage of kids, but it's not unheard of)
Then, when the young adult reaches the age of consent (varies country to country - 16 in Canada), they can decide to take testosterone (for transboys) or estrogen (for transgirls) - I understand that with both the parents' and child's consent, this can take place earlier.
By the time they're ready for surgery they're 18 or 19
Peter Tatchell is absolutely correct - the awareness of one's gender is not subject to whims (such as one day wanting to be a ballerina, the next a firetruck) - it is something deep down and immutable and overrides all other fantasies, dreams or desires of the parent
Despite all your sophistry, THE ONLY THING OF IMPORTANCE IS that transgendered kids, with the help of their parents and professionals at school and elsewhere, do not have to experience puberty in the wrong gender - that's the killer - ask any TG
I REALLY HOPE you can understand this so I'll say it again slowly - THE THING THAT REALLY MESSES KIDS UP? GOING THROUGH PUBERTY IN THE WRONG GENDER.
Parents have been screwing their kids up since the beginning of time, and they will continue until the end of time - to stop this, we just have to trust what our kids are telling us and, in the years and years it takes to go from Timmy saying "I think I'm a girl" to where she's goes out on her first date, we all (including the child) have plenty of time to think about and ponder the implications before anything permanent is done.
GOT IT? Just because most of you cannot even imagine what it's like to be TG, does not lessen its validity. Proof of this is the very fact that with more and more education and documentation on the subject being available, more and more TG's are coming forward.
IGNORANCE and FEAR are the true enemies
peace
Puberty, gender aside, is hell for most people. Parents 'screw their kids up' in some way more times than not. Everybody gets bullied. If a person is emotionally healthy, all of this pain eventually gets put into perspective when they grow up and stop imagining that that everyone is watching and judging them all the time. They find that people's opinions reflect their own biases and limitations, and they learn to rely on their own judgment. Maturation happens. Hormone blockers and surgery amount to avoiding this process. It's basically saying, "I can't be who I am unless I attack my own body and try to become who I'm not." There's a reason why an estimated 41% of trans people attempt suicide, and that reason isn't because transition solves their problems. It's because transition didn't do what they thought it would do - which was to give them a free ride into a pain-free adulthood, where they're no longer morbidly obsessing about their own social acceptability. They remain stuck in an adolescent frame of mind where everyone is concerned about which bathroom they use, everyone knows they aren't really a boy/girl, everyone has a bias against them, etc. Everyone in the world experiences rejection. Everyone gets told "you just aren't a good fit" and loses a job. Everyone has family members who think they're worthless. Get over yourself, stop worrying about what the world thinks, and find what you can do with the body you were born in!
I think you ought to go and hand yourself in to the nearest police station.
OK, no more kid gloves
This is reality:
Transgendered are here to stay
Nothing you can say will change their minds about themselves
Get over yourself and your fears
Even if you and others like you kill some of them, it will only make them more determined
Your kids WILL be taught in school about these people, just like they're being taught about gays and lesbians
Nothing you can do about it
None of your double talk will change the fact that a new reality is in effect and the dinosaurs will be left behind
You know absolutely nothing about why trans people are committing suicide - it certainly has nothing to do with a "free ride into a pain-free adulthood" - again, wow
I could try to educate you, but... honestly, I have other things to do
and Highland whatever-you-are - take a pill or something, eh? try to educate yourself
It's your body, so do any bloody insane thing you want to do to it, and suffer the consequences, but your bullying insistence on modifying the English language in order to legitimize what you are doing to yourselves is going to backfire big-time. All that hatred and fear you imagine is out there in the world waiting to pounce on you? You may very well be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.