Over the past six years there has been a 930% increase in the number of children referred to NHS gender clinics across the UK, including one three-year-old and three four-year-olds since April last year. The BBC report shows that the total number of 94 children referred in 2009-10 has increased to 969 in 2015-16.

The report includes the story of a five-year-old Nottinghamshire boy who has just returned to the classroom ‘as a girl’ with support from the school, which sent out letters to parents and children explaining the change. The reaction of the adults around this case, as reported in the Nottingham Post, provides an insight into the reason why the number of children referred to gender clinics has increased so dramatically over the last six years.

First, Colin Pettigrew, the local council authority’s director for children, families and cultural services, said: “Transgender is a characteristic protected by law and therefore head teachers across England continue to, and are required to, agree a clear plan to support the needs of transgender children and young people.”

‘Transgender’ as a protected category for children means that we have already made up our minds about an identity which over 80% of children will outgrow by adolescence. The most likely outcome for this little boy, if left alone, is that he will grow up to be gay, but there is no protected category of homosexuality for children as this only applies when a child matures and develops a sexual orientation: we can’t predict that a child will be gay or lesbian. We also can’t know if a child will grow up to be transgender, but the likelihood is far far less. Establishing ‘transgender’ as a protected category of childhood presupposes, and reinforces, a fixed opposite-sex heterosexual identity before a gay or lesbian child has had the chance to explore, develop and mature. The only protected characteristic we should insist on for children is ‘childhood.’

Next, there are some statements from Maria Kontogianni, Senior Lecturer in Psychology with Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. She says:

“Children could start feeling gender dysphoria from the age of three-years-old.”

“They will say that they don’t feel like a boy or girl or they may decide they are not.”

“If the school or parents do not respond correctly it can become a real problem for the child.”

“If it is done correctly you could have a very happy child and the key is to engage the family and teachers in the process because many will try to tip-toe around the subject.”

“The school will have to use words the child wants them to use and most adults and children choose the gender they want to be and then use which toilet they want and dress how they wish.”

“The best thing that can be done is talk about it and not ignore it because it won’t go away.”

“Before people were forced to conform to gender normality but that is not the case now.”

Inaccurate and misleading comments such as these from academics must go a long way in influencing both parents and teachers. Here we have a confident diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’ at age three, which would apply to a large number of little children who like dressing and playing with toys which are arbitrarily designated for the opposite sex. We are told that it’s up to a child to decide whether they are a boy or a girl, told the ‘correct’ response is to do everything the child wants in order to create a ‘very happy’ child, and warned that if we respond ‘incorrectly’ we will create a ‘real problem’ for the child. We must ‘talk about it’ rather than just allow the child to get on with exploring and discovering the world without being labelled. We are told that we should not ignore it because ‘it won’t go away’ when the overwhelming likelihood is that it will. And finally, deciding a child’s sex by the toys he plays with is seen as the opposite to forcing him to ‘conform to gender normality’ when in fact that’s exactly what it is.

Lastly, we have the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) who state their belief that schools and local authorities have a big part to play in supporting those that are ‘going through the process’ and, to help them, they provide lesson plans to ‘teach young children about transitioning.’

To be clear, a child does not passively ‘go through the process;’ affirming a child as the opposite sex and ensuring that everyone treats the child as such is always the adults’ decision, not the child’s. A child has no idea that it is not actually possible to change sex. It is the school’s choice to teach children either that ‘gender identity’ is stronger than biological sex, or that biological sex is a reality and gender is a social construct; all of this is the adults’ responsibility.

Dr Polly Carmichael, director of the Tavistock Clinic’s gender identity service, warns that research published in the Netherlands suggests that “for some young people who make an early social transition it may be difficult to de-transition if their gender identity develops in another direction” which is the inevitable result of rushing to socially transition young children. And how many kids will find it too difficult to detransition after being ‘affirmed’ as the opposite sex throughout childhood by all the adults and children around them?

Dr Carmichael posits that “increased awareness and acceptance of gender issues – particularly via the media and social networks” is a likely factor in the increase in referrals of children to gender clinics. She is right that over the last few years ‘trans kids’ stories have proliferated throughout the mainstream media and all over social networks, but what remains unacknowledged is the one-sided and almost totally unquestioning nature of that reporting, as in the Nottingham Post article above.

The media has not been educating the public on ‘gender issues,’ it has been promoting awareness and acceptance of transgender theory as uncontested truth, with no debate about this hypothesis which places ‘gender identity’ as the new reality replacing biological sex. Nor has any public debate been possible in a climate where anyone questioning it is judged as bigoted, transphobic and in need of re-education.

With a supposedly free press failing in its duty to provide balanced reporting of facts, and acting instead as a mouthpiece for the transgender lobby, the number of parents referring their children to gender clinics will continue to soar. As, inevitably, will the number of confused young people who, on reaching full maturity, realise what has been done to them as children in the name of a political ideology everyone was too afraid to question.

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