News About an Old Friend.

Someone told be about an old colleague. He had been a friend, we had a lot of mutual professional respect and similar politics. I'll call him Mark,

Mark has a son, he'd had previous problems, bullied at school and lashed out at other kids. Now Marks son is trans, wants to be a girl, or is a girl, or something.

I could of found Mark on linked in, could of got in touch, have someone to share stuff with.
I asked how Mark has reacted. It was all a bit vague, but apparently he's taking the affirmative line, whatever will make the boy happy.

This could mean a lot of things. Mark could be unhappy about it, full of doubt, but going along with what the gender experts advise, fearful of the suicide threat. That way you have a guide, you know what the next step is, what the correct reaction is. You will know what a good parent does.

Hell knows that's a tempting path and Mark wasn't as big headed as me.

He might believe the 'girl born in a boys body' story and be comfortable that he was doing the right thing. He might be flattered by the attention and approval for being the brave parent of a pioneering child.

I thought of getting in touch, flattered myself I might be able to help, Daydreams of changing Marks mind, I took a look at these and recognised that old male dream of being a hero.

I thought of the risks. If Mark is now a believer, I can't out myself and my daughter to him and risk it getting back to Mermaids or Gendered Intelligence or whichever bunch have got a new recruit and a new poster child.

So I bottled it. I never contacted Mark.

Perhaps he's out there, tearing his hair out, Or more likely sure hes doing the right thing.

He might find GenderCriticalDad. He might recognise some of his story in mine, Or he might think me a hateful transphobic monster torturing my son.

Scariest of all: Perhaps he is doing the right thing, perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps his daughter has found her real self. Is that what I'm really afraid of?

That's the bugger of it. When you're an unbelieving parent you can never be sure.

You look at the evidence and the logic and  you know its bollocks. You see a load of men in bad drag spitting hate at middle aged lesbians. You see the manipulation of suicide statistics, the social group clustering, the way second rate doctors cash in and lap up the trans  hero status and you know its bollocks.

Then they show a boy of 8 on the telly with gentle eyes. Reality TV with a script from Mermaids: the well rehearsed pleading to just be who she really is, Wearing a dress and looking like a kid enjoying wearing a dress.

That's one of the genius strokes of trans. Kids bodies at that age are pretty androgynous. So whats wrong with letting him be who she wants to be?

There is no mention of puberty blockers: off label cancer drugs untested on children, No mention of cross sex hormones for parents who buy organic chicken.

No mention of creating simulated genitals or the complications of reconstructing our most delicate and sensitive tissues.

No mention of how the kids will never share the roller coaster ride of puberty with their peers.

No mention of how the kids sexuality will form as they emerge from a medically induced cross sex puberty, under the watchful gaze of parents and clinicians. Kids who have never even played with themselves, desperate for validation.

That's passed by as if kids bodies are made of play-doh, to be moulded to suit the induced faith of an 8 year old, his suicide shit-scared or just fame hungry parents and an ambitious and profitable gender affirmation clinic.

Everyone's caught up  in the rush to welcome a brave new future where bodies, sexuality and identity are a crossfader to be thrown into a new gender by a dose of T in a post modern utopia of ever multiplying genders

But still there's the boy of 8 with the gentle eyes who just wants to be a girl.