Dragonlady
Designing Woman
I have been teaching for better than three decades and will retire this fall. In my entire career of teaching hundreds to thousands of children per year, I have known of ONE trans student previous to the Great Moral Panic of Trans.
Since then, a number of my former students are "trans". I am concerned for them. Most teens dye their hair, wear trendy clothes. How do you come back from telling everyone you switched your entire gender? You bullied them into calling you a different pronoun, changed your name. And then....oops sorry....just a phase?
I happen to know of someone in this exact situation. She is now 18, and realizes that the reason she wanted to be a boy is because she was terrified of becoming a woman. As a child she was sexually assaulted by a guy her mother was dating.
The story of the assault came out during therapy around her gender confusion, and the police charged the man, who was then awaiting trial. So you have a 13 year old, going into puberty, and terrified of being a "woman", now having to deal with the CAS, the police, and everything else, on top of all of that.
But the bald fact is, that is was her gender affirming treatment that lead her to accept that she is a girl, and all of that confusion, is clearing. The mere fact that people took her seriously and cared enough for her to ensure she got the treatment she needed to get through this and help her understand herself better, should be INCENTIVE to continue providing gender affirming treatment for all kids in crisis - for whatever reason.
Contrary to what the right is being told, transition surgeries are NOT performed until puberty is ended and that gives the gender confused child, a long time to grow up and determine for real if this is what they want.