Tag Archive

On Social Transitioning

[Reformatted for Readability]

As a clinical psychologist I believe that no child should ever be allowed to socially transition, because this action simply concretises the lie that sex is mutable. Furthermore, social transitioning does not address the underlying psycho-social problems that might be leading a child to believe themselves to be of the wrong ‘gender’.  Shockingly, this practice is widespread and has rapidly and with no oversight, embedded itself in schools across the West. But what does this mean for those caught up in it?

Here I mainly consider and question some impacts of socially transitioning a child who is attending primary or secondary school. I suggest that it is not a consequence-free, benign opportunity to offer a child time to think about their ‘gender identity’.

The perils principally arise because the nature of the word ‘social’ is being dangerously misunderstood and, perhaps, deliberately misrepresented.

In the Trans Upside Down, ‘social’ is seen as simply meaning ‘non-invasive’ and/or non-medical, involving only a change of name; change of uniform; change of pronouns; ‘packing’ or ‘binding’; use of opposite sex toilets and changing rooms; and involvement in the opposite sex’s sporting and other activities. However this approach only considers the narrow perspective of the child who is supposedly ‘transitioning’. The more important issue and question is how does the socially transitioning child in school affect those around them? I suggest that this practice also has a deeply negative and destabilising effect on the mood, behaviour and interpersonal relationships of everyone in the socially transitioning child’s orbit.

What impact on the child?

As the Cass Review points out, social transitioning has the effect of locking the child into their assumed ‘gender identity’. Puberty is a time of rapid neurobiological change during which executive functioning (ie the ability to plan and to understand the consequences of one’s actions) starts to develop.
At a time when the brain is literally re-wiring itself, when it is like a veritable bowl of porridge, a child’s naïve and youthful experimentation with their identity (in its old-fashioned meaning) should not be taken as an article of faith. Particularly not by those who are charged with the responsibility of teaching children to think clearly!

So, instead of adults firmly saying “no” and placing appropriate boundaries around the child and/or investigating what may be the underlying causes of wanting to ‘transition’, youngsters (encouraged by adults) are being speedily and unquestioningly inducted into the cult of gender, from which it is very difficult to escape.(See here for a wider discussion on the ‘transitioning’ from a neurobiological perspective).https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1830280563908894828

Because socially transitioning children is unsupervised and unregulated, we don’t know its intra-psychic and functional impact. We just take the child’s unevidenced word that they have found their “authentic selves” and are thereby happier. However, ideally (if social transition must happen, which it should not), a child’s depression, anxiety, social functioning, and strengths and difficulties should be regularly assessed and monitored for the duration of their ‘transitioning’. This could easily be done by school psychologists and counsellors.

Impact of ‘secret’ transitioning

Even more damaging than openly transitioning a child is the practice of secret transitioning, where the school actively hides the child’s new ‘gender identity’ from parents. In school the child uses a new name and different pronouns and wears the uniform and uses the facilities of the opposite sex. However, in correspondence and in any contact with parents, the child’s birth sex is recognised.  I can hardly think of anything more damaging to a child’s psyche, especially given that trans identification is typically the manifestation of underlying dysfunction:

How is the child to manage the constant shifts in male and female, (and God help us), ‘non-binary’ identity, between home and school?
What are the stresses of maintaining such a blatant lie?
How does the child process having to constantly lie to their parents?
Are the child’s friends party to the deception?
Must siblings lie to their parents in order to maintain the relationship with their brothers/sisters, or do they tell their parents what’s happening in school, and thereby damage the sibling relationship?

Secretly transitioned children (and their siblings and friends) are placed in an invidious position, which must be unbearably stressful and emotionally damaging. Nonetheless, this dangerous practice is pervasive and is justified by schools under the mantra of “protecting” the ‘Trans Kid’.

What impact on other children?

Also to be considered is the effect the socially transitioned child has on their peers. Social transitioning is contagious. Learning Theory tells us that the more a behaviour is reinforced and rewarded, the more frequent that behaviour becomes. As the socially transitioning child is treated by schools like a cross between conquering hero and sacred vessel, the actions of one such child inevitably ‘infects’ others, until in some cases, up to a quarter of a year group identifies as ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’. This is evidently nonsensical, but it is being accepted by schools as reality and is not only permitted but lauded and welcomed.

Thus, apart from the gross impact of imitation, we should be asking:

-Does socially transitioning one child in a class impact the levels of depression or anxiety of the other children?
-Does it interfere with their learning?
-Does it affect behaviour?
-Does it affect the quality of the relationships with their own parents and/or siblings outside of school?
-In what other ways does social transitioning affect the non-transitioning peer(s)?

These are all questions that psychologists and school counsellors should be investigating. But we don’t know the answers because nobody is even asking these or other related questions. There is no research data whatsoever on the impact of social transitioning to the child and the school community. What is now occurring in thousands of schools across the West is the equivalent of putting a new drug on the market without having run any clinical trials, but simply stating that it is safe to use.

Impact on moral development

There is also a wider danger of socially transitioning a child and in forcing their peers to go along with the lie that Susan is now ‘Simon’, when they can clearly see she isn’t. Moral development is the process by which people develop the distinction between right and wrong. There are many theories on how morality develops, but in general they describe a stepwise process wherein children move from being moral absolutists with ‘black and white thinking’, to a point where ‘goodness’ is gradually replaced by a more subtle understanding of ‘truth/justice’. This process lasts from about age five to mid/late twenties when the most mature form of moral understanding and reasoning is achieved. The later form of moral thinking is not however always reached. Psychopaths, for example, never develop this facility.

Into this stepwise process enters the ‘socially transitioning’ child. The child itself is a living lie and, equally damaging, other children are then being forced into the acceptance of this lie by the very people from whom, at this critical stage in their lives, they should be learning and modelling appropriate morality. But now, because of gender ideology and its sequalae of social transitioning, children are being sanctioned for not acquiescing to the obvious and blatant falsehood that someone has changed sex.

Children cannot develop proper moral reasoning if they are compelled to believe untruths, or if they are suspended from school, isolated from their friends, or told to “undertake reflection” (this sounds particularly sinister!) for merely holding their ground.

Schools which socially transition children are carrying out an in-vivo, unsupervised behavioural experiment and nobody has any idea of the broader consequences that may result from this enforced disruption to children’s moral development. The full picture may take years to unfold and we may yet all pay the price for it. (Generally, it is by such means of lax or non-existent moral rules placed by adults that sociopathy develops.)

Things are worse for children with learning disabilities or social-communication disorders such as Autism. Such children see and describe the world as it is. Dissembling is difficult, or even impossible for them. I believe that making an Autistic or learning-disabled child use wrong-sex pronouns, (or otherwise forcing them accede to the lie that a classmate has changed sex), is tantamount to psychological torture.

Impact on safety

As ever, the impact of socially transitioning falls heavier on females than it does on males. Girls have lost the privacy of their school toilets and their changing rooms. They are being sexually assaulted or worse, raped by boys ‘identifying’ as girls. They are developing urinary tract infections because they are scared to use the toilets. They are staying at home during their periods because boys are spying on them and making them feel embarrased. They are losing at sports and being deprived of scholarships because of the actions of boys who identify as girls.

As a result of the invention of ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in 2013, adults who should know better and who should be safeguarding children have instead entered a state of ‘Learned Madness’. They have developed a mindset where enforcing and protecting a child’s supposed ‘gender identity’ now supersedes all considerations of safety, fairness, morality, or common sense.

Teachers have seemingly forgotten they have a duty of care to all students, not just those who think themselves to be ‘trans’. It is truly an incredible and appalling state of affairs. (See here for a wider discussion on ‘Gender Dysphoria’.

https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1808825717204922755

Conclusion

Social transitioning is akin to taking an already disturbed and unhappy child to the top of a very tall building, pushing them off, then forcing all their friends and classmates to not only watch, but to help with the clean up. It is an unregulated, uncontrolled and incredibly powerful psycho-social intervention being carried out by gender ideologues and/or unqualified, uncritical or, perhaps pressured, teaching staff.

Nobody, except the ‘transitioning’ child (who is likely themselves suffering from psychological problems) has ‘agreed’ to be part of this social experiment and therefore this practice is also highly unethical. But, sadly as with all gender related madness, my profession of psychology has been deafeningly silent in calling this out.

TL:DR: Socially transitioning is an unethical and dangerous practice that schools should be having nothing to do with and whose long-term consequences are unknown.