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Andrew Byles's avatar

My three year old niece would, when she was two, answer the question “are you a girl or a boy” by exclaiming that she was “a boy”.

My sister, her mother, would laugh (which may well be why my niece would say boy) and say “no, you’re a little girl”.

My niece happily acknowledges that she’s a girl now when asked the question. It makes me shudder to think that other children may have been put a course of lifelong misery because they either didn’t understand a question asked of them when 2 or deliberately gave the wrong answer to make people laugh.

Jane Doe's avatar

Do clinicians faced with an anorexic/bulimic child affirm the child's sincerely held views that they are fat? Do they offer appetite suppressants and arrange stomach stapling operations? Do clinicians when faced with children who slash themselves offer the more efficient knives? I think not. Gender reassessment of confused, unhappy children with mental issues will be regarded by future generations as wicked as full-frontal lobotomies (often carried out as miracle cures with the consent of the victims and their families).

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