You know, I'm willing to accept that a child can legit know they're transgender from a very young age. But the vast majority of children have nowhere near enough self awareness and sense of identity to understand just exactly what body dysmorphia is, let alone gender dysmorphia. I have some seriously fucked up neurological problems, and I can tell you for a fact that they started manifesting from kindergarten onwards. And you know what I wanted to be? A horse. A unicorn would have been awesome, but I'd absolutely have taken the horse if it was offered.
If I were re a horse I'd not fall over all the fucking time because I couldn't get the two halves of my body to move together, all of the sensory processing problems I had when I tried to talk or listen to others could be simply brushed away by going, "Neigh!" and running off. I got to the point where I was so deep in the horse identity fantasy that I ended up making the sensory processing problems even worse, because I'd convinced myself that I was a fucking horse and that meant that my body was all wrong and I had hands instead of hooves so what was wrong with me? This wasn't a game, I was legit convinced that I was in the wrong body from the wrong species. I wasn't until I was twelve and entered high school that I came to grips with the human body. It's just as well that this was many years before furries became a thing, otherwise I'd never have escaped the rabbit hole (or pasture). Now, my species identity problem came about because of my mental problems. I couldn't cope with being a human, having to process a massive amount of sensory issues, interacting with other children, trying to make sense of some weird shit that my family excelled in doing. I turned myself into a fucking horse because I couldn't fucking cope with being me in the fucking world. I invented this elaborate persona, convinced that if I could just become somebody else , all my problems would disappear. All I had to do was change my body and I'd be happy. Did I mention that this lasted up until high school?
I've no doubt that a decent percentage of the gendertrender parents have genuinely had children who've gone up to them and complained that there was something wrong with their body. But the social climate is such that anyone who thinks they are transgender must really be transgender, and things like mental illness that starts incredibly early, sensory processing disorders, and good old fashioned escapism cease to exist when a child says, "I want to be the opposite gender." Aside from the fact that being told you're transgender and pushed into being transgender is going to really fuck you up, I've no doubt that children with genuine mental health problems are going to be brushed under the carpet. What's harder, trying to diagnose and treat bipolar disorder in a child whose age is still in single figures, or taking them clothes shopping and adding/subtracting an 'iet' suffix to the end of their name?
A terrifying amount of parents on the transgender binge are there because of what is essentially a fashion being raped by a cult, but I have absolutely no doubt that there's a hefty percentage of parents who have jumped on the train because it looks like a simple, easy explanation of what is wrong with their child, and a simple, easy way to fix it.
It's a cult. Pure and simple. People enter it because they're convinced that it'll change the world for the better, that the enlightenment of the heathens will make them a hero and a saint, and that all they have to do is conform and everything that is wrong in their shitty lives can be fixed simply by repeating a koan or two.
The transgender children are doubly fucked; first by having their entire identity dismantled, and secondly by having their mental health problems ruthlessly chained up in the attic like an evil, deformed twin.
