Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Historians will.

@Bevin

If you and your child were to be honest about what is going on with the trans issue, you would be more able to resolve it in a way that protects him, or her in the long run. The transgender issue is an artifact of toxic masculinity. Those children who experience the sexism and bullying of not conforming to the gender expectations of their sex are now being shepherded into a belief that they have a gender identity that is different from their sex, and that the gender identity is what takes primacy in defining whether they are male or female; and that is a dangerous social lie that has taken hold.

Rather than resolving the identity issue, the transgender movement exacerbates it because it affirms that male superior roles are “natural,” while female subservient roles are also natural. We should instead be affirming that males with femimine personae are still males, and that females with masculine personae are yet females. But now we are swimming against a tidal wave of gender confusion with the belief in gender identity. To question it in any way is considered bigotry, and so few people want to be thought of as bigoted (except for the redhatted uglies, of course) that they don’t look at this issue with any sort of skepticism.

I’m sure that you honestly believe that your child is trans and needs your protection as such. But this belief is a result of a social phenomenon that actively puts women at risk of violence, preventing women from having safe private spaces away from males and especially when women are vulnerable. There are men who are keenly aware of the social stigma of questioning trans identities, and so they use this to claim they are trans in order to access women’s private spaces. In clamoring to ensure that men who identify as women are safe from men who get freaked out about such things, society has ensured that women will be cornered in locker rooms, in restrooms, in homeless shelters, in rape crisis centers, and other refuges women have fought for in order to have respite from the dangers of male dominance.

Protect your child, yes, but protect him or her by helping them resolve their sexual identity in a way that affirms rather than denies their true nature. There’s confusion among adults in this issue, not helped by the stigma attached to those who are trying to right it. Imagine how it is for children, who are trying to figure out gender even in the best of circumstances.