There’s no such thing as a transgender two-year-old
by James Esses, spiked:
Stonewall has inadvertently exposed the dangers of trans ideology.
Stonewall is in trouble again. At the weekend the LGBT charity tweeted the extraordinary claim that ‘research suggests children as young as two recognise their trans identity’. The tweet linked to an article in the Metro, written by the mother of a four-year-old who says that her daughter’s nursery does not respect her ‘gender non-conformity’. Within hours of being posted, the tweet attracted scathing criticism from politicians across the political spectrum, fellow charities, medical professionals and child-safeguarding specialists.
Let us separate fact from dangerous fiction. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And tellingly, neither Stonewall nor the Metro actually pointed to this ‘research’, or any other evidence, to support their claim that two-year-olds can have a ‘trans’ identity. The simple reason for this is that such research does not exist.
What the studies in this field actually demonstrate is that young children develop an awareness and a recognition of biological sex – both of their own and that of others – at some point between the ages of one and three. These same studies also demonstrate that children develop an understanding of gender stereotypes. This is uncontroversial and has been known for some time.
However, there is absolutely nothing in these studies to suggest that a child as young as two can be ‘trans’. Stonewall’s tweet completely misrepresented the scientific position on this topic.
Certainly, a child may, during these formative years, exhibit behaviours and traits that are considered gender atypical. However, to extrapolate from this to suggest that a gender-atypical toddler has a ‘trans identity’ is dangerous and regressive.
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