Transgender children and young people : born in your own body

This book is a collection of essays about the current theory and practice of transgendering children. Essays are written against the grain of the popularised medical definition of the transgender child as a young person whose true gender lies in the brain, or pre-social identity. Contributors contest this diagnosis from a range of social constructionist perspectives, including as social theorists, psychotherapists, persons living as transgender, individuals who regret having transitioned, and parents of adolescents identifying as transgender. They argue that medicine, social policy and the law discursively construct the transgender child, and contend that it is politics, not science, which accounts for the exponential rise in the number of children diagnosed as transgender by gender identity clinics. They conclude that todays medical and social trend for transgendering children is not liberal and progressive, but politically reactionary, physically and psychologically dangerous and abusive. This book is a collection of essays about the current theory and practice of transgendering children. Essays are written against the grain of the popularised medical definition of 'the transgender child' as a young person whose 'true' gender lies in the brain, or pre-social 'identity'. Contributors contest this diagnosis from a range of perspectives, including as social theorists, psychotherapists, persons living as transgender, individuals who have de-transitioned, and parents of adolescents identifying as transgender. They argue that medicine, social policy and the law build ideas about 'the transgender child', and contend that it is politics, not science, which accounts for the exponential rise in the number of children diagnosed as transgender by gender identity clinics. They conclude that today's medical and social trend for transgendering children is not liberal and progressive, but politically reactionary, physically and psychologically dangerous and abusive. Dedication Contents Contributors 1 The Fabrication of ‘The Transgender Child’ • Heather Brunskell Evans and Michele Moore 2 The Transgender Experiment on Children • Stephanie Davies-Arai 3 Gendered Mis-Intelligence: The Fabrication of ‘The Transgender Child’ • Heather Brunskell-Evans 4 ‘I’m Not A Hideously Bigoted Parent Who Doesn’t ‘Get’ It’ • GenderCriticalDad 5 ‘Trans’ Kids: LGB Adults Come Out • Josephine Bartosch 6 The Language of the Psyche: Symptoms as Symbols • Lisa Marchiano 7 The Body Factory: Twentieth Century Stories of Sex Change • Susan Matthews 8 A Full Life Uninterrupted by Transition • Miranda Yardley 9 Unheard Voices of Detransitioners • Carey Maria Catt Callahan 10 The View from the Consulting Room • Robert Withers 11 Trans Utopias: Transhumanism, Transfeminism and Manufacturing the Self • Jen Izaakson 12 Standing Up for Girls and Boys • Michele Moore