Children understanding their own identity is not the same as surgery
Dr Helen Webberley on Heretics: the gender debate, with Andrew Gold, Heretics
Letting children express a trans identity is the same as putting them through surgery. People hear "gender-affirming care for young children" and picture irreversible medical procedures, as though a five-year-old saying she is a girl leads straight to an operating theatre.
I want to be absolutely clear about what is actually happening here, because the conflation is doing real damage. No child is having genital surgery because of gender incongruence. That is not how any of this works, and it has never been how any of this works. What we are talking about, when we talk about young children, is identity: the simple, human capacity to know whether you are a boy or a girl. Children develop that sense of self from a very young age. A four-year-old, a six-year-old, an eight-year-old, can absolutely understand who they are. Recognising that, and letting them live accordingly, is not a medical intervention. It is just listening to a child.
More from this conversation
