Trans identity in children is often driven by parental influence
Andrew Gold said:
“what's really happening is the mother or father, some sort of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, is saying, No, but you can be a boy if you want, we will love you if you're a boy.”
Munchausen by proxy is a recognised clinical condition, and invoking it gives the claim medical framing. The idea that parents might unconsciously or deliberately encourage a child's trans identity taps into widespread anxiety about parental influence on children's development.
Factitious disorder imposed on another is a real and serious condition, and it is also genuinely rare, which is precisely why clinicians are trained to look for it carefully rather than assume it everywhere. What the research actually shows is almost the opposite of this claim: the parents of trans children are far more likely to spend months or years pushing back, hoping it is a phase, than to be the ones introducing the idea. Gender incongruence that persists across different environments, different carers, different schools, and different years is one of the key things clinicians look for, because it is the clearest sign that what a child is expressing is coming from inside rather than being shaped by the adults around them. Taking a diagnosis meant to describe a specific pattern of harm and applying it as a blanket explanation for an entire population of children does not protect those children; it replaces their self-knowledge with a suspicion aimed squarely at the people most likely to be keeping them safe.
What I said at the time:
“that's why we shouldn't let old people be dictating this.”
Parents of trans children, who face the implication that their support for their child is a form of abuse, and trans children themselves, whose self-knowledge is dismissed as manufactured.