Trans identity is not a proxy for sexuality or trauma
Dr Helen Webberley on TalkTV: the conversion therapy ban, with Julia Hartley-Brewer, TalkTV
Trans children are really just gay kids who haven't come out yet, or young people who've experienced sexual abuse and are confused about their identity because of it. The two things get conflated all the time, as though being trans must have a cause that explains it away.
I've heard these claims so many times, and they need saying plainly: a trans child's gender identity has nothing to do with their sexuality, and it is not a symptom of trauma. The two are separate things. Some trans people are gay, some are straight, some are bisexual, some are none of those, just as with everyone else. And while some trans young people have experienced abuse, so have some cisgender young people; one does not produce the other. Using trauma or sexuality as a catch-all explanation for trans identity is not a clinical finding, it is a way of not believing the child in front of you.
More from this conversation
