Thread by @BayswaterSG

Young people use the internet to construct transgender identities & parents need help to understand this.

So we recommend @Transgendertrd ’s excellent new essay on youtube influencers, which you can download free here:

transgendertrend.com/wp-content/upl…

>>

The ‘social laboratory’ of the internet is widely acknowledged. GIDS itself sponsored a D.Psych thesis by Xinyi Lee, on “transgender youths’ experiences of using social media”, based on 11 patient interviews. Download it here:

repository.essex.ac.uk/21276/

As Dr Lee wrote, “parents & clinicians [should be] working together in ensuring that social media use does not pose a risk… it is important for parents to be equally aware of the nature of social media platforms and the potential benefits & risks posed”

>>

In a section called “I found out how to be trans on YouTube” Dr Lee says YouTubers are seen by these GIDS teens as “an authority figure on how to be trans”. One “ascribe[d] more significance to a single person expressing their experience online than …more objective sources.”

>>

“For many of the participants, their first encounter with the word transgender was through online social media. .. It is therefore useful for clinicians … to have a discussion around what constitutes their awareness of trans matters and to distinguish facts from opinions.”

>>

Important to ask “questions about these young trans ppl’s relationship with social media, remaining mindful about whether opportunities online for more troubling kinds of interactions & information have influenced their perceptions… & have a discussion on the risks posed”.

>>

Social media is a powerful way for marginalised communities to gain a voice. As Dr Lee’s research suggests, there are also risks for vulnerable teens working out their identities and life problems. As much as our children are the first ‘digital natives’,

>>

we are the 1st generation of parents raising children with unfettered daily access to such a vast ungoverned resource. Children can connect with complete strangers & encounter extreme views, or unrealistic or troubling ideas about themselves.

>>

Sadly publishers, govt and policymakers seem uninterested in grappling with the harm that’s being done; indeed, it’s often framed as progress.