Thread by @MForstater

This from my local police is disturbing. The interviews w the two young people, Jo & Kaitlyn from 3:20

How can it be in the interests of vulnerable young people to tell them they were "born in the wrong body"?

And that anyone who does not see these two as women hates them?

https://twitter.com/HertsPolice/status/1329755003318308864

The support group helps young people feel like they are 'not alone' while telling them they are outcasts and raising the stakes

...telling them that "who they are" is a person of the opposite sex, that people have "died for believing who they are": the world is hostile.

"the support group has done a world of good for me....it helped me feel like i was not alone. I've grown in confidence. I've helped people. The group does a good job at helping people who need to feel normal and feel like they are not alone. All we want is to be accepted in life"

Who doesn't want this?

Especially young people who don't fit in.

The Who Not What Project is run by @HertsYoungPride @YCHertfordshire with funding from @TNLComFund

youngprideinherts.org/media/1078/lgb…

It is aimed at "LGBTQ young people aged between 13 and 24, providing them with safe and confidential places to meet, socialise and talk about issues of
interest and relevance to them as young LGBTQ people.

They do cooking, games and crafts.

The most common declared sexual orientation of the children (mainly under 16) is "panromantic"

73% of the children and young people answered the sexual orientation as pansexual, bi, asexual, don't know or NA (...or possibly just teenagers figuring life out...)

These are kids growing up with an intense pressure to declare a sexual and gender identity

Many of the young people who attend the group are troubled.

Two fifths say their mental health or emotional health is not good.

Only a quarter say it is good.

The group seems to provide a supportive place to be for young people who don't have more organic social groups

Everyone need a place to go.... but are these children and vulnerable young people only being offered a welcoming 'second home' based on a focus on the political and sexual identity of being "LGBTQ"?

Only 45% identify as either male or female

- the rest have adopted the idea of mind/body mismatch as solving their social and emotional issues

And of course to question whether the two young people interviewed are really women makes you transphobic and hateful, isolating them from any other source of support which might not involve hormone treatment, surgery & the dream of being accepted as the opposite sex.