Thread by @HairyLeggdHarpy

When I see a little boy like this, gaslighted so young, I'm scared for his future, and not solely because of the risk he may face from medical 'transition'.

It's that we only live childhood once. It forms who we are. He may even desist, unscathed by hormones or surgery.

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1411462041387339777

But even if he does, he will have to come to terms with the truth that his childhood has been a complete lie, his beliefs about himself utterly contorted throughout all his formative years.
Sex is such a huge part of who we are.

This child is being robbed of the chance to live his childhood with self-acceptance.
We each get one shot at growing up, forming who we are in our heads.
There are no do-overs.

How do you come to terms with losing your one chance to live your childhood in self-acceptance?

This is more than kids feeling negative or lacking self belief. We all grow up with some of that baggage.

This is about him believing at a fundamental level that he is a girl, forming his entire character throughout childhood on that basis.

Adults did that to him.

And I imagine him discovering as an adult that the whole of his childhood was a lie, and realising he can't go back and undo what that did to his brain, neurones, synapses and all.

What happens to us in childhood shapes us for life.

And although we choose our path as adults, that childhood experience and the changes it causes in us - that's irreversible.

You can lay down new thoughts and connections. You can direct your life. But you bring your childhood legacy with you. It's not erasable.

It must take a lifetime to reconcile to being the true sex you are, after a childhood of being told by adults, and believing to your very core, that you are something else.

Rejecting your very self.

Let's not do this to children.

/End