Book Recommendation: So, You Think You May Be Trans... A Critical Guide to the Debate Around Trans Identities for Parents, Teachers and Others Involved With Caring for Children and Young People

NEWS COMMENTARY

Gender Health Query recommends the book by Tim Davies, 'So, you think you may be trans... A critical guide to the debate around trans identities for parents, teachers and others involved with caring for children and young people.

This book covers many of the issues addressed on our website. The book is factual and written with compassion. Some topics include the history of the trans movement, a clear description of gender ideology, and the complex issue regarding gender dysphoric minors and mental health.

Book description:

In the last ten years there has been a meteoric rise in the number of children and young people self-identifying as 'trans' and seeking to transition to the opposite gender. This is a global phenomenon, apparent throughout the English-speaking world, Europe, South America and beyond. In England and Wales, the explosion in referrals to gender identity clinics has resulted in long waiting lists and, in 2022, to the proposal to reconfigure and extend NHS gender identity services for children and young people.
The response to this development encouraged by the World Professional Association for transgender Health and many official medical bodies (and endorsed by trans-activist organisations) is 'affirmative care': accepting what a child says on the basis that only they can know their 'true' gender identity.
There are now dozens of books available providing parents, teachers and other carers with step-by-step guides to facilitating the child or young person's transition. This is not one of them!
In the last few years, increasing numbers of young adults have appeared on on-line platforms expressing 'transition regret' and seeking to de-transition. At the same time, medical authorities in a number of countries - Finland, Sweden, France, England - have rejected affirmative care and adopted a much more cautious approach to treating minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
All of this leaves parents, teachers, residential care workers, etc. in an invidious position. How should they best support a child or young person who tells them that they're trans? Clearly, there are people for whom transition offers the chance to relieve deeply-felt distress about being 'trapped in the wrong body'. But, equally clearly, there are many troubled youngsters caught up in this new social phenomenon who wrongly believe that transitioning offers a quick fix for more deep-seated problems.
This book aims to provide parents, teachers and others with caring responsibilities with the knowledge and understanding they need to feel confident in responding to gender-questioning children and adolescents. It is not a step-by-step route guide, but a guide to the terrain.
The book provides a brief history of transsexuality, suggests why there has been this explosive growth in cases (and why it is adolescent girls who have been the most affected), explores what children and adolescents might mean when they say they're 'trans' and takes an in-depth look at the medical debate around diagnosis, assessment and treatment. In addition, it examines the role of what has been called 'gender ideology' and - in order to contextualise the debate surrounding trans youngsters -provides a commentary on the wider debate surrounding girls' and women's sex-based rights.