Do we really need stories like this?
Oh dear. Oh dearie, dear. A 4-year-old transgender girl has started school, in – GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! – a pinafore school dress. It’s the end of the civilization as we know it. The perverts are coming for our children. Michty me, we’ll a’ be murderit in oor beds by the communists! Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children?
The story broke in the media on 21 April 2016, and why it is even a story is beyond me. But nonetheless, three UK comics masquerading as newspapers covered the story, with the usual hyperbole and ignorant and loaded headlines one has come to expect from the British gutter press, and the usual uninformed and abusive comments from their scumbag troglodyte readership (yes dears, I am no slouch at hyperbole myself).
The story surrounds little Logan Symonds, who at age 4 is starting school with her twin brother, Alfie. The only difference is that Alfie will be wearing a boy’s uniform, and Logan will wear a girl’s pinafore dress – and having seen their pics, they are BOTH as cute as buttons. According to mother Emma, Logan has identified as a girl from the age of 18 months, has always played with “girls” toys, and wanted to dress as a girl. Emma says that Logan wanted to wear dresses from an early age, would throw tantrums and even become aggressive when she tried to dress her in boys clothes and even said she hoped her penis would fall off. Eventually she relented, tried letting Logan wear girls clothes, and noticed a great improvement in behaviour from the child. For the twins fourth birthday party Alfie was dressed in a superman outfit, while Logan was dressed in a ‘Frozen’ princess dress (EEP! She’s ADORABLE!). Before starting school, Logan told her mother she wanted to be in a dress “like the other girls”.
And so as the media ran with the story, they inevitably ran their headlines, with male pronouns and implied outrage. First off the rank was that darling rag of the British right-wing, the Daily Mail. “Mother allows one of her twin boys, four, to wear a DRESS to school because he has believed he is a girl since he was just 18 months old – while the other son is happy to remain a boy” ranted the headline in the Mail, which was also quick to point out that Emma Symonds is a single mum. Repeating the Mail story almost word for word was the Daily Mirror, supposedly a left-wing newspaper, whose headline thundered “Supportive mum lets son, aged 4, wear skirt to school: ‘It’s a big step for us all”, and the following day the story ran in the Mirror’s Scottish edition, the Daily Record, with the headline “Four-year-old twin boy starts school in a dress after his mum agrees to let him live as a girl”. In all three newspapers, the stories continually refer to Logan as a boy, and with the common use of “he”, “him”, etc.
But if the ignorance of the red tops were not enough, comments from the readers are truly depressing. I was actually quite surprised at the amount of support from Mail readers, much more than the supposedly ‘socialist’ Mirror and Record, but there were still the fair amount of idiots in the Mail.
“This is a psychiatric problem that should have been addressed long ago. That poor little boy has been let down by his mother.”
One wonders just what qualifications this person has in psychiatry, particularly when mum Emma is addressing a psychological issue with Logan in allowing her to be who she is?
“Why all of a sudden these gender issues are coming up? Honestly I’d love to hear from folks who wanted to be the opposite gender when they were kids (for example, this boys age) and how it was handled back then. And how they’re doing now. It’s only these past few years ppl are believing they’re the opposite gender from what they were born and the rest of us are being held hostage to those beliefs and demands.”
It’s coming more to the fore nowadays as society is becoming more educated and accepting of gender issues, and we fought bloody long and hard to achieve that, without any help from the cis community. How was it handled back “then” is easily answered; you were TOLD what gender you were, you had to suppress that and hide it from society, from your friends, even from your family, for fear of rejection and punishment. The results were imprisonment for some, being cast out from family and friends, depression, suicide, and even murder for others – just as it is for a great number of transgender and genderfluid people to this day. You want to hear from folks who questioned their gender from an early age years ago? Try listening to / reading what we have to say.
“18 months old when he declared he wanted to be a girl. Totally ridiculous.”
“Crikey, he could talk well for an 18 month old child then!”
Because of course, had Logan declared at 18 months “I am a boy” that would have been equally “ridiculous” and his vocabulary would have been questioned, wouldn’t it? 18-months-old can express themselves quite clearly; it is adults who only need to listen to them.
From the Mirror:
“I wanted to be a super man when I was a child ? my parents didn’t send me off to space or something.”
More’s the pity they didn’t, dear. And learn some English grammar – PLEASE!
“It sounds genuine but she could be one of those liberal nuts forcing the child.”
Yeah, because that happens all the time, doesn’t it? No, wait. It’s the opposite – transgender kids being told they are cisgender – which happens all the time.
“What is going to happen if this carries on, then his hormones kick in and he realises he’s a boy. It’s going to cause nothing but confusion and heartache for all involved. Let him play with what he wants and dress up however, but don’t take him out and let it become who he “thinks” he is.“
The only heartache is when the hormones do kick in, when Logan’s biology is at odds with her psychological gender, and she has to deal with them. The only confusion and heartache worth any consideration are Logan’s – it’s none of anyone else’s damned business. Nooo, don’t take her out. Keep her indoors, allowing her to dress up only indoors, thereby compounding her confusion and heartache over who Logan knows she is.
“my son played with his sisters cars and loved dressing up in dresses at preschool then next minute he would be dressed as a fireman and his sister vice versa.”
Dressing up to play, which children will soon tire off, and wanting to dress according to the gender one identifies with are two completely different things. Likewise, if it were a ‘phase’ then it’s one that has apparently now lasted 2½ years.
“My daughter has always hated girlie and that is fine, i would not buy her pink clothes and expect her to wear them, at 11 she has a short hairstyle and is happier to wear girls trousers etc but she is a girl and wants to be a girl.”
Or have YOU decided she wants to be a girl? And how shocked are you going to be if she comes out as transgender or lesbian?
I leave the last to the Daily Record, and Scotland, I am so sadly disappointed that you have given the most vitriolic responses:
“Obviously, once Mummy found out she was having twins, she decided she wanted a boy and a girl ! I wonder how she worked out which one she wanted to be the girl, given she gave them both boy’s names ! It’s a worry !”
Because of course mum Emma wanted a daughter so much (except that Logan and Alfie already have an elder sister) that as a single mother, she decided to give both of her twins boys names, when she could have easily have given one of them a girl’s or even ambiguous name, such as Lindsay? I why should it be a worry when it’s not any of your business?
“This four year old probably wants to be superman too. Maybe she should put his underpants on outside his trousers and see how that goes!!”
Perhaps you should put your underpants over your trousers – seeing as a keyboard warrior you have nothing to fill them with? See point above about the difference between dressing up and identifying.
“Fatherless families are destroying the fabric of social order. Men are no longer wanted in a feminist driven society and this story is just another example of it. Guilt oriented women showering their children with ‘support’ because their life choices caused a fatherless family.”
Yes, single mums and the feminists are all to blame, because children need male role models and men are “no longer wanted” (depends on the man, dear – check out my vast collection of Johnny Depp movies; he’s certainly wanted). What a misogynist twat. The person stating this went under the name “Dambustersgm”, which is a reference to the bomber crews of World War II who bombed dams. So, had Logan’s father been in the armed forces and killed in action, would Emma being a single mum still be so offensive to him?
“you are nothing more than a pervert and a peadophile enabler…no doubt you are common purpose or working for an agency… your time is coming.. this is nothing more than abuse and targetting young children….you are nothing but scum” (in response to one supportive commentator)
The overwhelming vast majority of paedophiles (notice I can actually spell it), even those who prey upon little boys, are in fact cisgender heterosexual men, with cishet women second, although the incidence is far lower. Transgender and homosexual men and women are right at the bottom of incidences of child sexual abuse, and a child is much safer in the company of LGBT+ people than in that of the cishet mainstream
“This is irresponsible parenting or at worst child abuse I think it’s the mother that needs professional help.”
Nope. Child abuse is when you force a child to be something they are not, which if mum Emma had forced Logan to identify as male, then she would have been abusing her child. It’s people like this who need professional help, and educating on gender issues.
If I have any issue with the story of Logan, then it’s why it should even be in the media in the first place. Emma Symonds appears to be a very well-informed and supportive mother (although she does still use male pronouns, but I’m guessing that’s a hard habit to break), so if I have any criticism, it would be to ask if she is actually courting this publicity, and if so, just why? And should she read this, I’d like her to understand that’s not in any way an attack, but merely a genuine question.
The stigmatisation of transgender and genderfluid individuals, particularly childwill only end when it is fully understood and accepted as normal. When that happens, the media will not run stories like this, because there will be no copy value in them. But as long as they are ran, complete with ignorant and transphobic headlines and hyperbole, then society is always going to respond with outright bigotry. In the end, the gender of anyone, any child, is nobody’s business but their own, and the only expert on anyone’s gender is the individual themselves, no matter how young or how old they may be.
Be better scrapping it altogether.
Xandra 
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