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i wonder how many people advocating for paediatric transition have ever had a conversation with a small child. genuinely.
the idea that children have an innate understanding of their gender identity goes against everything we know about both children and gender.
children learn by making broad, often incorrect categories for things. a small child who's family owns a dog might see a cat for the first time, recognise it's four legs and tail, and think it's a dog, because these traits are inextricably linked to dogs in their young minds.
similarly, if a child has only ever seen women wear dresses, they'll assume that only women wear dresses. little kids can't understand things like societal expectations, or exceptions to rules. the word 'sometimes' is often useless to them.
i had a conversation with my niece when she was five, and we were playing with one of my stuffed animals. she had gendered it (an elephant) as female, and pretended this toy was putting makeup on. when i offhandedly called the toy 'he', she insisted it was a girl, because -
it (in the fantasy) was wearing makeup now. i told her boys can wear makeup too. her face went completely blank. she tried for a few minutes to process that information, before eventually responding with 'no, makeup is for girls' and resuming play. she wasn't ready -
to adjust her schema on this topic, yet, at five years old. but children younger than her, expressing the exact same ideas about themselves - that they like things 'for girls', so they must be girls - is taken seriously. this is literally child psychology 101.
children don't have innate understandings about gender, because children have an innate understanding of very few things - they're always learning, and what they know about gender is taught. gender is socially constructed. no social construct is innate.
so when we accept that gender is a social construct, and that children learn gender roles from the adults around them, don't we see that an adult telling a child they're trans is acknowledging the child's personality and interests, and grooming them to better fit into -
one of two constructed gender roles? do we think that a five year old knows enough about gender not to follow their parents' lead here? isn't it a little suspicious that psychologists all over the world are suddenly forgetting everything they know about how children think?