Tag: bakla

‘Gently but firmly’ is the manner in which parents of children manifesting sex non-conforming behaviour are adjured to make those children desist.

Professors J Michael Bailey and Ray Blanchard penned an open letter to the Fourth Wave Now website in 2017. It is as relevant today as it was then. In it they made many valuable points. The article is long but the most concerning part is here:

If you want your childhood-onset gender dysphoric child to desist, and if your child is still well below the age of puberty (which varies, but let’s say, younger than 11 years), you should firmly (but kindly and patiently) insist that your child is a member of his/her birth sex…You should not allow your child to engage in behaviors such as cross dressing and fantasy play as the other sex. Above all else, you should not let your child socially transition to the other sex.

At the same time, you should recognize that despite your best efforts, your child may ultimately need to transition to be happy. If your child’s gender dysphoria persists well into adolescence (again, the ages vary by child, but let’s say age 14 or so), s/he is much more likely to transition. At that point, in our opinion, parents should consider supporting transition.
(my italics)

(I will put a copy of the original paper on my websites at https://www.rodfleming.com and https://patreon.com/sexology )

Bailey and Blanchard are both highly respected and here they are simply restating what we might call the ‘establishment position’. However, there are significant problems with the above statement and I will deal with these. I am aware that they do not use the phrase ‘gently but firmly’ here, but that is a reasonable rendering of the phrase they do use.

Continue reading “Gently but firmly: When does that become coercion?”