I don't know, what happened to old fashion parenting?

Plenty of kids that ages use to pretend to be one or the other and all the parents did was say oh how cute you are playing around.

Now it appears like everything needs to be a firm agenda with some kind of meaning. They are just kids lets them be kids no need to encourage OR discourage anything. Next some one will find correlation between a kid should be an X because they blink Y amount of times in 1 minute.

I don't think there is much to discuss here.
If your 5 year old son starts to wear girls clothes you should let him do that, maybe this is just a phase maybe not. You shouldn't push anything upon your child but you should support the decicions they make. If your child still holds those beliefs at the start of puberty, you should visit a doctor with them and talk about a hormone therapy. Hormone therapies are as far as I know not irreversible so if your son, after two years of hormone therapy suddenly changed his mind, the therapy can stop and he will have a delayed but normal puberty, if not he can decide to fully transition once he's 18.

"They don't have to.
But asexual people exist."

my point is that you are identifying them as asexual then claiming that their sexuality has nothing to do with their identity... doesn't that strike you as ironic?

"Don't make these generalized strawman arguments, trying to flamebait."

i did not make a strawman(since i could post examples fo this actually happening) and i do not know what flamebaiting is

"Fighting for gender equal rights in society does not mean they think there is no difference between men and women.
You know that."

i'd appreciate it very much if you didn't try to tell me what i actually believe

what does fighting for gender equal rights mean exactly? are you implying that we have one set of laws for men and another for women?

as far as i understand we have one set of laws and we apply those laws to both genders, can you elaborate on what you mean by fighting for gender equal rights?

What evidence do you have to the contrary that says that trans children supported in their decision still have a higher degree of mental issues? 

Alright, so you've got a descriptive claim that the trans community suffers from higher suicide rates. Now let's try for a normative statement. Mine would be that we should be more accepting of the trans community and that will decrease this rate. My evidence for that is the research I've cited previously. What do you think should be done about this higher suicide rate and what's your evidence that it would work?

I've told you over and over again my position, and you disagree with shit that's never been a part of it. So here, let's make this simple as possible.

Your 3-6 year old says they are a girl when you thought they were a boy. My position is that you should support their exploration and if they switch to saying they're a boy later you support them in that exploration too.

Same situation to you, what do you think should be done?

There isn't really anything to "buy" here. Ignoring the fact that we have words for these things real quick, it shouldn't be difficult to understand that there are both biological and social aspects of maleness and femaleness. Biological aspects of maleness/femaleness involve things like chromosomes and genital formation, while social aspects involve things like clothing choice and hobby choice. We know if we see someone wearing a dress, high heels and lipstick, that they are following social norms regarding femaleness. The very fact that you bring up things like chopping trees, joining the army, and wearing skirts or trousers here demonstrates that there are societal expectation of those things involving maleness and femaleness.

The word used to describe those societal norms is "gender".

Does this mean that someone who identifies as a female has to embody literally every aspect of femaleness? Of course not. There are a few different concepts which must be discussed here (and I want to keep this brief), but first I want to mention that our binary definitions of gender should be seen as a semantic limitation and not a functional one. This leads me to the first concept:

Gender expression - Gender expression refers simply to how an individual expresses themselves in relation to gender. Which norms do they adhere to and which norms do they not adhere to? As stated above, individuals rarely completely match social expectations for one gender so this basically refers to the spectrum between hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and everything in between.

Gender identity - Gender identity refers to the psychological aspects which point to how an individual identifies. This is up to the individual and is not assigned. No one is a woman because they express feminine characteristics or wear skirts, however, typically those who exhibit more "feminine" gender expression identity more as a woman (but not always).

Finally, sexuality doesn't really play into this question here, because sexuality isn't really social in the same way as the norms that we are speaking about. There are non-chosen aspects of sexuality which largely separates it from issues relating to transgenderism.

You view actual support of a child and fictional support as the very same thing as long as it exists under the same idea?

What are you even arguing about.

Bolded :That is kinda your problem in your first comments in this thread you immediately start putting words in other posters mouths and make an argument about something most people just agree on like in this very post you again think we talk about children being "supported".

Also your condencending example is laughable cause people in here are talking about that not all kids firstly know whats healthy for them and that some parents can misuse the whole concept to push genderpolitcal agenda on their own kids but they do not talk about healthy support being bad so you are missing the point of it all.

Again, dont start an argument with me when you need to put words into my mouth to win it.

Btw : I did read the link for your "evidence" and that is good information unrelated to your point but you do not understand the material if you call that evidence and on that very same site there is also lots of research to be found for higher suicide rates in the trans community so it is almost safe to assume you cherrypick information.

NO idea what you're getting at with the first statement, please rephrase.

What I've seen is people equating supporting a kid's gender choices with letting them drink, do drugs, or join a fucking war because kids don't know what they want. Tell me how that isn't assuming harm from the choice, and against the idea of supporting the kid's choices. 

The example gets to the most important question in this entire god damned thread. If you can't answer that then what are you disagreeing with? You think we're talking past each other, fine, tell me your actual position on the example in question and we can really quickly and easily figure out if we actually disagree. So again, your 3-6 year old says they're a girl when you thought they were a boy, what do you do?

Go ahead and explain to me how that evidence doesn't apply and give me the other links. I literally googled the effects of transitioning on transgender suicide rates and found that paper. So if you have other information then link it. Show me a study. 

Here's a link to the study in question to make sure we're talking about the same thing:

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/3/e20153223

Gender refers more to "norms" than "expectations", but that is pretty close.

As for your "man that wears dresses" example, you are speaking about gender expression here. This is something that I acknowledged in my last post. Some people are fine with being a man that wears dresses and expression does not force identity. There are entire subcultures dedicated to cross dressing and there is nothing wrong with that. However, these people tend to still identify as a man. That is where gender identity comes in. And yes, often their physical body does create discomfort. That is why transitioning is often employed. To allow an individual's body to match their identity.

Beyond that, it seems to be largely personal, emotional views which don't really have much of a root in facts and to be frank, your opinion isn't really the one that matters here. No one should care whether you think they should transition (I don't mean this in a rude way). What should matter is whether an individual would be more comfortable and be able to lead the life they wish to lead were they to transition. If you put a typical lumberjack looking man in a dress, they aren't going to be able to live as a woman without significant impediments. Transitioning often removes some of those impediments.

" We know if we see someone wearing a dress, high heels and lipstick, that they are following social norms regarding femaleness."

and that should make them a woman in your view?

This is a very serious and multi-faceted topic that I will try my best to explain my current stance on it. Apologies in advance if it comes across as scattered.

I'm not a parent, but from talking with and observing many parents and child psychologists, I'm of the opinion that pre-teens (and even in some cases teenage) gender swapping/transitioning, especially when encouraged by the parents is poor parenting and yes child abuse.

Some children identify as fire trucks and other non gendered objects in early ages. Sexuality in general is an odd and oft debated topic, especially in the contemporary. The data suggests that people's sexual identity and preferences are dependent on their parenting and how their male/female parental role models behaved with each other and towards the child.

For the record, Charlize Theron, is a single mother with two adopted children, divorced from her husband, living in a specific area of the US that comes of a great deal of scrutiny for it's controversial opinions. Take of all of that whatever you will.

One last point, transitioned individuals (adults, teens and children) often suffer from extreme depression, regret of their decision, and are at high risk of suicide.