CNN faced significant backlash online after publishing an article on Sunday advising parents to take their four-year-olds seriously when they claim to be transgender.
The article, titled “If your kid just told you they’re trans, here’s what you should know,” has drawn criticism for its stance. It features a Methodist pastor recounting how her four-year-old daughter insisted she was a boy and described a mother whose child transitioned to identifying as non-binary at age 8 and later as a girl at age 10. This mother is now a co-lead for the group Families United for Trans Rights.
Nova Bright-Williams, a trans-identifying man at the Trevor Project, is quoted in the article emphasizing the importance of parents pausing and listening to their children’s gender declarations. Bright-Williams argues that affirming a child’s new gender identity can prevent suicides, though several recent studies suggest that social transition does not necessarily improve the mental health of children and teens.
The article advises parents to thank their children for sharing their experiences and to ask supportive questions. It warns that rejecting a child’s new gender identity could damage the parent-child relationship.
Social media users, particularly on the platform X, quickly criticized CNN for its recommendation. Many mocked the idea of taking a four-year-old’s gender identity declaration seriously. Conservative commentator Joel Pollak pointed out the absurdity of the advice, and another user emphasized that four-year-olds typically engage in age-appropriate activities like listening to Disney princesses and playing with toys.
Critics also suggested that parents should investigate how their young children were exposed to gender ideology in the first place. They expressed concerns that such exposure might be happening at school and urged parents to scrutinize what is being taught, especially after realizing discrepancies between perceived and actual school curricula during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The article claims that it is “rare” for children to detransition and promotes puberty blockers as a solution to gender distress, stating that withholding them is not a neutral decision since puberty is permanent. However, puberty blockers are known to have significant side effects, including impacts on bone growth, sexual dysfunction, voice damage, and infertility.
GLAAD praised the CNN article as a “must-read” and used the opportunity to criticize The New York Times for its more skeptical coverage of medical transitions for children, suggesting that CNN’s approach was the correct way to report on trans youth without bias.