How would you feel if your child wanted to transition to another gender? Would you agree to provide them with the medication to assist them in doing so during their teenage years?
Psychotherapist Stella O'Malley recently made a documentary for Channel 4 called Trans Kids: It's Time To Talk, in which she explores the huge rise in the number of young people embarking on gender transition.
Stella has a personal interest in the subject, as she experienced gender dysphoria herself while growing up.
For many years she identified as a boy, and says she found it "incredibly difficult to emerge from. I was haunted by the question: are you a boy or a girl?"
Stella says she was accepted as a boy, at home and at school, and was allowed to be whoever she wanted to be. But by the time she reached puberty, she became more confused about her gender identity.
"I remember feeling, 'I have no option — the girl that I am is kicking back here'."
"I moved from what would now be termed gender dysphoria into self-loathing and a disconnection with my body."
In adulthood, Stella is comfortable as a woman and says she hasn't experienced any lingering feelings of gender dysphoria.
But she thinks that, if she were a teenager today, she would definitely have looked into puberty blockers and insisted on going down that road.
In the documentary she met people with different experiences of transitioning, one of whom later lost her feelings of gender dysphoria, as Stella did.
"These are children making very big, adult decisions, and that concerned me as we started to make the film."
Stella has received criticism on social media from people who feel she shouldn't be involved in the discussion as she hasn't transitioned.
She says: "I personally think everybody has a voice in every debate as long as they're respectful and enquiring and ready to be told that they're completely wrong. I think it's appropriate to ask questions."
"All I wanted to do was make sure that we weren't doing any harm to kids, and that none of this 2,500% rise in England and 2,100% rise in Ireland of children being referred for gender treatment services could be children like me, children who were disturbed and mixed up but who didn't need medical intervention to make their lives better."
To catch the full chat press the play button on the image on the top of the screen
