CNN has come under fire after publishing an article on Sunday advising parents to take their four-year-old children 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 sparked a wave of criticism on social media.

The article cites several examples of young children "coming out" as transgender, including a four-year-old girl who allegedly told her mother that she "told God when I was a star in the sky that I was a boy, but God made me a girl." Another example featured a mother who "gave birth to a baby she thought was a boy," but the child later identified as non-binary at age 8 and as a girl at age 10.

The article quotes Nova Bright-Williams, a trans-identifying man at the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that claims to work on preventing LGBT youth suicides. Bright-Williams advises parents to "pause" and "really listen" when their children's visions of their gender identity are "interrupted."

Parenting advice from ⁦@CNN⁩: if your 4-year-old starts talking about gender identity, you need to listen. To the four-year-old. Who is 4. Years old. https://t.co/Qq4pbmRkvI

— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) June 2, 2024

Critics on social media were quick to mock CNN for recommending parents take their small children's gender identity declarations seriously. Conservative commentator and Breitbart editor-at-large Joel Pollak tweeted, "Parenting advice from CNN⁩: if your 4-year-old starts talking about gender identity, you need to listen. To the four-year-old. Who is 4. Years old."

Others argued that if young children are discussing gender identity, it is a sign that they have been exposed to gender ideology, possibly at school. 

The article also claims that it is "rare" for children to detransition and promotes the use of puberty blockers to relieve gender distress, despite potential side effects such as impaired bone growth, sexual dysfunction, voice damage, and infertility.

GLAAD, an LGBT media monitoring organization, praised the article as a "must-read" and criticized the New York Times for publishing opinion pieces skeptical of medical transition for children.

Must-read  on @CNN: "If your kid just told you they’re trans, here’s what you should know"

(take note, @NYTimes, this is how to report on trans youth accurately and without bias) https://t.co/luheXqw2vP

— GLAAD (@glaad) June 3, 2024