It gets worse her mother is pretending to be TWO different women interviewing Lauren .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnlmv0S3KOo

I do believe that the family are very insular and the kids have been damaged as a result. However it's been that way for so long now that I doubt Lauren could live independently from them, and to do so would be bad for her mental state. They remind me a lot of that chubby Chawner family who will do anything to get on tv and all live together in blissful ignorance of their own dsyfunctionality.

It is well known that Lauren's family's businesses have all sorts of lines to it. It is obviously a close and loving family so good luck to them.
But her unusual family are not in the BB house and Lauren for once is alone so they are having to cope without her.
Those so called "experts" on BBBOTS are paid for the rubbish they spout out every night and anyone could do their job as well if they want to.

She can't help being raised by con-artists... They've always used her & I don't think she knows any better... It doesn't help that they do genuinely love her. Breaking away from their influence would be too painful.

Good Lord, that really is nuts.

Lauren is so dependent on her parents that the thought went though my mind last night that she'll be seriously lost when they die.

Unable to cope with the real world (no friends or outside support that she has mentioned).

Unfortunately, this is a car crash waiting to happen.

It's incredibly sad isn't it?

It would seem that they have 'used' Lauren from a very early age to court publicity and keep their family in the public eye. She may well have chosen to have the surgery on her own but somehow I really doubt it.

It seems that she will be and always has who and what they sday she is.

It's quite clearly not right ...................she has been made dependent on them IMO because she's lived her life as their puppet/pay cheque.

This is what makes me think that the whole sex change was something her parents put into her head rather than it being little James himself who wanted it....

Lauren's two brothers have also had the same kind of life ..they also appear to have no or few friends ..didn't one of her brothers say it took him over 17 yrs to make friends because they were all withdrawn from school. I still believe their parents are a disgrace.they have damaged their children's lives ..

Yes - I agree.

Exactly. Nobody who has completed any sort of qualification's first thought would be "And I have a certificate to prove it!".


It's a bit like the League of Gentlemen, when the police ask Tubbs if they've seen a missing hitchhiker, and her first reaction is "WE DIDN'T BURN HIM!".

Barking mad, the whole family is barking mad!

Sorry i don't know how to post a link but if you watch 'little lady fauntleroy - extras' on that page the film is a lot more indicative of Laurens true character imo. She is gregarious and outgoing in the pub, she is displaying absoloutely no dyspraxia symptoms, but for me the most telling part is the way she treats that poor dog....is this just a reflection of Laurens life? Lauren has been manipulated her whole life and I am afraid until her parents; particularly her mother, are not part of her life she will never be able to function autonomously in the 'real world'.

I thought exactly the same. They are co-dependent right now but perhaps, after the grief subsides, it will be the making of her. I hope so. (I don't wish death on her parents, of course!).

They seem to be the sort of parents who are frightened of being without their children so make them ultra-dependent on them by giving them neuroses and making them feel comfortable only with them.

I agree entirely. Who would groom their ten year old son into becoming a con artist then make an exhibition of him on national TV? The same fame hungry parents who would have no qualms about persuading him that he needed a sex change for all the media attention that would bring to them as a family.

I sincerely hope I am wrong about this, but I wonder what 'James' would be like now if he had had properly trained therapists and counselors instead of his own parents. Maybe he would still have had a sex change and become Lauren but on the other hand he might have stayed as 'James' and be taught to come to terms with, and be comfortable with, his sexuality as a gay man, but we will never know unfortunately.

OMG i,m thinking the same,i have a friend who as recently undergone the operation, male/female, for years now she as had to participate in lengthy counseling sessions, to prepare her for life pre op and post op, and basically to see if its what she really wants, if at any time the professional thought she wasnt ready for the transition, the operation wouldn,t of gone ahead, so i question why lauren,s own mother counseled her, and not an outsider

I am also bewildered by this for two reasons. Firstly, how could the medical profession be fooled by a woman with no proper qualifications posing as a counselor to her own son . When it became obvious she had conned them all by pretending to be another woman posing as a trained counselor to James, why wasn't action taken against her? :confused.

Secondly, how could a mother put her own child through such a life changing ordeal without seeking properly trained expert advice? Even a fully trained person would want to seek other opinions I would have thought, to make absolutely sure it was the right step for their child to take.

With regard to Lauren's gender realignment surgery and now also with regard to a mooted operation on her back, I've seen her say that she's had privately funded medical treatment because 'the NHS would take too long'

Although I can see the obvious desperation from people who feel they're living in the wrong body, or people who are in excruciating pain, bone fide and proper medical practitioners, therapists, psychologists et al stress the importance of time and effort put in to be sure that the end result is both genuinely needed and the best possible outcome for the patient.

It could be argued that Lauren's route to her change of gender, circumvented all the proper channels and one wonders why that might be?

It also worries me that for Lauren herself it is her defining feature.

When I saw their faces I thought Lauren was a clone of her mother and her father looked like an older Martin Freeman

Also the "take too long" argument doesn't make a lot of sense when you take into account the time it's apparently taken to raise the money.

The most obvious explanation would be using some backstreet doctor that doesn't look to closing at the mother's referral letter and her qualifications to make one.

Well for a start, parents who are concerned for their child's future mental wellbeing if they continue to be trapped in a body they do not believe is their natural state?

Although I'm not sure taking your child to a doctor because he displayed feminine mannerisms is a neccessarily a good way of choosing your specialist. I'd be looking at his medical credentials, not his attitude.

"They put up a shrine to you in the square"


"Oh, how lovely".


"But after the Philip Schofield incident they had it removed"


"Oh...".

What a stupid interview that is ..crazy the lot of them and anyone taken in by it is equally MAD ..no wonder Lauren is crazy with that as a role model [as I have said before] Deluded detached from reality fame seekers

Very much so.

But in all honesty, this is a terribly sad story. And if the theories are true, and the gender surgery was the parent's idea, that is truly horrific.