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Gender swap situation

831 replies

TenThousandYears · 24/06/2025 10:18

I know you're all probably fed up hearing about this subject...I just need to vent.

DD has been friends with "Sally" for 10 years. (Both 14) Since nursery. In the last few months Sally has decided to change gender and now wants to be called " Ron"

DD just can't wrap her head around this. If she slips up, she gets nasty looks from "Ron" and so she's treading on eggshells.

Ron's brother still refers to Ron as Sally so DD is very confused by it all.

I'm on DDs side. Personally, I would hate to be in her shoes right now. I think if you meet someone and are introduced to them as whomever then that's easier to accept than having to change names and pronouns of someone you've been friends with for 10 years. On TV shows people just accept this straight away and move on but I'm not convinced that it's really that easy.

I also think 14 is a bit young for these changes but that's just my personal opinion.

Are me and my child horrible people for not being able to accept this right away?

OP posts:
lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 16:56

AlphaApple · 24/06/2025 16:34

The best way I've had it explained is that trans isn't something you are, it's something you do.

Well yes if the 'doing' means imposing your belief system on others and not giving any regard on the harm to others of it.

I'll never understand how men adopting 'woman face', often in the most overtly sexualised way, is not treated in the same way as black face or any other form of appropriation.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 24/06/2025 16:39

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:43

This conversation has no more to do with safeguarding than homophobia had anything to do with safeguarding during the days of Section 28.

Nope. The open homophobia involved in persuading children many of who, if left alone by transactivists, would likely grow up to be gay is homophobic conversion therapy writ large. (See Cass review & Hannah Barnes book "Time to Think' for the data about this).
As an adult you can hold whatever beliefs you choose - that's your call. But you don't get to gaslight children below the age of consent and without the wisdom and experience to navigate this incoherent adult ideology, that changing sex is a good thing for them. Especially in the light of all the evidence that the majority of the children concerned have major co morbidities including eating disorders, suicidal ideation, autism and a host of ioher challenges that until now have been ignored in the face of their belief that a sex change is possible.

That's why you get so much push back on here - because you ignore all the safeguarding risks to children in favour of pushing your own beliefs that sex change is a good thing for children.
It isn't. It's a catastrophic choice to make before you've got the maturity and insight to fully appreciate the harm it will do to your physical and mental health.

TheKeatingFive · 24/06/2025 16:39

AlphaApple · 24/06/2025 16:34

The best way I've had it explained is that trans isn't something you are, it's something you do.

And what is it you do?

Butchyrestingface · 24/06/2025 16:38

TenThousandYears · 24/06/2025 10:44

My DD is just talking to Ron normally, as if nothing has changed, which is what Ron wanted as far as my conversation with his mum suggested. However, he seems irritated that Dd isn't using the name or the pronoun. Buy she never would have anyway. She just looks at someone and starts talking to them. DH is the same. He rarely uses my name.

Why would your daughter be referring to 'Ron' Sally by their name or pronoun in direct, face-to-face conversation anyway?

Do you think Ron/Sally is looking to pick a fight?

emeg · 24/06/2025 16:37

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:31

Sexuality is a feeling/ cognition, it doesn't mean it isn't real. Hunger is a feeling/ cognition - doesn't mean it isn't real.

This has got nothing to do with "telling the truth" or otherwise, or who believes what, or someone's opinion on mumsnet.

Being trans is a real condition. It affects a small minority of people. You are lucky you are not one of them as it's not an easy thing to live with. There's no need for you to have an opinion about the veracity of someone else's condition. You are not their doctor, you are not a scientist.

Please for the love of god, just cease.

Edited

Yes, sexuality is - or boils down to - a feeling. If I feel I am attracted to people of the same or opposite sex, that is definitive of my sexuality. That's because to feel attracted is to be attracted.

But if we consider the feelings involved in trans, things are very different. If I feel I am the opposite sex, this is only definitive of the fact that I am mistaken. It might be sad for me, but that's how things are.

Yes feelings are real. But sometimes what feelings are about aren't real.

Morgenrot25 · 24/06/2025 16:37

AlphaApple · 24/06/2025 16:34

The best way I've had it explained is that trans isn't something you are, it's something you do.

More meaningless words.

AlphaApple · 24/06/2025 16:36

Stompythedinosaur · 24/06/2025 16:04

I can only assume this is completely made up. I don't believe there's a 14yo in the country that doesn't have some sort of awareness of the existence of trans people and the expectation to respect pronouns. I work widely across schools in my region, and I find teens are generally far more familiar with this than older people.

Oh god it's a "children are so wise" person.

Children are children. Adults generally know better (although a whole portion of adults have lost their collective minds over this it seems).

AlphaApple · 24/06/2025 16:34

lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 15:58

So you keep saying. So what is being trans then?

Please can you give a definition of what being trans actually is?

The best way I've had it explained is that trans isn't something you are, it's something you do.

marshmallowpuff · 24/06/2025 16:27

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

Why didn’t anyone have this before the word “transsexual” existed? At the start of the twentieth century, for example, that “feeling” was understood explicitly to be homosexuality.

Despite what the trans lobby claims, there’s plenty of historical evidence that people cross dressed because they were same-sex attracted; and lots of evidence that women expressed a desire to be male because then they would have the freedoms men had and women didn’t.

But there is not much , if any at all, historical evidence of the contemporary idea of “trans”, or indeed of any men desiring to be women (as opposed to enjoying dressing like women), before the twentieth century, though there is plenty of evidence of them actually cross-dressing in gay male spaces.

Why do you think that is?

AutumnFog · 24/06/2025 16:20

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:22

It’s. Not. A. Belief. System.

That's like saying Christianity isn't a belief system. I'm sure plenty think christianity is also based in facts and theres proof, but whenever there is no actual factual basis to a belief it is by definition a belief.

marshmallowpuff · 24/06/2025 16:18

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:22

It’s. Not. A. Belief. System.

Of course it is. “Gender” is not sex, but is the social performance of sex roles and stereotypes, which are not immutable, but are different in London and Bahrain and Chengdu; and were different in 1300 and 1840 and 2025.

“Identities” are beliefs we hold abut ourselves and stories we tell ourselves (and others) about who we think we are. That’s why nationality is not the same as national identity, race is not the same as racial identity or cultural identity, and so on. Identities are not material things, but socially constructed belief systems. (Nobody is born “feeling German” or “innately Christian”, are they, despite many ideologies trying to give us the impression that their culturally constructed beliefs are inborn.)

It just makes you sound a bit silly to claim that “gender identity”, an idea which has only existed for a relatively short amount of time, is somehow not a “belief system” (indeed, the very notion of “identity” didn’t exist in the contemporary sense before the 1950s at the earliest).

Naunet · 24/06/2025 16:18

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:35

I have every right to tell you to cease with your harmful opinions about a very challenging minority condition of which you very clearly have no insight or understanding.

I will do so again - please, for the love of all that is good and decent in the world, cease.

Edited

No.
You don't get to push an ideology on people, one that harms women and children, and then tell us not to question it. I've never heard a single TRA define woman gender and man gender, I've heard them say "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" which tells us how they believe someone can become a woman, but not what woman gender is. The whole ideology is built on a house of cards, and thats why they try and close down questions and push back so hard, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

croftplaced · 24/06/2025 16:18

Tandora · 24/06/2025 15:54

Being trans is not an ideology

How does a boy live as a girl?

please enlighten us? I bet you don’t.

croftplaced · 24/06/2025 16:15

@Tandora

”Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.
your actual sex and reality.

helping you out

Cabbageheads · 24/06/2025 16:11

Stompythedinosaur · 24/06/2025 16:04

I can only assume this is completely made up. I don't believe there's a 14yo in the country that doesn't have some sort of awareness of the existence of trans people and the expectation to respect pronouns. I work widely across schools in my region, and I find teens are generally far more familiar with this than older people.

That's a bit . . . ageist.

TheKeatingFive · 24/06/2025 16:09

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

Two extremely unclear ideas here

'Your understanding of yourself as being a man/woman/etc' - where does this come from? What is it based on?

'How you were registered at birth?' Registered as what? Based on what? Registered by who?

lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 16:09

Stompythedinosaur · 24/06/2025 16:04

I can only assume this is completely made up. I don't believe there's a 14yo in the country that doesn't have some sort of awareness of the existence of trans people and the expectation to respect pronouns. I work widely across schools in my region, and I find teens are generally far more familiar with this than older people.

So you work in schools and in spite of Cass and the Supreme Court Judgement you still believe this is the right thing to do?

It's not kind to either child. Not to the one being compelled or the one being lied to by adults who should know better.

Cabbageheads · 24/06/2025 16:08

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

How does someone know that their understanding of self is at odds with how they were registered at birth? How do they know it's not perfectly normal for someone of their sex to feel that way?

And can you explain what you mean by registered at birth?

Morgenrot25 · 24/06/2025 16:07

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

That's a lot of words with no actual meaning though.

lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 16:07

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

So it's an ideology because it's based purely 100% on internal feelings and is not measurable. It's based on ideas of oneself.

Why should a man's ideas of himself (as being at odds with his body) trump the rights of females to single sex spaces which are based on our sexed bodies?

Why should the safeguarding of children be ignored in favour of unmeasurable internal feelings?

I mean this is just affirming delusion. We don't do this for any other delusion.

You can be and dress as diversely as you like, the line is drawn at safeguarding and pretending men are women at the expense of the safety, dignity and consent of females.

Stompythedinosaur · 24/06/2025 16:04

I can only assume this is completely made up. I don't believe there's a 14yo in the country that doesn't have some sort of awareness of the existence of trans people and the expectation to respect pronouns. I work widely across schools in my region, and I find teens are generally far more familiar with this than older people.

Tandora · 24/06/2025 16:02

lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 15:58

So you keep saying. So what is being trans then?

Please can you give a definition of what being trans actually is?

Being trans is when your understanding of self as being a man/ woman/ male/ female/ is at odds with how you were registered at birth.

As you know.

I understand that this makes no sense to you. But it is what being trans is.

This whole political row is about difficulties/ challenges with people understanding , recognising and accepting forms of minority difference/ diversity. It’s a tale as old as time.

blandana · 24/06/2025 16:02

pikkumyy77 · 24/06/2025 15:46

This is literally crazy. The entire male sex is not a danger to women. If you really think that you can never safely leave the house and one presumes you do. Do you expect ys all to live in purdah?

Plenty of languages don’t have gendered pronouns. Calling someone by their preferred pronoun will not make women unsafe.

Of course the entire male sex is not a danger to women but a small percentage are and that is why we have single sex spaces, otherwise all changing areas/public toilets/prisons etc would be mixed sex.

85% of violent crime and 97% of sexual assaults are carried out by men. Even when men are victims of domestic violence, the perpetrators are usually other men.

If men can identify as women, then those spaces are no longer single sex. It’s not hard to understand why women, particularly those who have been victims themselves, need those spaces to be protected.

Boomer55 · 24/06/2025 16:01

lifeturnsonadime · 24/06/2025 11:10

What a load of old navel gazing nonsense.

Sally can call herself what she likes, but being off for people making mistakes is ridiculous.

It's all so controlling.

And no Sally will never be male, no matter if she decides to use breast binders/ take testosterone or otherwise damage her female body. She can't compel others to believe she is now suddenly male either.

This. 💯 Jeez, what a drama seeking lot of nonsense. 🙄

croftplaced · 24/06/2025 16:01

ruethewhirl · 24/06/2025 14:31

Some people on this thread seem to be labouring under the impression that they get to say whether or not something is a genuine concept needing a name. You don't, you only get to parade your arrogance state your own opinions on the matter. The levels of intolerance, arrogance and sheer narrow-mindedness on this thread are something even for Mumsnet.

I agree. The arrogance that some people can’t understand simple safe guarding. Or the fact that whilst someone can believe they are something they are not, other people shouldn’t be compelled to pretend along or be called bigots.

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