Gender swap situation

So, just to clarify, you'd still call her 'she', the correct pronoun?

Your child needs to pull away if her friend is demanding pronouns and giving dirty looks for failing to comply. The other child has mental health issues and your child is not responsible for providing emotional support.

If this ends up being a very toxic friendship of unlimited demands for compliance this can lead to your child being bullied by the other child and her "supporter" group.

It would be different if the other child accepted that your child is doing her best. But if the relationship is reduced to your child feeling as if she is threading on egg shells its already an abusive relationship.

So MN's LTB rules apply.

You need to explain that a healthy relationship needs to be a two way street. Time changes people and sometimes this results in radical changes to friendships. That its ok for your child to focus on what makes her happy in the relationship and if its not working she is 100% to make the changes she needs to make the friendship work or to reduce the interactions or even to end the friendship

She can try having an open conversation with the other child and set out her boundaries and her needs. The other child can choose to accept that your child has rights, need and wants too which must to be reflected in the way she treat your child.

If the other child wants the friendship to only be about her wants then your child has the obligation to love herself decide what is best for her and if needed walk away.

I suspect that as they are 14 the other child will be too self involved to put the work in to save the friendship. Its a comming of age issue where teens are so busy trying to become adults that some cant manage to agree to disagree.

Another important thing will be that your child is not pulled into a conflict situation by others over this. Some people love creating drama and the girls friendship group will have at least one child who will create drama for fun. Even if she trusts the other person involved in any discussion your daughter needs to refuse to badmouth the other girl (in person or via tec) and learn some standard "no comment" phrases to close down conversations.

Best of luck

Get her to throw a 'Ron' or two in. And after that, ignore him and talk to others in the group. It isn't worth losing her whole friendship group over.

Everything else aside, if someone told me that henceforth their name is Ron and not Sally then I would respect that and call them Ron.

My son had a very close friend in his friend group school (Susan, who because Martin (names changed)). Nothing at all in that friendship group altered.

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.

It’s bloody hard to remember a new name.
When I changed my surname when I got married I signed my maiden name hundreds of times as it was the name I was used to.
An old school friend has also changed her name from say Mary to Jane and I am forever calling her Mary as that’s what I’ve called her for 30 odd years.
It’s hard.
mis-naming isn’t done on purpose so your DD’s friend needs to be a bit more tolerant.

Gender non-conforming people present how they like without believing that their presentation makes them members of the opposite sex.

Trans is an exercise in absolute gender conformity, because it follows the principle that if you express yourself with "feminine clothing" you are a woman regardless of your sex, and if you express yourself with "masculinity" you are a man, regardless of your sex.

True gender non-conformity is about as far removed from trans ideology as you can get.

I read that response very different from you. It seems on the money to me.

Op I wouldn't want my child to be involved with Sally as she comes across as controlling. If she's like this at a young age chances are she'll only get worse.

I think your DD is a child and so it will understandably take her a while to adapt. Maybe her friend is going through a phase maybe not. Look at it a different way; if the friend turned vegan, even if it was just a phase, would it be acceptable for DD to keep offering snacks with meat or dairy in? People do a lot of changing over the course of their lives and a good friend will try to be supportive.

My daughter went through lots of this in yr 9, some of it was bumpy due to friendship groups changing and people gravitating towards other people who they identified with. She's just left yr 13 and everything very much settled, lots kids grew out of it and lots of friendships healed.
We talked about it a lot at home, changing your name is just that. It's easy to do, my friends daughter announced she was changing her name (just informally) and my friend feels very conflicted (and upset at first) about it. There is no talk of her taking hormones or changing sex, she's busy at college so my friend is leaving it and assuming it will pass but still standing by her. Obviously there will always be the kids that this is a real thing but for some of them it's just a phase too. Also yr 9 is a huge year for growth with kids at every stage of puberty, I'm currently finding my yr9 extremely challenging although he is most definitely wants to stay a boy.

Can your dd just look on it as a nickname in order for her to get used to it. At 13 I requested that everyone use my new preferred nickname to my full name and it didn’t take long for people to get used to it, even my own mother managed to.

If she wants to stay friends then she will have to do it. I used to get annoyed if my full name was used instead of my new short one (though not gender motivated).

I’d be unhappy about my child having such a controlling friend. If this other child was kind and understanding, they would value such a long term loyal friendship and not try to compel their friends’ speech.

My son is called Jamie by some of his mates who have known him since primary school, when he used that name. Now he’s known as Jim everywhere but he doesn’t get upset about these mates and he doesn’t expect them to apologise when they say Jamie, he doesn’t give them nasty looks .

He is a kind lad who knows you have to accept people as they are, you don’t need to agree on every tiny thing, you should value your long term friends .

Children and adults who are unpleasant, controlling and self centred will ultimately make themselves very unhappy in life . Yes some superficial contacts or those who you have power over will go along with you for a short time. But good people who have a choice will back away slowly.

I suggest @TenThousandYears , that you encourage your DD not to give more to this friendship that she is getting .

If Ron's change has totally destroyed the friendship for your daughter, it can't have been a very close friendship.

It’s Sally’s bullying behaviour that’s ruined the friendship.

Your DD should identify as someone who calls everyone Dave.

You don't support compelled speech at all? What do your children call their teachers?

In life we have to tolerate people and opinions that we disagree with. I've worked closely with people I loathed and had to maintain a polite, working relationship with them.

If she wants to retain the rest of her friends in a small school, she needs to play the game, at least in public.

If Ron's change has totally destroyed the friendship for your daughter, it can't have been a very close friendship.

What a horrible, misguided, bigoted response. I hope you get sufficient backlash in this thread to make you ashamed enough to educate yourself.

@Sabire9 but surely we are all gender non-conforming?

The thing I dislike about the transgender movement is the insistence it has on enforcing gender ‘norms’ and trying to say that if you don’t fit a gender norm then you must be the opposite sex

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen

Your contempt for transgender people and anyone who supports them comes through loud and clear.

This is why we can't have reasonable discussions about this issue. Because your position on this issue is rooted in contempt for people who are gender non-conforming, and it leaks out in every single thing you have to say about them.

I think it’s fine for sally to decide on a new name and your daughter should try and use it but understandably is going to slip up at times and Ron needs to accept that.

however id also tell your daughter than Ron can be called Ron instead of sally but that doesn’t actually change her biological sex. Ron is probably quite confused right now as I’m sure is your daughter.

I really hope you are not a ‘Teacher’, if you can’t detect a difference between legally adopting a spousal surname, or substituting a nickname or easier to pronounce name for the deliberate flag of impersonating the opposite sex, with all the well,publicised potential physical and psychological harms entailed.