DD and the trans thing. She's really sucked in and not able to see an alternative view

FarmerJiles as well as the websites you've been recommended here, I'd go with the "trans activism is homophobia" angle. Partly because it's something I fervently believe, and partly because it talks the kind of language a tumblr teenager might listen to.

Because trans activism is amazingly, retro-tastically homophobic, and my attitude to teenagers who espouse it is that I can't believe that they are being so reactionary, either advocating for gay conversion therapy (telling gay men they are straight women, and telling butch lesbians they are straight men), or with autogynephilic crossdressing men, telling lesbians what straight men have told them for years: that they must accept dick. Teenagers should be more progressive than us, not less!

Alyosha

Ironically I was reading MN to see what all of the nasty feminists had to say about those poor Trans people. Reading MN completely changed my mind and bam! I became a semi-Rad Fem.

This was me. Not particularly about the trans, but just wondering what are feminists banging on about. Initially I was as little intimidated because everyone is so educated in feminism and I'm not.

The lightbulb moment for me was the misogyny in the trans ideology. I had witnessed casual sexism, but when I read posts from trans-women, casual sexism became a dot in the distance and rank misogyny made me a feminist.

I went from 'this is how things are' to bloody hell that's a bit sexist, to OMG where has all this misogyny come from, to radical feminist almost overnight.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view point, I now see casual sexism for the misogyny it is.

This (I think from Miranda Yardley?) is very good! OP my DD says she is trans - too long a story - but the only thing I am glad of is telling all my kids not to do anything irreversible until they are 25. Just praying she will heed that.

And many teenagers have views they hold on to an believe in. Many teenagers are capable of rational thinking.

I was told i was a socialist because I was young. I have not changed my views.

Patronising teenagers will not help and does not make you right.

Good god! When teenagers say to me their parents don't listen, I defend the parents and say they are just trying to put a different point of view. I am so wrong. You know you are right and can't wait to say "I told you so." I may change this advice I give based on this thread.

"When you are 16 you think your parents know nothing. By the time you are 20 you are amazed how much they've learned."

Hold on to this thought OP

I should RTFT, but honestly I think you might have to accept that she will disagree with you for at least the next 6-10 years. Keep telling her what you know to be true, earnestly and with facts. She may find herself in a situation soon where everyone else is more radical than her & use some of your arguments.

I only came around to mother's way of thinking about Trans people when I was 24 and had started reading Mumsnet and other gender critical sources.

Ironically I was reading MN to see what all of the nasty feminists had to say about those poor Trans people. Reading MN completely changed my mind and bam! I became a semi-Rad Fem.

fairy

That link was incredible. It made me cry.

I echo other's recommendations of the TransgenderTrend website and 4thwaynow - but for you rather than your daughter.
In particular this one from Lily Maynard, mother of a 15 year old who wanted to transition - not that you are in the same position, but it's about keeping the conversation going.
4thwavenow.com/2016/12/17/a-mums-voyage-through-transtopia-helps-her-daughter-desist/
Also recommend Lily's twitter feed @lilylilymaynard

That's cool, icy on another thread in feminism chat the idea of all these many dozens of genders that teenagers apparently know about and old people don't that lancelottie mentioned is being throughly explored.

It’s been a long time since I was a parent of a teen, so I don’t know if this might help:

www.eatliver.com/crazy-logic/

I should say that the website describes its content as “Crazy Pictures of the Insane Internet”, and usually has funny images: animals photobombing, mocking Trump’s hairstyle, and similar sarky stuff. But this particular cartoon does go some way to pointing out the illogicality of adult thinking about transing children.

But if you don’t want to click on the link, and anyway you don't know me, the text is:

Mom, I want to drink alcohol.
– No, Jenny, you are 9.

Mom, I want to start smoking.
– No, Billy, you are 12.

Mom, I want to vote.
– No, Timmy, you are 6.

Mom, I’m actually a girl and want to make life-altering decisions based on that premise.
– Have some estrogen and we’ll schedule a surgery.

It is.

There are many terrible side effects reported by those who have been treated with Lupron. It is terrible the way it's being sold to the public as a safe, risk-free "pause" to give children time to decide. It's a scandal in fact.

Lupron is also prescribed to women for lots of gynaecological issues like endometriosis and fertility issues. There is pressure in the us to ban it as the alleged side effects are often completely debilitating and irreversible and women have apparently died. If used as a puberty blocker, children would presumably be exposed to this potentially very harmful drug for a period of 5 to 6 years.

A doctor on another thread said that it is unofficially the BMA party line that doctors cannot discuss these risks with the young people or their families as it's seen as influencing them against transition, and transition is the only game in town, anything else is "conversion therapy". It's terrifying. All reason and need for evidence is going out of the window to pander to this vocal activist group. How is this happening?

Socialised for girls and women, not boys and men

Liking pink or nail varnish or whatever is not a meaningful commonality, it is a socialised aspect of personality.

The main meaningful commonalities about being a woman:

A) biology
B) socialisation as girls and women

Yes. I rather think being a woman is only something that women can understand. So it seems to me that biological men have absolutely no frame of reference. They can't "know" they are a woman. They can only know they don't feel what they think a man should feel like.

Yes, I have asked. DS's answer was 'I think it's something only trans people can understand. You don't understand because you're not trans.'

Strange, how we wimmin could not possibly understand how the trans feel because we're not trans, but the MtT feel entitled to stating that they "feel like women".

If they're really women, like us, then we're entitled to have an opinion, aren't we?

Or they're trans, and genuinely different, fair enough, in which case they should stop assuming that they know what it feels like to be a woman.

But, eh, logic. Doesn't work with transwacktivists.

The thing is that it doesn't stand up to discussion. It's all a bit flimsy and subjective and vague and ill thought through and unworkable for the most part. Which is why transactivists don't want it to ever be discussed. They want these changes steamrollered through. I am more than happy for there to be discussion.

The physical side is generally seen as positive & affirming & so on for kids too but... well.

This link shows the effects of wearing a breast binder. I warn you, it's horrible.

This link explains the side effects of a puberty blocker called Lupron. It's not a benign reversible drug to give kids time to decide. It's a chemo drug used to treat prostate cancer through chemical castration, whose side effects include osteoporosis, chronic pain and depression.

That would be an interesting conversation to have with mine (once they've stopped eyerolling and muttering 'You'll never get it').

DS is usually assumed to be gay by random strangers and classmates (he isn't - it's the dancing). DD, though a more reticent type, seems to me to be trying to work out whether she is gay. Life is looking harder than before, right now, for a young gay teenager, so I hope we can keep talking.

Trans campaigning organisation Stonewall define transgender as: "any person whose gender identity / expression does not conform to conventional ideas of male or female gender, or the sex they were assigned at birth."

Could that be something worth discussing with the teenagers? What are "conventional ideas of male or female gender"? Does this mean any girl who doesn't wear dresses and like housework, or any boy who doesn't like football and DIY, must be trans? Everyone except heterosexuals is trans? Hopefully they'll see this as the reactionary nonsense it is, not to mention a slap in the face to people with genuine, serious body dysphoria.

I also know an equally vulnerable transwomen who is convinced they are actually a woman, that their lived experience as a woman is identical to mine (despite having transitioned in their late 40s and fathered children)

Mmm, me too. I don't know her particularly well, but I did blink at the conversation opener of 'It's the mothering, isn't it, that's so important to a girl?' I was starting to agree (given this is someone who had progressed up their career by essentially leaving his two girls entirely in the care of their mother except for a two-week jolly every summer) but then realised he meant himself.

Sorry about bloody pronouns there. Tried a couple of times to distinguish between the relevant 'mothers' and got confused.

"girl dick", even