Poor kid

@Giddy99: No child is being mutilated again that is showing ignorance about what happens at a gender clinic,

Lupron, with its sideeffects and potential to cause osteoporosis when taken for a long time, could justifiably be considered chemical mutilation.

Rode my bicycle everywhere (and it had to be a proper bike with big wheels, not of your shopping bike nonsense)

I keep seeing on FWR mentions of riding a bicycle as some sort of evidence of being a "gender non conforming girl" / "tom boy"

Why ? What on earth is "tomboyish" about having a bicycle?

Honestly some of the things which FWR posters declare to be on the list of things which that nasty, gender enforcing society says are only meant for boys are absurd and show as blinkered and stereotyped an attitude as those you purportedly deplore.

I particularly liked one poster once proudly proclaiming her son's evidence of bucking gender stereotypes because he liked music.

Some years back my daughter (who has 3 brothers) insisted she wanted her hair short. From 4-7 we went for short cuts as every time it went past her ears she was upset. At 7 she decided that she no longer had a sore head when using a hairbrush and at 8.5 it is regulation ‘girl’ length.

At about the same time my eldest (boy) announced that he was done with haircuts. From 9 till almost 12 it was worn in a ponytail and rarely even trimmed because he was anxious about it. Sometimes he was mistaken for a girl. That bothered him a few times.

I lost track of the number of times I was asked if one/both were trans, or why they chose those hairstyles. And silliest of all, how many times I was asked if my 9-11 year old boy had long hair because of my wants, or his.

What I’ve found terrifying/fascinating is how often a hairstyle is the big evidence for gender/sex and ‘proof’ that a child is in the wrong body. I don’t understand how fully grown adults, who often have a pretty reasonable education, can believe that hairstyles are a sign of anything other than parental choice or personal choice and has nothing to do with genitalia. Watch some videos of girls ‘turning into’ boys and the hair chop is clearly hugely emotional for the mothers and often the child.

Hair is hair

And a child who is school refusing and feeling anxious should not have their image and personal information shared like this. The entire thing is a nasty mess and the poor children in the middle need support.

So keep these threads alive. Because there must be one place online where women can freely share and mourn for the future and present of children and young people. Where we can try to build an alternative narrative. A space that one day might welcome survivors of this huge experiment.

or what Purple said

I haven't read all the article but was struck by the mother describing her child as a tom boy for not wanting their long hair to be styled or their mum putting make on them. That's not anywhere close to how I would describe a tom boy. Most gender non conforming girls (aka tom boy) would surely have asked for their hair to be cut? I'd expect to see mention of rough and tumble play, friends with boys, playing football etc. All sex role stereotypes so not particularly meaningful but when did girl = long hair become girl = long styled hair?

and why was a deed poll required? This child could easily have started to use a unisex version of her given name and used it everywhere without any paperwork being required or questions asked. It seems like a non story so I agree with others that the motivation of the parent in selling their story to the paper (and no I don't trust the mail but it was in a local paper first) is questionable.

I was that child too. Preferred trousers. Climbed trees. Rode my bicycle everywhere (and it had to be a proper bike with big wheels, not of your shopping bike nonsense). Played football and was devastated when not allowed to play in the school team at primary age. Cried when I had to put my vests away and get a bra at 10/11. Didn't care about my hair, let my mum decide (still have the same hairstyle now actually).

But I grew out of it, and grew into my body and my femaleness. Am straight, but find some women attractive. Still reject stereotypes. Bought my son a toy hoover for his 3rd birthday co it was what he wanted, to the horror of my mum. He's not trans or gay either, but if he had been that would be fine.

I weep for this child. Please just let them find themselves, don't push them into a box that will trap them in a lifetime of confusion and self-doubt.

I was also this child.

Thank goodness that in the 80s we had goth to see us through.

Also...the whole dramatic bra burning & new name after one's favourite Youtuber?

Surely to goodness the sensible parent of a gender non conforming 12yo Charlotte would just call them Charlie, buy them some trousers, applaud the rather cool haircut & then, I dunno, wait & see what happened.

I agree that it's wrong to say it is all girls experience, but it certainly was like that for some of us. Great for you that you had no problems though.

We were all this child. Hating pink and dresses and what society expected of us. We all spent years embarrassed and distressed at our developing or lack of developing bodies and it takes til adulthood to realise the problem isn't you but everyone else

No "we" were not. The mother's idea that her child must be a boy because the child rejects feminine things is absurd but this idea that growing up as a girl is some sort of hell to get through is no better.

I certainly had shades of that child. I'm pretty sure I thought I wanted to be a boy at one point (like George in the Famous Five). I was a goth as a teen and hated anything "girlie". Luckily in the 80s/90s this was not seen as being trans.

I was also that child. I also went from happily wearing dresses (in fact, refusing to wear anything but dresses!) to, one day, deciding I was never wearing dresses, and I never have worn makeup. Most of my interests were "boy" stereotyped, from microscopy to rock collections to astronomy to catching crawly things from the stream and digging in the dirt.

My mother was a pathological narcissist who loved for us kids to do anything that could get her a little quote in the local newspaper or any other thrill of a tiny bit of fame. I shudder to think what would have become of me -- especially as I look on at my two children, who would never have existed in a world where I'd been sterilized.

I hope no doctor prescribes puberty blocking drugs for that child

'first do no harm'

#iwasthatchildtoo makes quite a nice hashtag.

Ffs. Im horrified. Gender non-conforming girls are not boys born in the wrong body. How much longer is this going to go on?

Me too.

I was also that child.

I was that child too.

Are we allowed any questioning of parents whose response to a non-gender-conforming child is to medicate them? Rather then just, you know, just allow them to be children, and to grow up as they are - rejecting damaging stereotypes?

Why this big push to foist "gender identity" on to children, who would not really have a clue, otherwise?

I find it abhorrent.

Fucking hell, I would have been a prime candidate, at age 12, for irreversible medication. Climbing trees, wearing jeans, roaming my local area on a bicycle, hating and rejecting pink frills....

And are we allowed at all, to question a society which is being primed to accept the lifelong irreversible medicalisation and sterilisation of children, for the sake of an ideology dreamed up by men?

This is all sick. Let healthy children be healthy children. And fuck gender stereotypes.

I sincerely wise as much money time.effirt and energy was put into quashing the stereotypes, providing equal opportunities and dealing witg the behaviour if people towards others as it is into transing the kids affected by them

Quite!

This is a parenting website! We’re not allowed to discuss what constitutes abuse?

There are people on this board that think fruit shoots/bottle feeding/sausage rolls/ear piercing/playing out on own is abuse. I don’t see their comments getting deleted

Disgraceful
12 years old!

My child wants to eat chocolate all day should I allow that because it's "what the child wants"?

Beyond me why anyone would expose their child to the public spotlight in this way.

I was that child too, thank goodness I was a girl in the 70s/80s and not now

I sincerely wise as much money time.effirt and energy was put into quashing the stereotypes, providing equal opportunities and dealing witg the behaviour if people towards others as it is into transing the kids affected by them