Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

JoyTheUnicorn beat me to it. I read 'envy' and thought 'horror'. People who medically transition don't actually change sex.

Thinking back, I was more clued up about biology and sex than most of my peers. I think I even knew back then that a sex change doesn't really mean what it says.

Although I'm attracted to women I like my female body and would not want to be a hairy, sweaty man!

I'm attracted to men but the thought of having a male body is not appealing.

No. My dad encouraged me to be rough and tumble, wrestling, relishing jumping into the sea in winter, messing around in the garden, cross country, building fires, taking risks, climbing trees too high and letting me work out how to get down, defending myself physically, not indulging small fears (at the same time as encouraging the arty, ballet, playing with dolls, bookworm side) - but there was never any suggestion that I was a 'tomboy' or anything else than a girl. Because these things were entirely within the remit of 'girl'. My mum also very much on board with this e.g. pulling me up on 'lazy thinking' re: boys don't like this, this is for girls only etc.
I'm very glad they brought me up GNC (to a large degree) but it made me an outsider in some respects. I just had no idea why people talked about 'girly' and 'tomboy' non-ironically as it seemed so empty and specious, I just wondered why people were playing at this charade, but of course it's a locus of bonding and connection. The acquisition of social skills in children seems often to be bound up with passively gendering their worlds.

*I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology.

Perhaps it’s a feeling of relief at having escaped something terrible mixed with a slight twinge of envy at what could have been.*

I agree with the first statement.
The second one though, I have no envy at all for what could have been, or for children having these options available to them.
I have a sense of horror at what could have been, had surgical and medical options been available to me when I was an immature, vulnerable and unhappy teenager. I have a sense of horror that teens and pre teens are able to make decisions that have lifelong consequences at a stage when they are not able to understand fully the decisions they're making.

Absolutely not. I have never experienced the sort of self loathing about being a girl which seems so common on here.

My family and teachers never told me I couldn't do anything because I was a girl.

There was an expectation from an early age I would be going to university at a time when less than 10% of the population did. If any criticism could be made of the school it was that it treated its cleverest pupils, boys and girls, far better than the run of the mill majority. There was no suggestion at all that girls don't do science and maths (if anything I was pushed to do Maths to a level where it became obvious no amount of individual coaching was going to make a difference)

The school pushed sport for both. I suppose there was a division of hockey for girls and football for boys. I loathed PE and sport. I found sport boring and pointless and was very pleased that at one point I managed to get rid of one PE period for extra maths.

It’s impossible to say because I was an teenager in the 90s and sex and gender didn’t seem to be much of thing at that point. There were shit loads of GNC men and women in the bands I idolised and none of my male mates felt they couldn’t wear a dress or eyeliner on a night out (a la Kurt Cobain) and my female mates were mostly Tank Girl idolising Riot Grrl types.

Snogging anyone you fancied regardless of sex or professed sexuality was also very fashionable so there was no reason to tuck yourself into a neat little label.

Nowadays the kids with bright coloured hair seem to be calling themselves ‘non-binary’ so I guess I would’ve fallen into that habit. Of course, no one is binary when it comes to gender stereotypes anyway, so it’s pretty meaningless. How it’s justified as a reason for a double mastectomy is beyond me, mind you.

@ChiefClerkDrumknott I think your feelings are pretty common. I know quite a few trans guys in relationships with each other who were both born biologically female. It just shows how separate gender and sexuality is.

I am a lesbian but nothing about being trans appeals to me at all. The male puberty trans guys go through apparently makes them feel hungry, hairy, sweaty and horny almost constantly. I have no idea why anyone would be tempted to go through this unless they were really desperate to be a man. Although I'm attracted to women I like my female body and would not want to be a hairy, sweaty man!

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology.

Perhaps it’s a feeling of relief at having escaped something terrible mixed with a slight twinge of envy at what could have been.

No 'twinge of envy at what could have been' is necessary Daim - anyone here who regrets not having transitioned in their youth can do so now. Anybody up for it?

I would not have transitioned. I am, and have been since young, quite feminine / gender performing. And I am fucking furious about trans ideology.

I think I would have been terribly confused. I'm bisexual and relatively gender non conforming, but conventionally attractive in that I'm slim with big boobs! I had an early puberty and was utterly horrified - I idealised androgyny and wanted to look like Brett Anderson from Suede! I ended up with a pretty serious case of anorexia involving several hospitalisations and suicide attempts. I really felt like I was in the wrong body - a curvy feminine one when it should be all angles and flat chest. As an adult I now suspect, for a variety of reasons, that I'm probably on the spectrum but I think as a teenager I would have believed I was trans.

In the climate we are in now? Possibly. I wasn’t really raised as a girl, as such, despite the best attempts of some relatives. My father would not allow me to wear dresses or skirts until I went to school. He insisted I wore practical clothes that allowed me a freedom of movement.
I have for many years thought I should have been born a gay man. I’ve felt this way since my teens so at least 20 years. I’ve had gay male friends say the same thing to me.
I hate my female biology and the pain it causes me. I had an op for endro and ovarian cysts a few years back and begged them to take at least one ovary, which they would not. I was horrified at the thought of periods and still hate the process. The only plus for me is that I’m not pregnant, which is an bigger horror, to the point of phobia for me.
However, I know absolutely that my sex is what it is and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can remember being told this my by mother when I found out about periods and asking if I could just not have them. So I doubt my parents would have much truck with me transitioning, but I could easily have been sucked in to the idea by online and other real life encouragement.

No I don't think so. My mother was a feminist of the Germaine Greer reading variety. I was never pushed towards femininity, I was allowed to be myself which happened to involve being an avid collector of My Little Pony, and also absolutely loving all things Transformers. My mother was very gender critical, she was aghast at the idea that anyone can 'feel like a woman', she used to say ''I'll tell them what a bloody woman feels like, she feels like a human being!''.

I think I would have done, having lived and dressed as a boy in my childhood. People just accepted it then without judgement or labelling me though. As a grown up I definitely do not want to be male. It would have been a huge mistake.

I'm as certain as I can be that I would.
I didn't feel like a girl, because I didn't do stereotypically girly things.
I hated makeup, long hair, girls' toys etc.
I loved being called a tomboy as it was a nod to being a boy, and I even had a boys' name lined up to use.
Puberty was awful, I would have happily had my breasts removed, I had no inkling that I might want to use them at some point, and would have opted for puberty blockers had they been available.
It wasn't until my late teens/early twenties that I felt comfortable. I still didn't (and don't) feel like a woman, but I am and I'm ok with that now.
My teen years were miserable, had internet been a thing I would have been very open to online grooming and suggestion that I was, in fact, a boy.
I'm also autistic.

As a side point, I don’t understand why we’re being described as ‘gender critical’ feminists. Surely you can’t be a feminist without being critical of the idea of gender.
‘Gender’ is a prison that categorises us based on our sex. No feminist could buy into that surely?

I was routinely labelled a 'tomboy' and hate it that this sexist expression still being used to describe feisty girls today. In my work I hear it often and it's not usually as a compliment either. And usually added on is 'well, she'll grow out of it'.

@C8H10N4O2 this is me exactly...

Rather than just accepting everyone as they are.. these "support groups" are akin to Dr Google.. almost promoting worst case scenario's....

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology

Do you mean anecdotally amongst friends?

My interests as a child were almost entirely "male" for the time and I had zero interest in the approved "female" activities. I was routinely told that this was a problem with me, that I was wrong in some way.

However I also had a DF who encouraged me in those interests and who worked around the house rather than calling it woman's work. My DM was similar and the net result was I was sufficiently self assured at critical points to withstand the poison.

Without the support of a loving family I might well have accepted that I was fundamentally wrong. It worries me immensely that if I were a pre-teen or young teen now and being told I was non-conforming pretty much every message from supposed support groups tells me that simply asking the question means I must be trans rather than reassuring me that male interests is not the same as gender dysphoria.

It worries me immensely that young children are given untested medical treatments in a way which would be banned by ethics committees on any other subject. The lack of scientific rigour in this area will bite back.

So no, not remotely envy - more profoundly grateful that a generation ago we were more accepting of children with "opposite gender" interests and views than we are now.

No.
I was a tomboy. My dad made fun of me a couple of times for wanting to climb trees or learn how to play football (gently made fun, he was a good dad, not horrible, just a bit old fashioned sexist). But instead of trying to be more ‘girly’ to please him, it just made me cross.
Even at that age I didn’t see why I couldn’t be a girl and do whatever I wanted. I was a mini feminist.
It’s not surprising though. In the eighties most girls had shortish hair. Now, at the school where I teach, only a handful out of 200 girls do!
It’s much harder to be a girl nowadays.

Exactly Fermats. Shows the utter nonsense of Daimbar's analogy.

The analogy with being gay seems to me an entirely spurious one.

A teen gets a crush on someone and decides on that basis that they are gay (or straight for that matter). Later on they realise they actually fancy individuals predominantly of the other sex to the one that teenage crush belonged to. They simply say "when I was a teen I thought I was gay/assumed I was straight, but as I've grown up I've increasingly realised I'm straight/gay." No issue, just a recognition that part of growing up is exploring and discovering who we are.

Contrast that with thinking aged 10 that you're trans - puberty blockers (loss of bone density) cross sex hormones (voice breaks, facial hair, loss of fertility), surgery - ALL IRREVERSIBLE.

FWIW I simply don't know. I was a tomboy, it was totally a reaction to being in a sexist society, but I also had sane parents who believed girls could do anything. I suspect I might have been the sort of teen who claimed to be non binary.

When I was young I loved having long hair but hated flowers, dresses, heels, jewellery, makeup... My interests were computer gaming and reading sci-fi, horror and detective novels. I often wished that I wasn't a girl but never thought I wanted to be a boy either.

Probably, given sympathetic parents and doctors.

I thought I was trans until recently. I've always had stereotypically male interests and wearing dresses or make-up feels like wearing drag. I had bad menstrual issues for years and was convinced I didn't want children until I hit my late 20s so would have gladly chosen any treatment that would have fixed the issue regardless of the consequences on my fertility, but thankfully I had unsympathetic doctors.

I was starting to change pronouns and my title with banks etc when I read my first gender critical post on AIBU, and then hopped over to this board and was thoroughly educated. Most of my friends are LGBTQIA+ allies and activists who believe in gender identity and there are a lot of trans people in our circle, so until now I've been in a transgender-positive echo chamber.

I now feel intensely embarrassed that it took me so long to realise that my problem was gender stereotypes and that it's society which is broken and not me. I feel much happier and more secure in myself, and am very glad I stumbled across this forum and not a different one. Thank you, everyone.

I think unquestioning affirmation of transitioning is potentially harmful to gender non-conforming adults, let alone kids.

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology.

Gosh, I never thought I would agree with Diam on anything! On this I do, most definitely. And that is because, as I said on another thread - letting kids be kids, without gender role expectations, is Feminism-101. And it is perhaps because we were in whole or in part, GNC, that really was the seeds of our feminism as well.

In answer to the OP, perhaps, maybe. I certainly hated the limiting parts of being raised as a girl. Also hated the double standards of obedience and politeness expected of us, and of course, the housework.

Yes, Lurker I owe a lot to my mum who just took it all in her stride.

I didn't want to be a mother in my twenties though! NO WAY!