Charlize Theron: my child who I thought was a boy...

Giving

Like many on here who feel strongly about transing children I was that non conforming tomboy. I grew up years ago and was generally allowed to get on with it but there are certainly some things that would have made life better in my day. For example, my mates (the boys) all played football for the school. I was way better than them but had to play netball! They all went to Cubs then Scouts and were allowed to have proper adventures, I was stuck with Brownies and refused to go to Guides. I had to wear a swimming costume, which I hated, when I went to the local pool which was completely stupid as I had no boobs and I couldn't wear trousers for the first few years of school.

I believe girls are allowed to be the same as the boys in all those areas now, at least up to a certain age, and that would have been better for me.

I was however allowed to do the 'boyish' things I wanted most of the time. So went fishing and to football with my Father, made camps and had fun with my (boy) friends and never had a doll or toys that were remotely 'girlish'

It sounds like you are doing everything right, just keep going being proud of your daughter for who she is and don't give into any external pressure to force her into any box that she doesn't fit in. Kids only want to change gender when they are not able to be themselves in their born bodies.

I do think the real challenges start at about 10 or 11 but if the foundations are there she is likely to continue being a happy, confident girl for ever.

For the record I grew up to became a really boring adult. I'm straight, married with children and grandchildren. But I'm still likely to get very fiery if anyone suggests I'd look good in a dress or I should wear something pink, YUCK!!!!

When I was a kid I would only wear what are considered to be boys clothes, had very short hair, played football and was generally rough and tough. I insisted I was a boy up to the age of about 11. Back then my mum viewed it as a bit embarrassing, just her odd daughter being a bit different. My dad was just pleased to have someone to go to the footy with. I wonder if some parents still feel like that, and so saying their kids are trans is a way for it to be less embarrassing.

I never grew out of it. I no longer insist I’m a boy but I have short hair, never wear dresses or makeup etc. Turns out I’m just a boring old lesbian. My mum still thinks I’m a bit of an embarrassment but at least she gets a bit of social capital out of having a lesbian daughter, now she’s stopped cringing so much that is.

I just want my DD to be happy and confident. I don't want 'society' trans-ing her and I would appreciate support for how to deal with this. Equating it to role-playing a pony is fking insulting

You are doing the right thing. Maybe, when she’s an adult she will feel the same way and she can make her own decisions but at the moment ride with it. We went through this phase, short hair, male friends, football, boys clothes, etc. I never ever told my DD she could be a boy, but I told her she could like whatever she likes

She’s 13 now, has a mix of friends but still gels mostly with boys. She has grown her hair and wears girls but not girlie clothes. It would have been very easy to indulge her as a boy but we never did and she has moved on from that phase.

Oh yes, it arises from a sense of Christianity being familiar and establishment, and thus sort of 'owned' by those using it as a target.

Which is sort of ironic as it's a form of self-deprecation, which is a very Christian concept in some ways.

It is interesting to me, though, that much of anti-Catholic bigotry in particular has it's base in the idea that Catholics are 'foreign', and also that Christianity itself is a faith from the middle East, not leafy middle England. Oh well, since when was nuance necessary anyway...

The liberal left hates its own culture; hates America; hates European establishments; hates Christianity........and all of these 'identities' are fair game. However, if you dare speak the same of any 'protected minority' you are guilty of hate crime and must be reported to the police.

Anyone who doesn't toe the ideological line is a fascist; a nazi; a Neo-Con; a right wing evangelical; a Tory; an oppressor.

For some reason, it's perfectly acceptable to bring up a Catholic/Christian's faith in the context of them being a 'religious nut' in relation to any opinion at all.

But yes, please do try that shit with a practising Jewish journalist or politician, or a devout Muslim, and I will be one of the first in the queue to ask you why you think it's appropriate to bring up that person's faith as evidence of them being a nut, even if you attach 'supposed' to the phrase?

Hmm replace Catholic with Muslim? Jewish?

Och, you know, it's Easter Sunday, got to get the requisite kicking of the Catholic religious nut in. The 'supposed' is cute.

I know she puts "supposed" in front of it but still, there it is, as a marker and a negative one. Just after she talks of monocultural groupthink too.

@igneococcus I agree; that paragraph didn't sit well with me either. It makes Caroline sound like a religious nut.

I don't like this paragraph:

"If you are remotely unsure, you are lumped in with supposed religious nuts such as the Catholic journalist Caroline Farrow, who was reported to the police for misgendering a trans child on social media. If, by contrast, you are seen in any way to entertain even the tiniest hint of gender fluidity in children — male children wearing dresses — you are instantly aligned with bonkers evangelists such as Susie Green, chief executive of a trans charity and the woman who took her own child to Thailand for genital surgery at 16."

It makes it sound as if Caroline Farrow's stance is as unreasonable and extreme as Susie Green's and I disagree with that, or maybe I'm just not reading it right.

Share token for this article:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/steady-charlize-even-tinseltown-needs-to-stop-and-think-when-a-boy-says-he-s-a-girl-s8kstn6ll?shareToken=911b64f9ba2aeebeee00b70d9fd44d20

I didn't know this (about his childhood) but it's right on:

The actor Rupert Everett spent much of his childhood dressed as a girl (specifically Mary Poppins’s daughter), but said that after he was 15, “I never wanted to be a woman again. Thank God the world of now wasn’t then, because I’d be on hormones and I’d be a woman.”

Once again, The Sunday Times talks sense:

Theron is raising her daughters in an impeccably open and liberal fashion as is required of her as a celeb. Easier for her to do, obviously, since Jackson isn’t a seven-year-old boy wearing a dress in the place he was born, South Africa, but Los Angeles, where you’re burnt alive if you’re male and don’t turn up to the supermarket in a ballgown. I’m not sure her attitude would be as helpful if her boy wanted to explore make-up in Soweto, but at least she’s being honest.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/steady-charlize-even-tinseltown-needs-to-stop-and-think-when-a-boy-says-he-s-a-girl-s8kstn6ll

I’m only going to say that what Theron probably really thinks, like most parents, is that seven is far too young to decide on anything beyond what computer game you like. Only she would rather die than give any hint of this for fear of the backlash from activists who demand that everyone supports their tiny war. Being super-liberal and easy-going, she feels she must parrot the “acceptable” line — he’s definitely a girl — but this isn’t liberal or easy-going at all.

It is, in fact, an exquisite example of the monocultural groupthink that has seized all areas of political discourse, especially the trans kids debate. It seems utterly extraordinary that there is currently no reasonable position to take on the matter of trans children at all.

Giving It sounds like you are doing well, it must be so hard to, in effect, swim against the tide. Parenting is so hard at times and sometimes we just have to muddle through the best we can.

My sister was very GNC as a kid, and was her own kind of force - went to ballet came home and played with her transformers type of thing. Did a STEM degree/masters. I wonder how things would have panned out for her now.

Thank you Floral and Bright you have both explained it well.

For the most part it's a total non- issue for us now - we just buy her the 'boy gender-stereotyped' stuff. Her older sister just neutrally explains that her sister is a girl not a boy (people, especially kids, do ask because she has an obviously female name but looks 'like a boy') I ignore the 'he' and 'lad' from people we don't know (eg: in restaurants) and correct if we are going to see people again, (eg: when making friends on holiday, new people in the neighbourhood.)

Occasionally there is a tricky comment or question from DD herself. That's when I need care and forethought with my responses. She is a girl, she will grow into a woman but she can choose to wear, look like and do pretty much anything she wants.

Anyway, I do think Charlize has fallen into the trendy trans trap and I fear for any kids who are parented that way.

I'm with Giving here and I think Floral has articulated the problem well. It can be massively challenging to resist gender in that way, day-in, day-out. I too have a very GNC child and am incredibly proud of their strength in being who they are despite so much social pressure to be otherwise. I'm also fed up with constantly being judged as a parent and very frightened that my kid will some day succumb to this ideology and see it as a way to escape the pressure. Unlike trans identities, gender non-conformity does not seem to get the stunning and brave response.

I think I get Giving's point here.

A small child playing make believe is one thing. Nothing wrong with it, normal part of development etc.

A child whose personality means they not only do not embrace the things which have been designated as 'gender appropriate' but enjoy things with have been decided appropriate for the opposite sex, due to gendered ideas, is not playing make believe - they are trying to be themselves.

The problem here is Gender. This is the essence of what feminists have been saying for a long time - coding life via Gender is a prison, not a liberation on any level.

The Trans movement senses the problem, but their answer is to reinforce gender by insisting it is the only reliable marker of sex, and the body is wrong in some way.

Feminists are the ones saying destroy gender. Let girls like what they want, look how they want, do what they want.

It's not that Giving's daughter is play acting - it's that the rest of society is still play acting that gender is an innate thing, and some powerful people are trying to force that fantasy play act into law.

No child says they are a girl. God alone knows what medical horrors await.

I am imagining this child's future, when they take Thieron to court for millions in damages.

CT : But you said you were a boy ...
Child : I. WAS. THREE!!!

Different you completely missed the point I made.
You are effectively saying that any child that does not conform to gender stereotypes is acting/role playing, in the same way a 3 year old might act like a dog or a pony. And that the only converse of your view is medically transitioning a child to fit the 'gender' stereotype that they prefer.

You are so wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to start.

I complete disagree with any kind of medical/physiological intervention with a child's body. But to treat them that they are play-acting is almost as damaging.

@DeRigueurMortis I would hope not, but unfortunately people seem all too quick to label someone as something they are not, or cannot be and will go to lengths to change what they can in order to fulfill that belief!

Equating it to role-playing a pony is fking insulting. Why? That's all it is essentially, isn't it? She isn't a boy. Will never be a boy, so she has taken on a typical "boy" way of presenting. That's what role play is. Taking on a role that you are not.

Princess, horse, cat, boy (for a girl) girl (for a boy)

This frustrates me no end right now. My daughter has ASD and hates herself. At 10 she hates her developing body and refuses to look at herself in the mirror. We have had to cover up her mirror in her room so she can't see herself. If someone told her that she could be a boy and stop puberty tomorrow, she would do it if left unchallenged. Because she would do anything not grow up!

What she wouldn't realise is that she has to grow up, and that doing that as her own sex would be much easier for her to manage. She has no idea that she is anything other than female, and to start messing with her head would be damaging.

I have watched a friend's daughter transition and it is NOT anything that I would wish on my child. Emotionally, physically or any other way. She is 16 and already has long term damage because of 3yrs worth of breast binding. Too late for puberty blockers, so they are deciding on next steps. She is also ASD and I do wonder how much of it is down to that. They think they are happier now, but in reality since transition they have struggled more than they ever did. They have left behind all their female friends and are in with a crowd with very dodgy beliefs.

I think society needs to stop lying to kids, telling them they can change sex, and allow them to wear and look however the hell they like without changing and mutilating their bodies. True gender dysphoria is rare.

I understand my opinion isn't going to go down well...

Giving - that was my sister to a tee. She fainted at about 12 when she was made to have a frilly bridesmaid dress fitting and was bribed to wear it with a top hat (which she did end up wearing on the day). She - unlike a lot of kids - didn’t grow out of it but has been known to wear a dress.

She is just boring old gay. Some kids do role play at being the opposite sex or even an animal. And some kids loathe all the sexist gender crap that comes along with being a boy or girl.

Sadly this equates to being trans these days - and that covers a wide amount of ground too.

My sister wasn’t then nor is not trans anything. Today she would have been assumed to want to physically change her body to be a male. And being the younger copycat sister god knows if I would have been dragged along too. Thankfully our parents sleeve pretty cool with their girl in a spacesuit who used to beat up boys at school, call herself by a boys name and her little sister who was called John.