Do “trans kids” exist?

Ok. So a child says something and the parent/adult has to agree? Some parenting there!

I'll take your and raise you a (b/c there is no special icon for my beloved tequila)

whether we can employ the tools to avoid being shoved into molds

That right there is where the explosion in young female transitioners, and ridiculous demi-hemi-semi-sexual orientations, and the adoption of non-binary, that's where it comes from.

The label itself is a tool, which is meant to signal to others: "I don't feel like a dick-receptacle; please stop trying to mould me to become one."

I suspect the reason I've always shied away from labelling my sexual orientation is the mountain of evidence that none of the traditional orientation labels are truly effective in this regard.

It's growing up female under patriarchy that fucks us all over, because we all have to be moulded to fit well enough in the society we've got. You and I just got a particularly sharp and shitty end of the conditioning stick, so sharp we couldn't ignore it any more. I'll see your and raise you a

I think my deep love of philosophy and early rejection of religion played a huge part. Believing god is dead or never existed (starting at about 7yrs old) allowed me to let go of those attachments, those barriers to truth and healing, and that feeling of being 'under HIS eye'. But it took until my 20s to dig in (I am now 43). Being an atheist is awesomely cathartic for many reasons for me - it is all about this life and the love and joy I can bring to others as well as myself. There is great peace in having no concern of afterlife or eternal soul as I am very comfortable just being part of this enormous mass and energy that is existence. In truth I was never looking for god/gods/goddesses/etc, it wasn't an entity(-ies) that alluded but our most coveted and most needed emotion - love.

Now I can say honestly that I choose happiness and I make it myself. I'm not Insta happy or FB happy but actually really happy and thankful for my life lessons. It took so much work, so much pain... and every time I see my mom I struggle leading up to it and afterwards (she wants to talk about my CSA or other traumatic events every time I see her, it comes from a good place but she can't get it she doesn't have the tools). So I am not as guarded but also am better about not allowing myself to be forced into vulnerability (I fuck it up often but I really try). We are moldable forever but whether we can employ the tools to avoid being shoved into molds is about 50/50 chance because subliminal messages and societal influence run deep in social cultures (even with non-human animals).

You are not alone. There are millions of us spread around the globe. I'm honored to be here for you when/if you want/need it.

It has to come down to a feeling, a belief, however that is most likely be due to nurture rather then some innate feeling. Quite often though when I do hear about someone identifying as trans I do a mental tick list - ASD, trauma, gay / lesbian etc - it is rare for there to not be at least one of these situations occurring - it seems too interlinked to just go straight down an absolute confirmation route.

I think as well that some parents go very far down the line of trying to reject* gender that they actually end up cementing it, so little Jack who has always worn dresses and sparkly trainers because 'that is what he chose in the shop' gets to school, gets told that those things are for girls and therefore Jack thinks he is in actual fact a girl. They are perhaps just the opposite of the 'you don't want that toy it's for a girl' .

*By reject I mean, 'look at me, how great am I?' They often come across as quite aggressive about it all as well.

Bloody hell, Fire, you've done an amazing job at figuring out this emotion stuff! I take my hat off to you.

You're way further on than me; up until last year my mental state was progressively getting worse because I couldn't even recognise emotions, I'm that closed off from them. It was a bit of a revelation when I realised they call them feelings because you're supposed to actually feel them, in your body, and that hearts soaring and whatnot weren't just metaphors.

So, not quite the same - I shoved all the feelings into the same box and tried to avoid ever opening it. For which I blame my dad, who believed my trauma responses were wilful misbehaviour, and punished me for them repeatedly. I was terrified of his rage, and to this day one of the fastest ways to get my mind battening down the metaphorical hatches and disengaging from my body is to put an angry male in front of me.

I worry for 'trans kids' that they are employing mechanisms they don't understand and adults are putting them on a path of destruction without exploring deeper issues.

Me too. Far too many kids who've experienced trauma get no help with it at all; that those who do come to the attention of professionals are given no real help to even acknowledge the root of their difficulties, let alone to come to terms with it, horrifies me.

FireUnderTheHand
I am going to leave it here to see if my explanation was helpful

You posted while I was writing my reply to TyroBurningDownTheCloset -- and now I am crying for the wrong that was done you.

In fairness, I think dysphoria is very common among women, it's just that most manage to find a way to navigate the requirements and cope with life.

I am strongly of the opinion that nobody is entirely pleased with what/who/how they are (or the shape of their nose or the colour of their hair or needing glasses or their feet not being suited for fast running or or or) but it is generally not something which makes life intolerable for them. If it does, it seems to me that for a lot of people the answer is not necessarily rhinoplasty though it may be hair dye or laser treatment or not trying to become a sprinter it is learning how to deal with one's limitations and working within them.

There are quite specific reasons for being unable to do this, and I am very sorry indeed that you suffered one of them. And I salute you for having been so strong.

it always involved a heightened separation between body and mind, as though the inner bit that's me was watching and analysing from behind a screen

Same here - dissociation is really crazy to experience. And this dissociation paired so well (sarcasm) with the lengthy description of compartmentalization I gave above. I believe that picking through the compartmentalization is what allowed me to begin to pick away at the dissociation. Once I accepted myself, my body, the dissociation mostly dissipated into thin air but it does jump out and grab me on occasion and requires a little internal self maintenance to subside.

I worry for 'trans kids' that they are employing mechanisms they don't understand and adults are putting them on a path of destruction without exploring deeper issues.

Let's have the plain English version, Fire, it's probably easier, at least until I've made your psychologese click with mine.

When I say compartmentalization I am referring to a component of dissociation I experienced which IMO is like a dissociation lite topic.

As a child my emotions became like little figurines - as a coping mechanism. Without thought or intent each feeling of disgust or sadness or suffering was neatly placed in its own box or shared a box (parent was mean today, parent was not receptive today, parent was distant and dismissive, whatever) in my mind... these boxes floated freely through my conscious and all was pretty okay until those boxes started crashing together, when the contents mixed it was explosive. Psychologists typically see this defense mechanism as a negative trait and as a result I was never able to get any help from the therapists I was sent to (for my parents divorce) as they would not dig deeper and assumed I was just sad because my family was falling apart. Their objective was for me to stop employing coping mechanisms, the putting things in boxes isn't dealing with them in the therapists' eyes. My armor was so opaque that it was seemingly impenetrable (I catalogued all of those bad feelings, leaving them to be dealt with at a later date). Effective but very dangerous if left unchecked.

At some point during my maturation (22ish?) I found the words to discuss what I did unintentionally with my feelings. I had my first epiphany about the danger of the boxes crashing together... I realized that when that happened I would lose control and go completely numb. That was a jump point - I started digging through those mental boxes from childhood reliving the traumas and trying to work out where I went... where the secure and happy little girl went. When I thought it was clear that she died and a new version appeared in her place I mourned the original version of me, the version that saw beauty in every nook and cranny. In trying to love the damaged version of myself (saw the world similarly but did not feel like part of the world as I was the ugly, the bad, the unthoughtful, the selfish, and the discardable) I found my original self again. The original didn't die she was imprisoned for safeguarding by my mind. I've always been a 'lover' I love to love other people but I couldn't love myself after my experiences. I had discovered that I didn't feel worthy of my own love.

The work of digging in, of accepting myself for who I was/who I became and who I was working to be took a long time. I had to get right with this body - I had to accept myself as a woman and a human deserving of love. And then I had to learn to love myself again. And I do love myself again - I am a good person - I love people, I am incredibly empathetic and supportive and more assertive than ever in standing for what I believe is right. I have earned the love I receive from myself and others through forgiving myself.

Now that I see the benefit of this coping mechanism I am able to employ this tactic of placing issues/feelings/etc in mental boxes until I can properly deal with them - leaving me available and productive when it counts (crisis, stressful situations, etc). After everything goes quiet I sit with my thoughts and unpack whatever boxes need to be unpacked in groups or one at a time (depending on intersections). That's why I refer to it as being 'like' a superpower - when everyone around me is crumbling I am able to stay calm, give support/listen, problem solve, and communicate to all involved wtf is going on.

This is getting really long at this point so I am going to leave it here to see if my explanation was helpful.

The stiletto comparison is useful.

If your feet can handle stilettos then they're not causing you major distress.

I've no idea if my feet can handle stilettos or not, because I've never worn them, because they're culturally coded "sexy/feminine female" and I cannot inhabit that stereotype without psychological distress rooted in CSA. It's a trauma response, worthy of sympathy perhaps but ultimately not helped long-term by pandering.

In fairness, I think dysphoria is very common among women, it's just that most manage to find a way to navigate the requirements and cope with life.

I honestly think it is possible from a young age to feel you are the other gender but it's very rare. More common in teens - but a multitude of reasons. Why it's so common now is a mystery though, I blame our obsession with looks

And being required at work to conform to the stereotype by wearing stiletto heels can be actually harmful to your Achilles tendon, as well as laying up bunions, ingrowing toenails and the like for later in your life. (Yes, I know it is not legal for that to be a requirement any more, but it's an example of physical, as opposed to psychological, distress.)

Many people don't suffer these damaging effects from wearing stilettoes, but those who do definitely suffer significant distress or impairment in function as a result of being stereotyped.

"Not wanting to follow stereotypes" is quite a broad spectrum though.

Plenty of women say fuck the stereotypes and wear what they want. Some of us, though, find being forced/required/expected to perform femininity stereotypes incredibly psychologically distressing, for a variety of reasons, generally rooted in sexualised violence and trauma.

The thing to note about the diagnostic list is that the patient has to be suffering significant distress or impairment in function as a result of the imposition of the stereotypes. If you can say fuck the stereotypes and get on with your life without major psychological incident, then your mental position re stereotypes isn't sufficiently out of whack (compared to the cultural norm) to constitute "disordered thinking".

Possibly wrong word? I would say that not wanting to follow stereotypes was not dysphoria..and is indeed probably more common than not having issues with them.

The diagnostic list is just ridiculous to me..

Of course you can have dysphoria over a social construct. I do (and for the record, the TRA insistence on pointing to the stereotypes of performed femininity and insisting the appropriate label is 'woman' makes it worse).

The bit that's fucked up is encouraging the sufferer to internalise the problem. The thing that makes gnc kids dysphoric is the people, society, and culture that tells them they're some flavour of wrong just for liking what they like.

And sex dysphoria should be used instead. No steretype nonsense..TRAs would hate this though.

That kids can be diagnosed on nothing but stereotypes and possibly set on a lifelong medical pathway was always one of the most bonkers parts of this whole thing for me..

Not in the sense stonewall/mermaids make out, where any girl who likes 'boys' things is trans.

Yes in the sense that a very very few kids will actually grow up to be transsexual.

I can well believe that there are kids who have sex dysphroria and will persists in this dysphoria as adults. I do not accept that any kid who is not a barbie/action man is trans and should be medicated obviously I think many of todays problems lie in removing the dysphoria element of the description tbh. It changed the game, completely and made it all nonsensical really. But of course, dysphoria couldnt be a part of it when the many late transitioners very much love their male bodies..and the whole movement revlves around such males it seems.

Let's have the plain English version, Fire, it's probably easier, at least until I've made your psychologese click with mine.

I went for fat as a psychological defence mechanism, which I suspect functioned in a similar way to your disfigurement () - I was repulsed, assumed everyone else would be repulsed, couldn't relax or let anyone see. Also had the side effect of limiting experimentation possibilities rather. Not allowing yourself to relax enough to enjoy anything certainly resonates; in fact the only person I managed to relax with was a known fat-fetishist, which brought its own problems. I was able to perform to his satisfaction, and got some enjoyment out of his satisfaction (because I felt I was doing 'normal woman' right), but it always involved a heightened separation between body and mind, as though the inner bit that's me was watching and analysing from behind a screen.

This seems a good moment to give a shout-out to both FWR and Relationships, who taught me this is not what healthy relationships and consent look like!

I have wondered about asexuality recently, but having pondered previous experiences, it's more been a case that I don't acknowledge when I fancy women, and trusted others when they told me I fancy men. A lot of that, I think, isn't limited to CSA survivors - everyone assumes you fancy a bloke if you get on well with him, and no one seems to consider that your protests might be a sign that you're not actually interested in sex with men.

I'll apologise for the derail too, but I feel the discussion is relevant to the OP given how many trans-identifying minors have similar experiences.

My god @FireUnderTheHand that sounds horrific for you. I'm so sorry