Do “trans kids” exist?

for you Spuddddd. A teen with ASD probably thought about this for a long time by the time they spoke about it, and ASD boys aren’t known for flexibility. Good luck.

I suppose we have books about witches and fairies, of child detectives and talking monsters - even the bible We should explain to the children that books aren’t all truth.

I find it horrifying that these transgender books are available at school. As other posters have commented, they lie to children about what in reality is achievable. I am also wondering if any adult may have discussed with your child.

My youngest is also 7, incredibly bright and thoughtful and ponders the symbolic meaning of certain colours. She would not really get the concepts of sex, gender and female socialisation unless I spent quite a lot of time discussing it with her. Even then, she would only have quite a superficial grasp of the concepts. She would also be inclined to trust my opinion in most things and follow it as she a) trusts me and b) would be unable to spot logical flaws in my argumentation if I was careful. We disagree on certain things (like music practice), but I would find it quite strange if she came home with a concept like this from a book .

My sister had a boy alter ego! She tried to give me one too but I didn’t like being called Bill very much. She was the ultimate Tom boy and would have ripe pickings for today’s trends.

I think that line of questioning would have been very valuable for me, @HPFA.

My childhood 'alter ego' was a boy version of myself, probably my older brother. I was thrilled when allowed to wear his cast-off 'boy' brown bomber jacket to school. (My mother was nothing if not frugal.)

So,

Q. Jamie, what is it about being 'alter ego' that makes you feel better?

A. I feel safer, more interesting. Boys have all the fun. Boys are better.

Q. Why do you think that about boys?

A. Because that's what you all keep telling me and showing me.

These days, you can reverse the poles on that as required. But girls are still vulnerable to horrific misogyny. So I'm not surprised so many are 'transitioning'.

It was after he told school about it that he had found some books in the library about it and from reading the book that he discovered the term trans and identifies with it.

I'd be very interested to know what book that was!

@CaptainInsensible

Who was that guy who said that you can tell babies who are trans because the girls will want to take their hair clips out? Can’t remember the name but it was definitely the only possible reason for a baby wanting a hair clip out of her hair

I ask you ...

I really like the idea Sasha White has here about referring to both a child's identities in the third person . So for instance if Jennie wants to change her name to John you just chat "tell me about John" "How does John see things differently to Jennie?" "How does John like to dress and how does Jennie like to dress?"

It seems like a nice way to be respectful and not alienate your child whilst not affirming.

gdworkinggroup.org/2018/11/12/how-i-work-with-rogd-teens/

He doesn't have to identify as a girl for the dress code so it's not that, and he came out and said he wanted to actually be a girl and be called xxxx in November, I would say it was the end of January he said he thought he was trans.

I've asked about the name and why he feels he is a girl but the only answer I get is "it just feels like me" and he points to his chest, and we do chat about it a lot. He knows he can, he knows stereotypes are wrong and he understands he has a penis but insists he is a girl. But the only reason I get is "it feels like me".

Watchful waiting is why I don't want to push any counselling that will suggest or ask about medical intervention. I can appreciate fully that nobody figures themselves out in a day and he's well supported. I just feel so alone in that I know nobody else to support me who's been in this position.

I'm sure this is pretty much the first conversation you had with him, but have you explored (to the extent you want to touch the issue) what 'being a girl' means to him? I agree with all PP who say they'd have 'chosen' to be a boy if they could - I definitely would have done. George from the FF was basically my role model, because the alternative, Anne, was just a million miles from me!

Just wondering what it is about the concept of being a girl that so appeals to him.

If he wants to wear a skirt and school will only let him if he identifies as a girl, then play up merry hell about the sexist dress code!

My gut instinct would be to be as supportive of his feelings as you can while making it clear that there's no such thing as being a girl on the inside; don't affirm, do the watchful waiting that used to be recommended, and statistically there's an 80% chance he'll come out the other side of puberty understanding that he's a boy.

Where is your son getting the idea that his name is wrong? Can't his name just be his name? It's pretty sad that names are so gendered, to be honest. He can wear what he wants and play with girls. That doesn't make him a girl, though.

What do I do about the name he wants to be called, wanting to wear a skirt to school ect?

I'm sure if I'd read a book at that age which said "trans" and that I could actually be the boy I so desperately wanted to be then I'd have insisted that I was a boy.

So I think these books are lying to kids and telling them they can change sex. And a 7 year old is going to read this book that is classed as non fiction and believe that can change sex and they feel it inside.

That actually makes me really angry.

I think him reading that trans book at school has given him the idea that he could actually be a girl inside, whereas those ideas were not about when I was a child. If they had been I would definitely have believed I was really a boy or a boy inside. As it is, I’m a heterosexual woman, who has my sexual function and fertility intact and isn’t a lifelong medical patient reliant on hormones. So imo that’s a good outcome.
I think if it was my child, I’d be gently telling him that the book he read was wrong.

Sorry, TakeMe, I hadn't seen your earlier posts and it's taken me about 20 minutes to write mine, in between phone calls. My comment isn't commenting on or related to yours in any way.

My nephew, born in 1992 when my sister was 41, grew up in a calm, non-sweary, adult home surrounded by women — his mum, his sisters and his gran, who all adored him. He was a sweet, happy child who went to school aged 5 and came back insisting he was a girl. My sister and the rest of the family played along, unbothered. It turned out that his class was dominated by a couple of shouty, sweary boys who expected him to get involved in fighting games. He didn't like it. He saw the girls behaving better and he decided to be a girl so that he could hang out with them. It was as simple as that. Thank goodness that there were no woke teachers to start telling him he was trans. He's now a happy hetero male in his late 20s.

I'm not saying there are any differences between your experiences. I'm not saying this means he is trans. I can only explain my experience and his. It's something that's been going on since he was 3. He's now 7 and it just seems to be getting stronger despite him knowing he can't actually be a girl and understanding the way I've dealt with it, he still very strongly believes he is infact a girl inside.

It's just a very strange experience to go through and not knowing if it's just a phase or gender dysmorphia or something else.

I can only explain my lived experience. I won't pretend to understand but I don't know where those ideas could come from at 3. Am I dealing with it wrong?

What’s the difference between me saying I wanted to be a boy in the early 80s, and your son saying he wants to be a girl in 2020?

Kids that age believe things they read in books. The fact is that he has no idea what a girl feels like inside, but he likely isn't yet able to understand why that is so because of his age and mental stage. So he's repeating words he's read or heard but doesn't really understand.

he's still adamant he needs to actually be a girl

The thing is, he can’t actually be a girl. I wanted to actually be a boy when I was that age, and it was a sad time when I realised I couldn’t become a boy or a man, but it was the best thing for me to accept that, rather than spending my life pretending to be something I am not. That’s my opinion, formed from my personal experience

No all I can say of course is that we don't have gender stereotypes here.

I always thought of him as a creative type and that when he came to terms with just being his own type of boy he might just end up being into art or something taking account of his interests.

I got the David Bowie book (is it little people big dreams, the kids series) last year, I thought it might help because at the beginning of it it talks about how when he was younger he felt like a girl and wanted to be a girl but realised he was a boy, just a different type of boy to the ones people usually think of, he liked other things. Can't remember the exact wording but I tried to explain it to boost his confidence that you can like whatever you want and be who you want to be regardless of anatomy but it's still not helped.
The strange thing is that he's actually really bright and quite confidently understands that gender stereotypes are silly, and the things I've told him about all boys being different and allowed to like/act/dress however. We're open minded and accepting of whatever he wants to chat about but he's still adamant he needs to actually be a girl. When we ask him why he points to his chest and says it feels like me inside.

I'm not saying all these things for the sake of it, it's just an insight into the fact that it can go on for years. Sometimes parents try their absolute best but still don't understand it. Picking him up from school is hard because I'm sure there are lots of parents and possibly even staff who think I'm getting it wrong or it's my own views put on him. But it's really not that way and I don't understand it.

He goes to a great school and pupils seem to all be lovely with him.
It was after he told school about it that he had found some books in the library about it and from reading the book that he discovered the term trans and identifies with it.

I guess I have to think about what I see it as meaning for an adult. Which is, I don't really see it as a mental state or a type of person in any essentialist way. I see it as describing someone who has taken a certain approach to dealing with some kind of underlying problem of situation, like sex dysphoria.

As I see it, while some kids may have some similar underlying issues, their significance is much different in children, to some extent they are even developmentally normal. And the solution of adopting an opposite sex identity is one that should not be used on children even when there is a real problem.