How can I talk to my TWAW daughter?

It is so difficult to know what to do for the best. I firmly believe that teenage girls are for the most part frightened of growning up and for this reasons seek to identify or become non-female. My concen is that in the past girls would have just gone through the teenage phase with similar worries but would have passed through this without making decisions which could then impact their future lives. The influences from the social media plus the fact that schools/colleges don't challenge but in my view encourage this as diversity pushes them further along the line

I'd possibly avoid the 'trans' issue head on and just keep quietly and consistently raising awareness of misogyny etc.
The book Invisible Women is a very good, factual, eye-opening book about the global, historical lack of consideration of women in nearly every sphere. Nothing to do with gender, sexuality, idpol - can you keep on in that vein for now?

[quote PinkyU]@Soontobe60 if the parents feel the need to check her phone, they shouldn’t have given her one.

Having a phone comes with the presumption of privacy, if you don’t trust her then she wasn’t ready to be given it.[/quote]
I'm sure you didn't mean it to be, but this is dangerous advice, which plays right into the hands of predators!

The Internet is a vast, unregulated and potentially dangerous space. Many children have phones for various reasons way before they are old enough to navigate the Internet safely entirely on their own.

A locked diary might have some presumptions of privacy. A phone? An email address? Of course not!

Aargh, you're their mum.

I agree with this. I can understand being quite thoughtful in what you say in discussion, but talking things through with your children is a good thing.

Don't be too dogmatic and push your children away, but equally it's fine if your kids think you are too strict, uncool, a dinosaur etc. Your their mum, being uncool is part of the role.

@PinkyU what a completely ridiculous thing to say!

@Soontobe60 if the parents feel the need to check her phone, they shouldn’t have given her one.

Having a phone comes with the presumption of privacy, if you don’t trust her then she wasn’t ready to be given it.

Definitely critical thinking.

We started that discussion when ours was much younger particularly around topical things such as climate change, vaccines, religion and flat earth (never thought I would have that conversation). It is important to learn how to recognise pseudo-science vs proven science and to realise that having an alternative hypothesis is absolutely fine, but it is not something to base law or social changes on.

It is always interesting when they start realising that sex change outside of cosmetic and artificial hormonal changes were not possible. They find their way to working out what works for them, what they are willing to overlook for the comfort of their friends while treating all people with respect.

I think it would be much harder to have a teen who could not work out for themselves that people really cannot change sex.

I think quite a few of the people (including myself) are suggesting talking about wider issues, women's rights, critical thinking etc, to give kids the tools to navigate this tricky area. It's not abdicating parenting at all, it's recognising you have to parent teens differently.

I am surprised at how many people say don't talk. In an age where the young really can't know which information sources to trust surely they need support from people they can trust to guide them. This is old fashioned parenting. Look at things together, discuss together. Take an argument or view point to its foundations. Teach your kids to think critically. I argued with my mum at this age. I argured for the sake of arguing because I was 13, 14, 15 or 16. But I remember what she said and I could see that she always had my own best interest at heart. I think this view is unfashionable now, but I don't know when we decided to stop parenting.

I got my teens to talk this through by explaining my trans-ness to them (no gender identity =agender). They immediately declared 'No you're not!' and I asked them to explain why my trans-ness was different to other people.

Turns out they believe that only people with body dysmorphia are 'actually trans'. We were able to discuss it a bit less heatedly once we understood what the other was actually talking about.

Some great sources and ideas here OP.

I could be really cynical and suggest that there might be more social capital in the heat of the moment in claiming a transphobic mum than claiming a really quite cool and supportive mum. It may be nothing more than something said to get a need met/project an image in that conversation with typical teenaged thoughtlessness about how you'd feel if you thought she viewed you in that way.

Bear in mind too, the ideology poured out at kids is quite intentionally all about separating them from emotional connections with parents and family and anyone else who may provide balance or other views. It's one of the most worrying things about it. But again 'my mum is great and supportive' is not going to be a message that gets much positive attention online.

@CharlieParley thank you for your post, that was very useful to read and I like the critical thinking resources.

You wouldn't impose your religious beliefs on a 13 year old, so why try to impose any other kind of beliefs.

No but I would ensure my child learns evidence based science and I would try to keep them away from other people's religious beliefs and unscientific dogma. Where I can't keep them away I need to help them learn to critically evaluate with all the facts. Thanks to charley for such a helpful post on how to do this.

Being GC, critical of "gender" - the means by which women are oppressed - is a belief I guess (the sexual dimorphism of humans is scientific fact, not a belief). But to believe the opposite, that gender stereotypes (submissiveness, femininity, lower pay, less authority, etc) are somehow innate to women, is pretty sexist and homophobic. In my house sexism, homophobia and racism are always going to be challenged and discussed.

My dd was totally TWAW at your DD's age. She called me transphobic you.
At age 17 she started saying that TWAW but TW don't belong in womens prisons and women's sport which was when I started talking about my thoughts on it.
She now realises that people who don't believe that TWAW aren't saying that trans people should be bullied and eradicated. There is a minority of true scum who believe this but believing in sex over gender doesn't mean you wish ill on people who are trans or non-binary. It's like respecting someone who has a different religion - live and let live but expect the other person to treat your beliefs the same way. Being older (life experience) and meeting people who are gay has helped chip away at TWAW because she knows people who are attracted to the same sex and that isn't transphobic.

She doesn't know I saw that message and I worry about being criticised for"snooping" on her phone if I mention it.

My kids are allowed their phone only on the condition that I can check it at any time.

This helped me nip a potentially dangerous situation in the bud previously where DC and friends were sharing their personal data, including addresses and full names, in a chat group they thought was private - because only they were members - but that could be read by anybody in the world.

So, we're all clear why that condition was non-negotiable. I also regularly check what content the kids are watching. When one of my older kids was getting sucked into a reactionary circle a few years ago, again I managed to head this off. (Although I still worry that some of the ideas soaked up then form the basis of my DC's beliefs now.)

And I disagree that parents should refrain from talking to a teenager about ideas and ideologies that they consider to be harmful to their child. We don't abdicate our responsibility to safeguard them and shape their minds so they grow up to be resilient adults who can think critically and make good choices when they hit their teens. On the contrary, that's when conversations about ideas and ideologies become more important than ever before.

The question is how and when do you have that chat. Do you confront it head on? Sometimes, yes. With my middle DC, it was a straight up "what these YouTubers are saying is wrong, you should not be watching them, and here is why". It took a few conversations, some lengthy ones, but we did eventually get through.

It did help that I had a critical thinking cheat sheet on the fridge, so I frequently referred to the questions it recommends that you ask yourself when you're thinking about something.

(You can download it here on the Global Citizen website.)

Here's what I would recommend:

• start the conversation when you're in a good place, picking up on something related that she brought up recently (such as equality, women's rights, human rights, news reports, a leaflet from school)
• ask her to explain her ideas to you and ask lots of questions, giving her room and time to explore them with you (what do you think gender identity is, where does it come from, what cis means, why do we have single-sex prisons or hospital wards, can we identify as a different nationality or age or as having a disability, who might be excluded if there are no single-sex changing rooms at school)
• don't simply wait for her to stop talking so you can refute her with your extremely logical points (that's one of my weaknesses) but take her with you on exploring why you think differently to her
• I would focus on one issue at a time only and find good resources that would help me make it age appropriate (if I wanted to discuss gender identity for instance, I would first watch Rebecca Riley Cooper's video again, because I found that very clear on the concept. I don't agree with everything she writes on gender, but the video is excellent.)
• be clear that your focus is on women's rights and use language that aids that understanding (I always talk about male and female, male-bodied and female-bodied, I don't use words like TW or TM)
• don't ambush your child, but try to find a natural opening (learned that one the hard way)
• be firm on name-calling and insults (if she wants to call you transphobic to her friends that's par for the course with teens; if she does it to your face, firmly remind her of your family's behaviour rules)
• don't be disappointed if you make little progress at first (my oldest came to me two years after I first started talking to him about women's rights to tell me that my points had finally sunk in, because, sadly, life was hammering them in more forcefully than I ever could)

Good luck!

I would not discuss it. No reason to, it's up to her what she thinks and believes, and she has access to information just like you have, she just disagrees with it and you and you have to let her get on with it.

You wouldn't impose your religious beliefs on a 13 year old, so why try to impose any other kind of beliefs.

I explain my own beliefs when asked about them directly. I would also prioritize family harmony and closeness over being 'right' (which you probably are) about TWAW.

Your choice, but you aren't the source of education she's choosing right now, and it's more important to keep the communication flowing so she comes to you with anything, (even nothing to do with gender or trans) in the coming years.

Apologies, your post read to me that the OP is ok to snoop on her child’s phone because that condition would have been outlined from the start. I get the impression from the OP’s posts that she didn’t have that conversation before her DD got the phone

It's cool, I probably wasn't that clear.

The trans promotion are doing a 'great' job on the young to confuse and eradicate women into sub groups