Mother of transgender child in i newspaper today

I have a 2.5 year old. She has NO IDEA what a boy or a girl is. She is very ahead with her language and speaks long sentences. But is totally irrational and nonsensical. The idea that I would pay a blind bit of notice to her insisting she is a boy is ridiculous.

She has started to say things like, I'm a girl mummy! And I say, yes! Is mummy a girl or a boy? A girl, she says. If daddy a girl or a boy? A girl, she says. She is clueless about what that means.

The most important thing in her life at the moment is the desperate need to watch cocomelon, get chocolate, and have milk from the right bottle. If any of these things don't happen she is devastated. I can fully imagine a child fixating on something completely arbitrary such as being a girl, and when told no, going nuts over it. She goes nuts if I tell her she is getting tall, she shouts at me and says NO I AM LITTLE. She has similar strong feelings for colours, if I correct her with the right colour she gets very angry! I just agree with her for an easy life and she moves on to the next distraction in the goldfish bowl of her life. Perhaps I will make sure not to agree with her so easily if she randomly decides to fixate on being a boy. What a travesty for this generation of young kids.

So these parents are advised to have photos of their child exhibiting unconventional gender expression from a young age, in their 'safe folder'.....FFS that proves nothing! (Other than perhaps they might possibly grow top to be gay.)

Really smacks of raising them to be ridiculously paranoid and permanently looking for a fight.

Thats not a healthy premise to set really.

Again instead of teaching them.lifeskills ,.that not everyone is going to be their friend, that you will encounter bullies in your life and here's what you do/where you go they are taught to gather evidence that their families at least believe them.

If it wasn't family doing that, I'd be telling ny kids that that's what bullies do. They go along with you make you think you ate sage with them, you do everything they ask of you and they tell you that only they can be trusted and everyone else is wrong and here's why etc

So these parents are advised to have photos of their child exhibiting unconventional gender expression from a young age, in their 'safe folder'.....FFS that proves nothing! (Other than perhaps they might possibly grow top to be gay.) As for the religious chanting in the background-what on earth is going on in that house? Can't these parents step away from the medicalisation of their children and just let them grow up naturally.

If only this creature knew he could just identify his baby daughter as a boy - rather than murder her?

DO NOT read this if you are going to be upset (do read if you will be angry). Father allegedly murdered baby girl because he wanted a son: I doubt he will be punished.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10597849/Fury-Pakistan-father-shoots-dead-seven-day-old-baby-girl-wanted-boy.html

Of only so much effort and research was out into things like - leukaemia, Alzheimer’s, child welfare, elder care…

But no - those pushing this and those fighting this are wearing themselves out to the detriment of actually solving real world issues.

I am highly suspicious of any adult who believes that puberty should be viewed as optional, and treated like an illness

Breaking the bias?

Oh and when people meet me particularly through sports they presume I'm lesbian. That causes more confusion when they realise I have a husband and am straight 😆 just can't escape stereotypes!

I'm horrified that anyone thinks it's ethical to do this to children when the problem is that we have gone backwards on stereotypes. After years of teaching kids that boys can be nurses and girls can be soldiers if they wish we are now telling them yeah you can but if you do it means you are the wrong gender..
The law suits in 20 years will be horrendous!

I've said before if this had been around when I was little I would have been a prime candidate..I railed against the girls can't do this or that and hated being a girl. I dressed like a boy, short hair, friends with more boys than girls. Pretend games I was male roles, I was Hutch playing Starsky and Hutch, Bodie in The Professionals, Robin Hood..a Prince you get the picture!
I'm now mid 50s, still not girly, play traditional male sports and martial arts. I wear jeans, jumpers, hoodies. I'm also married to a man, a mother and grandmother. No confusion about my gender just refuse to act as stereotype.

I just imagined a child that was quiet but fierce. We didn't have many toys but we had each other and a stream near the house.

Crowd - it could be loud sometimes but not a growl. My sister had a male alter ego when we played and she gave me one too. We had action men and meccano, space rockets and cars, and played with dads architect building models.

@kittenkong I don't know if it was a typo but 'growl of kids' is an awesome turn of phrase.

My sister and I had male alter egos when we were kids (Jimmy and Steven), we never played out 'as girls'. Boys had much more fun, in books, on tv, etc. I wanted to be a boy, being a girl was rubbish. I grew out of it. I doubt my parents even noticed.

@vitani I have this with both of my children because I raised them as gender neutral as possible (ie to like everything they wanted to like). It was how my siblings and I were raised and I stupidly thought it was normal.

I agree it can be very painful. Of course this is the language a small child would use to express their discomfort with the world as they find it. How else would they express it when adults can't even understand or explain the existence of gender stereotypes half the time.

I'm not suggesting that a child feeling discomfort is the parent's fault. Quite the opposite! Half of the reason I rage against this ideology is precisely because it targets children like mine, who aren't stereotypes, and tells them to change their bodies in order to fit in.

I am far from safely through this with my children and I don't judge the parents desperate to keep avenues of communication open with teens hell bent on transitioning.

But I do judge parents who blindly affirm and, worse, use their child's issues as a proxy for gaining attention.

'I hate pink' phase and they've all passed, so far. (This has been for both children, of either sex, btw). Both are apparently becomign more comfortable with what stereotypes are and how they relate to them/against them, as they get older.

This gives me some hope, she has always had a preference for the male characters on TV or in books etc anyway, but since starting school and very much gravitating towards the boys (and I think often the boys don't want to play with the girls etc at playtime ATM), she has definitely began a very strong "I hate everything related to girls because it's not cool" stage. You give me some hope this will change to a more balanced idea of what stereotypes are and how she can he a girl and be comfortable without all that.

School and the wider environment, media etc, can have quite a strong effect on children but it won't rival the influence of parents for quite some years, yet. We held tight through the sparkles phase, the princess phase, the 'Ill never cut my hair phase', the 'I hate pink' phase and they've all passed, so far. (This has been for both children, of either sex, btw). Both are apparently becomign more comfortable with what stereotypes are and how they relate to them/against them, as they get older.

Kitten. I hope you don't mind me saying, and please ignore if this is not appropriate, but have you looked into this further?

I know one becomes accustomed to thinking things to the extent we think they are innate, and will never change, but those kind of thoughts are not neutral, if you see what I mean.

Sometimes we are quite good at covering up hurt and pain, or even good at maintaining a damaging personal narrative, and can do a lot of justification to avoid looking too closely at it. Sometimes a trusted friend or professional can help us to navigate through it and it can be surprising to find what we thought of as fixed fact is in fact ... well. Transient. Mutable.

Wishing you all the very best.

Oh god that video.

Its funny how GC feminists are accused of mot wanting trans people to exist yet all these talks and explanation videos all basically talk themselves out if existence . Not us

Actually it's not even due to that, it is due to their parents discomfort with the fact they didn't neatly fit into the right coloured box.

I would disagree with that. I've always raised my DD that she can like princesses and superheroes, football or ballet, fairies and knights, that she can wear what clothes she likes, that pink and blue and glitter are for girls and boys, etc. And I don't mind that she doesn't want the "girl" stuff, but I do care that she thinks that she wants to be a boy because of that and that she has cried about it, and that's despite all my trying to not enforce stereotypes on her at home. I keep telling her she's a girl but that doesn't mean she can't do X Y Z or like X Y Z.

I am worried about what could happen in her head once any mention of trans happens at school.

I’m body going to say this once because it’s pretty sad…

I was quite an odd child - a very sad one in many ways. There wasn’t any abuse but I was one of a growl of kids with busy parents.

I didn’t want to exist and I can’t say that’s changed all that much as I’ve grown up and older. It was normal to me and most people don’t understand my ‘I don’t want to be here philosophy. It’s not melodramatic, it’s not a threat or a statement of intent. I can usually take it or leave it and have always felt this way for as long as I can remember.

So - my parents what, should have what - drowned me at the age of 4?

If the FOUR YEAR OLD child has the sense of being in the 'wrong body" it is due to the fact childhood is horrifically gendered at the moment. Pink princesses and blue footballers etc. Actually it's not even due to that, it is due to their parents discomfort with the fact they didn't neatly fit into the right coloured box.

I think the argument I hear about this from their side is that the child uses the opposite stereotypes to signify that they are not X because life is extremely gendered as you say, so they know what these signifiers mean.

However, I do agree with you.

My DD is going through a massive "I don't want to be a girl, girls aren't cool, I want to be a boy and I want to look like a boy" thing atm. She won't accept anything she sees as "for girls" and just wants everything that she sees as being "for boys". Of course, I tell her it's for everyone really, but kids do pick up on societal ideas about gender stereotypes. Most of her friends at school are boys and one of the mum's of one of these boys said "Your daughter is the only girl my son plays with/talks about because she is into all the same things as him". She won't watch any "girl movies/TV shows" or wear any "girl clothes" and always asks for "cool boys toys". She says girls just aren't cool and she's "just" a girl but doesn't want to he because boys are better at football and if she's a girl then the boys won't let her play with them. She does get very upset. She's 6.

It's so sad what stereotypes do to children.

That video is seven shades of creepy. Why does it have all that RC chanting in it? Made me think of The Exorcist....