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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Former Trans Child of Gender Critical Parents (very long). *Trigger warning - descriptions of self harm and suicide* - Title edited by MNHQ

541 replies

pop91 · 26/03/2022 22:33

Hi,

To start I wanna say I'm writing this post in good faith to provide the viewpoint of a Trans person with Gender Critical parents but I know this is the internet and this will probably just be trolled to death but here goes.

I had a pretty regular 'happy' family setup, and apparently first told my parents of my identity at just 5yrs old but the first I remember is at 8yrs old when I refused to go by my 'very gendered' birth name but my parents insisted on using it especially publicly.

My parents were never particularly strict on gender roles in the home - my sister would wear my dad's glasses and jacket and stomp around with his briefcase in hand and my brother had an emo phase with heels and mascara to match and apart from some grumbling from my father it was never the biggest issue in our house.

Sexuality was different though even though my father would class himself as a pragmatic centrist, barring a socialist university phase, and my mother a card-carrying progressive New Labour type whose Best Friend was the most flamboyant gay man and an Aunt who lived with her 'friend' until she passed. There was an uncomfortableness with sexuality where both my parents would call it a lifestyle choice and opposed gay marriage - cut to three years ago when my older brother came out as bisexual and last month the youngest sister as a lesbian Grin but rest assured the other 3 siblings remain firmly 'normal.'

Back to me and by 12 I had started puberty and was experiencing debilitating gender dysphoria - I would look into the mirror and see nothing that matched my brain. I would continue to feel this way until the bullying and dysphoria got so bad that one night I climbed into my bathtub with a kitchen knife hoping I could change my body to fit my brain somehow I managed not to perform self-surgery in my bathtub.

A couple of months later I came clean to my parents, I wasn't expecting a big hug but I wasn't expecting what came next. They ignored it as if I had told them what I wanted for dinner, they decided they didn't hear what I had said at all.

Over the next year, the internet became my friend as I found ways to affirm my gender by doing hidden things at first and then slowly more outward things. I came out to my siblings and although they found it confusing my oldest brother and sister were a godsend who I wouldn't have survived without, They helped me pick out a new haircut and new clothes and we came up with a new name.

I came out in school and sure there was bullying but I was feeling so Euphoric that it almost didn't matter. When the teachers found out they informed my parents and that's when everything changed! My parents sat me down and said I was just confused. They threw out my new clothes, anything that I used to affirm my gender, even my shoes and magazines then they took my bedroom door off and took away my laptop and phone and forced my older siblings to refer to me by my birth name, my older brother and sister stopped supporting me and I lost my only family support and anything that was helping me.

Eventually, when they realised everything they had done hadn't worked and I still felt the same way, they decided to try both religious and non-religious conversion therapy which left permanent scarring to my mental health and I frequently have nightmares about it.

At 15 I had my first suicide attempt and my parents forced me to lie and say it was due just to bullying at school but that wasn't true it was the dysphoria and conversion therapy that was killing me.

From 15 to 17 I had multiple suicide attempts and after the third one, my parents finally allowed me to stop the conversion therapy but still forcibly live as my 'biological' sex.

Eventually, I managed to get to a great University and at 18 I socially transitioned and by 20 I had started hormones. I now have a job that provides me financial stability and have an amazing partner, with 2 children from a prior relationship that I now consider like my own. We are also now having a baby very soon.

My mother now describes herself as Gender Critical and frequently posts online about how she will be unable to see her grandchildren because of her views, which is true as I will not allow my parents to see either my child or stepchildren.

My parents continue to refuse to acknowledge my identity and pronouns. The last time we talked, she said she believes I am just gay, which neither makes sense considering my partner's gender nor the fact she also has a terrible relationship with my lesbian sister and bisexual brother who also rarely allows his child to visit my mum, due to her comments about their sexualities.

I finally have the support back of all my siblings and we do frequently gather without my parents. I hope one day my parents change their minds but honestly I don't hold much hope and I don't know if I could forgive what they did to me.

A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals but I don't, it wasn't very nice at all. If you're going to ask if I think kids should transition, the answer is I don't know as I didn't transition as a child and a social transition helped plenty for me.

Well that's it I think, just the perspective and experience of a trans person with Gender Critical parents, feel free to ask any reasonable questions or respectful questions. Smile

OP posts:
tabbycatstripy · 27/03/2022 10:59

I'm not worried about having a 'trans child'. There are no 'trans children'. If one of my daughters has serious dysphoria then we would seek non-judgmental, open-ended therapeutic help to get to the root of it, and I would limit her access to the internet so she could engage in rational real-life discussion about the causes of her distress. If she just decided one day to call herself Jack and change her pronouns, I would indulge it with patience and kindness, until she changed it all back again.

IcakethereforeIam · 27/03/2022 10:47

You'd come back to a few fragments of baby bones impossible to tell sex or race.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/03/2022 10:47

A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals

Why would they a) want a "trans child" to be looked after by people they think are awful and don't understand gender dysphoria and b) see having a "trans child" as a kind of punishment?

Confused
Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 10:43

@pop91
Well to me Man, Women and Non-Binary are all identities whereas male, female and intersex are biological and normally they work together:
Female = Women
and sometimes they don't:
Female = Man

Non binary indicates non identity. Ie not make or female. And of course that’s just nonsense as we are all either male or female. It’s impossible to not be one or the other.
Anyone with a DSD (please don’t use ‘intersex’, it’s offensive) is still either male or female. You’ve phrased it as if it’s a third sex. Again, it’s offensive.
In law, a man is an adult human male, a woman is an adult human female and non binary doesn’t exist.
You seem very confused.

IcakethereforeIam · 27/03/2022 10:41

AlexaShutUp
Oh, bless you (in a non-religious fashion), try to get some rest.
I feel your username BTW, worse than having a barky dog sometimes.

LosingTheWill2022 · 27/03/2022 10:41

Or that you can degrees of being a woman???

StopLying · 27/03/2022 10:39

[quote pop91]@Wafflemaker

though I don't suppose this is a good-faith question of what is a woman I will give the definition I find most appropriate:

Firstly women are in 99% of cases an adult human female who identifies as a woman and secondly in 1% of cases either a woman is an Adult Trans Woman who identifies as a woman or anyone who falls towards the women end of the gender spectrum and identifies as a woman.[/quote]
Saying you identify as as a woman does not make you a woman. The only way you can be a woman is to be born one. Biology. That's it. Women are in 100 percent of cases adult human females. Men wearing mascara and lipstick are simply that. Men wearing 'woman face'. Even if they identify as women. It's not actually real. And not possible to change sex.

Clymene · 27/03/2022 10:39

@SayYouDontMind

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

My first thought was that if you leave two babies alone on an island, they'd be dead within day :(

@pop91 - I just reread your OP:
A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals but I don't,

That seems a very strange and rather disturbing position to take.

And I don't think shift work. I think Manchester Uni, having enjoyed a rant at women on Thursday night

LosingTheWill2022 · 27/03/2022 10:39

What does the ‘woman end of the gender spectrum’ mean?

This makes me so angry. OP is clearly conflating the noun woman with the adjective feminine. Resulting in the misogyny that says women who are not "feminine" are somehow 'less' of a woman. In 2022 !!

RufustheFloralmissingreindeer · 27/03/2022 10:37

Within 100 years 🤔

Even blue lagoon they weren’t babies were they?

RufustheFloralmissingreindeer · 27/03/2022 10:36

@SayYouDontMind

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

I think they would be dead in 100 years

Someone should rescue them a bit earlier

SayYouDontMind · 27/03/2022 10:33

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 10:31

[quote pop91]@Wafflemaker

though I don't suppose this is a good-faith question of what is a woman I will give the definition I find most appropriate:

Firstly women are in 99% of cases an adult human female who identifies as a woman and secondly in 1% of cases either a woman is an Adult Trans Woman who identifies as a woman or anyone who falls towards the women end of the gender spectrum and identifies as a woman.[/quote]
Not 99%. 100%.
A transwoman is an adult human male.

What does the ‘woman end of the gender spectrum’ mean?

Whatsnewpussyhat · 27/03/2022 10:30

You say a woman is someone who sees themselves as a woman but trans is thinking your body doesn't match what is in your brain.
You, for example are what we would traditional think of as a dysphoric transexual.

That still doesn't explain a 30 year old male, who is perfectly comfortable with their male body and looks and dresses in a stereotypical male way, beard etc. Who has no dysphoria who suddenly declares 'I'm a woman'. How can he have a woman gender of he isn't performing woman? He hasn't had woman gender his entire life so what change magically happened?
It what way is he actually trans under your definition?

The entire ideology is one huge contradiction, trans people can't even agree on definitions of their own words.

tabbycatstripy · 27/03/2022 10:29

'If you don't see yourself as a woman then you aren't a woman.'

We differ in this opinion. I respect your right to call yourself what you like and I sympathise with your pain, but I will never think this. The only coherent definition of 'woman' is a biological one.

Whingasaurus · 27/03/2022 10:25

I wish you all the best but it's not really relevant to this section? Women's right are under attack from men pretending to be women. I wish every man, woman and young adult genuinely suffering from gender dysphoria the best possible outcome for them. But they can't and won't ever change sex and men can't usurp the places of women. Your journey is not relevant it's got nothing to do with feminism your struggles with your family's bigotry is a separate struggle that i hope you resolve and I'm sorry you've struggled with but I'm still of exactly the same mind I was before I read this. No to men in women's spaces. Only women can be mothers only men can be fathers. Your medical, criminal, educational and sporting data must record your sex.

PrelateChuckles · 27/03/2022 10:25

This thread has been fascinating. It has certainly laid open your PHENOMENAL misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what you understood 'Gender Critical' to mean. If most of your trans peers share this similar misunderstanding, then that might explain why we're in this fucking mess.

I think that's the take-home message.

AlexaShutUp · 27/03/2022 10:22

@IcakethereforeIam

Just come back and read the end of this thread, I'm thinking different time zone or working in shifts.
Or could just mean adhd like me, and incapable of transitioning from one activity to another in a timely manner. Blush

I should have stepped away and gone to sleep last night, but I went down a rabbit hole instead.

SayYouDontMind · 27/03/2022 10:19

This thread has been fascinating. It has certainly laid open your PHENOMENAL misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what you understood 'Gender Critical' to mean. If most of your trans peers share this similar misunderstanding, then that might explain why we're in this fucking mess.

Oh and your parents were plain old-fashioned, religiously fundamentalist homophobes and transphobes and I'm truly sorry you grew up in such a horrible environment.

Hope you're enjoying Mother's day (even though I personally think it's a pile of commercialised shite I won't say no to breakfast in bed!)

And I genuinely hope you've learnt something from this thread.

IcakethereforeIam · 27/03/2022 10:15

Just come back and read the end of this thread, I'm thinking different time zone or working in shifts.

DickKerrLadiesaurus · 27/03/2022 10:14

AIBU to be miffed that my partner spent the entire night berating feminists on the internet then had to sleep the entire of Mother's Day leaving me to do all the childcare?

Can you imagine?! And we're called mean on FWR!

Testingprof · 27/03/2022 10:12

@pop91
“ Imagine if you will that you were a person of colour and of mixed heritage and felt deeply you were a person of colour and of mixed heritage and someone came up to you and insisted you were white and continued to even after you corrected them. And having explained the circumstances they then continued to deny you by saying 'you're actually white passing' you might then find this person to be offensive and disrespectful.”

If you were really a person of mixed heritage you would know the opposite happens all the damn time. Mixed race black with white are constantly told they are black generally by white people. Like I said it’s irritating it’s not painful.

Man isn’t an offensive word so stop equating it to the N word which is a slur.

Nigerian is not an ethnicity. You can be white and Nigerian. I’ve bumped into several white Zimbabweans over the years it’s not brain rot to point that out. The fact you think it is points out once again to me that you are white.

Flammkuchen · 27/03/2022 10:11

Thanks for this. I now believe that humans can change sex and that any male who feels a bit girly can compete in women's sport.

OvaHere · 27/03/2022 10:05

Wow OP you stayed up through the whole night to tell us how wrong we are about everything.

You did say you were in the UK, right?

I think this tells us you're not the pregnant one, I've never met a pregnant woman who can stay awake much past 10pm.

Assuming this pregnant mother and her children exist perhaps you should go give them some attention before you end up the subject of an AIBU.

AIBU to be miffed that my partner spent the entire night berating feminists on the internet then had to sleep the entire of Mother's Day leaving me to do all the childcare?

PonyPatter44 · 27/03/2022 10:05

Truthfully, I have never seen rape threats from GC feminist women towards trans people. Sadly, I cannot say the same is true in reverse. Why is that, I wonder?

OP, I am mixed race (white English mother, Indian father). I was brought up entirely English, I don't even speak my father's language. I "feel" English, whatever that means. However when people look at my face they ask me where I am from, what Indian languages I speak, etc. Am I race dysphoric? As much as I feel wholly English, the reality is, I am mixed race and look it. I can deny it all like, but it is real, and I would just look like a fool if I tried to deny it.

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