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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:
sacredfeminina · 27/03/2022 00:49

^ pop91

titchy

I hope you understand now OP, from reading posters here, that although your mother identified as GC, in fact she very clearly wasn't. That's the difficult thing when people identify as something - often they're not the thing they identity as.

Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

and why then should conversion therapy not be banned? ^

Not welcome from where? We're bot eunning a gender critical pub, gender critical is a loose tern to describe some ideas of some people. It's not q club or an organistion, or a physical place to throw anyone out of.

I don't think of quality mental health support as 'conversion therapy'. Working through someone's body dysmorphia / dysphoria and exploring how that person can accept their body without having to surgically or medically damage it, is not conversion. That is proper cpunselling helping someone alleviate a mental health issue.

Is a psychotherapist working through someone's anoerexia nervosa then 'conversion therapy'?

Gender dysphoria is the only mental health issue where you change your healthy body to match your perception. Ultimately one might say it creates an unhealthy body to match an unhealthy mind.... I think a healthy body and a healthy mind is a much better outcome.

LosingTheWill2022 · 27/03/2022 00:47

Why would you think GC would be in favour of abuse? Conversion therapy absolutely should be banned.
Not believing in gender doesn't equate to transphobia

pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:44

@PrelateChuckles

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

What is the definition of the word 'woman' in your definition of the word 'woman'? What is the thing - woman - they are identifying as? What is the thing that all women have in common, that people who aren't women don't have?

(These aren't multiple questions - just the same question but with ways to help you think about how to answer in a non-circular way).

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

OP posts:
Lovelyricepudding · 27/03/2022 00:41

Aren't welcome where and to do what? Do you think we should send them rape threats and get them fired from there jobs or something?

AgathaMystery · 27/03/2022 00:41

Conversion therapy SHOULD be banned. Almost all GC women agree on this matter. It’s homophobic and vile.

AgathaMystery · 27/03/2022 00:40

Not to throw shade on you OP but it’s worrying when people don’t know the basics of how we are conceived and become - well- who and what we are.

IVF counselling is shit though. I regularly meet couples who have had multiple rounds yet have not the basic grasp of any of it. The mind boggles. If I was a cynic I’d say it’s about making money out of misery but that would be uncharitable.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:39

@titchy

I hope you understand now OP, from reading posters here, that although your mother identified as GC, in fact she very clearly wasn't. That's the difficult thing when people identify as something - often they're not the thing they identity as.
Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

and why then should conversion therapy not be banned?

OP posts:
pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:38

@LosingTheWill2022

I'm so sad reading your story.

Your parents are abusive. I will not challenge anything you've written other than your description of your parents as "gender critical". They are homophobic abusers. To equate their views and actions as being "gender critical " is disingenuous.

I wish you nothing but happiness and hope you can come to differentiate between the appalling actions of your parents and the legitimate concerns being voiced in the face of "no debate".

Thank You and I'm not for 'no debate' hence still debating on here at 12 in the night Smile
OP posts:
Lovelyricepudding · 27/03/2022 00:36

*sperm nor spermicide. Autocorrect.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:36

@GreenBlueRedYellow

What will you do if your children or step children reject you and prevent you from ever having any sort of relationship with any future grandchildren ?
I don't know.

I won't hurt them for who they are but rather love them for it so hopefully that never happens.

OP posts:
AgathaMystery · 27/03/2022 00:35

Meant to quote isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception
On that Confused

AgathaMystery · 27/03/2022 00:34

No. Sex is determined when we are conceived. This is why we can perform sex-selective fertility treatments, by examining the embryo.

I think you mean when the sex of a fetus can be determined? That would be from about 9 week via maternal blood test (looking at cell free fetal DNA) or from an ultrasound (16 weeks onwards).

I can do a more detailed explain action but that’s the quick and dirty version.

Lovelyricepudding · 27/03/2022 00:34

isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception?

Every cell in your body apart from gametes have two sets of chromosomes (leaving aside for the moment differences such as triploidy). When your gametes are formed these duplicate chromosomes split so each gamete has just one copy. In women this means all their ova has an x chromosome. In men 50% of spermicide have x and 50% have y chromosomes. The sex of the child conceived is dependent on whether the ova is fertilised by a spermicide baring an x chromosome or one baring a y chromosome and from that moment of conception sex is fixed forever.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:33

@ScrollingLeaves

“We are also now having a baby very soon.”

I am glad for you that you are happier now and congratulations on your baby soon to be born.

I was wondering if your baby was conceived through intercourse with both of you being your baby’s parents ( rather than with a donor)? If so, given this would be the result of the function of your sex, did this feel as though it was confirming your sex and therefore trigger your dysphoria again?
Similarly, if you are the pregnant one, does this feel dysphoric?

I may be confused here I realise.

Also, I was just wondering if your parents ever sent you for general counselling to talk about your desperate feelings?

What form exactly did the conversion therapy take, how old were you, and how long did it go on for?

We didn't conceive through intercourse. Yes, we used a doner but not a surrogate.

No, but NHS did send for general counselling.

I've noted the conversion therapy in another comment.

OP posts:
PrelateChuckles · 27/03/2022 00:33

[quote NurseBernard]@pop91 - are you able to have another attempt at defining ‘woman’ and ‘man’ that doesn’t actually use those words in the definition?[/quote]
This is a good indicator as to whether they're here in good faith or not... or at least whether they've actually thought about it.

Eyesofdisarray · 27/03/2022 00:33

Sex determined later in pregnancy?? What????

Eyesofdisarray · 27/03/2022 00:31

Doesn't pregnancy trigger a transman's dysphoria?
Genuine question; wondered for a while..

RoaringtoLangClegintheDark · 27/03/2022 00:30

isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception?

No, dear. Back to school for you! Must try harder at biology!

AlexaShutUp · 27/03/2022 00:30

OP, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry that you had such homophobic parents.

After years of reading these threads, I still don't have any concept of what it means to "identify as a woman" or "identify as a man". I struggle to relate to this personally, and believe that I am a woman on the basis of my biological sex alone. I understand from your posts that you think identifying with a particular gender means more than just dressing in a certain way etc. Are you able to explain what this means for you in a concrete way that doesn't just rely on the circular explanation about "feeling like a woman" or "feeling like a man", because again, those phrases are meaningless to me. What does "identifying as a woman" or "identifying as a man" mean in real terms? Is it simply about being attracted to the traditional stereotypes for one particular gender?

PrelateChuckles · 27/03/2022 00:29

They forced me to live in the Gender that's the same as my sex

How can a gender be the same as a sex? They are different things. Which sexes match which genders?

pop91 · 27/03/2022 00:26

@AgathaMystery

I don’t understand what you mean by socially transition? Do you mean conforming to gender stereotypes?

How did your parents force you to live as your ‘biological’ sex - what other type of sex is there?

We will all die the same biological sex we were conceived as. Won’t we Hmm?

I asked people to refer to me a certain way and they did - that's all.

They forced me to live in the Gender that's the same as my sex if that makes it clearer.

isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception?

OP posts:
RoaringtoLangClegintheDark · 27/03/2022 00:25

Still lolling at the whole GC parents malarkey. Sure, Jan. Sure.

And what was that non circular definition of woman again? You did say to ask you stuff. But you don’t seem able to answer.

Lovelyricepudding · 27/03/2022 00:24

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Quotes deleted post

NurseBernard · 27/03/2022 00:24

And yes, we all know what your biological sex is.

NurseBernard · 27/03/2022 00:23

@pop91 - are you able to have another attempt at defining ‘woman’ and ‘man’ that doesn’t actually use those words in the definition?