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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:
AlisonDonut · 27/03/2022 19:45

I LIKE having a dick and a beard and a flat male chest.

I thought you said you hadn't had 'bottom' surgery yet?

334bu · 27/03/2022 19:44

As a non trans , non man I've had enough of this rubbish, I am away to watch the TV.

BinBandit · 27/03/2022 19:44

So female brains just think about lace and ribbons and puppies and male brains think about football and cars and tools?

How is it that trans activist just seem to want to create more boxes to put people in instead of simply accepting that gender is a social construct and every single human on the planet is an individual with their own likes and dislikes that are neither male or female?

How about people have the body they have, find who they like attractive and pursue whatever interests they like instead of chopping of bits of themselves, taking hormones and talking absolute pish? Maybe some mental health treatment is more appropriate? You cannot be born "in the wrong body" and you cannot change sex.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 19:43

@OldCrone

I guess someone must have moulded my brain to be more male from birth then.

What does this mean? A male brain is a brain in a male body. A female brain is a brain in a female body.

If you have a female body your brain is female no matter what your interests or likes and dislikes are.

I LIKE having a dick and a beard and a flat male chest. I DISLIKE having a vagina and a smooth face and tits. I LIKE being called my name and He/Him. I DISLIKE being called my birthname and She/Her.

can that count as likes and dislikes?

OP posts:
AlisonDonut · 27/03/2022 19:42

All those years of working on girls to expand their minds to be able to do whatever they want to do.

Shattered by this toxic ideology which tells them if they want to do/wear 'man things' they are a man.

What a fucking waste of time.

Deliriumoftheendless · 27/03/2022 19:41

Women
Men
Trans men
Trans women

?

mudgetastic · 27/03/2022 19:41

No

Not everyone has a gender

Do not force people to take on identify that they don't have and don't need

So women
Man

And transwomen or transman for those for whom it does matter

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 19:40

@pop91

Okay people if not Cis then we can we say you're 'not trans' or is that offensive too?
I’m not trans. I’m a woman. The single noun ‘woman’, or noun phrase ‘adult human female’ is all that’s needed to describe me.

To be a transman one first has to be an adult human female, ie woman.
To be a transwoman one first has to be an adult human male, ie man.

mudgetastic · 27/03/2022 19:40

To not be sex based

Finger trouble !

WarriorN · 27/03/2022 19:39

All these threads end up in a quagmire of sexism.

I'm off to bookmark the bunbury recipes.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 19:39

@PrelateChuckles

What's wrong with "people who aren't trans"? Confused
It's long and about 20 characters longer than cis :)

if not Cis then what about 'notrans' people - short and snappy Grin

OP posts:
mudgetastic · 27/03/2022 19:39

No
That's not ok

My pronouns are sec based

If you want pronouns to big be sex based you are asking me to cage myself into a male or female category

No thank you I am not stupid

WarriorN · 27/03/2022 19:38

I guess someone must have moulded my brain to be more male from birth then.

Pop, it's sexist bullshit.

Don't let history repeat itself.

To add... if your future children are wanting to play with the toys and wear the clothes of the opposite sex, will you sexistly tell them they're the opposite sex or will you just let them be?

OldCrone · 27/03/2022 19:38

I guess someone must have moulded my brain to be more male from birth then.

What does this mean? A male brain is a brain in a male body. A female brain is a brain in a female body.

If you have a female body your brain is female no matter what your interests or likes and dislikes are.

mudgetastic · 27/03/2022 19:38

No your brain can't be molded to be male it can be made to think in certain ways and people tend to train males differently to females but that's stereotypes for you

PrelateChuckles · 27/03/2022 19:36

Oh please don't say you believe in 'male' and 'female' brains (that aren't just brains that are in male and female bodies). The Men's Right's Activists' favourite fallacy Sad

MrsOvertonsWindow · 27/03/2022 19:36

This thread is an awesome display of the infinite patience and tolerance of women - many mothers, many not.
Flowers to you all.

pop91 · 27/03/2022 19:36

@mudgetastic

In most cases sex is irrelevant

But where it is relevant it would be better if we could just call transwomen men but some find that distressing so we don't

Are you saying we should just stop being kind and call a man a man , but use gender neutral pronouns for all in most circumstances ?

No, I'm suggesting to use whatever someone tells you to use.

'Hi, I'm _ and my pronouns are he/him'

If you desperately can't or refuse to use he/him then just my name will do :)

OP posts:
OldCrone · 27/03/2022 19:36

do you think gendered roles/expectations/stereotypes are harmful to women (and by extension, some men)?

Yes harmful to ALL people.

You're gender critical.

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 19:35

Gender dysphoria isn’t a mismatch between what someone’s brain imagines and the reality of their body. What you’re trying to describe is that discredited claim that some people are ‘born in the wrong body’.
It’s having uncomfortable feelings about your sexed body. It increases for some children once puberty hits - but the overwhelming majority of boys and girls feel uncomfortable with their developing body to a greater or lesser degree. And of these, again the overwhelming majority become more comfortable as time goes on. Some don't. Some become anorexic, bulimic, even suicidal. Some become trans. Some turn out to be gay.

WarriorN · 27/03/2022 19:35

I guess someone must have moulded my brain to be more male from birth then.

Pop, it's sexist bullshit.

Don't let history repeat itself.

PrelateChuckles · 27/03/2022 19:35

@PrelateChuckles

It's been illuminating, anyway OP. Your view of gender seems a bit removed from the current Stonewall et al thinking. For you it seems centred on the body - on being unhappy with how your body is and wanting to change it fairly drastically (height, sex, at least).

I assume - but please do correct me as I'm interested - you're not too convinced by 'self-id', wherein a man can look like Kim Kardashian and be just as much of a man as George Clooney errr Zayn Malik?

Or do you feel that body appearance is actually quite a big factor, and an invisible inner gender feeling isn't what you consider to be 'gender identity'?

OP, don't mind if you didn't want to get into this or if the thread was moving too fast, but wondered what your thoughts are on it.
RoseslnTheHospital · 27/03/2022 19:34

How would a brain be able to become more male? What would it be like to be more male?

Campervan69 · 27/03/2022 19:34

FTM or MTF isn't true though is it? As no-one can actually change sex.

WarriorN · 27/03/2022 19:34

No, did you hear when the greens called us "non men?"

Wtf is wrong with the word "women?!"

Except throughout history men have sought to control and undermine and abuse women.