My 13 year old says she is trans. How do I deal with this?

Agreed. I think this approach works more with my son than my daughter. But with something this insidious and harmful I would have to go full authoritarian on them. Their lives are too important to me to basically allow them to.join a cult.

My daughter (13) pretty much disagrees with everything I say and thats fine. But if she wanted to harm herself? No, I would shut that shit down real quick. Of course depends on the child, I think my two must take after me 😬

@DysonSpheres you are right. But with a vulnerable girl age 13 I would then switch her access to the internet off. I used to work for a company in which we saw the evidence of how social media is affecting our girls especially. If this really continued I would shut down her access to all these people online who say they care about her.

Can I speak as a male, and a non parent? Maybe I'm totally unqualified. I often wonder how I'd react to your situation if it was mine, knowing what we all do.

Deep down, we know this is all wrong. I do liken it to a cult, would you be ok allowing your child to pack his or her bags and walk into the distance? I know I wouldn't.

Unfortunately the cult is not only the cult itself, but civic society assisting the cult, you can't even approach the school, GP, police etc.

My advice (yes, as a man, yes, as a non parent). Keep talking, keep questioning, keep interrogating. Impress upon her the enormity and irreversibility of all this. Have your arguments honed and your facts rehearsed.

Ask her how she'd feel if you chose to voluntarily amputate a healthy limb, just because you wanted to. Would she be happy, would she wave you on, especially if you could never justify it? Ask her how upset she'd feel.

Now tell her she's contemplating the same. Ask her to imagine the sheer terror you're feeling.

Talk, keep talking, never stop talking, and hold your nerve.

I really wish you good fortune, hug her tight and don't let go.

Oh🤦🏿‍♀️

@that was to @WitchyFingers I don't kniw why the quote button doesn't then translate agter pressing post sometimes

I"m with you but this this approach depends on the child. A child who needs reasoning and only gets a flat one sided authoritarian style response will instantly put the parent in enemy mode and go and speak to those lovely understanding people on the internet who talk to them and care about their feeeeezzzlliings.

I agree with that too.

I feel like a boy...what does a boy feel like? Who knows. Every boy feels different, every girl feels different.

People getting mad about switching pronouns and misgendering someone - it is so hard to suddenly start using the opposite or a different name.

Take a look at this also:

Oh and @menopausalmare is right. It’s a rejection of girlhood and girls bodies during puberty in the same way anorexia is. This is just the new trend on the block. Dangerous thing is we never affirmed anorexia but for some reason people are running around calling this brave. I just roll my eyes. And yes funny how there has been a massive uptick in this in girls and middle class girls at that.

It’s nonsense and I am a parent, a biology graduate and tell them so. It’s a dangerous ideology, relies on outdated gender stereotypes ,a social media trend and is totally batshit when you dig into it. Tell her she’s a girl but if she wants to dress in trousers and a shirt then go ahead.

No nonsense in our family either.

I would have a sneaky peek at her internet history to see where she is getting this from. Possibly talk to the school about friendships. It's natural to find your body weird during puberty but the talk of surgery is worrying and a recent trend. Keep an open dialogue with her and encourage her to talk without judgement. Working in a school, a lot of girls are transing and rejecting female vulnerability/ Instagram female messaging rather than wanting to be male. Hopefully, she'll reach a place where she's found comfort in her own female body and loves her life as a female.

Personally I wouldn't indulge her. My kids know my opinion on the trans issue and seem to be fine with it.

It depends on your parenting style. I can't be doing with any woo shit (religious beliefs, trans etc) and so am quite no-nonsense. I would just shut any talk of "maybe I'm a boy" immediately with " well you're not so deal with it". I get that this isn't the way other people may parent 😆but it works for us.

I honestly do wonder if there's a bit of a class divide when it comes to the trans stuff. I'm working class, my kids are I suppose middle class (im northern, they're southern, they grew up with more.moneybthan i did) it would never enter my head to indulge this nonsense but a lot of my friends are ( how to put this politely) middle class yummy mummys who never set boundaries. I can see them going along with this shit just for an easy life tbh.

I think the fact you're wondering if she has adhd/asd is the real issue here. Maybe see if you can get a diagnosis for her so you can help her manage the world through that lense.

Stella O'Malley has a new book, When Kids Say They're Trans which may offer some help/advice.

Best of luck to both of you, very tricky situation.

You need to watch some Gender A Wider Lens podcasts and look at different ways of approaching this.

Out of curiousity, what is her school like? Is it single/mixed sex? Does the school tacitly encourage teaching trans ideology or has it come up in PSHE recently? What about her friendship circle?

I have no advice, if it was me with my own daughter I would likely be doing the same as you, but she already knows my views as we’ve talked about it before in an age appropriate way.

What so you think has triggered this for your daughter, was it puberty itself?