My 15 year old daughter is going to a sleepover tomorrow night....

We are talking about young teenagers here. They are not about to change their names legally, some of their parents didn’t even know their new identities. They are ‘living’ their identity in their school life however.

While your definition may work with adults, and perhaps you are right for teens too, it doesn’t help the parents or the other teens in the situation right then and there. Nor does it help teachers and others in knowing how to address them or for dealing with safeguarding issues where a child or parent insists that the child/teen is accommodated according their gender and not given private accommodations etc.

And now 2 years on many of those 5 are persistent in their identities.

In the current loose and ambiguous description of ‘trans’, they fit. Either way, hopefully having almost entire groups declare their trans identities has become more uncommon.

@Helleofabore To be 100% committed that you would actually live as the opposite gender / sex (I never know which is correct) and change your name and legal documentation and "grow out of it" then I'd say 5/7 isn't common.

I think the thing is to keep talking and questioning. Affirming only closes the door on that.

You have to encourage them to think for themselves rather than parrot what everyone else is saying.

So asking where they heard x is important.

Especially if autistic.

We aren't there to be our kid's best friend. We are there to be their parent and sometimes that does mean being a big meanie and saying things they don't want to hear. There are fair too many parents who do want to do challenging parenting cos of this idea that they will 'lose their child if they do'. There is a problem with that: no one talks about how you can lose your child if you DO affirm...

My teen had 5 out of 7. It is not uncommon. I know of families where all three female children are trans.

We have talked about it all. She doesn't think she is a boy. Just nonbinary.

But frankly what IS non-binary? You can't be "non-binary" biologically or in terns of sex.

You can be gender non-conforming - most people are, actually. And anyone who thinks that a girl or woman having short hair or never wearing dresses or working in IT makes them 'non-binary' just hasn't thought it through, or done the reading. They've just unconsciously acquiesced to gender stereotypes, and internalised misogyny.

I don't blame anyone for this - all girls & women are socially conditioned into oppressive forms of femininity to a greater or lesser extent. But call it what it is, not pretend that you're doing something special, or even "progressive." It's not. It's as regressive as hell.

Back in the much lamented days of second wave Women's Lib, we actually took pride in being female. But we thought it through - we argued that being female didn't mean we had to buy into (or be coerced into) oppressive feminine roles or stereotypes.

We have lost SO MUCH by forgetting that.

I know it won't "nicely go away" and completely understand that it's complicated. My rage is directed at all the culpable institutions who have abandoned safeguarding children in favour of gender ideology, not parents struggling to manage all this.

But again - apologies for the unfortunate timing of my post as it does appear to be in response to yours which it wasn't.

Crossed posts @MrsOvertonsWindow

@MrsOvertonsWindow so what do you suggest when a parent doesn't affirm and it still doesn't all nicely go away? It's a really complicated issue. I really wish it wasn't.

Sorry @dadoodoodoo, my comment reads as a response to your post - but it isn't. It was a response to comments upthread suggesting parents will lose their children if they don't affirm
I don't underestimate the lack of support for parents in this - especially with the sheer number of organisations that should be supporting them having been captured..

These children are lost when even parents are too scared to point out evident untruths. It's frightening being a parent - trying to protect them from harm, from social contagion including eating disorders, self harm, claiming to be the opposite sex.
We owe it to them to be the responsible adult & have the difficult conversations. Just because we love them doesn't mean we'll lie & go along with something that harms them. It's not possible to change sex, to starve your way to happiness, to cure anxiety by self harm etc. Nodding along with this is irresponsible. We're not their friends unthinkingly affirming. We parents, adults, their guide. We mustn't be frightened by all the bad faith actors telling us we'll lose our kids if we don't agree with all this.
We know that there are countless bad adults out there grooming kids, not just the paedophiles, county lines adults etc, but any adult or group that tries to undermine the parent child relationship.

Children need their parents to say no - to literally protect them and ensure that they're allowed to grow and mature free from interference by bad faith actors.

My dd is also autistic and says she is trans. I certainly don't think it's OK. We do not affirm. However, telling her it's "bollocks" or "talking gently" to her about how she can't change sex is really not going to help (although we do discuss the issue constantly, and she is very aware of my views). She has a deep-seated belief she is male, which is undoubted underpinned by her discomfort and feeling of otherness in being autistic, as well as wider societal reasons. It is not a "fad" for her (although I'm sure it is for others). However, there is so little support for parents who are trying to manage confused and mentally unwell teens without affirming - and generally the GC community have not been helpful. Just look at the comments here - the idea that parents of "trans" teens are essentially irresponsible or "indulging" our children. People really seem to believe if you are GC it can't happen to your child - but if you look at groups like the Bayswater Group it is very clear it can. And that telling them to pull themselves together just doesn't cut it.

RedToothbrush that explanation has made sense of a past incident to me. Some years ago, a friend (we were both 20-odd) who id'ed as non-binary (and who I thought to also be autistic) insisted to me that her peers at school had never seen her as male or female.

I couldn't understand how she could think it, especially as her descriptions of the bullying sounded to me as if they had targeted her because she was a safe target: a tiny non-conforming girl with limited social skills. I mean, we were friends because we'd both been that child.

Anyway, it makes sense now.

"doesn't think she is a boy. Just nonbinary."

Can you explain what she means by thinking she is nonbinary?

It's not about being 'unintelligent'.

Christ almighty.

These kids are fucked.

My child is not unintelligent. She knows what stereotypes are. She is 16 . I have short hair, work in IT and ride a motorcycle. She knows I'm a woman and can do whatever I like.
We have talked about it all. She doesn't think she is a boy. Just nonbinary.

I despair at seeing parents going 'my kid is trans and this is allllll finnnnneeeee' then say they are autistic as if it's nothing when there is such a huge correlation going on.

Gender stereotypes are a MASSIVE issue in all this. And autistic kids are being harmed because no one is bothering to check if they properly understand that it's ok to be female and do 'masculine things' etc etc.

Okay thanks

You gently discuss the importance of sex being acknowledged. You point out that everyone is either male or female. You point out that gender stereotypes are just that and she doesn't have to follow them.

You gently correct her just as you would if she announced that she believed a diet of only fruit was healthy.

You point out that other parents want to know the sex of the children who are having a sleepover, for example, so acknowledging her sex in life is something that cannot be pretended away.

these lovely young women & girls caught up in a social contagion because nobody's felt able to stop all the trans lobbyists from targeting schools, children's homes, youth services, sport (basically anywhere that children gather) and gaslighting them into believing their bodies are flawed and that drugs and surgery can fix them.

Yes @MrsOvertonsWindow it makes me want to weep.

All these young girls thinking that being female is something to be 'fixed' or erased.

And what I think about the parents that cheerlead this is unspeakable ... (I have a trans young person in my family, and I can hardly face their mother who I think has a version of Munchausen's by proxy).

You should NOT affirm autistic kids blindly.

Yes you should tell her she's talking bollocks!!! Cos she's vulnerable.

This will be the third time I've posted the following this week.

Posted the following on another thread this morning, but it feels more appropriate here. It is worse when considering in the context of actively giving this information to autistic children:

I'm just reading DeTrans by Dr AZ Hakeem and its fascinating to read back comments here about an inability to understand the world in certain ways displayed by a lot of trans people because of the huge correlation with autism.

The way he describes it, it sounds a lot like its almost a social communication version of not developing the concept of object permanence. Object permanence is understanding that an object still exists even if you can't see it - think babies who get very excited at peek a boo because they don't grasp that you are still there the whole time.

Instead he says that trans people with autism lack a 'theory of mind' - the inability to really discern what another person with who they are interacting is thinking combined with black and white thinking - which leads to them living by rules which they decide to be right and expect others to see the world as they do, and if others don't follow their own rules they get very upset and think everyone else is wrong.

This taken to the extreme means that they have very black and white ideas of what males and females should look like and how they should behave and divide the world up in this way. They then decide that because they like or do things for the opposite sex they therefore ARE the other sex. And everyone else sees the world in the same way. A bit like a baby who thinks cos they can't see an object, it no longs exists and that no one else can see it either.

He proposes that this goes as far as thinking that once they are 'presenting' as the opposite sex by these stereotypes they pass and because they haven't got the concept of the rest of the world thinking differently, they believe that everyone else sees them as the opposite sex simply because they've put on the corresponding clothing regardless of the other glaringly obvious clues to sex.

In their heads it IS all about them and what they think. If they think that putting on make up makes them look female then every one else will perceive them in the same way. Regardless of all the other things that mark their sex being obvious.

Its just about how they organise the world - so affirmation is probably just about the worst thing you can do, rather than unpick this and teach that things are not gendered. If this is all true, to affirm at all in a medical capacity isn't just irresponsible its actively grossly negligent and discriminatory.

The fact we have numerous posters who can not conceive that sex discrimination relates to biological function they don't have and will affect everything from the design of things to impact on everyday life rather than presentation and stereotypes, really really highlights the point. We've seen so many examples all saying and doing the same thing. Its fascinating to see in real world play outs.

We CAN NOT order the world along these lines because it doesn't reflect reality and how the world works - it only reflects the beliefs of people who can't see things from the perspective of others.

By definition this is about as far removed from being inclusive as it is possible to be.

So I should tell her she is talking bollocks? Do you think she will come to me with any issues ever again if I do that? No she won't. So I pretend.

@RedToothBrush I don't understand your comment

Oh the irony.

They. Are. Autistic.

"It's ok they are trans and they are safe cos they haven't been abused."

This doesn't mean there isn't an issue...

Jesus.

I was going to say it doesn't help anyone to pretend but it does, it helps predators who want to blur boundaries and lower barriers to abuse.