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Original poster

10 year old non binary friend

34 replies

shebathequeenof · 13/11/2023 12:32

My dd is 10. My daughter now has a friend who has declared they're non binary - much to their parents delight. This child now wears about a billion rainbows and badges with they/ them, and is obsessed with insisting spider man has a boyfriend and told my daughter Ken as in barbie and Ken has a boyfriend 🙈

My daughter has decided they no longer want to be friends with this child as they find the whole thing extremely confusing and overwhelming and is sick of the child running off to tell tales to the teacher or her mum if my child refers to her as 'she' and not 'them'.

Why is this happening? Any advice on how to handle this? I feel like I'm on another planet where wrong is right. My daughter is being told the truth by me - you can't change sex and non binary isn't real - and she's being told off for this. This girl doesn't have many friends at school and up until this crap started sat with my daughter for lunch everyday and played together too at school so hard to just drop her!

OP posts:
PTSDBarbiegirl · 13/11/2023 13:00

Set the example by referring to the NB friend only by their name. Never refer to the fact they are NB and present anything to do with the friend as very pedestrian, thereby taking the drama/attention/I'm different element away. The child is probably not happy and being encouraged by needy, damaging parents.

newtlover · 13/11/2023 12:57

treat it like a religion- some people believe this, we don't but it's unkind and unnecessary to pick an argument over it- just avoid pronouns by using her name. You could say 'lots of people go through funny phases like this and she'll probably grow out of it so lets wait and see'

HoneyButterPopcorn · 13/11/2023 12:56

As I sad to my niece (about same age, at a girls school) - ‘no she isn’t, and everyone telling her she is/wonderful/special/brave etc isn’t going to help on the long term. Smile and nod…’

Autumcolors · 13/11/2023 12:52

I’d be very clear to your daughter that if she gets in trouble for pronouns at school she is to tell you. And you will deal with it.
its so awful kids have to deal with this at such a young age.

toomanyleggings · 13/11/2023 12:49

in what way is she getting into trouble? What are the teachers doing in this ?

chattyness · 13/11/2023 12:47

Tell your daughter the best thing to do is to distance herself from that child as much as she can, b) If she has to speak to or about her not to refer to the girl by anything except her name, or even comment on any of this idiotology .
Once this gender nonsense crops up they can't wait to goad you into using the "wrong" pronouns or so called "deadnaming" don't let your daughter fall into any of those traps. If she doesn't speak of it either way she's not complying or giving in, good for you and good for your daughter .

ErrolTheDragon · 13/11/2023 12:41

What a shame the parents are encouraging this silliness.

Though there's nothing wrong with this girl's spider man and Ken being gay, of course.

elephantandorchid · 13/11/2023 12:40

It sounds as though the relationship is cooling. I'd encourage your DD to develop friendships with other children.

Shishh · 13/11/2023 12:34

Keep telling your child the truth and extinguish the friendship.

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