DD14 is regularly assumed to be trans/NB/a boy - any advice on how she can respond?

I'm wondering whether this really a thing? Girls being made to feel silly by their families for wanting to experiment with looking traditionally feminine?

Or is this an assumption that they will of course feel this way if they have non gender confirming mums?

(I'm not trying to be arsey, I'm just interested to explore this idea).

Teen years are a time for individuation from your family, I can't imagine many kids would be put off wearing dangly ear rings if they thought their mum wouldn't approve - I'm sure most would see
that as a positive bonus?

And given how much pressure there is from society and the media these days to look 'ultra feminine' (in a way that most of us didn't experience growing up a few decades ago), I wonder whether having a family that doesn't buy into that would really not only balance that out but actively pressure girls the other way? I find it hard to imagine that it would.

I think it's an interesting idea to explore, how gender non confirming women are often assumed to be 'forcing' that on their daughters - a friend of mine was sick of everything marketed for girls these days being pink. One of her relatives interpreted that as her not allowing her daughter to have anything pink. She couldn't get them to understand that it wasn't about telling her daughter not to choose pink clothes etc, it was about giving her the choice of all the options that society seems to be telling her aren't for her.

In my experience this seems to be a common assumption.

Please don’t force your gender stereotypes on me.

Optional extra:

Biology is real. I am female.

She's not under an obligation to change how she dresses and presents herself but she could if she wished to and she thought it would help. I've no doubt op has a great relationship with her daughter and would know if her daughter wanted to dress in a more usual feminine style but some girls are undermined by their families, don't get a chance to experiment with clothing etc, and may want to feel they can or are supported to without being made to feel silly about wanting to conform.

Absolutely not, horrible idea. Women are under no obligation to perform femininity, and OP's DD would be better off getting a little aggressive and telling people she's not going to play Barbie doll for them. As well as counter the pronouns probe with "why are you asking?"

I think people double take and ask the silly questions these days because they are so desperate NOT to offend those who would take massive offence at you not instantly recognising their gendered soul.

It’s silly but there you are. As an 80s teen I was called ‘son’ a few times and thought it was hilarious.

My son gets this. He looks rather feminine or androgynous - long hair, pretty face etc.

He has been asked by other kids if he is trans since he was 13 and adults used to regularly say things like "she's lovely" etc etc since he was a small boy and like you said, do a double take and seem affronted when I'd say "he's a boy."

He's 18 now so it happens less with adults but his peers still assume he's "enby."

He doesn't seem to care. He laughs about it. I've always told him he is a beautiful boy and how much I love my boy. And also that it's not an insult to look like a girl, some people are just GNC or androgynous and some people just make assumptions.

Just keep making sure your daughter knows you love how she looks because she is her and you wouldn't change anything about her and continue to inculcate a sense of comfort in her own skin and in being a girl. It's one of the most important things for teenagers imo.

It's such a crazy cultural environment now that any kids who are GNC or kind of androgynous in appearance have to deal with assumptions about trans or enby stuff. But hopefully, it's just benign curiosity and not bullying. Your daughter sounds lovely!

People assume I am trans or lesbian, I have been called ‘sir’ a few times but I just laugh it off. I have short hair, have always been a Tom boy but 100% straight and female 😁.

I think if people were often staring at me, especially with any sort of negative inflection I'd not be saying anything to them.

But I might give them the finger and point out it's rude to stare.

If someone asked me if I was a man or a woman, I think I'd trot out the mumsnet classic of "did you mean to be so rude?"

My best friend is a butch lesbian and has reached the age of 'zero fucks to give'. She is appreciative of females who look out for females when in doubt. Like others on here, she'll say something along the lines of, 'it's ok I'm female'. This tends to be much easier at 50 than 15 though!

I think this experience goes to show that females want the social norm to be that only females use female loos. TRAs love to point out that butch lesbians suffer as a result of GCs desire for single sex rather than single gender provision. However, if males, regardless of how they identify, respectfully stayed out of female spaces, the females using them would be far more relaxed about gender non conforming females than they are now. The default would be, 'they must be gender non conforming' not 'are they male'.

At an event I had a marshall shout "stop!" as I headed into the women's toilets. Quite a few people stopped to look at what was happening. I turned around and he saw immediately that I was female (I had very short hair at the time, am tall, and also dress in boxy/"androgynous" clothes so easy to mistake for male from behind - it has happened several times, but always been corrected when they see my face) and was totally mortified.

It was a little embarrassing, but also quite funny.

OP, I think it's as other posters have said - it's usually very easy to tell from someone's face whether they're male or female. If it isn't yet, then it absolutely will be as your daughter becomes a narrow-shouldered, stubble-free 16 year old.

"I am a teenage biological female who chooses to dress and have interests that I feel comfortable with. Just because I don't have "traditional" feminine interests and looks makes me no less female."

I have always worn my hair short and was teased mercilessly at school for it, 35 years ago!

Some of the issue is just about fashion and conforming to the prevailing fashion. It shouldn't be the way but always has been. Long hair/short hair has been an ongoing cycle since 1920s. It's a shame in this day and age it leads to comments but at the same time there has been a cultural shift in that young people are particularly comfortable with language around what is regarded as identity and apparently feel its their job to comment. The poster who said wear pretty ear rings got told this is ridiculous a suggestion, and that's my reaction initially. But actually , if its about fashion, not following this is a preference and you can play that game differently and this could be the young person's response to the comments.

A similar issue here. DD11 has close cropped hair and is very tall and skinny- if she follows my trajectory she will be 6ft tall by 13 and have at least a year and a half more of being flat-chested and slim hipped.

Her issue is that kids are shouting at her that she’s a lesbian. I’m at a loss as to what to do. How do I convey that

a)there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian and
b) acknowledge that the kids saying this are doing so to be insulting and come up with a good comeback

Its infuriating. Her ear piercings got infected so she can’t wear earrings atm and I know this will stop once she gets them re-pierced. But it shouldn't be this way,

How I miss the 1980’s when heaps of girls wore their hair short.

DD(16) and I have had conversations about this - she is so quick to 'trans' people if they have short hair or dress 'boyish' and it drives me mad. She doesn't even believe in gender stuff, but I suppose it's what she's getting from school. It's just so unusual for teen and pre-teen girls to have short hair. And DD is a very sporty girl who trains hard for her sport, is happy to be strong and muscular. But the hair must be long! It's bizarre. (she wouldn't say anything to them obv but it's annoying that she thinks it)
And on the other hand, I am a 6ft woman with large features who is now wondering how long before I'm asked to leave a ladies toilet. I do have long hair but so do the TW. I suppose a 50 yo woman and a 50 yo transwoman look a lot less alike than a 14 yo girl and a 14 yo boy.

I feel saying "I am a biological female" is necessary in these crazy times.
OP's daughter sounds very level headed and will probably find her own way of dealing with stupid people in time. If it is not causing her significant distress, why worry about it and amplify the issue?

DD 18 is regularly assumed to be male, though it's a reasonable assumption given the fact she is very androgynous. Noone has asked publicly though at the pub she works at she often gets called, "Mate" by men ordering drinks which she ignores as much as possible.

One of my DDs had a pixie cut for a few years when she was a bit younger than yours. She was regularly assumed to be a boy, seemingly not helped by her nickname and clothing being fairly androgynous. It tended to be people talking about her rather than directly to her that thought she was a boy but at on one memorable occasion, a group of similarly aged children kept going on and on at her about how she must be a boy. In the end, she shouted at them, "I have a vagina!". It stopped their comments, whether through embarrassment or shock, we will never know.

I agree. If people actually look, it’s very easy to tell someone’s sex regardless how they present themselves in terms of clothes hair etc.

its in the thread title

Oh, dear, I am sure this must make her feel very uncomfortable indeed. I suggests she comes up with a simple and short response and stick with it. Next time someone says something, she should just say, "I am a woman!"

Even if your DD stays looking more or less the same as she does now the boys in her age group are going to change considerably in the coming years.

I can clearly remember being taller than all the boys in my year at the end of summer term, when we started back in the September some of them towered above me.

At 14 girls have got a head start on the growth trajectory but by 16 or so the boys start growth spurting and sexual dimorphism really kicks in. By 6th form most boys are considerably bigger/smellier/hairier/deeper voiced than their female classmates.

Of course, this may mean that in a few years time your DD is assumed to be a teenage boy rather than a young adult woman so it’s probably worth getting her one of those proof of age cards as soon as relevant, just so she doesn’t constantly risk mislaying her passport in the uni bar!

I’ve had some pretty masculine phases in my life and I found that while I might be assumed male from a distance/whilst standing still, as soon as I moved/smiled/spoke people immediately realised I was female, so while someone might well shout ‘Hey mate, you can’t go in there, that’s the ladies’ at my back, turning around with a smile and saying ‘Thanks!’ results in an embarrassed apology.

Of course, my experience largely predates all the gender-identity-assumptions/pronoun ritual stuff and now I’m middle aged so while I have had a little boy outright ask me if I was a boy or a girl, his mum tried to shush him rather than interject with a careful ‘or perhaps this is a nonbinary person, little Timmy?’ 😬

A few stock answers might be useful for your DD (eg I told the little boy ‘I’m a girl, but I prefer boy’s clothes’ which he must’ve found to be a satisfactory answer, as his next question was about my bicycle.

’Pronouns? Just the standard girl ones’

’I’m a tomboy, not an actual boy’

if your DD feels like she has to tread carefully with certain people/ use trans-language when pressed she could say something like ‘I’m a GNC cis girl’ but as a cantankerous middle aged terf I’d be more inclined to say ‘I’m female, as in, a girl’ and if anyone asks my pronouns I either say ‘sex based, like my oppression’, and in a group situation I find a simple ‘No, but thank you’ causes just enough confusion to make the group leader move on to the next person.

My blonde son was regularly mistaken for a girl up until he was about 15. He still has long blonde hair in his mid 20s but no one ever mistakes him for a girl anymore, they just assume he’s from California rather than North London!

I agree with Glwysen and Thirdfiddle, a smile and a gentle correction, perhaps “quite a few people get that wrong”.

I think people are more likely to be mortified by their mistake than to doubt her.

People regularly confuse me with my husband on the phone. I just put them right in a friendly way without making a fuss.

If it matters or she wants to then she should point out she is a girl/woman. I’m 50 and I still sometimes get mistaken as a man (I am six foot with an essence of brick shit house), it has happened all my life. I find a big grin helps and it gets easier the more you do it

OP, two of my butch lesbian friends were semi-regularly mistaken for teenage boys in their twenties, often in toilets. One of them dealt with it really badly- would mumble that she was a woman without making eye-contact and make it awkward for everyone involved. The other would do a cheery, "Oh don't worry, I'm a woman!" with a smile, which was a much better way of dealing with it.

It's great that your daughter is talking to you about this. I would remind her that the people mistaking her for a boy are not doing it maliciously and just need a quick correction. If they are a dick about it after being corrected, then she has every right to be snarky with them.