Non-binary child major rupture in relationship

Actually, correction, to say it's depressing is offensively minimising.

I think I would say something like “you are an adult now and this is your choice. I will always love you and support you. I’d rather you didn’t have a double mastectomy but I realise this isn’t (and never will be) my choice to make.
let’s not talk about this again. Remember I love you and you are perfect as you are”

It's depressing that having dangerous surgery to cut off healthy breasts from a woman is in any way equated with being "non binary". Or any other "gender identity". It's basically cutting yourself in the most extreme form.

I think that's what's so upsetting about the whole thing, when you're trying to save someone from it. The universal "affirmation". I can't imagine trying to help your daughter out of anorexia, and every doctor, therapist, friend, family member, and virtue-signalling stranger felt the need to agree she was fat and push laxatives at her. Fundraise for her life-saving liposuction.

One day we are going to look back on this with absolute horror.

I love you and I respect that your distress is real" while maintaining "but gender identity is not real" would make her feel more grounded.

This, to me, is absolutely the right approach, not least because it’s the tried and tested method for any other non-reality-based harmful belief system.

Like the beliefs that OCD or anorexia sufferers have.

This automatically implies that a woman who has had a double mastectomy, for actual medical reasons, is less of a woman.

Does your daughter think a cancer survivor, who has lost her breasts and hair in the fight, is less of a woman?

I don't mean to be rude, but it's such a stupid fucking thought process. The logic just collapses when you prod it.

Why was the reality of your daughter's body worth less than some hazy, half-formed ideas about "masculinity" and "femininity" she picked up off the internet? Couldn't she fix her thinking instead of harming her body?

What would you have said if your daughter told you "I want to cut off my leg because I feel like I should be in a wheelchair. But I only feel like that some days, so I'm only cutting off one leg." That would be completely insane. Why are breasts any different? Why are they the one body part it's normal to hate to the point of amputation?

"Breasts are very visual."

Your daughter's face is visual too. Would you let her pour acid on it to stop men leering at her?

Self-mutilation is not a healthy coping mechanism for feeling sexually objectified. It's madness that we've normalised this in society.

Trans women often take oestrogen which can cause breasts to grow. They absolutely do get breast implants sometimes if they’re not happy with the results.

But the fact is that while there are flat chested women, there aren’t big breasted men.

DC is angry because I keep changing my mind. I respond because I change my mind in response to their pain but revert back to original scepticism when they have taken no action and I am relieved they haven’t. They are giving themselves time to contemplate.

Thing is, your DC has a fragile sense of self. She basically has no idea who she is, and is relying on other people to tell her. Right now, that's her peer group and her friends on the internet. She's performing the non-binary identity for them, and they're all playing along, because it's social suicide in those circles to question another person's declared identity. They can't (or won't) tell her it's all a crock of shit and of course she's not "non-binary".

She comes back to you because you affirm that little voice inside that says no, this isn't me. You've known her since birth, so when you say no, that carries weight. She doesn't really understand that she's using her pain to emotionally manipulate you. It's just what the ideology teaches them to do. (That, and demonising any doubters.) She uses the heightened emotional language she's been taught by the cult, because that's how she's been trained to think and talk about it all. The horrible reality is that the things she's saying - her "pain" - may not even be real. Just more talking points she's been trained to use to shut down an argument. She's angry that you're being inconsistent, because she underestimates how hurt you feel by her pain. How afraid you actually are for her.

Your emotions aren't real to her. She thinks you're operating from a place of objective logic. Trans ideology is either real or it isn't. So when you show inconsistency, by playing along sometimes, she takes that as a sign that your arguments are weak, even to you. (Maybe non-binary is real! Sometimes even my terf mum acts like it is!) Then she doesn't know where she stands anymore, she no longer feels on solid ground, and she lashes out.

I understand why you waver and give in to it sometimes. But if that's your daughter's biggest trigger, then maybe more consistency will help. Maybe telling her "I love you and I respect that your distress is real" while maintaining "but gender identity is not real" would make her feel more grounded. Focus on the feelings and never give an inch to the ideology? That really can work, if they're not too far gone.

It's a shit show, I know. I'm sorry. It's like trying to defuse a bomb. Sometimes you don't know if your approach is the right one until you've already cut the wire.

You have your feelings; they have theirs. They're 24; my cousin had their bilateral mastectomy aged 20. If they wanted to do it, they could. They're clearly not sure yet.

I agree about you not having to have these discussions with an adult if you can't bear it. I found it just horrible to contemplate a younger woman I knew planning a breast enlargement; I've got my own scars amd history from life events and I work often with people dealing with life-changing surgical complications so this sort of extremely elective surgery makes me very stressed and upset. But if course they are so ludicrously young that the chances of perisurgical complications aren't high. Just the longterm harm of the removal of parts of their body in order to express something very dark about being female now.

I disagree with this, at least in my daughters (?) case. She absolutely doesn't identify as male but she also doesn't identify as female, and that's the whole point of "non-binary", isn't it? And breasts are very visual.

I can’t do anything but let it run its course. However, I feel I am being use a battering ram for DC’s actually being captured by the ideology.

Having written this perhaps I should grateful that I am perceived as the barrier. It’s delaying a life changing decision.

I can relate to this. Not with my own DC, but with a family member I was close to. They fell down the rabbit hole of gender ideology abruptly, in what was to me a clear case of ROGD, which arose as a result of mental health issues, social isolation, and possible autism. I watched them rewrite their entire childhood (which I remembered far more clearly than them) to pretend their gender identity had always existed. I watched them fall victim to predatory influences I could do nothing to keep them from. I watched them recite all the transgender talking points as if they'd been brainwashed by a cult.

I was the only person in this young person's life who refused to play along with the delusion. I challenged it for years. Pushing back with love and logic, hoping I could reason them back to sanity. I experienced the same push and pull you did. The times when they would waver and doubt, they would seek me out and try to provoke me into an argument. I didn't rise to emotion, but I kept pushing back, every time. And they'd go quiet and pull back for a while. Change the subject and become warm to me again. Other times they'd go cold and lash out.

I was the immovable object, and trans ideology was the unstoppable force. And for a while it was a stalemate. At times, I could almost see them coming back to me. The doubt was so obvious, and I always made it seem like their ROGD gender identity was something they could walk back on if they wanted to. Not an intrinsic part of them. The path was always open with me. But it was closed with everyone else. It was a done deal. I was one person, and everyone else was telling them the opposite of what I was.

Telling them they knew themselves best, and their fabricated memories of childhood transness were completely valid. Telling them their mental health issues couldn't possibly be a factor in them feeling like this. That trans couldn't possibly be a social contagion. That if they didn't transition, they'd be miserable for life and probably kill themselves. That anyone who disagreed with trans ideology was a hateful person who didn't have their best interests at heart. And they shouldn't spend time with or listen to such a person, or they'd be contaminated by "far right" bigotry.

Their behaviour became more antagonistic. They tried to cope with the cognitive dissonance of staying in cult-think, by lashing out at the one person who wouldn't let them switch off their brain. I tolerated this for a long time. I felt like you do. That I had to be a human shield for this person I loved, because no-one else would. I kept thinking I could say the right thing and save them. This sweet innocent kid I had loved since I held them in my arms as a baby. But eventually I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't be one person holding back the flood. There were in their twenties and it had become constant verbal abuse and emotional manipulation. I couldn't get a text from them without crying after reading it. I couldn't think of them without wanting to cry, by the end. I had to step away.

I can't really offer any advice, except to say that I know how you feel. My experience was a few years ago, when the world was in the grip of unquestioning trans mania. I felt very alone in it. But people are starting to wake up now. If you could find others in your DC's life brave enough to push back on the NB identity, then maybe you could make an impact. I hope you can.

This has come up on other threads, and with no disrespect to the personal choice of PP the impact on women of the objectifying of women's breasts in contemporary is wholly negative.

Either we get women doing the most extraordinary and unnatural "enhancements" or wanting a double masectomy.

The Guardian has had 2 articles about women who said this was their life dream, and wrote about how liberating it was. And it was all about appearance, or rather how other's react to someone with breasts. But was made out to be about trans empowerment.

One celebrated being able to go bare breasted on a beach, which in many parts of Europe women commonly do with their intact breasts.

I am not being flippant, but wanting to appear gender neutral is something many women achieve without medical intervention.

And I also know many women who because of the natural size of their breasts suffer back pain and never ending clothes problems, have been refused breast reduction surgery.

Personally I am supportive of the Amazon concept that given their warrior focus often had one breast removed to make the use of bow and arrows easier.

How in a western society in this day and age can any decision about women's breasts their own or any others not be influenced by the torrent of objectification and commentary all the time.

Can you imagine a society where men's penises were on display everyday with tabloid commentary and worse.

Sorry OP.

This doesn't help or support you.

But think those who have said maybe you will have to just step back.

Or work out why your DC keeps bringing this up again and again.

Almost like she needs your attention when apparently she is old enough and mature enough to be living elsewhere with somebody else.

A sort of back handed compliment. That you are important to her.

I think it is the same importance placed on appearance that leaves women having nose jobs, boob jobs, Botox, fillers etc.
Character, eccentricities, dynamism, quirks, personality, all of these are less photogenic.
I think the pressure from society to fit into a group or a box is incredible and women do all sorts to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Can she actually afford it? May be a non starter if she can’t, and something to just nod along to/avoid the topic of

Nobody seems to be seriously looking at the social reasons behind this. It is a major act of self-harm.

I think it’s difficult, but she is an adult, she can live her life however she likes. There’s a whole raft of potentially inadvisable things she could do: marry someone after 2 weeks, try heroin, join a commune, get a tattoo of tweety pie etc etc. But you and she have a relationship to be kind to each other. You love her and she loves you. I think that is most important. You both make your own choices as adults and live with the repercussions. But you both love each other.

That sounds really painful @Goldenpatchwork

I don't really have any answers, sorry! It does sound as if there's something about this that is very bound up in the dynamic between you and her. Otherwise she would just do it whatever you said. It's difficult though if it's your disapproval that's satisfying her need, if you go grey rock the logical thing might be for her to step it up and actually do it so you will disapprove again. But it's not your responsibility to second-guess her. So I agree with pp, keeping out of it and avoiding the subject and focussing on other aspects of your relationship might work better.

I was thinking abut the stages of intense grief that people talk about - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In my experience they don't come in order, more like a series of loops and sometimes even at the same time. To me when a pp said "at least she isn't having a hysterectomy" that is like bargaining "I can cope with this but not that". My DC is male and a couple of years older than your DC, for me it's "OK, DC is taking cross-sex hormones but I at least he's not planning to have surgery". My acceptance comes and goes. I don't share the other stages with DC.

@nbartist If your mother "chose to respect my autonomy and wishes" what were her alternatives? She couldn't have stopped you, any more than I can stop mine, or the OP can stop hers. Maybe she doesn't share her deeper feelings with you.

Urgh, it's horrible OP but at 24 she is a fully fledged adult & can chose what to do with her body.

She knows how you feel about it. She doesn't seem to know how SHE feels, so if your disapproval is no longer the blocker maybe she'll realise it's not you and it's actually her that isn't so sure.

I think you have to just step back & go grey on the subject. Offer no opinion other than you love her for who she is, accept her as an adult and don't want to fall out about this anymore.

So they want top surgery until you agree then aren't bothered until you start to disagree then want it again til you agree? It's got nothing to do with top surgery and everything to do with wanting to rebel against you. Stop engaging, stop discussing it just say ' whatever'. Or 'your body your choice'. Odds are the whole problem vanishes

Do you think she may have autism by any chance?

Honestly OP, I’d leave her to it.

A lot of people use the trans label to get attention, to make themselves feel special. If you give it zero attention, totally grey rock it, she’ll likely try to do something else to get your attention.

My oldest is NB, I don't think they want top surgery or will want it, but I have prepared myself for the possibility of them raising it. They have sometimes expressed ambivalence about their body, but never distress (though we've found they have a habit of hiding their real feelings for reasons we're not sure of, we generally have a very open relationship)

@Goldenpatchwork - it sounds like your child is vaccilating on how they feel. How old is your child? I think of mine were to be raising top surgery I would be advising them to wait until mid 20s, if they think they can bear that, because there's a lot of life experiences they haven't had yet that might change how they feel about their body (such as having a long-term sexual relationship). I think at their age it would be remiss of me not to advise that, and I'd tell them as much. The thought of it doesn't horrify me or anything, but I'd want to be really sure they made the right call.

My guess would be your daughter talks to you about it because she wants your attention and approval.

she might love you and want to continue a good relationship with you and is worried if she changes you won’t like her as much.

or you have given her reason in the past to feel disapproved of (consciously or subconsciously)

and it isn’t necessarily regarding this - this could be a red herring (hence never pursuing it)

don’t just refuse to discuss it - she’ll feel rejected. Don’t argue against either. Just let her vent and nod and smile until you figure out what she actually needs from you

Having a double mastectomy is not 'non binary' is it.

It's a definite choice of 'male' presentation.