Not to accept that my DD is 'really a boy'?

[Scootering]

This is actually about my DSD, who is nearly 18.

Over the last few months she has told us she is 'trans' and wants us to call her 'David' (not this name exactly...).

Her father and I (and her mother) think this is crazy. She has always been perfectly happy as a girl, long hair and dresses, not remotely tomboyish. This has all happened since she has met a group of very 'out' gay men and I think she really wants to be like them. Her idea of 'being a boy' is to be (frankly) a raving queen (very camp) with flowery shirts and pink hair.

We have NOT started to refer to her as 'our son' or called her 'him' or 'David'. She says we are ruining her life and will never accept her.

We have said we will not do these things until she has been through proper counselling to discuss this. We paid for her to start this but she gave it up after the first session because she 'knows who she is' and 'doesn't need to discuss it'.

So we are now at a impasse. She says we are ruining her life. We are really not remotely convinced we should be acting like she's a boy.

Are we being unreasonable? Are we torturing her? I'd really be grateful for advice because we are finding it all really embarassing and difficult (particularly with elderly parents).

Seriously, how creepy are you? Get a life. And that's not my post you're quoting.

Oh apologies thought you were vestalvirgin. Unfortunately confused the two of you but didn't put your name by the quote. It's just that you were on the same thread. I can't help feeling sad when I read these things and you did try to incite jaylat into more of your pointless talk. Creepy doesn't come into it the sad fact of the matter is all of this is really really public. Anyone can search and read anything on mumsnet.

AP:
From the perspective of someone not interested in debate, just as I stated. Certainly not from the perspective of someone interested in women's perspectives and the lived experience of women, unless they coincide with Jaylat's own.

Someone whose friends (?) for reasons of their own apparently mistake challenging of an opinion with bullying or phobia. Someone whose friends throw the word 'bait' into the fray when issues that concern women are raised, or try to silence people (women, it turns out) by using the word 'sensitive'.

Because god forbid that issues that concern over (?) half the world's population should be allowed to upset anyone. Women need to know their place. Their place is to make sure the needs of others are always put first. Apparently.

What a shame that a thread started by an OP looking for some advice about a personal matter has descended into this.

majestic it is, but tbf it has only been the last few posts.

I feel that albums is being unnecessarily/unhelpfully cryptic about jabs perspective Its a bit annoying to hint at something useful on a thread, that no one has anyway of knowing unless the poster actually says.

I hope OP comes back, id be interested to hear how things are progressing. I really feel for her

All trans threads seem to end up fighty, it doesn't take long before someone jumps on with "trans people are violent and hate women" and then (understandably) trans posters get defensive and it all snowballs out of control. It may just be that this is an online forum, perhaps in real life we'd all be a bit nicer to each other!

I've never seen anyone say that Vashta. I think people have a right to be concerned when laws are being made which will affect us and our daughters. There is a debate to be had and it's hard sometimes when you're called a terf just for stating an opinion.

I think this is one of the corners of the internet where debate is still happening, it's illuminating.

TBH I find the two sides of the fight depressing.

This is about someone dealing with supporting someone not the rights and wrongs of transgenderism. Which frankly in this context are largely irrelevant as its about how does someone support someone in their best interests (which may or may not be primarily about gender but also about acceptable behaviour, self identity, being at a certain age, and maturity about very adult decisions).

I do think that those who are transgendered on this thread are completely lacking in listening to others.

I do think that those standing up for women's right are not interested in anything but a fight.

Its never going to get anywhere but hurt both groups.

There has to be acknowledgement that there is a problem whereby certain fears are important and must be listened to appropriate rather than ridden over and there has to be an acknowledgement that those who are transgendered must be accepted.

Personally I do not think that someone who is mtf can ever live completely as a woman unless they have completed some sort of assessment and as it stands their legal status is the defining point. Which I think is fair and I think does remove this idea of 'threat'. Anyone who falls in the ground between that, is just that - neither completely male nor female and I think rather than a binary definition we would be better with trying to accommodate that to ensure the protection of all parties. Obviously this will not be satisfactory to some but I don't see how else to deal with the matter as there are a number of vulnerable groups here all with pretty legitimate fears and thoughts.

That's the point to me. Our society is increasingly being gendered and put into two nice neat boxes in all manners within our society. Its not just about changing rooms. Its about pink toys and frilly dresses, action man and guns. Its about women's razors and men's razors. Its about 'for him' Christmas Gifts and 'for her' Christmas Gifts'. Its about scientists and engineers. Its about nurses and teachers.

I'm not convinced that 'women's spaces' are helping matters in this respect either, as it draws certain lines. I understand why they are there, but perhaps in the context of transgendered issues we need to redraw this as simply 'safe spaces' which might happen to be based on the fact that those they are aimed at are for women only and this excluded those who are transgendered but also have 'safe spaces' which encompass woman and mtf where appropriate too. And 'safe spaces' which are transgendered only. Create an overlapping which recognises the common ground AND the differences.

I think that rather than being enemies there could be an alliance of ideas if we all removed this persistence in the binary that's causing a lot of the effing problem in the first place. There are a lot of transgendered people who are falling foul of this within our society and don't want to be either male or female too either and yet are forced in someway to make a choice.

TBH, it frustrates me on these threads when people start saying its a debate but most of the time its not a debate. A debate implies listening going on. Most of the time its just two groups shouting at each other accusing the other of discrimination and or some kind of privilege over the other whilst failing to also address the issues or concerns of the other party. No one should be trumping anyone. No one should be trying to prove ones need is more legitimate or greater than another.

I do think that those standing up for women's right are not interested in anything but a fight.

Nope. I was actually hoping I could help the OP help her daughter without the genderists interfering. There would have been no fight had no one insisted that a girl who suddenly comes out as "transgender" at age eighteen must be in need of dangerous hormones or gender reassignment surgery, and should be supported in getting this.

This is very clearly a case where a young girl resents the fact that she will have to live her life as member of an oppressed class. There is zero evidence that she has any dysphoria to do with the female body she had at birth. Maybe she feels a bit dysphoric about how her body changed in puberty - which almost all of us do.

I'd just play along. At that age I was a morbid sort of Goth, but grew out of it. If my parents had been too disapproving it probably would have lasted longer. As you believe gender is a social construct, surely you approve of her playing with it and carving her own path though?

Nicely put ToothBrush!

Except no one is somewhere between male and female toothbrush; because we are a sexuallly dimorphic species. No one gets tochoose whether they are male or female. You are born one or another and that cannot be changed with cosmetic surgery

Except no one is somewhere between male and female toothbrush; because we are a sexuallly dimorphic species.

To be fair, there are intersex individuals, whose chromosomal sex and the sex they are perceived as being even by medical professionals on superficial examination, differ.

However, I am not sure there is legislation needed, as those intersex individuals who are perceived as women and therefore threatened by male violence, will not be questioned when they access women's spaces.

Trans people are not intersex

"To be fair, there are intersex individuals, whose chromosomal sex and the sex they are perceived as being even by medical professionals on superficial examination, differ."

There are also people born with one leg but we are still a bipedal species.

I am not interested in a fight. I would like to feel I had been listened to and considered by transgender people, given I am a woman and all, and it is my loos and my locker room and my changing room I may shortly be sharing with people who have penises. I am well able to accept that there are transgender people. That is very clearly a fact. Where I stop accepting is the point where they say they have a right to be in a women's space where women are naked, showering, changing clothes, from age 8 up. I am never going to accept that.

Safe spaces for transwomen would be great if transwomen would accept them, but in the US they do not, and offering a trans space is dismissed as discrimination. They demand the right to use the women's spaces, with the women and the girls.

No one should be trying to prove ones need is more legitimate or greater than another. That has already happened in several court cases in the US. The 'needs' of transwomen were held to trump everyone else's when it came to high school facilities.

Women's spaces are perfectly fine, for women, and men's spaces are perfectly fine, for men. They have nothing to do with gender but with sex, or undeniable biology if you will. Speech that refers to biology is held to be discriminatory, however.

Men need to accept other men who have penises and who wear dresses or skirts or tights or leggings, bras, high heels, nail polish, whatever. The very strongly gendered male world, where there is little room for men who deviate the slightest bit from stereotype is the problem here.

It is not the persistence of the binary per se that causes problems. It is the refusal of men to acknowledge that 'feminine' is equal with, not 'less than' masculine, and equally deserving of respect and acceptance. It is also down to the refusal of men to acknowledge the feminine element in themselves and the right of men not to conform to the stereotype. It is men who force the choice between 'men' and 'not men' and men, (including transwomen) hold the perception that if you don't feel like you fit in as a man with men, then you must be a woman, and you belong with them. This notion is profoundly disrespectful to women.

I agree with VestalVirgin wrt the DD of the OP here -- just because medication, hormones, surgery are available doesn't mean they are for everyone. Unhappiness with your current physical state doesn't mean you should be someone else. Getting to the real cause of the unhappiness is a better option than taking the surface level issue so seriously that someone considers medication, hormones, etc.

I agree with Icanteven, that the internet, posting selfies, living your life in public, seeking (and sadly all to often getting) the attention and approbation of complete strangers and others in your own little echo chamber alike contributes hugely to the current 'trans' phenomenon. I agree with the OP that what her DD seems to be doing is attention seeking, and choosing a group to identify with in order to experience anticipated rejection may also come into it.

I hadn't really picked up that comment from toothbrush about us wanting a fight

Its really insulting. But very very telling. We are not being listened to at all. We are not trying to bwcdifficult ffs. We have real concers

Excellent post Math. I totally agree.

I also agree with mathanxiety's post. It seems that transactivists are unable to address these concerns for some reason, so resort to name calling and/or shutting people down. That makes me more convinced that the emperor has no clothes on, not in all cases, but in many.

How are you doing Scootering?

I really feel one can support and care about trans people without agreeing with everything that trans activists say. If you google terf if a slur, you get some really mid boggling stuff! But one has to remember under all this are real people, with real issues and I would never want to 'tar' everyone with the same brush. I know some lovely trans people who do not have the agenda of some trans activists.

But I totally think when people are young they can go through all kinds of phases of wanting to be differnet to how they are.

OP, how is your dsd? How old is she and is she developing physically and could this be part of the issue? Sorry if you have already said or do not want to say.

As I think I said, in your shoes I would play the whole thing down. Low key. Are you and her dad and her mum all on the same page? That may well help you all deal with things together. I hope your dsd is doing well. I know puberty can be a tough time.

My dd is 11 and just getting boobs and changing and I was worried how she would handle it all. I am amazed (and delighted) she is coping well and seems to be happy with everything, choosing bras and crop tops and not worrying about the physical side of changes much.

It does seem to be quite common for girls to struggle with these physical changes. When I was young, a long time ago, it was more the other way, people worried if they did not 'develop'. My friend was very flat chested and it worried her. So it seems that puberty can bring with it all kinds of questions and issues!