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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

370 replies

Scootering · 07/12/2015 13:05

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).

OP posts:
noeffingidea · 07/12/2015 22:49

mathanxiety vestalvirgin your comments about FGM put it into perspective really.

Senpai · 07/12/2015 22:53

male and female brains are the same. This trans nonsense is just a phase

No they're not. Hormones have a big effect on how your brain processes information. If you give a male and female different problems, they will reach the same conclusion using different neural pathways.

I'd give you a full explanation, but I don't think you're actually looking for information so much as goading people on.

almondpudding · 07/12/2015 23:02

I think we're intelligent enough to just deal with a link to the relevant paper from a peer reviewed scientific journal thanks.

Italiangreyhound · 07/12/2015 23:15

Excellent points SomeDyke and VestalVirgin.

almondpudding · 07/12/2015 23:47

Really annoyed about this thread and how people have behaved on it. I absolutely will not be commenting on any 'trans thread' again. I think they're really no longer in the spirit of MN.

OP, good luck to you and your family. I hope you get the support you need, and things work out well for you all. Flowers

Christina22xx · 07/12/2015 23:48

scootering whilst i understand why this must be hard for you, she is nearly 18 and calling her what she wishes wont cost you anything. It could just be a phase but she could actually be trans and telling her you wont accept her as trans is very hurtful.
I would try with the counselling again and see how that goes but dont insult her or laugh at her.

PoorFannyRobin · 07/12/2015 23:48

Where is a freaking hammer (so that I can hit myself in the freaking head with it)? Regardless of all the other issues that have raised their fascinating heads in this discussion -- DSD has just decided over the last few MONTHS that she is David and wishes to be addressed as such, pronouns and all, and by the entire family. Months. Not years. No one is ruining her life because they haven't even had freaking time to!
This may end up being, of course, a very serious matter. But if it is, DSD will have many other issues that she will be wrestling with for quite a long time and her concerns will, I think, not hinge primarily on fit throwing with her family for not using the pronoun of her choice on demand.
And, yeah, male and female brains are different, and they function differently. Same average intelligence -- but they are different.

TheNewStatesman · 08/12/2015 00:01

I would just humor her for the moment rather than getting into an argument. But do not accept responsibility for making other people (grandparents etc.) humor her as well. That is their choice.

She will probably get bored after a while as it sounds like a fad or something she has picked up from the media.

My understanding is that when biologically female people actually genuinely want to live as men, this is not a "sudden" thing that hits them at age 17/18. We are pretty much invariably talking about girls who were tomboys from an early age, and started to present as very boyish lesbians as they enter their teens.

noeffingidea · 08/12/2015 00:02

poorfanny latest research seems to indicate otherwise www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/30/brain-sex-men-from-mars-women-venus-not-so-says-new-study

DorynownotFloundering · 08/12/2015 00:04

ALMOND I get your frustration.

Yet again, another poster asking for help on a trans issue is drowned out by folks debating on the perceived unreality of trans youth.

How about listening to the actual OP and THEIR problems with THEIR issues instead of turning it yet again into a thinly disguised homophobic rant philosophical debate about trans people.

PoorFannyRobin · 08/12/2015 00:20

No, it doesn't. Even within the article itself, one researcher is quoted as saying that given a new brain, one can predict with some certainly whether it is a male or female brain. A close reading of the article reveals male characteristics and female characteristics within the brain are referred to. The article is a bit propaganda-like and sets up a false argument in order to to defeat it. No one thinks that any brain just screams male or female. Or that all brains of females function only one way and that all brains of males function in a completely different way. Just that, on the whole, they are different -- which they are.

VestalVirgin · 08/12/2015 00:25

How about listening to the actual OP and THEIR problems with THEIR issues

How about you start doing that instead of complaining about people who try to help the OP in a way you don't approve of (i.e. by not buying into genderism)

chrome100 · 08/12/2015 03:28

I'll admit, I find it a bit hard to understand. What difference does it make if you're male or female? You can still do whatever you want as either gender in today's society. Can't she just be herself?

VashtaNerada · 08/12/2015 04:50

I haven't read the whole thread because I know how nasty threads on trans can get, but if it's just a name change for now, I can't see why it matters so much. Perhaps they've always felt like this or maybe it's a new thing, either way a name change can't hurt. It could give them the chance to work out if that's what they really want.

nooka · 08/12/2015 05:45

PoorFannyRobin perhaps you'd do better to read the actual research paper www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/24/1509654112 unfortunately the full paper no longer seems to be accessible, but I read it earlier (or it might be my work machine has access to the pdf - I work in a university) and found it pretty conclusive.

Just from the abstract:
"Our results demonstrate that regardless of the cause of observed sex/gender differences in brain and behavior (nature or nurture), human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain."

The main author of the paper has an excellent TED talk too.

DorynownotFloundering · 08/12/2015 07:01

vestal helping the OP is listening to their concerns in dealing with her real issues not spouting off insulting crap that doesn't address her concerns.

I don't "buy into genderism", I'm trying to offer support as one mum to another who has had similar experiences at a difficult time.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 08/12/2015 07:04

Fgs
vestalvirgin is talking about the reality of life for female people. How can anyone read that and not get it? The point is, that being a woman is a state that is imposed upon us by society and gender norms. It's not something we get to reject or identify our way out of. You can't avoid menstruation, or rape, or lower pay by identifying as a man when you are female. You don't think it's nice that vestal calls David's lived experience a woman's lived experience? The world isn't nice for women! Renaming things doesn't make them not true. If vestal changed the word woman to female person would you get it then?

And trans erasure - I feel like the whole situation is rife with female erasure. Stating that you can stop being a woman, female, just because you say so, is erasing the lived reality for women, females all over the world who don't get to avoid sexual violence and gendered harm because they say so. And a male saying that they can be a woman because they say so is equally erasing of the lived female experience that makes women women.

PoorFannyRobin · 08/12/2015 07:48

I didn't bring up the article. Another poster did in an attempt to disprove what I had stated which article actually did not confirm her statements/opinion but actually confirmed mine. So now you are telling me I would do better to read the actual article, as if I had myself presented and misinterpreted the article. Oh, but I can't even read the full original article/research because the full article is no longer accessible! The fact that you (working at a university and all) found it pretty conclusive isn't really going to do it for me. And the quote from the abstract that you gave as evidence in your post clearly refers to the existence of observed sex/gender differences in brain and behavior . . .! It doesn't even take a close reading to see that! Honestly, this is why I always state that people need to do their own reading and research into scholarship on a controversial subjects. And how many times does it have to be stated that no one here believes that male brains and female brains are two completely different entities? This same old tactic of helpfully offering up some agenda-ridden bit of research to posters who disagree with a progressive's point of view is really getting old and wastes everybody's time. (And I'm not going to respond to any more poking about this on this thread certainly not for the third time.)

DorynownotFloundering · 08/12/2015 08:31

obsidian The reality of life for for females is a real and harsh thing at times but not the point under discussion.

my point is yet again this argument, valid though it may be is distracting the thread yet again from the OP's dilemma.

I just wish the philosophical debaters and hardline feminists would leave their discussions to other threads (which can be interesting & informative) so that the OP doesn't get frightened off yet again.

josephwrightofderby · 08/12/2015 08:37

I think you have a wonderful opportunity here, as a family, to show your son that you love, respect, and accept him no matter what.

Acceptance cannot do any harm. The process of transitioning is a long one that involves a lot of counselling and many stages of physical change. Should he decide that this is not, in fact, what he really wants, then there will be ample opportunities for him to discover that for himself.

Radfems are on the wrong side of history with this one. (And reliant on some extremely outdated theory).

whatdoIget · 08/12/2015 08:45

I think it's disingenuous to suggest that gender-critical posters go all over the board looking for ops by parents of trans children, in order to upset them by disagreeing with them. I've never seen this happen in lgbt children.
This op is a bit different because it's in AIBU (I think) and the op is expressing her unease at what is happening. So gender critical posters are actually agreeing with the op. It's all the others who are riding roughshod over her thoughts and feelings, actually

DorynownotFloundering · 08/12/2015 09:00

whatdoiget They may not go looking but every single time the threads are taken over by hyper critical debates.

I agree maybe AIBU was not the best place for the OP to start but if there could be opposing views offered rather than rammed down our throats as facts it would make for a more constructive debate.

There are many facet of these issues and each family is different, each childs expression of their dysphoria can be different.

Acceptance cannot do any harm. The process of transitioning is a long one that involves a lot of counselling and many stages of physical change. Should he decide that this is not, in fact, what he really wants, then there will be ample opportunities for him to discover that for himself

Spot on.

noeffingidea · 08/12/2015 09:10

poorfannyrobin how did you reach that conclusion? It clearly states that there is no such thing as a 'male brain' and a 'female brain'. All brains are different, and differences aren't drawn along sex lines.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 08/12/2015 09:19

Sure floundering, I'm responding to another post though, that's how conversation goes. I'm unable to ignore a post I disagree with just because the op wasn't asking about that in the first place.

Josephwright, I think we will look back in 100 years and be horrified at the way people who feel trans are treated by the medical community. I hope that we will achieve a society of loving acceptance of all people in which they can keep their healthy bodies intact whilst wearing what they fancy and fucking who they fancy in the full knowledge that none of the outside shit matters

whatdoIget · 08/12/2015 09:36

I don't think threads about trans children are usually taken over by gender critical people are they? I don't know because I stay away from them, out of respect for the op/kids. This one's a bit different due to being in AIBU. The op was asking if she was unreasonable. Some people are saying she is, some are saying she isn't.
It's ok to disagree