Transgender child the subject of a class reader?

[armpitz]

here

Now, I haven't read it yet but AIBU to be a bit unsure about this?

really your DD isn't a target of the criticism here. It isn't normal everyday people who just happen to feel themselves living as the opposite gender who are the issue. My DS is female. He was born female and utterly agrees that biology dictates his sex. We are 100% supportive and use his preferred pronouns and will support him whatever future holds.
The same child was also a victim of abuse before transition. This same child is so traumatised by the idea of close proximity to male genitals that he vomited after being asked a question by a passing cyclist whose shorts didn't disguise the shape of his genitals.
My child has a female body and an absolute terror of male anatomy. The best thing for someone mentally (and arguably physically) scarred by such abuse, is not to be forced to use male spaces or share female spaces with males.

The result of this absolute clash of 'rights' within the same person is that DS has publicly expressed the idea that dedicated spaces for trans people both male and female, is the way forward.
This resulted in a tidal wave of abuse from trans rights activists (who claim to be acting in the interests of people like DS!) and culminated in threats of rape with penises "because it's transphobic to be scared of the female penis".

It is those vile people who are the problem. Not people like your child or mine. It just so happens that it's the very vocal trans activists who are shaping the political landscape of the future for trans people and women. That isn't acceptable to me. It shouldn't be to any sane person.

I think it would be better to clear up gender vs sex. You cannot change your sex but you can change you your gender. Gender appears to be a personality trait from what I gather.
It does rather seem that reinforcing sexist stereotypes doesn't help anyone, trans or not.

Vestal indeed. The Samaritans publishes guidelines on the reporting of suicides as the research shows that inappropriate reporting of suicide leads to imitative suicide attempts. As with many things, this is turned on its head for dealing with suicide attempts for trans children. The Samaritans specifically caution about the risk of copycat attempts among young people, where people identify with others who have committed suicide or where the suicide is sensationalised. Despite this, the trans movement deals with suicide risk in exactly the opposite way the Samaritans recommend.

www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/branches/branch-96/files/Samaritans%20Media%20Guidelines%20UK%202013%20ARTWORK%20v2%20web%281%29.pdf

I grew up in a rural town. Like many rural communities it has a highish teen suicide rate!

That doesn't make the teens who have been affected by rural mental health problems Londoners!

A transgirl is not like my daughters. They are two different experiences, I don't deny that transgirls have their own challenges, but they have not grown and lived with female biology and the challenges that brings so they have nothing more in common with my girls experience of being a girl than any other non females!

Whosrightsareright - I'm so sorry to hear about your DS. Its impossible to imagine what he's been through.

Whosrightsareright

Your poor DS

I have sadly come to the conclusion that "transrights" really means transWOMENS rights, and transmen are only included so long as they just quietly agree -like good little women-- . When they don't you see the truely ugly mysogynistic head of TRAs rearing up against them!

the arrogance and sheer lack of any compassion or empathy for other human beings on this thread is staggering.
questioning a mother of a suicidal child as to how she would know that child was suicidal, regardless of how you feel about transrights is frankly fucking disgusting.

whoserightsareright I'm sorry for what your child has gone through.

Among heterosexual girls who attend GICs, past sexual abuse is very common. The thinking is that it is a way to escape the history of abuse. It's unfortunate now that MH professionals are so constrained by the trans movement and, in particular, accusations of conversion therapy, that children like your DC find it hard to access therapy that does anything other than "affirm" them as trans.

questioning a mother of a suicidal child as to how she would know that child was suicidal, regardless of how you feel about transrights is frankly fucking disgusting.

No, not questioning if they child was suicidal, but questioning the posters statement that they child would absolutely have carried out a sucessful suicide.

Most suicidal teens don't, thankfully, but the poster swears blind hers would have in an alternative universe!

Over 50 percent of the girls and women who consider themselves "non-women" have been victims of childhood sexual abuse. Another large percentage of FTM and MTF children are autistic, and a large percentage of them are also kids who are same-sex attracted. It's abuse victims and autistic children and gay children who are facing the brunt of sterilization as a consequence of efforts spearheaded by transactivists who want to show transgenderism is "natural" by showing off "natural" trans kids who all just happen to fall into the categories of children who have been neglected or sterilized in the past.

My DS is female. He was born female and utterly agrees that biology dictates his sex. We are 100% supportive and use his preferred pronouns and will support him whatever future holds.The same child was also a victim of abuse before transition.

I hope you do not encourage your child to take hormones or do any other irreversible changes. It is very understandable that they want to identify out of the female gender role, but your safest bet here is to fight for female spaces.
Without hormones and/or surgery, your child will be recognized as female and be able to use those spaces, if they still exist.

Since transactivists, the most vocal group, are not interested in separate spaces for transpeople, and even less in spaces where transpeople are segregated according to actual sex, the chance of getting that is very low.

I hope your child will be okay.

I think it would be better to clear up gender vs sex. You cannot change your sex but you can change you your gender. Gender appears to be a personality trait from what I gather.

That is what the transwacktivists tell us.

But actually, gender is a tool by which men oppress women in patriarchy. That is what the word gender is used for in feminist literature.
Women cannot change their gender; males will molest and rape us regardless of how we identify. Not once in my life has a man asked my gender identity. Not before hitting on me, not before molesting me. Never.
Employers do not ask for women's gender identity before paying them less than men. They do not ask for gender identity when promoting men over more competent women.

Some female people might be able to pass for men and thereby gain some advantages. However, those advantages always come with the danger of being found out.

What women cannot do is just identify into male privilege. That's not possible. As long as men see that you are biologically female, they will treat you accordingly.

It is only men who can force women to treat them like women without plausibly disguising themselves as women. I wouldn't say that those men have changed gender, even. Gender is a hierarchy, with men on the top, and that is not changed by men invading women's spaces. Quite the opposite, actually.

Women cannot change their gender; males will molest and rape us regardless of how we identify. Not once in my life has a man asked my gender identity. Not before hitting on me, not before molesting me. Never.

Yup, see how top "women" CEOs are actually transwomen?
Well, how many top male CEOs are transmen?
yup. exactly!

You genuinely think people would rather be trans than gay? You think this is the easy way out for confused adolescents?

That is the point. Exactly. They are confused, they are suggestible and easily led.

Thank you. Yes I can quite understand why being a woman is such an unattractive prospect for him
He was formerly a lesbian and whether or not he would have preferred to live as a man without the abuse remains a mystery.

We have managed to negotiate the teen years without any physical intervention. My child has breasts and periods and agrees for now that any decisions in that regard are best left for a few years at least. We may not have been so lucky as there has been huge pressure to "go go go" when it came to hormone blockers as if we were somehow not being supportive enough because we didn't rush.

It's quite a unique position to be the parent of a trans teen who is in reality, gender critical. He doesn't claim to be male, he just prefers life as a man and who could blame him. Unfortunately the stark realisation that possessing xx chromosomes is a disadvantage even when identifying as a man was fairly demoralising for him. As has been pointed out, trans rights really means trans women's rights and living as a man doesn't inoculate him against the assumption that he's unreasonable to reject a penis.

It's just so unfair all round really. Like other parents of trans children I care not a jot whether my DC are men, women, gay, straight, asexual or anything else. I want them to be happy and to have the right to live in peace in the manner they so choose. That just happens to be as a man for my middle child. However, I also support the right of my child to feel safe and not be in forced proximity to males or feel pressured to accept sex with a penis whether the person it's attached to lives as a woman or not. What am I supposed to do with that? How do I best support my child when those two things appear contradictory? Surely there has to be a middle ground?

Whosrightsareright your son's story very much reminds me of Jack Monroe, who wanted to be known as a person not as a woman and all the shite that women have to put up with. Initially she was embrassed by the trans community until she turned around as not trans said "I'm female, I just hate the bullshit that gets flung at you when you're female" and got a load of abuse from the trans community, just for being herself!

Not exactly the same thing, but similar treatment from "the community" Anyone whose experience of gender issues don't match their rhetoric gets attacked

Womb, brava. Thank you for cutting through Toastie's patronising, arrogant cut and pasted nonsense.

she's clearly only trans for some underhand and devious reason.

Complete straw man. And emotional hyperbole. There's a surprise.

Who and womb
Thanks for your input. It clarifying a lot of things.

who to your child.

Yes who, it's awful that your son has to put up with that treatment from bullying transactivists. It must be very isolating. But I guess that's why they do it, to get people to conform to the accepted party line.

More to you and your son.

Yup, see how top "women" CEOs are actually transwomen?
Well, how many top male CEOs are transmen?

Exactly so. Think on it.

What am I supposed to do with that? How do I best support my child when those two things appear contradictory? Surely there has to be a middle ground?

Your child doesn't want to use spaces for male sexed people. So there is no contradiction.
You can support men's rights to wear dresses and make-up, and women's right to wear trousers, have short hair and not use make-up.
And women's right to have spaces where the bepenised, regardless of identity, have no access.

Did your child ever experience a large female space, such as a women's music festival? (There was one such festival where only women were allowed, but it has been destroyed by transactivism)
I ask because I never experience a wish to be treated as male by feminist women, but I sure wish sexist men would treat me like a man.

Do you know the site 4thwavenow? It is a gender-critical page for parents of trans-identified children.

4thwavenow.com

Ahhh, nostalgia. These threads remind me of the good ole days when white folks was sayin' black folks couldn't use the same seats on the buses.

Yes, it really is exactly the same. Obviously. Rather than just a trite, appropriative false comparison.

Ahhh, nostalgia. These threads remind me of the good ole days when white folks was sayin' black folks couldn't use the same seats on the buses

yeahhhh, except it's a wee bit more like me as a white woman saying I have more rights to decide what "black issues" are than black people do, and saying that my "rights" go beyond food, safety, education, employment, health etc and should now also include not being "left out" by BAM communities when they say that they need a specific voice or funding for targeted engagement in health/education etc…

so…. YEAH…. kinda….

That.