To ask when you realised your dc was transgender?

[Balsamicpearls]

I have a dd who is 7. She has always been a "tomboy" and prefers stereotypical boy's clothes and toys. She often likes us to play a game where she is a boy. I've never made an issue of this and we play along. She sometimes chooses to wear a dress and plays with girls sometimes. She seems happy in herself but I do notice other children questioning her clothes etc. All very innocent for now.
Maybe she is just a tomboy but I wonder if there is more to it so I wondered if anyone who has a transgender child can guide as to when you spotted signs. I realise we will be just going with the flow anyway and all that matters is she is happy and content.
Thanks

My dd is 5.

Since about 2ish she has wanted o my boy stuff. I just get what she wants (for Xmas etc) she won't wear girls clothes it upsets her so I just buy her like leggings and shirts etc and she wears boys tops.
She refers herself as a boy and she wants to an called jack.
When she comes home from school she will say she has a girlfriend as she loves her etc my other Dds are ridiculously girly anything sparkly or pretty.

I have never and will not make any of them something they aren't and they are all happy.

I'm pretty sure my dd won't grow out of any of it to be honest as she just likes what she likes, it's strange tho as since she could talk her little voice does sound more boyish and the way she walks .. she loves football and lives in football kits and she is the happiest little person ☺

Flippy she sounds exactly like my dd at the same age, I posted about her above. I let her wear and play with whatever she wanted. She was mad into football and wore football jerseys all the time. She often said she wanted to be a boy, I just shrugged and said, you are a girl. You can wear whatever you want, do whatever you want, but you are a girl. She grew up completely 'cis' and is a perfectly happy young woman. I really believe that if left alone most kids grow out of this stuff. Only time will tell though.

I agree.

What i hate is you see on the tv having treatment etc to become to opposite sex at so little. For good was sake my son was Adament he wanted to be a dog for years when he was little. Changed his name to rex at school etc they grow out of these things.
And if she doesn't then that's her desicion when she is older she is still my child either way.

flippyflapper

And both you and she know she can never actually be a dog.

And you wouldn't demand that everyone else attempts to converse with her in woofs, have to pat her and take her for walks.

For all those who talk about their children wanting to be animals as if it's comparable, what I think would be closer would be if your children really believed they were an animal, born wrongly into a human body. Children deeply distressed because nobody understood or believed that they had been born wrong. Of course this would not mean they were actually an animal but it would be very concerning and suggest something was really wrong- it would not be just an ordinary phase of childhood.
I think you are massively minimising the distress experienced by these children, young people and adults with these kinds of comparisons.

Children deeply distressed because nobody understood or believed that they had been born wrong. Of course this would not mean they were actually an animal but it would be very concerning and suggest something was really wrong- it would not be just an ordinary phase of childhood

That's pretty bigoted of you TBH. Some people are dysphoric, and believe that they are actually animals. Yet they are almost universally mocked, and don't have access to the same rights and supports to those who are gender, rather than species, dysphoric.

^www.vice.com/en_uk/article/mvxgwa/from-dragons-to-foxes-the-otherkin-community-believes-you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be^

I'd guess you would also say that Rachel Dolezal was wrong to live as a black person...

If your child was presenting in that way you would (I hope) be concerned. It is not bigoted of me at all to point that out. Nobody has sounded at all concerned about their children wanting/ pretending to be dogs etc.

Somyou believe that a child who is species dysphoric has a mental health issue, whereas a child who is "gender" dysphoric should be supported to change their "gender"?

I have not said that. But please project away. But equally I don't think that there needs to be a hierarchy between mental health needs/ medical/ physical needs. I care much more about the distress of those who feel this way and how badly we as a society treat them.

I am also not aware of any species dysphoric children- and I am aware of dysphoria for children./ adolescents in different ways. In fact I have never heard of species dysphoric children! I am aware of children with asd who are very intense and insistent when acting as animals. And I feel hugely for what they are trying to communicate- but they do not really think that they are animals.

I liked playing with boys rather than with girls, I wasn't into dolls but lego, I was gutted when I had my first period and when my breasts started to grow, etc. Maybe these days my mum would wonder whether I was transgender.

From around age 4/5 I only wore boys clothes, had a boys haircut, insisted on people calling me a boys name, said i wanted to be a boy and at around 9/10 years old I grew out of it.

I remember crying until i was sent home on the first non-school-uniform day because my mum dressed me in a dress....

You can't really know how your child will change in the future, just dont do anything too drastic, i'm very glad my parents didn't line me up for hormone therapy etc

I am aware of children with asd who are very intense and insistent when acting as animals. And I feel hugely for what they are trying to communicate- but they do not really think that they are animals.

That's interesting, TwistedReach. Autism is massively over represented in the trans community. Something like 51%.

My daughter's often expressed dissatisfaction with being a girl but when you talk to them its often because some boy told them they couldn't play football or whatever, so it was the expectations around being a girl they didn't like really iyswim

And there is a huge difference between gender nonconformity and gender dysphoria. The OP's child does not gender dysphoric.

Strangely, when I first started to read about this about this 4 or 5 years ago, it was generally understood that gender dysphoria did not kick in until puberty.

It was almost unheard of in children. But with a lot of trans-people giving retrospective stories, it seems to be more prevalent.

Whether that is significant or not, I don't know.

But in too many stories I have read of where parents say their child is trans, there is very little to go on, other than opposite sex behaviour/toys. Which we all know are cultural.

I'm not saying gender dysphoria definitely doesn't happen in small children. But it was usually something considered to start at or around puberty.

Questioning gender stereotyping will certainly go along way to sorting out the genuinely gender dysphoric, from the gender nonconforming.

'That's interesting, TwistedReach. Autism is massively over represented in the trans community. Something like 51%'

Im very aware of that Datun. And its another reason why I find the lack of compassion/ talking as if the feelings of these children/ young people/ adults are just part of typical development hard to stomach.

There is little publicising about the autism aspect. Transactivists refuse to recognise it. And they don't want anyone else to. Consequently, the disassociation aspect of transgenderism and it's connection to autism is little known, to the general public at least.

If 51% of trans people are autistic, I would say that goes an awful long way to suggest people start viewing it as a disassociative disorder, rather than accommodating it with hormones and surgery.

Focusing on the role these children play in society in terms of their clothing, names, pronouns, toys, and whether to call them male or female is surely focusing on entirely the wrong thing.

The lack of compassion is not to do with what the child is going through, it's to do with the perceived wisdom on how to react to it.

An autistic boy who thinks he's a girl should initially be viewed the same as if he thinks he's a dog. It would suggest that him disassociating from what he is should be the focus, rather than what he says he wants to be.

Frankly, I think it's scandalous that the autistic aspect of the trans ideology is not being highlighted.

I dont think the fact that many people who feel as if they were born into the wrong body have asd traits means that it should be viewed as a disassociative disorder. Why would that be the case? The two are not linked.

I do agree that it should be better known though- to stop the idea that it's about narcissistic parents/ special snowflake individuals or those who just want to take away women rights.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that autism and identifying as trans aren't linked?

The detransitioning narratives that I have read, from people who are autistic, say they felt disassociated from both themselves and society. It wasn't so much that they felt definitely that they were trans.

They felt they didn't fit anywhere. They were drawn to the trans ideology, on the basis that other trans people said they didn't fit in either. It seemed to be the answer.

Which, it turns out, it wasn't. Some detransitioned after irreversible surgery, which they now have to live with.

I dont think the fact that many people who feel as if they were born into the wrong body have asd traits means that it should be viewed as a disassociative disorder. Why would that be the case? The two are not linked

Born in the wrong body suggests that someone thinks there is something wrong with their body - i.e. it's 'wrong' without a penis, or with a penis, etc. This is similar to anorexia and also disorders where people think that their nose is ten times the size it actually is.

My personal view is that this is getting badly conflated with gender - where someone thinks that they were born the wrong gender - i.e. they have a penis but like to play with stereotypical feminine things like those dreadful plastic ponies that look like something out of a bad psychedelic LSD trip. Of course, because they want to be the 'right' gender they then say they should not have a penis or whatever. But the two are and should be seen as different conditions.

Datun- im not saying that it's not linked, just that that doesnt mean it's a dissociative disorder. More likely it's to do with concrete thinking.

But the fact is we don't know what causes this. There is some evidence that autism may be linked to increased testosterone in utero/ there are some similar theories about transgender people. But we don't know. We do know it causes huge distress and that there are high levels of mental health difficulties/ suicide in the trans community. This is why I find the main cry from mn about this being a problem for women rights difficult and lacking in empathy.

More likely it's to do with concrete thinking. I'm not a scientist, could you just explain this a bit for me?

In terms of distress and suicide, there is no evidence at all to suggest that transitioning alleviates it.

The only survey conducted did not make a distinction between those who had treatment and those who hadn't. In fact, the suicide rate tends to go up after transitioning.

Also, that survey has been misrepresented. The way the results of the survey have been worded indicates that it was from a cohort of 2000 people. When in actual fact it was from 27. Only eight of whom said they had contemplated suicide in the last year. And even the authors of the survey cannot determine whether or not instances of self harm would be included in that.

If the high suicide rate is to be accepted, you would see many trans teenagers killing themselves. So far, in this country, there haven't been any.

I can see that you are coming at this from a position of compassion and understanding. There are a few people who aren't. Particularly the mothers who represent the bulk of this forum.

But asking questions and trying to untangle this ideology is incredibly important.

For instance, if autism is playing a part, then research, funding and resources should be instantly diverted to that. Rather than encouraging children to transition. The consequences of transitioning are too massive.

Concrete thinking (or rigid and literal thinking) is a feature of ASD, it can mean that it is hard to see grey areas and can make people obsessional. So it could be for example, that a girl with ASD does not feel she fits in with other girls, does not like the things they like and becomes fixated with the idea that she must be a boy. Her rigid thinking makes it very hard for her to see it in any other way. I feel uncomfortable saying this here though because I feel there is such hostility towards the idea of trans and I don't want to be part of that. And it is only one possibility of many.

Mental health professionals in the top gender identity development clinics are very aware of the fact that ASD traits are very common in children with these struggles. Whatever is said on here, they don't want to push children into transitioning. They do however want to help the children to not feel so completely wretched and distressed.

Have a look at the gender identity development service at the Tavistock , these professionals are aware that we do not know what causes these difficulties.

gids.nhs.uk/parents#how-can-i-encourage-exploration-and-keep-options-open

Sorry, I meant to particularly link to the section further up on that page 'why does my child feel this way' scroll up to read it.