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

I'm so glad I was raised in the 80's and 90's I didn't hated dresses, dolls with a passion as a child and liked things that were generally tomboy like things. My poor mum bought me a very expensive doll one and I completely destroyed it cut all its hair off and drew all over it. I always wore super heroe type clothing eg. Batman jeans and they had to threaten or bribe me to wear a dress for special occasions. I thank God I wasn't raised now. I would have been labelled as transgender. The point is I was just different and liked what I liked and my parents didn't care as long as I was hope. 20 years later I still like what I like but wear a dress from time to time. Stop labelling children because it's trendy and let them come to their own natural conclusions about who they are. I know of a woman who has insisted her son is transgender even though professionals are of the the opposite view. She even took him to the Tavistock clinic, they disagreed with her claim the child has gender dysphoria and she then withdrew the child from their service as they didn't agree with her.

The transgenderism is a threat to women in so many ways-open your eyes twisted
What kids play with or want to wear is fluid at aged 7.
There is no such things as girls or boys toys. Let her just play with what she wants.

Ps. The context of why I may have been the way I was/am is because I have five brothers. I just like what they liked. I feel sad that at such young ages adults are doing exactly what they say they don't want for their children. Labelling them and putting them into boxes instead of letting them just be.

I do actually have a question for you op. In your first post, you said:

Subject: To ask when you realised your dc was transgender?
@Balsamicpearls 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.

But later on you said on an issue about which I know little

I am curious how you made the connection between a seven year old pre-pubescent child saying things that simply push back against ingrained cultural stereotypes, and with no further evidence or symptoms of (say) actual gender dysphoria, to simply assuming she IS transgender - a condition which you readily admit you know nothing about?

That is a HUGE leap to make, from 0-100mph. How did you conclude that as your answer based on such such scanty information?

I grew up as a massive tomboy, insisted on wearing boyish clothes, hung out with boys and played with boys toys and action man.
I'm now a feminine woman with long hair and not in the least transgender and straight as well. However I work with all men in my field at work and ride big motorbikes.
Some girls and women just prefer doing boyish things because they are more fun than, I'd say don't stress about it just see where this goes naturally.
Just because girls don't have girly traits doesn't mean they are transgender. I think we all stress about boundaries too much.

I don't think this is the right place for you to get support sadly

She doesn't need any support. She needs to stop grabbing fashionable isms and applying them to a small child without even the flimsiest reason.

Anyone asking about transgederism because their 7 year old dd likes wearing pants and playing trains needs a metaphorical slap, not a waffly load of "support".

I don't think this is the right place for you to get support sadly

Actually this is a great resource for support.

Vast majority of MNers are women. And as you can see from the replies a lot of us felt that way at around that age.

It's only now that it has a Trans narrative attached to it.

Whereas as you can see most of us grew up to be fully happy to be a female heterosexual/lesbian.

You have a daughter, fact, she's female. It's ok for her to wear blue, play "boys games", etc etc. It doesn't make her Transgender (blimey I don't think many of us had even heard the term 3 years ago).
The world is going slowly mad.

Buy her books where the heroine is female and achieving things other than being pretty.

Let her do any sports of play she wants to, including those which are dominated by and associated with, boys. Fight for her right to participate in those activities. Don't let other people persuade you that it's too much trouble to include her.

Let her have her hair short if she wants and wear "boy's clothes" and tell her they're not boy's clothes, they're her clothes and she's a girl, so they must be girl's clothes.

Expose her to female role models who are not doing stereotypically feminine things: car mechanics, engineers, pilots, sportswomen, police officers, bus-drivers, doctors etc. Let her know that she doesn't have to limit her dreams or life, because she is a girl.

Find out and tell her about women from the past, whose history has been erased, who achieved incredible things in the face of male obstruction - Dr James Barry who had to pretend to be a man to practice medicine (and who the transborg is trying to appropriate), Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Elizabeth Garrett, Edith Cavell, Josephine Butler, Annie Besant, Eleanor Marx, Julian of Norwich, Bess of Hardwick, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Stand up for her right to be different, to be a girl who doesn't perform femininity.

Be prepared for the possibility that she will be a lesbian when she is older. Most gender non-conforming kids if left to their own devices, will grow out of it; a small minority become lesbians or homosexual men. A large number of those are about to be horrifically abused by homophobic parents who would rather account for their children's gender nonconformity, by explaining it as the child being born in the wrong body, than accepting their children for who they are.

Google Stephanie Davies-Arai, who runs a site for parents with GNC kids (gender non conforming) and supports them to allow their children to be who they are.

Learn about feminism. Introduce her to feminism. It will allow her to be herself, which is what you want for her.

Enjoy her uniqueness.

I realised after my child told me, after fighting for mental health help, after soothing my poor child every day because of their hatred of their own body, after struggling to access appropriate support, after being shunned by just about everyone we knew, after being kicked off a 'support group' and being called abusive for not allowing medication, after working my ass off every single day to pay for the correct mental health support for my child, after my child's own father disowned and threatened them for being a 'freak' and after about 6 or 7 years of going down the helish path that is having a child who is so upset with their own body that they wish to die rather than live in it and I'm still not 100% sure my child is transgender.

I fucking wish it was about stuff they like.

Don't be a fool and put your child on this path for the reasons you stated.

This isn't a life that is cool and wonderful and accepting. It's fucking impossible watching your child suffer every day and having to choose between allowing that suffering to continue now or risk making them infertile in adulthood.

Let your dc like what they like without putting labels on it.

She's not transgender. She sounds like me as a child. I am not transgender, I am a woman who happens to not like a lot of the stereotypical 'female' things. There's nothing wrong or weird about that, nowhere does it say that if you want to be a 'proper' woman/girl then you have to like all the typical 'girly' things and vice versa.

Let her like what she likes, don't complicate matters by assuming she's transgender when she is in fact a normal child.

This is the problem with gender stereotypes. People take them far to literally.

Really wasn't prepared for that kind of response. I'm only wondering because she has said lots of times she wishes she were a boy and seems sad to be a girl.

OP, please don't be upset about the negative responses. People are often harsh but...

When I was 7 I was exactly like your daughter. I insisted on everyone calling me by the masculine version of my name.

Why? Because I saw my brother, his superiority in sport, the relative freedom he had, the lack of need to be pretty, to sit still, to not talk too much. I envied the way that tv shows, books, stories about history seemed to be about him not me.

I was convinced that boys were far superior to girls. I thought girls were frivolous.

So I desperately wanted to be a boy.

Then I grew up, learned to look at society critically and became a feminist instead

I know a girl that was 'never meant to be a girl'. She was short and stocky, her beautiful blond hair was a mess and she went around with the boys, playing football with them and even joining in with the rampant bullying that was going on. One mum said that she was a definite candidate for a sex change when she got older (I think what she said was a lot more unkind than that, but you know how it is when your son has been beaten, kicked and stamped on at school.......) She looked the same all through high school.

Her family and family friends continued to treat her as just her and never batted an eyelid.

And now she has her hair nice for work (still in trousers) and looks like most other people, and even dresses up and puts lipstick on to go out sometimes.

All perfectly normal.

I wouldn't read too much into anything.

I have a feeling this thread will get deleted but I so hope it doesn't.

WhamBars have some

Op, I didn't take from your post that you're putting her on a path. More that you're interested in it and will let her be her. As you say, roll with it.

I have a close family member who often says she feels gender neutral. She likes all the stereotypical 'man' stuff, but so do I and I dont feel that way. We are all just who we are.

Op why does yiur first post say

She seems happy in herself but I do notice other children questioning her clothes etc

And then you say she says she wants to be a boy and seems sad to be a girl.

She isnt a tomboy or a boy. She is who she is. It doesnt matter what she wears. Stop making an issue out of it.

I have shaved head and live in trousers. That doesnt make me trans. Loads of women do the same.

I am so fed up of parents trying to seem like they are cool with the whole trans situation, to the point they are making the gender divide worse. Which is what you are doing by saying 'my dd wears boys clothes. I need to start planning what we do when she says she is trans'.

OP I had the opposite, a boy who was very much into 'girly' things, liked pink, glitter, wearing my high heels, copying the models on ANTM, etc etc.
We just let him get on with it when he was at home.
Outside, especially at school he wore the boys uniform and played football. This was because he would have been bullied if he'd ever done or worn anything feminine outside the house.
We also let him know from a fairly young age that it's ok to be different, we would still love him if he grew up to be gay or indeed trans, that we would accept him as he is.
He started growing out of it at around 12. He was quite excited about his puberty. Nowadays he's happy to be a man, maybe not as 'masculine' as some men but happy in himself.
Personally I believe that medication and medical intervention should be given only when strictly neccesary, and I would have done anything to avoid putting any of my kids on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. People don't seem to realise that there comes a point when it's difficult/impossible to reverse the process.

So the advice from everybody, including the people who are accusing others of being anti trans, is to wait and watch and help your DD be comfortable with who she is. To be very hesitant about starting down the trans route, because of the medical implications.

A trans person has pointed out what a tough path it is and that there is no counselling available for gender dysphoria any more, because of the current trans agenda.

No need for anyone to get stroppy and hateful on here.... we are roughly in agreement. The only difference is whether MN is supportive- many find it is, and whether Stonewall is helpful.

she wishes she were a boy and seems sad to be a girl

Thinking you're open minded by thinking there's something wrong with your daughter because she's realised that society's constraints on being female suck at times?

Progressive!

Haven't rtft in full.
Going by the OP, I can honestly say that I was the same but more extreme as a child.
I wore boys' clothes, played with more traditionally boy toys, didn't like dresses, pink, makeup, jewellery, dolls etc.
I am so pleased that there was none of this trans/gender agenda around when I was young, because I am a woman and have children, I feel so sad that people consider complicating their children's lives by worrying about their personalities like this.
I was allowed to wear what I wanted, but in general, thirty odd years ago, people were able to be who they were without the pink/blue doll/truck divide there is now.

I still wear men's clothes. I'm 100% without doubt a woman, and quite feminine as far as women go for that matter. I don't think that you can really take choice of clothing as an indication of gender, especially as far as girls are concerned.

With respect, if you were very open minded then you wouldn't think there was any such thing as boys clothes and boy toys or use a term like " tom boy".

She sometimes chooses to wear a dress

Are women and girls supposed to wear dresses every day? None of my female friends, sister, daughter, female in laws, aunties etc wear a dress everyday... They are not trans though

OP, sit down with her and watch "No more boys, and girls" on iPlayer - it's really good and shows how society treats girls and boys differently from birth.

She's probably a bit sad about being a girl as TBH being a girl is pretty shitty, compared to being a boy.

The program I mentioned above was a real eye opener.

Transgendered people feel they were born the wrong sex. Gender is a social construct which is different from sex.

Focus on dispelling gender stereotypes and encouraging her to play and dress how she wants. It seems that at her young age she's already aware that boys are treated differently. And from your OP it seems that you distinguish a lot between 'boy' and 'girl' behaviour.

Labelling her as transgendered or 'different' for such innocent and normal behaviour seems very dangerous. I'm sure anyone trans will tell you it's far from a walk in the park and not something someone decides because they prefer wearing 'stereotypical boy clothes'.