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

Lol...sounds normal daughter behaviour. Im still mostly wear jeans and lived in them as a child. High chance she be into makeup and dresses in her teens! Who cares. Let her be as she wants be it jeans or dresses.

I'm a TA of about 10 years and have known 2 girls that stood out at primary school for similar reasons. They both wore trousers when all other girls wore skirts and wore boys school shoes, had their hair cut short, played football with the boys etc and had boys only as friends. One become much girlier, long hair and make-up by 16 but also came out as gay. The other is straight, has a steady boyfriend but is still non girly. I also have a cousin who was the same, wanted to do all the stereo typical male things as a child and shunned anything feminine. She is now in her 20s, quite feminine and has come out as gay.

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's a girl. She's a girl. She's a girl.

She's a girl who prefers to wear clothes that we STEREOTYPICALLY, just now, not forever, think are "boy's" clothes.

But did you know that traditionally PINK was considered a boy's colour - it is a red, and therefore too "strong" for girls, who were dressed in blue.

You are describing my sister, who is now happily married and a MOTHER of two children. She wanted to be a boy until she was about 14 or 16. It was not gender dysphoria, it was a complex set of family circumstances.

And

The observation that boys had more fun. That they played with stuff she enjoyed playing with. That she preferred to wear shorts to skirts.

Your DD is a girl.

I hate to think what would have happened to my beautiful sister if she were 12 today. It's really very very scary.

I don't think preferences of toys, clothes, etc. are all driven by stereotypes made up by "society". DD2 preferred dresses, dolls, rainbow, kitchen toys, and Dora since day 1. Once, when she was 2 yo, she cried when she saw me shopping for sleep shorts for her in the boy's section (couldn't find them in girl's section). She sadly and disbelievingly accused me of "forgetting that she is a girl". She is 14 yo now and still a girly girl who loves to dance. I don't think any amount of "stereotype" could have convinced her to be any other way.

This old chestnut, since when were rainbows and kitchens female things?!?

Good grief.

Also, High heels were initially for men, and as described below, pink for boys.

I don't think preferences of toys, clothes, etc. are all driven by stereotypes made up by "society"

You might not think that, but there's overwhelming research to suggest that from the moment we know the sex of a baby, we treat male babies and female babies very differently.

But if your DD didn't want 'girly' stuff, would you think she was 'really' a boy? I doubt it.

There is NO necessary connection between chromosones & reproductive function, and activities, preferences, dress, behaviour. (In addition to pink & high heels, I give you make up - thought to be far more appropriate for men than women in the 17th and 18th centuries. Also figure hugging, figure revealing clothing - have a look at what breeches reveal, in a way that long frocks don't!)

Except insofar as behaviour relates to the primary sex functions of procreation & carrying a foetus & giving birth, of course.

Holly, I agree with you. But I am saying that not everyone does the girly or boyish stuff because "society" told them to. Many people are so inclined by nature. If you meet my dd, you'd know.

My dd was a 'tomboy' when she was growing up. I was never into dolls or pink sparkly shit myself so I never brought her any stereotypically girly stuff and let her play with whatever she fancied, which was usually 'boys' stuff. She wore jeans and football jerseys most of the time, played football etc. Sometimes she said she wished she was a boy, I just shrugged it off, told her she was a girl, being a girl is great. Once she hit puberty and started secondary school she just settled into being a girl and growing into a young woman. She is a bit of a laddette I suppose, but she is straight and very much female. I am glad I had my kids before all this transgender stuff started, it must be very difficult to navigate through it all.

RhodaBorrocks great post, I am glad things worked out for your boy.

tubasinthemoonlight your post is very wise and you are so right about " I simply allowed my child to enjoy life the way they wished." I wish you and your son all the very best.

All 2/3 year olds love play kitchens!! all my boys did, and the dolls house. One alsomloved to dance. my friend's some is a ballet dancer at a conservatoire. I despair, I really do.

loves to dance, and does musical theatre.

Many people are so inclined by nature

Unless your DD is being raised without any human contact, or without ever leaving a bare cell, you can't known that. Society pushes gender on us in so many ways, adverts, comics, shop windows, nurseries, other children, well meaning grandparents.....

Once, when she was 2 yo, she cried when she saw me shopping for sleep shorts for her in the boy's section

Honestly at 2 I don't think either of mine even realised there was a boys and girls section - we just wandered into a shop and bought what they or I (DS1 couldn't care less, would happily be naked) liked!

Balsamicpearls

Your child will be female for the rest of her life. Nothing can ever change that. No amount of surgery, lifelong hormones can make her a boy. And I know, you are not considering that, at all. But it's worth noting.

Males and females transition for different reasons. I don't think it's much of a surprise to anyone that girls see boys as having fewer limitations, more agency and less disadvantage and want that for themselves.

Most children go through wanting the role of the opposite sex. Of course. It's only society that tells them that's not entirely natural and defines things as 'opposite' in the first place.

If you do nothing more, I urge you to watch this programme, broadcast last week by the BBC. The children in it are exactly the same age as your daughter.

It comprehensively highlights that by the age of seven, girls and boys are thoroughly entrenched in their society enforced gender roles.

Unasked for roles. Roles that are very difficult to break out of, should one even be consciously aware of them. Which hardly anyone is.

Watch the total shock from some of the adults in the programme, who would have sworn blind that they do not enforce gender stereotypes, when they are filmed doing exactly that.

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2017/33/no-more-boys-and-girls

That sounds very interesting Datun. My kids are older but I mind two little girls of 5 and 3 and they won't play with anything that's not pink it's just ridiculous. Their mum is a teacher and seems a very sensible person, not a girly type at all if you will excuse the description, but if we go around the shops and I point out stuff they are not interested unless it's pink, if it's any other colour it has to be sparkly. Maybe in mixed sex families it's different, ( I have a boy as well as girls) maybe because they are both girls every present they got from infancy is pink and very gendered and it goes from there.

deadringer

The programme is well worth a watch. Toys, clothes, books, words, adverts, friends, parents - all of them reinforce the same message. Often, completely by mistake and totally unwittingly.

Even before birth. If someone knows the sex of your yet to be born baby, they will talk to your bump differently!

I just watched it on YouTube thanks Datun. It is fascinating, confirmed a lot of stuff that I already suspected. It's shocking to see that girls have such low self esteem from such a young age. I wonder if girls fare better at all girls schools? At least there they wouldn't lose out to the boys attention wise.

My kids are older but I mind two little girls of 5 and 3 and they won't play with anything that's not pink

I can remember being teased at that age for having 'boys clothes' and 'boys books'- by other children. Children at that age are very strongly into gender stereotyping

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

What the fuck does this mean? Surely that's what all children should be allowed to do?

What is a gender non conforming child? I will literally eat my hat if anyone can explain what that is without it just being personality.

Not all people fit into gender stereotypes, why does that mean they give up theirs gender?

I've done the googling for you:

stephaniedaviesarai.com/the-transgender-experiment-on-kids/

Have a read of that and other articles on the site and then decide if you want to have an argument.

Nauticant so basically, yes it's personality.

I don't want to have an argument, I want to be in a world where I am not forced into a harmful stereotype of pink and glitter to be able to call myself a woman.

Sounds like a sensible world. I'm in.

I think it would be a great place! Hehe

deadringer

Statistically, I believe girls do better in girls' schools, in terms of taking stem subjects. If they are traditionally thought to be male subjects, the girls in all girls' schools don't seem to have got the memo.

Also. i don't wish to be unsupportive.

But there seems to me to be something in the nature of MSBP, in the psychological need some parents have, for their children to be different and to carry that need so far, that they would encourage their child to mutilate themselves and become lifelong patients.

Don't go down that path OP. If you feel the urge to, get counselling to find out why you have this need.