Niece(15) is saying my DS is Trans!?

[upsideup]

My 15 year old niece added me on facebook this morning, she doesnt live in the UK and is comming to stay with us in a few weeks and as I havent seen her for almost a year I had a quick look down her facebook page just to see what she looked like now and what she was up to and about 2 weeks ago she posted a short video on trans children which I havnt actually watched because I was too annoyed by the comment she had posted with is basically saying:
'Aww my cousin is transgender (MTF) and she is the most beautiful, loved and accepted little girl, she's lucky that she has such a good family around her but not all children are so lucky, so many transgender children are ignored and not listened to and so are not able to be who they truly are.... I will fight anyone who tries to suggest that my cousin is anything less than a girl. It was much longer than that but thats the general message and the most relevant things. There's almost 20 comments from her friends saying how lucky she (my son) is to have an amazing accepting cousin like her and how great it is that she(my son) is able to be herself (himself).

Now we have had the 'is he trans?' 'are you sure he isnt trans?' comments from family members before but have always just said no, hes fine, we have dealt with it, he just likes pink, he just wants long hair etc and thought that had been accepted and dropped. Hes not transgender, hes a 4 year boy that has blond shoulder length hair who likes wearing anything sparkly or glittery and playing makeup/dolls/dressing up with his big sisters. We have also added an 'y' to the end of his name because he wanted to but this doesnt even make it a 'girls' name it just makes it a cuter nickname for his boys name and he was the only one out of his siblings whose name didnt end it 'y' anyway but shes used this to imply we are letting him live as a girl.

I am furious that she thinks she can talk about my son publicly online like this without my permission and that what she is saying is all lies, I dont know whether its just cool to have a transgender family member and it just gives you attention and makes you popular around your friends or what.

WIBU to comment on the post saying actually he is a boy and I dont know why you would need to lie about him? Or am I going to have to be an adult and either ignore this or try and deal with it privately throught her parents? Either way If she comes and stays I am not having her call my son things that he doesnt actually want to be called.

Redmambo, you are an idiot peddling stupid ideas that could cause serious harm at the ages you cite.

The most "good" you could do is to shush and never post anything on this topic again, anywhere.

There's some terrifying stuff on this thread!
Puberty blockers for 10yos!!??? Removing parents as medical guardians??!

Why are children not allowed to just be children anymore?

When I was little I wanted to be a boy one day, a mermaid the next, then a fairy princess or a soldier.

Op yanbu, you probably should leave it to her parents but I'd really want to comment 'you realise this is a 4yo boy you're taking about, he is not trans he's just a little boy with long hair who likes pink. Just like every little girl that wears jeans isn't a boy'

Mumsnet, you've got someone here trying to push drugs on children. Is that really acceptable by your standards??

Haven't read all the updates - I would also be careful about what she posts on social media after she's told how serious what she has done is - last thing you need is her turning around slating you for not supporting your "transgender" child. Perhaps suggest to her parents a social media ban should be in place for a cooling off period whilst she comes to terms with her actions?

@RedMambo where did you receive your medical training with regards to the affects of puberty blockers? You don't have a fucking clue.

Sorry puberty blockers for 10 year olds and removing parents as guardians is someone’s fantasy and I think those posts need deleting. To me that’s promoting child abuse

@RedMambo - how do you decipher between a ten year old who's been traumatised and has identity confusion vs. a child who has true gender dysphoria please?

By ten most children haven't disclosed severe child abuse that can lead to identity confusion (it usually happens in their 20s or 30s)...

I have posted something along these lines on mumsnet many times.

When I was about 10 - 12 I was a tomboy. I mainly sat by boys at school. I liked sports. I played football. I liked maths and science. I hated wearing skirts and dresses. I hated my body and the changes it was going through (breasts getting in the way of sport, hair growing in all kinds of alarming places, the knowledge that periods - which sounded frankly terrifying - were going to be starting soon.)

My body felt wrong. Very very wrong.

If someone had told me I was trans and really a boy then I would have lapped it up! An explanation for everything! Yes - I am different and special! I knew it! I would have taken hormone blockers, extra hormones, gone through surgery, anything to feel a bit less confused about myself.

In fact I muddled along ( with all my friends who were also muddling along) until about 14 / 15 when my hormones settled and I “grew into myself”. Suddenly “ugly duckling” grew into a swan! I loved my body! It was fabulous.

I’m now 38. I am a pretty content woman who loves the way her body has grown two fabulous children (although would quite like to get rid of her “mum tum” but not enough to give up chocolate digestives) and is very definitely female.

What I had was a very boring, very ordinary case of teenage angst mixed with the sudden realisation that we live in a patriarchal society that tries to say what women and girls can’t do.

I look at my children and I thank god that I grew up in the 80s / 90s when tomboys were allowed to be tomboys.

Bloody hell. When I was a child I desperately wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I wanted to be a cool Jedi and rescue the princess. I also liked He-Man, Transformers and so on.

My favourite colour was blue and I liked climbing stuff and getting muddy.

If I was a child now would that be enough for me to be considered trans? Would someone like @RedMambo be recommending puberty blockers?

I think Red has done his intended and gone

What is all this recent gender shit.
I thought we were YEARS beyond saying girls couldn’t play football, wear trousers , climb trees. Boys can’t have long hair , like dolls , wear any f colour they choose ! UNLESS it showed they wanted to change sex.
Sounds like something from my great grandparents era.
Ffs !

You use interent pharmacies to get hormones delivered to virtual addresses ?

This is for vulnerable children, no? Children who you've encouraged to divorce themselves from their parents? Very much like a sinister cult.

If this is true, then you are twisted, child abusing bastards. Misogynistic, homophobic ones at that.

Please do not allow your niece to visit until you are sure she will not speak to your 4 year old about trans issues.

Personally I would not post on Facebook but would request her parents get her to take any reference to your child off her page. I would not unfriend so you can see what she is saying.

Sounds like something from my great grandparents era.

Doesn't it?

Gender seems more and more binary every day. It's baffling.

DH is home (also furious) he is reading through this thread and lots of you have left really helpful comments of what we need to say so thankyou. We will write a calm email to send to her parents firstly making sure the post is deleted and explaining that although they all have had no reason to think overwise our son is a boy who has long hair and likes glitter, he is not trans and he is not a girl and that their dd should not be making that kind of thing up. If we can not be certain that our child will not be accepted and made to feel comfortable for who he is which is a boy who likes 'girly' stuff then she will not be allowed near him and wont be comming to stay.
If anything its my side of the family saying that maybe he is trans but as I say it was dropped once we explained he wasnt, I only mentioned that in my OP to explain we have had to deal with this sort of stuff before. If anything DH's family are more likely to be unaccepting of trans people, which could possibly be why their daughter is trying to push it and show she is using my son. If she had asked us then we would of answered but she didnt, apart from seeing pictures of him with long hair she has no reason to think he is trans, it most likely that she made it up to be able relate to the trend and get attention about how cool and amazing she was for being so accepting from her friends, which she got.
And even if it was true and we had said he is trans, you dont talk about my child online without my permision to get attention for yourself, I dont beleive it was not of done with kind intentions at all. Shes 15 not 5, my 10 year old dd knows none of that is okay, I have a now 22 dsd and at 15 would be horrified at that behaviour.

As it was relevant to another thread where the mum just accepted her small son saying he wanted to be a girl and then subjected him to irreversable physical damage for it to end up that actually he still wanted to be a boy a few years later,
I mentioned that my DS has said to me before (in the past) that he 'wants to be a girl', this was dealt with in private neither DN or anyone else were told this because they didnt need to be. Tbh hes has told me he wants to be a unicorn before but we didnt just shut him up when he said this, me and DH listened to him and took him seriously, we spoke to him about why he said he wants to be a girl and as I said on the other thread his answers were that he wanted to play with dolls and makeup with his big sister and not play football and cars with his big brother, he said 'girls things' are more fun so it would be more 'fun' to be a girl, we explained to him that he can still do all those things as a boy and now he is perfectly content with being a boy who likes pink and has long hair. When he is an adult as long as he is not hurting anyone else he who can be whoever he wants to be and do whatever he wants to do and have mine and DH's full support and love (same for all our children) but atm we have no reason to believe he will want to be anything more than a boy who likes pink and he may even grow out of that. He doesnt want to be called a girl now and he doesnt want to be given female pronouns, other kids have often tried to call him a girl because he has long hair and he will say 'I am a boy with long hair'. He actually wants to have facial hair like his daddy and is upset that he doesnt need to shave his face, he has also said doesnt want to have boobs like mummy because they will get in the way when he does cartwheels, he has given no signs to suggest that he wants to be given puberty blockers or that he wants to be given female hormones, so we have no reason to consider those options.

Liking pink is not an indication of feminine inclinations. In Victorian times it was very fashionable for boys to wear pink clothes and Victorian men were far from feminine.

There were a blissful few years, User where we did have boys and girls being allowed to do what they wanted without people thinking it would effect their sexuality or gender but it seems that ship has sailed.

David Bowie must be turning in his grave

Sounds like you and DH are sensible enough about it all, good luck with the family. Glad there was no slanging match with a 15yo on fb

Na ship hadn’t sailed. We just need to push back against this lunacy.

Heard germaine Greer talking to Kirsty from news night and highly recommend anyone watching it on u tube. Her opinion on trans activists was fantastic. She’s so funny and so fresh still.

And op you and your dh sound fantastic parents

Apparently, the liking pink or blue is only a thing for children. For some reason it stops being sex restricted when we grow up.

Yes both dh snd ds have pink shirts and ties. Very manly men too

This recent nonsense needs squashing

It frightens me that creeps like RedMambo are able to influence the lives of innocent young children.
At least on MN their nasty suggestions can be deleted, but in many other places they can work with impunity. This is just disgusting.