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Original poster

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

497 replies

upsideup · 04/03/2018 11:25

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.

OP posts:
Lweji · 04/03/2018 23:05

I had my own mansplaining event even two days ago. It was my PhD degree topic and the one I'm mostly known for internationally. I told him that I had proved X, at which point he finally asked what my name was. Do not understimate the women in your company, men.

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 04/03/2018 23:06

I’ve just looked up “gender” in the dictionary.

the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).

This compares with “sex”.

either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.

So be sheer definition gender is about social construct whilst sex is about whether or not you have a willy.

And I don’t even have a science degree......

FranticallyPeaceful · 04/03/2018 23:11

That’s shocking. I liked boy stuff when I was younger, no interest in girl things, always said I wanted to be a boy and tried to be like my brother... had this been recent years I’d have been pumped full of hormones and called trans... and I’d have been so angry. I love being female, I just like “boy stuff” but ... it’s not actually “boy stuff”, it’s just stuff I find more fun. I’m perfectly comfortable and happy with who I am.
One of my best friend was the opposite, he preferred “girl stuff”, pink clothes, his favourite toy was a vacuum and a doll he used to mother... still though, not trans! He’s very straight, very ‘manly’ individual.

JFC let kids just be kids.

S0ph1a · 04/03/2018 23:12

But I have to be honest: I think the niece will remain confused. I don't know how many 4 year old boys - without any influence from anyone else - want to add letters to their name or specifically to have long hair. The niece will probably think - however wrongly - that the whole set-up is a bit odd

I’ll tell my son and his friends Archie, Cammy , Charlie , Rory and Tommy that they are a bit odd. Especially Rory, who used to come to nursery in a princess dress. He’s now a gender conforming, rugby playing 14 year old.

Thank goodness he didn’t have a cousin like the OPs to fill his head with nonsense about how defective he was and why he needed to have bits of his body chopped off.

Kokeshi123 · 04/03/2018 23:52

My daughter went through a brief phrase of saying she wanted to be a boy. I asked her why. She said she wanted to exciting things like fight bad people. We had been reading St. George and the Dragon and the Greek myths a lot at this time, and I think it must have been running through her head a lot. We had a talk about how girls can do whatever they want, and I got her a book called "Exciting Bedtime Stories for Girls" (or somesuch) which had female characters. She never said anything again about wanting to be a boy.

Many girls who insist that they are boys (long-term, not as just a brief phase) are the ones who grow up to be lesbian and/or gender-nonconforming--provided that they are left alone and not told by "experts" that there is something wrong with them and that they need medical treatment. Why not just encourage them to be happy as a non-gender-conforming girl? They're not hurting anyone.

UnRavellingFast · 05/03/2018 00:29

Presumably it’s fashionable to have a trans child in the family and you're * perhaps enjoying getting kudos from making this up. I suppose that at 15, you are too young to understand how wrong and actually anti-liberal and constructive these forceful definitions and binary labels are. All whilst proclaiming that they stand for the exact opposite... it’s very sad really.* Our child is not your social media fodder. Perhaps we can discuss privately in future?

I would post wellthisisshit's post above with a few changes as indicated. She will be utterly mortified and shown up and serves her right. Talking to the parents first will mean she gets off with a warm fuzzy explanation. Fuck that. If I did something like that at 15 I'd have been slated and rightly so. She's one year off being able to marry ffs.

UnRavellingFast · 05/03/2018 00:30

Sorry bold fuck up there!

thegreatbeyond · 05/03/2018 00:42

I do find this odd. And worrying. DS1 used to have long locks, wear sparkly stuff and so forth. No big deal. He's now a strapping, and straight, teenager.

Oliversmumsarmy · 05/03/2018 00:55

You could be describing my ds who still has long hair and is most definitely straight and is looking to be a builder.

What some people need to understand is girls can wear trousers and play with trucks and have short hair and boys can play with dolls, dress in pink and have long hair and it doesn't mean anything.

robindeer · 05/03/2018 01:35

Not to go too far against the consensus here but I hope you weren't too hard on your niece. My best guess here is that she added you on fb in advance of coming to stay with you and posted what she thought was a loving tribute to your liberal parenting with the knowledge that you would see it at the forefront of her mind.

Now obviously it was absurd to label a 4yr old as trans and completely inappropriate to put information up about a child, but 15yr olds live their lives online and I really believe that she did this thinking that you would like it and be touched by her recognition of you as a great mum.

What she posted was ridiculous and ill thought out but which of us at age 15 weren't ridiculous at times? Unfortunately for this generation of teenagers their ridiculous moments are all public. Some of the comments on here have been vitriolic. 15 is still very young and I'd put money on the post being written with the OP in mind and in excited anticipation of a holiday with her cool, trans-accepting aunt.

kungpopanda · 05/03/2018 01:56

I wouldn't let the niece over the threshold. Grandstanding, posturing, self-aggrandising and ignorant little with no notions of privacy or appropriateness.

With any luck that gets you off the hook of hosting the rest of the tribe, so win-win.

Lasagnainmyhair · 05/03/2018 02:14

Sorry if this has already been answered but is there any chance she may have actually been talking about another cousin, perhaps someone from her mums side of the family who you haven’t met? Or someone not actually a cousin in the way your son is but rather a second or third cousin or another member of her extended family but just said cousin to make it simpler?

thebewilderness · 05/03/2018 02:39

You need to have a talk with her about respecting his right to self expression without her trying to force him into the transgender box.
This social contagion is deadly dangerous for children, and I am convinced that Lupron or luprolide is going to be this generation of children's thalidomide.

Chocywockydodahhhhhh · 05/03/2018 04:36

I hated being a girl from about the age of four, i wore boys clothes, I had boys toys, I played football and climbed trees with all the boys. I even tried to get my mum and dad to call me a boys name. In my early teens I tried to bind my breasts.

I hit the age of 16 and suddenly decided I wanted a pair of gorgeous red high heels and from that moment the boys clothes started to go and I embraced being a female. I dread to think now that if I had done that today I would have been seen as trans. I love being a women and am married to a man.

My parents let me express myself as I wanted and let me find myself without judgement.

If I had been identified as trans I would have been pumped full of pills to stop me developing breasts and god knows what else. I would have been miserable.

I didn’t know what I wanted or who I was as a child, but my parents let me find myself and I am so gratefull to them now. Yes I could have well got to the age of 16 and really felt I was in the wrong body but until them I was not mature enough to make a decision and I did not know what I wanted. But I had no pressure on me to conform by the people who loved me and I had such a happy childhood.

We are now starting to see people who transitioned as kids coming out saying they made the wrong decision and some saying they actually had pressure on them to identify as something.

A child is a child and there is a reason why children can’t consent because they are not mature enough or have the life experience to make these kind of decisions.

We are increasingly seeing some parents actually pushing their child to identify as something. A women on this morning not long ago was insisting her daughter of 4 was actually a boy. She wanted her to have medical intervention to prevent her from developing as a girl. I was so really sad as her daughter could have been me 30 years ago. The story she told was almost identical to what I was like and you got the feeling the Mum was enjoying in the attention.

emmyrose2000 · 05/03/2018 05:02

Niece wouldn't be stepping foot inside my house after blatantly lying about my child in this manner, regardless of the topic.

Mummyoflittledragon · 05/03/2018 05:23

Choccy
My question would be. Is this woman mentally well? I do wonder how many parents will be able hide Munchausen’s by proxy or other mental illness behind the current transhysteria.

Ninabean17 · 05/03/2018 06:24

Hope you get to speak to her parents today, but at least the post has been removed! My 5yo dd wears superhero tops and plays with dinosaurs and I think it's great. She also wears tiaras and dresses. They're so young, can't we all just let them be kids and not put them in a box?!

JCo24 · 05/03/2018 06:25

I don’t understand. You had to Facebook stalk her to see what she looked like but you know that she has three male cousins and what they all look like Hmm

Are you definitely sure she is referring to your son? I assume she has a mother and that her mother has a family also, isn’t it possible that she does have a trans cousin on the other side of the family?

Pengggwn · 05/03/2018 06:32

noeffingidea

Noeffingidea how to read? I didn't say I spoke for the rest of the world.

TheRagingGirl · 05/03/2018 07:15

can women not be dads now ?

You really need a refund on your science degree.

noeffingidea · 05/03/2018 07:34

I can read perfectly well pengggwn. You're the one who mentioned the rest of the world, instead of just referring to yourself, and maybe people that you know.

pringlecat · 05/03/2018 07:37

Ignoring whether the OP's child is a little boy who wants to be a little boy or a little boy who wants to be a little girl - he is too young to legally have his own social media and as such, this girl is posting identifying things about him without his knowledge or consent. Furthermore, she's posting about his alleged gender identity without his knowledge - isn't that a bit like outing a gay person who hasn't come out of the closet? Not her call.

If anything of this nature has to go on social media, it should wait until DS is old enough to have social media, make his own opinions and write about it himself.

Omgineedanamechange · 05/03/2018 07:40

I don’t understand. You had to Facebook stalk her to see what she looked like but you know that she has three male cousins and what they all look like

Of course the OP knows that, shes familyHmm

Pengggwn · 05/03/2018 07:40

noeffingidea

It's not my fault you can't see the implication, noeffingidea, which, I feel, if you think about it, clearly isn't that I am the rest of the world, it is that the OP (in that post) appeared to expect agreement from people from whom she has no reason to expect it, because they aren't her, they are just people 'in the rest of the world', where there is a wide variety of opinion.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 05/03/2018 07:56

Fashion and virtue signalling have a lot to answer for.

I dare say the girl's been brainwashed. Not altogether surprising given all the hype and hysteria. I'd speak to her parents and insist on the FB post being removed.

The way things are going, my under 2 Gds will be labelled trans soon, because he likes pushing a 'baby' in under 3 Gdd's doll's pram.