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.

I agree with the PP who said she is 15 and her comments are coming from a good place.

You need to gently tell her that you don't like her discussing your DS on social media, that some things are private and he is a young child finding his way in the world. Ask her if she would mind taking the post down as you find it upsetting.

Maybe redmambo might peak trans a lot more people. Good'o.

So, in summary:

• Your son says he wants to be a girl
• He dresses in a stereotypical girly way, plays with "girl's" toys, etc.
• Other family members have said/implied that he's transgendered

I don't think your niece has done anything malicious here. I don't think any of the above means anything, however, it's clear other people in the family have been discussing this, and your niece is a 15-year- old girl. I think she's just gotten the wrong end of the stick here. I wouldn't go off on her, it address it at all with her. I'd ask her parents to explain that your son is just a boy who likes pink and it doesn't mean anything more than that.

redmambo posts are actually chilling.
Doxxing? Seriously? Nobody gives a shit enough to do that.

RedMambo, you're spouting the kind of dangerous nonsense that got Mermaids banned from contact with a little boy who sounds fairly like the OP's son. No child 'needs' puberty blockers because they are gender non-conforming! Nobody knows what effect it has on a child's development longer term to be on blockers while all around them their peers are starting to go through puberty. There are some very nasty reports of long-term health problems experienced by people who were put on puberty blockers for medical reasons. Puberty is no picnic for anybody but that is no reason not to experience it.

" We put them in contact with lawyers to get their parnets removed as medical guardians "

jesus, you people are actually sick.

tinkly yes after my kids are teens and twenties snd we all knew ‘tom boys’ and boys who preferred so called girls things.

Labelling these kids is appalling

We put them in contact with lawyers

Again, who is ‘we’?

We put them in contact with lawyers to get their parnets removed as medical guardians and make sure they go to NHS doctors. The other option we shee then girls cannot get the support they need is to use interent pharmacies to get hormones delivered to virtual address.

At 10?

Does the last sentence mean that you get 10 year olds hormones behind their parent's back and without legal support?

What do you class as lack of support? Not wanting hormone treatment on their child, or surgery to remove sexual organs?

I also think your niece was trying to be nice (in a strange teenagery way)...

I would just phone her parents to let them know what she has written and that this is definitely incorrect information, that you would like removing.

I would possibly comment on fb saying something like 'Are you talking about little Ben here? He's 4 years old and definitely not trans!'

Red. You might find this diagram helpful.

Good lord.

It's 4 year old boy and the niece is a silly virtue signaling band waggon jumper.

Red Mambo, where is your common sense gone?

Wow there are some people with some strange and radical views on here 😬

We put them in contact with lawyers to get their parnets removed as medical guardians and make sure they go to NHS doctors. The other option we shee then girls cannot get the support they need is to use interent pharmacies to get hormones delivered to virtual address.

Absolutely terrifying.

Does the last sentence mean that you get 10 year olds hormones behind their parent's back and without legal support?

What do you class as lack of support? Not wanting hormone treatment on their child, or surgery to remove sexual organs?

Exactly. So young children are bent and twisted to the wishes of others. Rendered infertile, and left confused about their place in the world.
And no one is allowed to question who these people are because they are bigots.

" And no one is allowed to question who these people are because they are bigots."

oh yes 'TERF bigots' at that.

RedMambo Sun 04-Mar-18 14:46:46
We put them in contact with lawyers to get their parnets removed as medical guardians and make sure they go to NHS doctors. The other option we shee then girls cannot get the support they need is to use interent pharmacies to get hormones delivered to virtual address.

Girls who take testosterone end up with permanent changes including a deep voice, male hair patterns, and changes to their genitals.
Giving children hormones you bought online is illegal, dangerous, and a form of child abuse.

The stuff that RedMambo is spouting sounds like extracts from some sort of dystopian novel in which the general population is having its ability to breed destroyed by a ruling elite. Madness.

I'd question what the family and her parents are saying about your ds, that gives her this idea. I think that's where your problem is going to lie.

I think you are fantasising Red don’t you?

You have a right to be mad, but at 15 she's probably not got a fully nuanced understanding of the sensitivities of raising any child, let alone one whose freedom of expression and personality is at risk of being pigeonholed, medicalised, or used for social gain.

The best thing to do isn't to go in raging but to be clear and reasoned- get her parents to do the initial talk if you can't. If you go in raging, chances are it'll entrench her position and she'll potentially see it as transphobia.

There's 2 points:
-Please don't post stuff on Facebook about my child without express permission as it violates their privacy (goes for any child...)
-You've misunderstood the situation, he's not trans as he self-identifies as a boy and does not have dysmorphia. He loves many things that the world labels as 'for girls', but nothing is expressly 'for' any gender. You allow him to express himself freely, and that's very different from being trans or transitioning.

Sh shouldn’t be posting anything about a child anyway as that’s a massive violation of his privacy so parents first point of call. She needs a sharp telling off silly girl.

When I was very young my grandma gave us this box of clothes and for about three minutes I put on this red tabardy dress thing because it seemed really fun. My mum wasted no time in calling me Gertrude and sneering until I took it off, and while it made no difference to who I was growing up, it did teach me that my mother was never going to be my best friend, which I imagine wasn't her intended lesson, lol.

So I think you're doing a wonderful job, and I just want you to remember that at 15 your niece is also still a child, and punishing her will make no improvement to your son's life. Explaining the situation to her should be enough to clear things up, but don't post anything while you're still angry about it.
If it doesn't clear things up (which is fine really, that's all her problem, not yours), then you can hit her where it hurts: tagging her in a public message where you explain that due to her harassment of children she perceives to be transgender you don't feel comfortable allowing her around your child!

Ring her parents and sound off at them. It's not acceptable, put a stop to it.

When you meet her from the plane or whatever, make sure it's just you, and give her a stern lecture. Might not be welcoming, but your child is more important, and she must understand that she has to keep her silly ideas to herself while she stays with you. Tell her you won't be trusting her to be alone with him too.