To refuse this sleepover - 13 year old

[secretsquirrelthethird]

Namechanged for this, as don't want it linked to my posting history.

I have a 13 year old daughter (just turned 13). A year ago she moved schools, and has taken a while to settle in and establish a friendship group. So far so good, has been to some parties and has had sleepovers with a couple of her friends.

It's a bit of a minefield now she is older, but we insist on talking to parents first if she is having a sleepover and take her to the house so we can meet the parents (and establish that they are there!). This may seem a bit heavy handed, but I have a 22 year old, so have grown a bit wise and suspicious..... my daughter objects to this, as she feels it makes her "babyish", but at the same time she understands we are making sure she's safe.

She has a friend in her group who is a trans boy (FtM), who goes by a boy's name at school, and insists on pronouns him/his/he, let's call him James. James' friendship group is all girls.

My daughter has now asked to go to James' birthday party and join in with a sleepover at James' house, as two of her other friends are going. After asking, all of them are going to be sleeping in James' room on blow up beds. I have said no, as I would not let her sleep at a boy's house on a sleepover, and as James is identifying as a boy, I will treat him as such. My daughter said "oh but James isn't really a boy, he just thinks she is, so why can't I sleepover? You let me sleep over at girl friends, what if they were lesbians?" This is causing no end of arguments, and I do feel sorry for James if this is going to impact on the birthday celebrations, but to me if James is identifying as a boy, then I should be treating him as a boy in all aspects.

I have offered the compromise of attending the party until 10.30pm and then I will pick her up, but apparently the sleepover is the best bit, and I am just doing this to be mean.....

My older child was a boy, and whilst we had similar sleepover issues, we haven't any experience of transgender friends in this scenario.

Do you think I am being unreasonable?

Damntheman families should support their children but that doesn't mean unthinkingly accepting self diagnosis! If a 13 year old says they have stomach ache you believe them, yes, and but if they say they have an ulcer or stomach cancer them you reassure them that it's unlikely and take them to the doctor for a check up if they say the stomach ache is bad and not going away after you encourage them to try using the toilet and question them about what they've eaten recently, when they last passed a stool, whether they have diarrhea and whether anyone in their class is off with a stomach bug...

If there is no physical cause for the stomach ache and it persists long term or keeps reoccurring you wonder about anxiety and abdominal migraines - mental health problems which are very common in adolescents and you can support them in dealing with.

You don't support them by accepting their self diagnosis of an ulcer or stomach cancer and demanding that everyone treats them as though they have whichever one they believe that they have.

The trans kids will commit suicide if not unquestioningly affirmed by everyone immediately claim was based one small self reporting retrospective study on suicidal ideation and attempts and has been debunked.

Secretsquirrelthethird

I have five DCs, the youngest of whom is 17, oldest 28. So I have brought up quite a few teenagers. None of this sleepover stuff is new to me and neither is the trans stuff, or LGBT stuff.

I have managed to stay sane while simultaneously bringing up five DCs (am a single mother) by not going down rabbit holes like this:
Consider this - my child is staying at someone’s house and something adverse happens and the police are called, I get called to collect my child, the police ask me was I aware she was staying at this address, I say no, she just told me she was staying at a friends, I had no idea where she was or who she was with m - social services would be involved as not knowing where your 13 year old daughter is, or —-letting her do whatever she wants— letting her learn by taking risks is a safeguarding issue.

And my DCs all managed to stay sane too, learned to make good decisions, and to ask the questions to which I needed answers - specific addresses for starters.

They learned by taking very manageable risks in situations where they were able to and expected to make up their own minds as to what they could handle and to contact me if they felt uncomfortable. All risks are not equal.

There is a difference between boundaries and rules btw.
Boundaries are where you end and other people begin and your consciousness of that separation. Rules are rules.

Blueskies I am now realising that you just don't understand what 'self identifying' means or is. So now I know I'm not going to get anywhere with you until you've worked it out. Good luck with that.

Bloody hell. The mental gymnastics required on this thread are practically Olympian.

OP - you have a rule about sleepovers that is based on the sex of the participants. Why? What message do you think you will be giving your 13-year-old daughter if you refuse this sleepover on the grounds of 'perceived gender'? What happens if next year she wants a sleepover with her new best mate, who identifies as female, but has a fully functioning penis? How trans-inclusive and consistent with your rules will you be then?

FFS! Respect James' sense of identity. Respect their choice of pronouns. Respect their friendship with your daughter. But there really, really is no need whatsoever to join in some kind of bizarre pretence that their biology is either irrelevant, or even more weirdly, has somehow changed according to their beliefs.

Or, don't have sex-based sleepover rules (that's my approach at the moment; I have 14-year-old boys).

Damn

Your research relies on the pink brain/blue brain idea - Cordelia Fine examines this comprehensively

Brains are amazing. They are immensely plastic - especially in toddlerhood and adolescence. They are truly wonderful. If you spend lots of time doing a thing, your brain changes and becomes better at doing that thing. You don’t do a thing? You lose activity in the area responsible for that.
Brains are susceptible to change when people behave in a particular way, repeatedly, over time.

Your brain becomes the brain you train it to be. Physically.

Damn so that reasoning means by lesbian friends who have very short hair, wear male clothes, have a masculine appearance should actually have been proclaimed a trans man?

Mother, if said friend is a trans man, then yes they are a man and not a lesbian. If the friend is female lesbian then of course not. Don't be silly.

Isn't that marvellous Smile? It's not my research anyway, it's the research of people far more educated than I.

...trans peoples' brains function more like their preferred gender than their birth gender.

Hold up now...

Are you saying there are girl brains and boy brains?

Were those old fashioned Victorian fuddy duds right then, when they kept women out of professions like medicine and law and architecture and engineering on the basis that their poor little female bwains would explode if they had to think about anything more complicated than cross-stitching?

And what is a 'birth gender'?

Don't be silly.

😂

Damntheman the needing a doctor analogy was yours.

Self identifying means assigning a particular characteristic or attribute to yourself - you can self identify as a cancer patient, an ulcer sufferer, a boy, a girl, saviour of the world, beautiful, ugly, clever, stupid - it doesn't mean you are that thing, but that you have assigned that attribute to yourself. Perhaps it's you who didn't understand that?

Damn - have you actually read what you’ve linked to?

The science direct link is to a paper where they reviewed 20 articles relating to trans suicide and decided that this means there is an increased risk of suicide amongst trans identifying teens.

That’s not research, that’s like reading 20 copies of the Sunday sport and deciding that men from Wigan are more likely to shag chickens.

Isn't that marvellous Smile? It's not my research anyway, it's the research of people far more educated than

I realise it’s not your research.

Are you still sure that your understanding of “brain chemistry” is true?

MrsPnut thats like reading 20 copies of the Sunday Sport and deciding men from Wigan are more likely to shag chickens wins the thread

mathanxiety
That is not a rabbit hole as you put it - that is exactly what happened with my son following the parents of the sleepover child having a significant domestic incident and a small house fire - the house looked like a doss house and the parents stank of weed - the professionals there must have truly thought I was a shit parent allowing my child to stay there overnight. I was told by social services that I need to put firmer boundaries in and be a protective parent, particularly in the area we live in.

People parent differently - fortunately for you your lax parenting has worked for your children where you live, but it wouldn’t for me. My daughter can test risks within her boundaries and this works fine for us

OP your approach to sleepovers is exactly the same as mine, for the same reasons. A close friend is a family court adviser for cafcass and I take my counsel from her. In other areas I allow more risk. It’s possible that a single mum raising 5 children has no option but to allow more risk and I understand that but it doesn’t mean it’s the best practice.

OP has started with a laudable approach of wanting to respect James’ wishes, has not been dogmatic but instead learned some new ideas and views and has reassessed the sleep over risk in terms of mixed/single sex sleeping.

I applaud you Op.

It’s a same sex sleepover. I can’t see problem.

Not RTWT but could it be a case of not sending mixed messages?

Friend identifies as a boy. Everyone accepts that friend is a boy as is per the right and normal thing to do.

If OP says yes to her 13yo DD for a sleepover with a boy (bio or identified as) is that not sending the message that sleepovers with boys at 13 are fine? Or otherwise, could it be somewhat patronising to the boy that if the OP has allowed it, she's made a special exception because he's "really a girl"? If she says yes, can she have really accepted the boy's choice to be a boy rather than a girl or is it saying he's an "honorary" boy?

Ironically, one of my best friends is a trans man named James.

YABU. 'James' identifies as a boy, so yes he is a boy. But his friends are all girls. Unsurprising, since they are the ones going through the same experiences as him - not the boys. He can't discuss hormones and periods with the boys. Anatomically he is female, so he's not going to do anything to your daughter. And your daughter is right, any of the girls in the group could be a lesbian. Would you separate them?

Just let her go to the sleepover.

Rainsunwindhail
Thank you, it’s so difficult navigating issues like this and trying to be fair to all.
I don’t want to go off topic and start discussing sleepover rules and boundaries etc but mathanxiety is advocating a permissive parenting style of letting my daughter do anything she wants with anyone she wants, and to not tell me where she is overnight and take her own risks. This is not what I have been advised by professionals, and we do live in an area that has a big county lines problem, with years 9 and 10 being targeted. I have seen girls in the year above my daughter walking around town obviously pissed at 2am with a group of older men - I wondered at the time where their parents thought they were. I prefer to know where my child is, I know firm boundaries won’t stop her getting involved in risky behaviour but it reduces the chances of it happening, and makes my expectations very clear so she knows where she stands.

If OP says yes to her 13yo DD for a sleepover with a boy (bio or identified as) is that not sending the message that sleepovers with boys at 13 are fine?

And if she says yes to her 13yo daughter for a sleepover with an 'identified as' girl - what message is she sending then?

Bowsbows so your arguing that the emperor's new clothes are beautiful because he identifies as the wearer of beautiful new clothes, and nobody should ever admit, even in private, that he's stark bollock naked?

multivac exactly - when 6ft rugby prop Oliver realises in year 10 that he's actually Olivia, her new clothes will be beautiful too and OP would be a hypocrite not allowing her DD to sleep over in her room...

Natal sex is relevant to sleeping arrangements, not gender identity.

Of course James can sleepover. James is a girl. This madness really is spreading into schools everywhere isn't it?
Not long ago I thought it was confined to That London, but I there seems to be trans kids popping up all over the provinces, even in the deepest darkest ones like where I live.
I think the adults job is to be matter of fact about it all. After all, they are teenagers and frankly have no clue what they are/want/think. Does noone question why this wasn't even a thing 10/15 years ago and now it's everywhere? Adults should not be pandering.

My son asked me the other day if a girl in an 80s film we were watching was transgender. I asked why he thought that and he said "she's got short hair and seems to like that other girl".
I suggested that maybe she's meant to be a lesbian? Do kids know they can be lesbians?!
It's so weird how adults are enabling this agenda. It reminds me of the film Heathers, where there's a spate of teen suicides and the wafty social studies teacher says something like "whether to commit suicide or not is a choice every teen has to make for themselves". .
Fwiw OP, I would allow it, and I wouldn't allow mixed sex sleepovers at all. I think your boundaries are fine. I know too much about teens whose parents trust them implicitly and know they would be sensible.

Adults should not be pandering.

Exactly.