My DD's first boyfriend is transgender and I feel weird about it.

[Milicentbystander72]

I've always been a very liberal minded person. Supported gay rights all my life. My best friend and DN are gay. I support the rights of Trans people to live their life etc.

My dd15 has a nice group of friends (boys and girls). In that group is a Trans teen (Female to Male). He changed his name in Y8, He's totally accepted as Male at school. There are no issues. He looks completely Male and people who don't know him would never think that he'd been born female. He's a nice boy who is well liked. All good.

Except last night my DD told me she's going out with him. I've surprised myself that this has unnerved me.

My dd hasn't had a BF before. She's only ever snogged one boy before at a party. She says she's 100% straight. She says she fancies the cool older boys in Sixth Form. Has teenage celebrity crushes on boys like Tom Holland etc. So how does this work for her?

Last night I told her all was fine and just to be careful they didn't damage a friendship if they broke up etc, but I didn't make a big deal of it.

Would you find this weird if your dc said they were straight? Please be honest. I'm kind of hoping it fizzles out without any drama.

I cannot imagine how it must feel to realise that you are trans.

I feel a lot of sympathy for people who are so repelled by their own bodies that they feel the need to make major changes to them. We really should be researching why some people feel like this and how we can best help them. Lifelong medication and major surgery just seems like such a barbaric solution.

Here’s what it looks like from our side:

GC feminists:

Transallies: “If children don’t get these drugs, they’re at risk of committing suicide.”

GCfeminists: “Research shows suicide increases after transition.”

TAs: “Transwomen are women”

GCfs: “How are you defining ‘women’?”

TAs:

GCfs: “No seriously, how can you say A is B if you can’t define B? That’s how language works. What’s your definition of ‘woman’?”

TAs: “I refuse to answer that.”

TAs: “It’s transphobic to misgender someone.”

GCfs: “It’s not actually a right. It may seem polite but it’s not always helpful and actually, it’s compelled speech to force someone to lie.”

TAs: “TRANSPHOBE! It’s so transphobic here!”

TAs: “Transpeople are harmless and just want to live their lives in peace. Why can’t we just be nice to the most persecuted minority?”

GCfs: Where are the equivalent examples of attacks on transwomen by women? Do you think it’s acceptable to punch a woman in the face for exercising her right to free speech?”

TAs

GCfs: “Can anyone answer the question?”

TAs: “WHAT’S THE POINT YOU NEVER LISTEN WE’VE ANSWERED HUNDREDS OF TIMES YOU JUST TWIST OUR WORDS WE’RE NOT HAVING A DEBATE HERE YOU’VE ALWAYS GOT TO HAVE THR LAST WORD TRANSPHOBE BIGOT TRANSPHOBE BIGOT MN SHOULD SHUT YOU ALL DOWN”

The difficult questions never get answered. That’s why I will continue to point out what a convenient excuse a refusal to answer because of really is. It’s because you don’t have answers that stand up to scrutiny. And I do get that if you allow the wind of logic to blow through the house of cards of your cognitive dissonance the whole thing comes crashing down, and that’s an uncomfortable place to be. I do get that. I’ve been there myself, because I too was a transally up to about four years ago, and I had to face up to the fact that in being nice and inclusive and what’s-the-harm about it all, I was actually complicit in far greater harms being done to women and girls. And yes, I freely accept I’m quite militant about it now - I guess I’m the equivalent of the ex-smoker regaling others about the evils of nicotine.

I take off label medication and I'm immensely grateful to my Dr for prescribing it. I understand the risks and potential complications and I accept them because otherwise my life is miserable.

I assume you're an adult, so capable of making such a decision. Not an 11 year old being told that the medication will help them to change sex.

I assume you're an adult, so capable of making such a decision. Not an 11 year old being told that the medication will help them to change sex.

If anything children are more likely to take off label medication than adults. You may not agree that they need it but why is it your business to get involved in decisions made by parents/carers and their doctors? Someone above suggested that they did this in other situations but then were only able to describe situations where parents are going against the advice of doctors (e.g.anti- vaccinations) which is not the same thing at all.

Decomposing presumably you take off-label medication for an actual pathology that, if left untreated, would cause you significant harm?

I feel that I can have an opinion on the long-term use of untested off-label drugs on children when that opinion is backed up by what little evidence is available to date: that 80% of children will reconcile their gender identity with their birth sex after puberty if left unmedicated and supported by psychological counselling and the study I referred to above which showed a 4% increase in suicide following transition. I’m not seeing much evidence of “first do no harm” under the newly-fashionable treatment pathways.

Of course I do genuinely have sympathy with anyone who feels repulsed by the sex characteristics of their own body. It must be a horrendous thing to experience. But that to me is a psychological disorder which should be treated with in depth counselling/mental health support aiming to reconcile them with their sexed body. Otherwise why are we not telling young people with anorexia “aye love, you’re disgustingly fat, throw that half a plum in the bin, lose a few more pounds and you’ll be beautiful and happy”? But we treat the latter as a mental illness and the former as a freely made social choice that should be celebrated and urged down a path of potentially irreversible and damaging body modification and amputation - why?

Biology is science. It deals with facts, not opinions.

Yes it is. There are also plenty of other biological realities that we don't usually feel compelled to point out to people. So why is this different?

I feel a lot of sympathy for people who are so repelled by their own bodies that they feel the need to make major changes to them. We really should be researching why some people feel like this and how we can best help them. Lifelong medication and major surgery just seems like such a barbaric solution.

Even this seems to me to come from a place that isn't compassionate. It just reads as being patronising and offensive really. Many, many, many people have cosmetic surgery - where are the countless posts from you informing them of their biological reality regarding the size of their nose or breast size? Neither, nor anyone else, is in any position to tell another person how they should deal with their own body. In my mind, if this is what enables them to live their life then it is between them and their Dr. It isn't any of my business.

I assume you're an adult, so capable of making such a decision. Not an 11 year old being told that the medication will help them to change sex

I am an adult. I was only a young teen though when a surgeon proposed doing a not mainstream operation on me to alleviate a condition that was having a serious effect on my life. My parents were against it, I wanted it because it was my life being affected. Thankfully the surgeon persuaded my parents and I had it. It gave me 25 years of good quality life though now I'm suffering the consequences of it. I still think it was the right decision.

It has to be up to each patient and their Dr and their parents if they are a child, to discuss the right course for them. It won't be the same for everyone. Yes, these medications have some horrible side effects but so do a lot of drugs and it's the role of the Dr to help the patient to balance the risks Vs benefits in order to decide how to proceed.

I don't see how any of you have enough knowledge about an individual situation in order to be able to say what you say.

Decomposing presumably you take off-label medication for an actual pathology that, if left untreated, would cause you significant harm?

Actually you presume wrong. The condition that I have won't cause me harm per se. It's debilitating and affects my life to a great extent but it won't do me harm if it isn't treated.

The medication has side effects (that I'm getting) and the potential to cause more but the benefit to me is greater so I'm willing to risk the side effects in order to have the chance of the condition to be controlled.

Someone above suggested that they did this in other situations but then were only able to describe situations where parents are going against the advice of doctors (e.g.anti- vaccinations) which is not the same thing at all.

You missed my references to both the scandal of children being prescribed SSRIs off label and the fact that pre-2017, doctors could and did (and still do, under private healthcare) prescribe homeopathic remedies to children? Do you have a comment on that? Or is this yet another inconvenient comment you’re going to ignore because it doesn’t fit with the picture you’re trying paint?

OnlyTheTitOfTheIceberg

A great many medicines are prescribed off label for children though. Not just SSRIs or homeopathic treatments.

What about all of the others that are working well, treating conditions and saving lives?

Many, many, many people have cosmetic surgery - where are the countless posts from you informing them of their biological reality regarding the size of their nose or breast size?
If there were a political movement telling children they'd be happier with nose jobs or tummy tucks, yes, people would be all over it.
Adults can do what they want. As long as the men don't expect to use my changing rooms.

Decomposing would you like to comment on the rest of my post? About the available evidence (and that’s not taking into account detransitioner testimonies) points to medicating children with hormones being actively harmful to their long term physical and mental health? Do you know why we treat anorexia as a mental illness but gender dysphoria as a physical/social one yet they both seem to spring from an abnormal loathing for a body as it actually presents?

Decomposing, woodchuck’s initial comment was that she didn’t believe I and others cared about how children were treated in any other scenario, only this one with the implication being I/we are anti-trans. I gave her other examples of such scenarios where I had misgivings. She ignored those with similarities and tried to dismiss my entire argument based on my mentioning anti-vaxxers, which in itself was a response to her saying we should leave such decisions to parents and doctors - I was addressing the “leaving decisions to parents” part.

I am opposed to the prescription of any off-label drug where evidence starts to show that it causes greater harm than that which it purports to treat. That is the situation we are already in by prescribing puberty blockers to healthy children. And if they’re not healthy then it’s a psychological I’ll-health - because they are not presenting with precocious puberty - so why the fuck are we messing around so drastically with their bodies?

Treating someone with dignity is not the same as lying on their say so, denying reality, agreeing that my daughters can get undressed in front of them so they feel validated (or aroused), giving up any chance on women’s sports, accepting a man doing my Pap test even though I asked for a woman because he says he feels like one, agreeing that mastectomies, hysterectomies, lowering IQ and drastic reduction of bone density is a good idea in healthy children....

If there were a political movement telling children they'd be happier with nose jobs or tummy tucks, yes, people would be all over it.

How many children are having gender reassignment surgery then?

And people aren't limiting their judgements to only children having this surgery (because children aren't having it, in the UK at least) people are making the comments about adults, so your point is moot.

OnlyTheTitOfTheIceberg are children being given hormones?

And I don't know why anorexia is treated differently to gender dysphoria. Presumably because they are 2 different conditions?

I am opposed to the prescription of any off-label drug where evidence starts to show that it causes greater harm than that which it purports to treat.

I think a lot of drugs potentially fall into that category. These drugs are used in children who have precocious puberty and so some data is available as to side effects, complications etc. This is going to be the responsibility of the prescribing drs to adequately explain the risks Vs benefits and to monitor the child.

I still think that you can express concern about prescribing drugs to children without adding in all of the other derogatory and insulting language though - the fact that the concern goes hand in hand with the other comments calls into question the motivation behind such "concern" imo.

agreeing that mastectomies, hysterectomies, lowering IQ and drastic reduction of bone density is a good idea in healthy children....

Where is that happening? What hospital in the UK is performing mastectomies and hysterectomies on children? What about orchidectomies? Are they happening too or aren't you bothered about that?

You missed my references to both the scandal of children being prescribed SSRIs off label and the fact that pre-2017, doctors could and did (and still do, under private healthcare) prescribe homeopathic remedies to children? Do you have a comment on that? Or is this yet another inconvenient comment you’re going to ignore because it doesn’t fit with the picture you’re trying paint?

Regarding homeopathic remedies, there is no evidence that they do harm unless conventional medicine is being withheld as a result. If it was then like the antivaxers those parents would be going against medical advice so again it is not the same situation.

My comment on SSRIs is that they (fluoxetine) are still sometimes prescribed for some children if they, their parents and the psychiatrists come to the decision that for them the potential benefits outweigh potential risks. Are you campaigning to stop that?

Puberty blockers ARE being given in the UK.
They lower IQ and reduce bone density.

Gender dysphoria is being treated differently because there's a political movement behind it.

Sorry, posted too soon.
The political movement is international and the surgery being performed in other countries on children is wrong too.

Puberty blockers ARE being given in the UK.

Who said they aren't?

I asked the pp where mastectomies and hysterectomies are being performed on children, which is what they stated.

They are performed in the States. Or are we only allowed to worry about children in this country?

Gender dysphoria is being treated differently because there's a political movement behind it.

Being treated differently to what though? If you mean anorexia (which is the comparison mentioned above) then maybe that's because there are other ways to treat gender dysphoria. May e if there was surgery or medication developed to treat anorexia then that would be the option used?

Epilepsy was always treated using drug therapy. Now a surgical procedure has been developed that is useful in some cases. That's how medicine works surely? As advances are made drs discover ways to treat conditions that were previously undiscovered.

There are also plenty of other biological realities that we don't usually feel compelled to point out to people. So why is this different?

Because telling a child that they can change sex is harmful.

Puberty blockers are the thalidomide of the day. They are being given with no evidence of benefit as part of a totally incompetent experiment which was turned down by one ethics committee for very good reason. The second ethics committee was full of people with conflicts of interest and it is now being investigated by the HRA. No other drug gets away with this. No other area of treatment are clinicians afraid to speak out due to activists.

Many, many, many people have cosmetic surgery - where are the countless posts from you informing them of their biological reality regarding the size of their nose or breast size?

If you can't see the difference between an adult having cosmetic surgery to one part of their body and a child put on lifelong medication which leaves them sterile, with crumbling bones, no sexual function and lowered intelligence, then I can't help you.

Because telling a child that they can change sex is harmful.
And if people were telling children with cerebral palsy that their nervous systems could be cured we'd be pointing out that's a lie too.

I'm an SEN mum and I'm happy to tell other SEN parents what is a quack therapy and what isn't, where I've done the research. You'll find a thread I'm on currently running which is about ABA.
Some of these therapies are promoted by quack HCPs who gain financially from them, like transgenderism.
The unique thing about transgenderism is that it has so many politicians on board too. With a lot of other quack therapies you get the odd one fooled.