To fear teen daughter retreating into male identity

[ladyslattern]

My 15 yo dd had a terrible lockdown. She started a silly competition to stay indoors and basically spent it PJs in her room watching Netflix, her sleep reversed do she was up all night cooking and eating cakes. My oh and I are both health service key workers busier than ever at work. She did her school work and said she was in touch with friends but we now know later dwindled. Her friendship group was getting large and a bit toxic (she says) prior to lockdown. Her best friend has left and joined another group and doesn't really talk to her now. She's feeling that whilst she always has someone to sit with at school lunch no one now chooses her first. She sometimes gets scared that the group will entirely split and she will be left floudering.
She put on a lot of weight and none of her clothes fit so she's thrown them all away. She was a curvy 12 prior to lockdown but is now a size 16. She can't find any teen clothes to fit her so she's started buying huge jumpers and baggy jeans that she's calling her 'Dad' look. She's got long blonde curly hair which is hugely high maintenance (effing curly girl method!) but she now wants a mullet. She says social media is full of images of skinny girls and she feels like she can't compete. She's started saying that she intends to start presenting as a boy and wonders if it would be best to be a trans boy after her 'Dad look' got praised at non uniform day and online. She said jokingly that everyone wants a trans bestie.
What I see with crystal clarity is that the pressure of trying to compete with the slim girls, the pressure of teen friendships and anxiety about the future are making her consider becoming male. She has NEVER before this had even the slightest whiff of uncertainty about her gender and has always imagined a 'conventional' future as a woman. I'm pretty gender non conforming and she's always been more 'girly' than I am. If she gets into online trans community echo chambers she'll be put on a path to potentially irreversible medications etc and I will be seen as the enemy if I don't encourage her to be trans and don't I know how many trans kids take their lives if they're not accepted. She's at risk of becoming one of the 3000% (or whatever it is) increase in girls saying they're trans.

I think you need a face to face chat with her, she can dress how she wants and have whatever horrible haircut she wants (please not a mullet, I have curly hair and in 2003-ish when mullets were popular for ten minutes I had one. I cried. A lot. It was awful) but that doesn’t make her a boy or trans. It makes her a girl wearing clothes bought in the men’s section.

If you can, I would also do some searches for ‘feminine’ clothes (or just stuff she liked before) and order some stuff online. She’s not less worthy of nice clothes because she’s gained weight.

Also maybe get her into cooking rather than baking!

Sorry I meant to link this www.google.co.uk/search?q=fashion+for+curvy+teens&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=isvn&sxsrf=ALeKk00xmgOpPGbqZQp3TOaPJ7lnEld-8A:1603534442130&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFprum_8zsAhULZcAKHezBATEQ_AUoAXoECBYQAQ&biw=375&bih=628

Just some inspiration pics. As a bigger woman I always feel better when I get out of the mindset of ‘I’m too fat to bother buying nice clothes’

OP, just had a thought. Talk to your daughter about Keira Bell, a confused adolescent who went on to transition and recently had a case against the NHS/ Tavistock clinic. If you google there are loads of articles about Keira. She's very relatable.

You just have to let her do what she wants to do, dress how she wants to dress, and be who she wants to be. If she is trans, fine. But most likely, she's not.

This time has been horrendous for everyone, and I can't even imagine what it feels like to be a young person in the midst of all of this. I actually said to my partner yesterday, if lockdown had happened when I was a teenager who loved going out, seeing friends and even going to school, I don't know how I would have coped. I mean, I'm coping badly anyway, but my social life now is nothing compared to what I would have been missing out on as a teen.

With regards to the clothes though, there's no reason at all she can't wear whatever fashions she wants at a size 16. The majority of shops (save some very high end designer ones) cater for this size. You can almost certainly buy whatever she was wearing before in this size .. but that's not really the point.

The friendship stuff sounds like normal, teenage stuff .. but that doesn't make it any easier at the time of course. Encourage her to chat to the people she would sit with at lunch, or even join a club (there are youth groups running again now) to make new friends. A hobby could be just what she needs. Maybe a sports club or something?

She needs to be encouraged to live a little a differently, and not just sit at home stuffing her face (and trust me, I am an absolute hypocrite for saying this, as that pretty much sums up my lockdown, too).

Encourage her to go out for walks. It's not healthy for her to be sitting indoors and living a lonely, nocturnal life, so put your foot down on that one. She gets up in morning and goes to bed at night. She eats with the rest of the family. She does her school work during daytime hours.

Honestly, lockdown has been a very strange time, but it seems odd to me that you're so concerned about her wellbeing, yet you're allowing her to live like this. Sort her schedule out first, and other things will start to come into place around it, I'm sure.

I would really not have a ‘if she is trans, fine’ attitude. Because she is not trans. She is a teenager uncomfortable in her own skin, thinking a trend might make her feel better.

I'm fairly gender-non conforming as well, but never had any inclination to make any medical or physical changes!

I am so glad that the internet wasn't a thing when I was that age, and that I was into Patti Smith, Bowie and punk, riot grrl, grunge and rock, where anything went looks wise. I was miserable in other ways but androgynous was cool without requiring breast binders or hormones.

Someone mentioned the wonderful Jane Clare Jones earlier. The very funny Annuls of Terf Wars was what got me onto her stuff. She is launching a feminist magazine this month too - Radical Notion.

janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

I just wanted to add my support to you and your daughter @ladyslattern and say you are not alone.

For all the people posting about parenting and adolescent girls putting on weight some of your advice is deeply unhelpful and can lead to lifelong obsessions with weight. Many now dress their own preoccupation with weight as being about health when it is not.

Our precious daughters are not the sum of what they weigh or a dress size.

As a parent of teens, this just sounds to me like she's trying to find her identity which is not unusual around this age. If her friendship group is changing, this isn't necessarily about trying to fit in, more like trying to branch out. You sound like a very switched on parent, lockdown was tough on everyone particularly our teens, but what really jumps out is how well she communicates with you. I'd shelve the trans worries for the moment and keep up the excellent dialogue you seem to have with her.

@kateandme The daughter’s self esteem issues have been made worse by her putting on loads of weight. Self esteem is more than just weight, yes, but I don’t see how you can tackle the self esteem without supporting her to lose the weight.

When I was the daughters’s age (10 years ago) I had a friend who was noticeably bigger than the rest of her peers. It didn’t matter to my friendship group but it mattered very much to my friend who was miserable. She wanted her mum to help her diet but her mum refused to accept she had an issue (to protect her self esteem?) and continued to feed her gigantic portions. She fell first into alternative fashion and music, then into drugs, having sex in car parks etc. As she had no education about healthy eating and dieting, she also gained a really unhealthy relationship with food- not eating anything at school during the day and making up her own way of dieting. Which didn’t work and just led her to spiral further. I’m not saying that this would happen, but that the daughter knows her weight is part of the reason for her lack of self esteem and she won’t thank her mother for ignoring it.

Very non gender conforming woman here too, with no trans inclinations. I dislike the emphasis on gender stereotypes to prove or disprove gender identities; I think it's both reductive and harmful to women.

It sounds like your DD is searching for a group that will accept her new shape without judgement and has decided trans people won't be critical of her weight. Are there no girls in her peer group who aren't judgemental about weight, or is this her perception? I definitely think perhaps CBT might work for her as it might challenge her assumptions and I think you are absolutely correct to be concerned about trans activists taking 1 +1 and reaching 20. One of my oldest friends is trans but there are some activists that I feel see any legitimate question or check as a challenge to their fundamental existence.

She doesn't sound transgender, she sounds depressed. Could you look into councelling for her? She desperately needs help.

As someone who was a depressed and overweight teenager myself, I would agree that you have to tread very carefully on the weight issue.

As a PP has suggested, when I was that age, and friendless and being bullied, what I really wanted was my Mum to support me to lose weight. But she had been told not to mention it and to minimise the issue, so when I said ‘I’m fat’, she would reply ‘No, you aren’t, you look lovely’, you’re just like your Dad’, or ‘You don’t need to go on a diet!’ I wasn’t that big, but got the message that I couldn’t do anything about my weight. I just had to lump it. And I gave up in the end and got bigger and bigger.

I’m not blaming my mum, because she did the best she could within the advice she was given. And of course, I was very self-conscious and touchy about it. But what I would have liked was something like a whole-family exercise and healthy eating project, so that we could all have benefited. Not a Big Talk. Not nagging. Just an acceptance that being too big isn’t great for any of us, and let’s address it.

I, like others (and you), do think the trans thing is a red herring and will pass. But some practical help addressing her self image would be really valuable.

Jesus, so much transphobia and fatphobia in this thread, your daughter may actually identify as male, at least take that into consideration rather than blame it all on her putting on weight.

Her feelings are so so common for a girl that age. These guys will have better advice for you than I can. www.transgendertrend.com/

The immediate problem is her weight (and possibly also the fact that she feels she has to be thin to be female). Get her fitter. Can you both take up jogging? Maybe do couch to 5 k together? Make sure she doesn’t have access to junk food at home.

On the transgender stuff maybe show her some of detransitioner stories and make sure she knows that many women have had their bodies and fertility ruined by this trend.

your daughter may actually identify as male

From the information in the OP she clearly doesn't.

Could you take a more pragmatic line with her and point out that it will be quicker and easier to lose weight than to change gender? If she put on the weight over about 6 months then she can aim to lose it in a similar time scale. Tell her that her "dad look" can be a temporary thing and help her to put her energy into exercise. If she joins a sports club out of school that might also bea chance to make some new friends