To ask if you have a child who identifies as trans or expresses disconnect between their gender and sex?

[Scroremanga]

I remember a post which asked how many people on mumsnet felt a disconnect between their gender and sex. Out of 1000 respondents, 10 per cent said they did.

How about people are aware their child or children feel that their gender and sex are disconnected?

Yabu-I am pretty sure my child feels aligned with their sex and gender

Yanbu - my child expresses that they are do not feel

It would also be helpful whether to know whether ds or dd thats experiencing this

Thanks

My teen boys know they can be whatever they like. Whether that be straight, gay or a girl and we've talked about how they feel before. They tell me they defo feel male and like woman 🙈

Why do you want to know?

This

At 5 my son had a pink handbag, used to walk round in plastic high heels pushing a teddy in a pushchair and wanted to marry his best male friend as he loved him. He hates me telling that story now 😆 take me back to that time, so cute

And ALL of the trans teenage girls I've met (teacher) are autistic

And?

Some of the answers on here are so ridiculous and pompous.

I have never placed any value on 'gender norms'. My kids do what they do, regardless of what society says is 'normal'. Boxing dancing, makeup, short hair, long hair, clothes from either 'section'.... whatever they wanted was fine with me.

My dc still identified as trans a long time before trans was even really a thing in kids. My dc was one of less than a handful at that time to seek help for this, and the whole thing was/is pretty fucking traumatic.

To suggest it's a parenting issue in every case is just plain wrong, and to think that because you raised your child in, what you perceived to be, the right way they will never struggle with this is also plain fucking wrong.

Can we have a definition of gender and gender identity please

to my mind gender is really a social construct and the boundaries shift according to the needs of society (so Rosie The Riveter in the war and the 50's housewife ideal post war)

Generally for me it's the view that girls like pink, ponies, dolls, frills, playing house and babies and do girls sports like gymnastics and netball V boys who like mud, beating each other up, football, guns, destroying things etc - women are shrill and bossy men are forthright and assertive etc etc.

So it's a very tenuous and fairly toxic thing to hang you ideology on - just because a boy likes unicorns or other boys doesn't make him a woman - it might make him a gay/bi man who likes unicorns

Telling children who 'defy' gender 'norms' (toxic stereotypes) that they are in the wrong body is therefore totally mad!

@WhoEatsPopTarts

My children don’t feel a disconnect between their sex and gender because they’ve been brought up in a home that doesn’t reinforce gender stereotypes.

I'd take issue with this comment. My daughter has been brought up by feminist parents who have always encouraged her to challenge stereotypes and yet she still identifies as non binary. It is very presumptuous to put this on the parents. There is a massive social contagion/autism link.

@MoodyMarshall

And ALL of the trans teenage girls I've met (teacher) are autistic.

I have not known many but yes the same applies. And of course that is a significant link that should be investigated.

For those of you who think bringing your child up without damaging and old-fashioned sexual stereotypes will protect them from identifying as trans in adolescence - trust me, it won't necessarily.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult can I ask, how did your DC decide that they were trans instead of a tomboy girl, or a boy who...I'm not sure how to word it....was 'girly'? Why didn't they just wish to be who they were and have the interests that they have, regardless of if those behaviours and interests were traditionally thought of as for girls or boys? And how did they come to the conclusion that they wanted to identify as the opposite...gender? Sex?

I hope you don't mind me asking, I'm just trying to get my head around it.

I voted YABU

Whatever happened to allowing kids be kids.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

Some of the answers on here are so ridiculous and pompous.

I have never placed any value on 'gender norms'. My kids do what they do, regardless of what society says is 'normal'. Boxing dancing, makeup, short hair, long hair, clothes from either 'section'.... whatever they wanted was fine with me.

My dc still identified as trans a long time before trans was even really a thing in kids. My dc was one of less than a handful at that time to seek help for this, and the whole thing was/is pretty fucking traumatic.

To suggest it's a parenting issue in every case is just plain wrong, and to think that because you raised your child in, what you perceived to be, the right way they will never struggle with this is also plain fucking wrong.

Thank you saying what I’ve been thinking. All these answers of “no my child doesn’t because I don’t...” are quite ludicrous. Our experience (and that of many other parents I know, though I know it might not be true in your case, Difficult and I don’t mean to imply that it is!) is that gender distress has arisen through internal turmoil which has manifested itself as gender but that’s not the underlying issue.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

Some of the answers on here are so ridiculous and pompous.

I have never placed any value on 'gender norms'. My kids do what they do, regardless of what society says is 'normal'. Boxing dancing, makeup, short hair, long hair, clothes from either 'section'.... whatever they wanted was fine with me.

My dc still identified as trans a long time before trans was even really a thing in kids. My dc was one of less than a handful at that time to seek help for this, and the whole thing was/is pretty fucking traumatic.

To suggest it's a parenting issue in every case is just plain wrong, and to think that because you raised your child in, what you perceived to be, the right way they will never struggle with this is also plain fucking wrong.

this is similar to my experience and exactly what I think of this thread and the predictable deluge of 'my child isn't trans because I'm a brilliant parent' posts.

I'd say more but this is not a safe space to talk about it. my child ran away from home recently due to being unhappy at school, and the missing persons report circulated by the police was somehow picked up by a 'gender critical' twitter account that is very very popular on mn, and our ordeal was mined for political clout with all these ghoulish tweets sounding positively gleeful, betting that my child (while they were still missing btw, and I was going through hell) would turn up dead/raped, and it would all be my fault for being such a terrible mother. can you imagine such a thing? and I 100% know it was someone on my facebook 'friends' that I added as a fellow mumsnetter that did this to us. sick fucks. my kid was fine btw.

people think they know it all on here, but it's massively complicated and there's no space to talk about it on here where it doesn't end up with the fine upstanding types who went after A MENTALLY ILL MISSING CHILD on twitter just asking you to define woman, or going oh so you want rapists in women's prisons then, as if those recycled tropes are the ultimate gotcha.

might regret posting this under my normal name but hey ho. I wonder how long a thread would last that contained so many suggestions that other clinical conditions were just down to bad parenting?

@alishylishy how does she define as non binary? As in what does that look like in real life? Does it mean that she has interests that were traditionally thought of as both boys and girls interests? Does she dress in a way that isn't traditionally thought of as either a typical boy way of dressing or a typical girl way of dressing? And if it is the above, why doesn't she just do whatever she likes/dress however she likes and to hell with if it's thought of as girly or boyish?

I'm just trying to get my head around all of this, I don't quite understand it from the trans/non binary persons experience.

and anyone wanting to direct any wide eyed 'but I just want to understaaaaaaaaand' questions to me can go and fuck themselves, and then enjoy a lovely post coital mind of their own damn business instead, just to clarify :)

@madamebutterface

That's awful
Glad to hear your child is OK.
I genuinely think people forget there's real life, real people out there whilst they sit behind their keyboards pulling apart others.

@MadameButterface I'm not sure if that's directed at me or not but what's wrong with people wanting to understand? It's not something that one can understand having not gone through it themselves therefore asking can bring a new perspective to folks views and levels of understanding of these issues.

She's what you'd traditionally label a tomboy. She doesn't dress as a boy but wears baggy hoodies and baggy combats. Short hair in the standard non binary style. I would say her interests are quite feminine, or at least neutral, painting, crafting etc. Her friendship group are all similar.
She's quite socially awkward which is an element of her autism and when I critically examine it a lot of how she presents could be attributed to autism; sensory needs with the baggy clothes, discomfort around her developing body etc.
If you saw her on the street you'd think she looked like a scruffy girl. We still use she/her pronouns and her name and she's never asked otherwise but at school and among friends it's different.
It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring, I suspect it's a phase or a way of making sense of puberty (or hiding from it!) But if she's still on this path as an adult of course I would accept and love her for who she is.

I don't think teens experience gender dysphoria because of their parents... I could only dream of parent having such control! I think it's society, bashing them from all sides, from the moment they enter it.

I see my role as telling DD that boxes of gender are bollocks and she can break them down if she wants. Can't say that she'll listen to me though!

@alishylishy thank you for explaining. I'll be honest, it's still difficult for me to get my head around/fully understand but I guess that I can't ever fully understand unless I or perhaps a loved one have experienced it.

All you can do is love and support your girl, as you are doing, and guide her through her experience.

[quote AwaAnBileYerHeid]@alishylishy thank you for explaining. I'll be honest, it's still difficult for me to get my head around/fully understand but I guess that I can't ever fully understand unless I or perhaps a loved one have experienced it.

All you can do is love and support your girl, as you are doing, and guide her through her experience.[/quote]
I don't understand it either 😅 just bumbling along through life doing my best.

DifficultPifcultLemonDifficultcan I ask, how did your DC decide that they were trans instead of a tomboy girl, or a boy who...I'm not sure how to word it....was 'girly'? Why didn't they just wish to be who they were and have the interests that they have, regardless of if those behaviours and interests were traditionally thought of as for girls or boys? And how did they come to the conclusion that they wanted to identify as the opposite...gender? Sex?

Happy to answer

It was a very long process for us. As I say trans wasn't really a 'thing' at that point, obviously there were trans people in the world, but nobody in our lives, there was absolutely no influence at all from Internet or media etc.

The way my dc describes it is as if someone has a massive nose. They are always aware that its there and it feels wrong, they try various ways to hide that part of themselves that they dislike, they can mask it for a while, but it always feels wrong and its always there. Some people may be able to live with the massive nose, but others will only be truly happy and feel like themselves if they have surgery to make their nose look different.

My dc was never really 'boyish' or 'girly' and still isn't. They have always liked various things, had friends of both sexes, worn a range of clothes etc and nothing has changed in that regard.

It wasn't really a full on decision, my dc was getting more and more unhappy and couldn't articulate why at that point, just that they felt 'wrong' despite looking like a stereotypical member of the sex they wish to be although that was more of an unconscious decision than I wish to look like X sex.

One day they were somewhere new, a kid asked my kids name and they said a completely random name, I was shocked at the time, but let it play out, and thats been my dcs name ever since.

They are only now, many, many years later beginning to undergo any sort of physical change, and they have genuinely never been happier in themselves after a lot of challenges, heartache and trauma along the way.

It was never a case of "I'm trans" more like eliminating potential causes of their feelings and somehow along the way this was the right fit for how they felt. This began for us over a decade ago now so its been some time.

MadameButterface those people are the ones who find tragic news stories and, instead of offering condolences, simply offer lists reasons why it would never happen to them because of their superior parenting.

Thankfully a lot of parents understand that sometimes there are things that can't be controlled and that we may not understand, and that, somehow we muddle our way through and make the best of it for the sake of our kids.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that

I dont really feel gender is necessary construct in modern western society when men and women are not restricted to narrow social roles, so I sort of feel like the concept of transgender is quite odd these days.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult Thank you for the explanation. As I said previously, I don't think I'll ever fully understand as it's not something I've been through myself however your explanation does make sense to me. I'm glad to hear that your child is thriving as they are, that's the main thing.