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AIBU?

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Non-binary pronouns change for my daughter

894 replies

Dollyplum · 16/02/2021 16:30

Hi everyone, I'm new here and after searching, couldn't find any past threads for this.

My daughter now identifies as non-binary and has changed her name to reflect her new identity. She is now asking us to use they/them pronouns and tbh, we're really struggling with this. We don't have any issues with her wanting to be the person she wants to be, but I can't quite explain why we find the pronouns so hard to come to terms with. I guess from an old fashioned perspective, they/them is plural, and we have known her for nearly 14 years as a girl.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to handle this please? Are we just being stubborn? Should be change the pronouns? The name change was welcomed with open arms by our whole family and she is definitely happier that everyone has settled into this without issue. We have changed her name at school, dentist, etc. to her preferred name.

I'm sure other parents here have been through the same thing and any advice would be welcome please. Thank you so much :-) x

OP posts:
WaltzingBetty · 22/02/2021 15:29

where something is said along the lines of you have dismissed the parent with actual experience. Not only have I not, at all, not once , nor directly nor indirectly, this faux concern (the same faux concern for our young people that posters claim is driving their anger against trans) is unsettling. It is only because this parent arrived to say they didn't use the pronouns and all was well that you have latched onto

@RootyT00t
That's not actually the parent post I'm referring to. You're so determined make assumptions about my motivations you can't even be bothered to listen to the actual experience of parents on this thread. I was referring to Tiktokersmiracle's post actually where she uses NB pronouns for her daughter (and I have said several times to you in this thread that I would do the same, but I guess that's another inconvenience fact that doesn't fit your narrative). She said

'DD felt that for all the struggle, and yes, we can vote, we are still kept down. We are still put in our place. We are here to have babies. We are seen as less in the workplace than men. They asked what exactly did it really do in the longer term? That if men were go getters it was applauded but females were spoken of in derogatory terms for the same. They women get paid less for doing the same Job. That society still expects female to mean cute and fluffy and thigh gaps and tits.'

'We had a really good debate on it actually, and about a month later they sent me a whatsapp link to a piece about non binary and that if it was OK they wanted to explore that option.'

So that's at least one family reporting that their daughter's discomfort with misogyny in society triggered her exploration of NB identity.

And you sneered are the motivation of that child saying 'I couldn't believe upthread about people musing whether changing sex or being non binary was about avoiding the pay gap or sexual harassment. Of course it isn't.'

You can't even be bothered to read and pay attention to the lived experience of posters who have direct experience of parenting NB teens so I shouldn't be surprised that you've consistently accused me of saying things I haven't.

You don't need to be academic or well read, but listening to the accounts of others, comprehending what they're actually saying and reflecting on it, are really useful skills for personal growth and development.

Certainly I find them much more helpful than name calling, jumping to conclusions and making unfounded, inaccurate assumptions about others based on your own determination to pick an argument or 'be right'.

WaltzingBetty · 22/02/2021 15:30

@Campervan69

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/180075034X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_QX148RD4GSEXS2E39VSE?psc=1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Abigail Shrier has written this book exploring the huge rise in teenage girls thinking they are trans or non binary. Lots of actual investigative journalism and research done.

"Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria – severe discomfort in one’s biological sex – was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively.

But today whole groups of female friends in colleges and schools across the world are coming out as 'transgender'. These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans 'influencers'.

Unsuspecting parents now find their daughters in thrall to YouTube stars and 'gender-affirming' educators and therapists, who push life-changing interventions on young girls – including medically unnecessary double mastectomies, and hormone treatments that can cause permanent infertility.

Abigail Shrier, a writer for theWall Street Journal, has talked to the girls, their agonised parents, and the therapists and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to 'detransitioners' – young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back."

Thank you - that looks interesting
Impatiens · 22/02/2021 16:53

The Abigail Shrier book is really good apparently - it's main focus is on girls identifying as trans and having drug/surgical intervention.

At least coming out as Non-binary doesn't seem to involve these kind of interventions.

Campervan69 · 22/02/2021 19:03

Although apparently for some reason non binary for girls often means they remove their breasts. Which is sad.

RootyT00t · 22/02/2021 19:06

@WaltzingBetty

where something is said along the lines of you have dismissed the parent with actual experience. Not only have I not, at all, not once , nor directly nor indirectly, this faux concern (the same faux concern for our young people that posters claim is driving their anger against trans) is unsettling. It is only because this parent arrived to say they didn't use the pronouns and all was well that you have latched onto

@RootyT00t
That's not actually the parent post I'm referring to. You're so determined make assumptions about my motivations you can't even be bothered to listen to the actual experience of parents on this thread. I was referring to Tiktokersmiracle's post actually where she uses NB pronouns for her daughter (and I have said several times to you in this thread that I would do the same, but I guess that's another inconvenience fact that doesn't fit your narrative). She said

'DD felt that for all the struggle, and yes, we can vote, we are still kept down. We are still put in our place. We are here to have babies. We are seen as less in the workplace than men. They asked what exactly did it really do in the longer term? That if men were go getters it was applauded but females were spoken of in derogatory terms for the same. They women get paid less for doing the same Job. That society still expects female to mean cute and fluffy and thigh gaps and tits.'

'We had a really good debate on it actually, and about a month later they sent me a whatsapp link to a piece about non binary and that if it was OK they wanted to explore that option.'

So that's at least one family reporting that their daughter's discomfort with misogyny in society triggered her exploration of NB identity.

And you sneered are the motivation of that child saying 'I couldn't believe upthread about people musing whether changing sex or being non binary was about avoiding the pay gap or sexual harassment. Of course it isn't.'

You can't even be bothered to read and pay attention to the lived experience of posters who have direct experience of parenting NB teens so I shouldn't be surprised that you've consistently accused me of saying things I haven't.

You don't need to be academic or well read, but listening to the accounts of others, comprehending what they're actually saying and reflecting on it, are really useful skills for personal growth and development.

Certainly I find them much more helpful than name calling, jumping to conclusions and making unfounded, inaccurate assumptions about others based on your own determination to pick an argument or 'be right'.

I didn't sneer at the child.

I just couldn't believe people were taking one child's views on the workplace and running with it, saying that misogny is to blame for NB.

I have never dismissed a parents views.

I think I also made it very clear in my last post I have no desire to be right.

Nor do I want to pick an argument. For someone with a go to tactic of relentlessly quoting my posts to other posters when I don't interact with yours, strange stance.

Thanks for the really useful skills of personal development, I'm inspired. Hmm

I also haven't ignored any lived experience of a parent with an NB child, but you can keep copying and pasting that all you like.

I'm repeating myself here. I don't really need to defend myself to you Betty. As I said this morning, we will never agree and the world will go on.

RootyT00t · 22/02/2021 19:07

@Impatiens

The Abigail Shrier book is really good apparently - it's main focus is on girls identifying as trans and having drug/surgical intervention.

At least coming out as Non-binary doesn't seem to involve these kind of interventions.

I've known of NB using binders, which does worry me (am I allowed to say that? Sorry MN if not) but as a general rule it seems to be less modification.
Impatiens · 22/02/2021 19:10

@Campervan69

Although apparently for some reason non binary for girls often means they remove their breasts. Which is sad.
I didn't know that Campervan - is that to keep an 'androgynous' look (as it used to be called)?

ffs rootytoot give it a rest - you said you were done last night yet here you are still trying to make the thread all about you. It's boring as hell.

midgedude · 22/02/2021 19:50

None binary, androgynous, so need to be flat chested like the male default?

RootyT00t · 22/02/2021 21:16

Impatiens , I don't know how you've come to that conclusion (and I'm not trying to make anything all about me).

Assume it was OK for Waltzing to post to me but not me to respond? The two of us have been as bad as each other since the start of the thread yet you single me out. Why?

RootyT00t · 22/02/2021 21:17

Ohh apologies impatiens if you're actually referring to my latest comment I was being 100 percent serious in relation to binders.
Given the warnings for previously people using words like worrying and concerning, it was a genuine point.v

Impatiens · 22/02/2021 23:58

Assume it was OK for Waltzing to post to me but not me to respond? The two of us have been as bad as each other since the start of the thread yet you single me out. Why?

I single you out because you don't contribute anything worthwhile. Yes Waltzing seems to have got caught up in a feud with you but other than that her posts are informative and demonstrate genuine concern for the families involved.

Your posts only ever seem to be about you and how you're being got at, and you're being harassed and you won't be responding any more - then back you come again, pushing your faux (to use your favourite word) victim narrative.

This is a thread about the issues of teenagers and how we as adults, might help them and their parents to cope - yet your behaviour is so relentlessly juvenile. Since you clearly recognise this in your comment about being 'as bad as each other' can't you summon up the maturity to pack it in?

RootyT00t · 23/02/2021 21:33

@Impatiens

Assume it was OK for Waltzing to post to me but not me to respond? The two of us have been as bad as each other since the start of the thread yet you single me out. Why?

I single you out because you don't contribute anything worthwhile. Yes Waltzing seems to have got caught up in a feud with you but other than that her posts are informative and demonstrate genuine concern for the families involved.

Your posts only ever seem to be about you and how you're being got at, and you're being harassed and you won't be responding any more - then back you come again, pushing your faux (to use your favourite word) victim narrative.

This is a thread about the issues of teenagers and how we as adults, might help them and their parents to cope - yet your behaviour is so relentlessly juvenile. Since you clearly recognise this in your comment about being 'as bad as each other' can't you summon up the maturity to pack it in?

I don't think that's all I've posted about really is it. Confused and me saying I wasn't responding was my way of attempting to back in, before waltzing responded to me then quoted many of my posts to other posters relentlessly each time, so that's a little more than being 'caught up'.

In between our spats waltzing and I have had some good interactions I thought, I genuinely was starting to see her points.
But as far as I was aware we had squashed it but now you've felt the need to jump on me anyway.

I'm not making anything about me at all. I have simply responded, as waltzing has.

Im not a faux victim, I'm not that pathetic, I'm just not the only one and therefore object to being made out in that way.

And fwiw, I do have genuine concern for the families involved. Im not a total monster. I just don't follow the main agenda. That's allowed everywhere except MN

LochNessSwim · 23/02/2021 21:50

I’ve recently started receiving emails from people with (she/her) in the signature bar (all from middle aged biological women, which is puzzling).

I think I’d use the pronouns your DD asks you to use. It may be a phase.

Impatiens · 23/02/2021 22:56

I’ve recently started receiving emails from people with (she/her) in the signature bar (all from middle aged biological women, which is puzzling).

Are these business or personal emails LochNessSwim?

Ihatefish · 24/02/2021 15:14

@LochNessSwim

I’ve recently started receiving emails from people with (she/her) in the signature bar (all from middle aged biological women, which is puzzling).

I think I’d use the pronouns your DD asks you to use. It may be a phase.

I think some (woke but ultimately horrendous to work for) businesses are now insisting employees do this!
TheBuffster · 24/02/2021 15:27

I'm pretty sure that that's discrimination to suggest everyone has to do that.

We know women are on the receiving end of sexism as it is. Being able to shield our sex with initials and titles is a gift we shouldn't be too ready to give up.
Isn't there some research that shows reminding women of their sex before a task makes their performance worse?

Ihatefish · 24/02/2021 15:55

@TheBuffster

I'm pretty sure that that's discrimination to suggest everyone has to do that.

We know women are on the receiving end of sexism as it is. Being able to shield our sex with initials and titles is a gift we shouldn't be too ready to give up.
Isn't there some research that shows reminding women of their sex before a task makes their performance worse?

Since when did women matter in the transgender debate?
Impatiens · 24/02/2021 17:32

Agree @TheBuffster I definitely think people could refuse and complain to their employers on those grounds?

BitMuch · 24/02/2021 18:46

Although apparently for some reason non binary for girls often means they remove their breasts. Which is sad.

Dr Ronx Ikharia is a non-binary NHS doctor who presents the CBBC show Operation Ouch and some other BBC medical advice programmes and documentaries. Dr Ronx first used breast binding then had a double mastectomy mobile.twitter.com/dr_ronx/status/1197786072199127040

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