To say that your if daughter tells you she feels the same as Elliot Page

[Notagain20]

... To please explore all the reasons why she might feel intensely uncomfortable with her growing female body, and not just assume she's transgender?

There's such an epidemic of sexual assault, harassment and sexualised bullying towards girls of all ages. Kids are exposed to violent porn from the moment they can use a phone. Eating disorders are exploding, further evidence that hatred of bodies is rife among young people. Adolescence has always been a storm of hormones and emotions, girls have always discovered that their bodies are treated as public property but that is so much worse now.

If your daughter hates her female body please don't assume she's transgender. She might be, but it's far more likely that she is having a normal response to a really sexist society. She needs your help to discover how women throughout time have helped each other navigate this experience, looked after each other, and organised together to change things.

Please don't presume to patronise other people's parenting and intelligence in these things

@Notagain20

... To please explore all the reasons why she might feel intensely uncomfortable with her growing female body, and not just assume she's transgender?

There's such an epidemic of sexual assault, harassment and sexualised bullying towards girls of all ages. Kids are exposed to violent porn from the moment they can use a phone. Eating disorders are exploding, further evidence that hatred of bodies is rife among young people. Adolescence has always been a storm of hormones and emotions, girls have always discovered that their bodies are treated as public property but that is so much worse now.

If your daughter hates her female body please don't assume she's transgender. She might be, but it's far more likely that she is having a normal response to a really sexist society. She needs your help to discover how women throughout time have helped each other navigate this experience, looked after each other, and organised together to change things.

My DD and I had a similar conversation about 3 months ago, we were shopping. She said I need to talk to you about something, got all clammy and we had to go and sit outside. She said she thought she was a boy. She couldn't give much insight into why or really what her feelings were. The things I remember saying were, please don't think I am minimising your feelings, but I wonder if this is something caused by feelings that you don't fit in with what society tells us women should be? I said I was going to have to let her take the lead on this, as I don't 100% know what she feels or thinks, but that I have always been quite masculine in my thoughts and actions, and so has her grandma, so to please not feel that she doesn't belong as a female because she isn't into pink, or high heels or make up. I followed up with asking her to not try and put herself into any particular box, and that she needs to take time to find out who she really is, free of concern about anyones judgement, and whatever it turns out she feels like, she is always loved and supported.

In the months since she's had support to find out who she is. She's cut her long beautiful hair, it's now a gorgeous bob that she styles beautifully! That seems to have brought her some happiness.
Shes started buying things like face and hair masks and some make up when she shops with friends.
Shes playing with different styles of clothing to wear and seems happier and more confident.

I encourage her frequently. We sometimes stray into her dad's wardrobe for a checked shirt or a mens patterned shirt when shopping, but generally she's happier in women's clothes now she's more confident.

The Bayswater support group provides support for parent/carers whose children are experiencing gender dysphoria.

DS told me earlier this week that he thinks he might want to be a girl. He was really worried I'd be angry with him about it so my first response was to reassure him that I'm not and would never be.

The reasons he feels this way are that he likes things people often think of as girly or feminine - cooking, drawing, painting his nails, anime, boy bands, etc. Most of his friends are girls, his one male friend is gay (DS is also gay and has been open about this since around the age of 9). He doesn't like sports. He doesn't feel like he can relate to the boys at school and that he doesn't have much in common with any of them.

I hope he isn't repeating our conversation to a therapist in ten years time but I basically said to him that there aren't really boy things and girl things, there are only things. If the things he likes are usually associated with girls then that's fine, it doesn't mean he's a girl, just the same as liking boy things doesn't automatically make someone a boy. I said that there are a hundred different ways to be a boy/man and a hundred different ways to be a girl/woman and that most people have a mix of feminine and masculine traits.

I reassured him that I'm not angry, how could I be angry. All I want is for him to be himself and for him to be confident in himself that he is enough. We've agreed to coast along and see how things go, whether these feelings develop or fade and in the meantime he knows he can confide in me about anything.

@nolongersurprised

But if the trans thing is about misogyny in society why do the vast majority of transgenders want to be female?

They don’t anymore. Originally most children presenting to gender clinics were boys, most of whom, if supported, but not given hormones would end up happy in their male bodies. Many would be gay.

Currently, there’s been a dramatic reversal in the sex of the children presenting to gender clinics, with significantly more girls than boys. There’s been a 4000% increase in the number of girls identifying as trans.

Why is that, so you think?

In the middle aged population men seem more likely to transition than women, but middle aged men have different motivations than child related. I can’t say the acronym though, or those monitoring will have the post deleted

I’m sceptical it’s anything to do with the patriarchy. Just seems like too much of a reach to me. I think there is more stigma with boys being non masculine, in the same way that girls can drunkenly kiss another girl without being ostracised by their peers the way a young male would be.

I'm not a trans man now, several years later. I'm non binary but identify more with womanhood in a political sense than I do with manhood, and don't (and never have) taken blockers or T. But I do also think I would still be quite miserable today if I wasn't given the option to explore being a trans man. It helped me understand my gender identity and sexuality on a level that I wouldn't have been able to do, otherwise.

Very interesting, and I'm glad you had tye support you needed . But it makes me wonder how the 'TWAW', 'deadnaming' and 'I was always a woman, I just wasn't able to be open about it until now' narrative fits in with stories like yours and with those of the many detransitioners now coming out of the woodwork.

The fact that some people are absolutely insistent that they 100% factually, and permanently are non-binary or the gender opposite to their sex (and really always were, deep down) to the point of expecting legal recognition of that and howling 'transphobe' at anyone who disagrees, the fact that they can turn around a year later and say 'No actually, I am a man after all' makes an utter mockery of it all. It's really important for teenagers to have the freedom to experiment with their identity (as teenagers always have done), but expecting the whole rest of the world to change the definitions of reality to suit that experimentation is frankly absurd.

You are a ruddy hero . Thankyou x