When Exactly did Trans/Non Binary Become So Commonplace?

[miniaturepixieonacid]

This isn't to start (yet another!) debate on the rights and wrongs of gender identification, transitioning etc. Just pondering on how quickly and in what year it became so common.

I'm just watching an old episode of Waterloo Road (Drama set in a comprehensive school) where one of the characters (Casey Barry for anyone who watched it) realises that she wants to be a boy rather than a tomboy and everyone reacts as if it's extremely unusual. The other pupils mock and bully her, her brother gets violent and tells her she is disgusting and a freak and the teachers talk about what a difficult road she has ahead and how much support she will need.

The episode is set in 2013. Not the 1990s. Only just over 10 years ago. But in a Year 10/11 class in a comprehensive in 2024 this wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, would it. There will be several trans and non binary pupils (maybe even several per year group) and pupils would consider it normal.

I teach in a prep school (only goes up to Year 8) so we haven't actually yet had a single pupil transition to the opposite gender. There's one 10 year old who I could potentially see it happening to over the next couple of years but it hasn't yet. So I'm relatively unknowledgable about the whole thing.

Interested to know from secondary school teachers who have been teaching for 10+ years what year you think it was that transitioning and being non binary went from rare to a relatively popular trend.

As well as many are frustrated by the amount of non binary people who claim they are trans. Especially since they aren't as being trans means you transition to the opposite sex. As well as the demand for they/them pronouns has increased frustration in the public that is then taken out on trans people.

The DSM 5 criteria for gender dysphoria states “desire to a gender other than that of one’s birth”. Non-binary is considered another gender. It doesn’t have to be the opposite sex. This wording is justification for children to be commenced on hormone treatment.

It’s a trans identity because of lobbying by the same groups I linked to earlier that state you are in a straight relationship. They have validated it as a trans identity that needs they/them pronouns and medical treatments. You really have missed a great deal about what those who purport to represent your “community” have been doing over the last 10 years.

It is not pettiness for any poster to refuse to use wrong sex pronouns. It’s coercive to insist someone should. People who are atheist about the religious belief or gender should not be forced to participate in it, just like any other religion. “Be kind” about pronouns is how we have media reporting child sex offenders and rapists as “she” in the press.

It’s probably more worthwhile for your partner to consider tolerating being correctly sexed in order to stop such reporting, rather than you or your partner demanding a wrong sex pronoun which facilitates the demand for wrong sex pronouns by rapists and child sex offenders.

It is not pettiness for any poster to refuse to use wrong sex pronouns. It’s coercive to insist someone should.

Exactly. Its coercing people to override the evidence their own eyes/ears and lie. How is that ok?

It is not ok.

it is not ok for any person to feel they are entitled to make others change their language to suit their own perception of themselves. It is not ok for any person to expect any one to act as though they believe that person’s wish to be seen as something they are not.

People can do this if they choose to. In my opinion, it is necessary, of course, to respect other’s needs as well as material reality when health and safety is involved though.

This is transphobia and a made up illness to slur trans people

It is made up? Yet there are transitioned males who claim that they are autogynophiles. I believe that at least one has written a book about their condition.

It’s not a made up illness. It’s a description. This may surprise you, but women don’t get aroused by <checks notes> wearing clothes.

The deleted image showed a man, in a Women’s swimsuit in a changing room taking a selfie with the title “Euphoria boner”, posted publicly to the trans Reddit. He had an erection.

If it’s NOT AGP then why do so many trans-identified men experience arousal when they wear women’s clothes? Come on, educate us.

ETA: because we don’t really want to share our female spaces with people with erections.

There are plenty of men parading their arousal when wearing women's clothes on social media. What's that about then?

AGP was a documented fetish long before the current trans debate. In what sense is it 'made up'?

This.

A bit like ADHD is cool now.

I knew trans adults when I was a child in the 1960s.

I think it would have been much harder to come out as any LGBT+ identity as a school kid at that time compared to now.

i first started hearing about it in terms of young people wanted to transition I’d say about 9 years ago when a girl in DD’s year ‘came out’. Dd told me about her, she left the school eventually. She didn’t really have friends etc. and was prob bullied.
I also worked in a school a bit later on, around 6ish years ago, there was a massive uptick in n/b and trans students with much more acceptance. DD has been ‘out’ as n/b for nearly 3 years now. Is ND (although only a working diagnosis of adhd so far, but has a lot of autistic traits), has MH issues, was v much affected by lockdown etc.

LGB is different from T though. LGB is just who you are attracted to. There has been increased acceptance for gay and lesbian teens which is great.

However, If all of these teen girls who identify as trans were a”always there” and just waiting to be accepted, where is the massive increase in middle-aged women also identifying as trans?

If AGP is made up, why do certain trans activists like Phil Ily talk about their own AGP? He’s written rafts of things about it. It is transphobic to deny the lived experience of this particular group of people. Cross dressing is literally under Stonewall’s trans umbrella.

Of course no one is going to talk to a cohort of physio students openly about it.

“There are some men who claim a trans identity who have AGP who will be sexually aroused by you treating them as a woman” isn’t the sort of education they’re keen for people to hear, funnily enough.

To be fair look around. Mumsnet are middle aged women. I wouldn't want to come out either.

Young people are far more understanding. My brother's oldest is non-binary. Am I on board with the idea of so many NB people? No. Do I respect their pronouns and act as their biggest cheerleader. Of course.

And of course being kind is important. Protecting same sex spaces, and objecting to biological men competing again biological women in sports can all be done without pointedly mis-gendering someone on purpose to make a point.

Isolating trans people who are peacefully living their lives because some trans people are disrespectful is pointless.

Not to mention what about the trans people that pass. Would you meet my very masculine passing boyfriend and call him a woman just to prove a point?

The danger of using preferred pronouns is that women are forced to call her rapist 'she' in court. This has happened several times. Going to court re-traumatises women as it is, she shouldn't have to lie under oath and ignore her experience and over-ride what her eyes, ears and body saw/experienced.

This is why enforcing preferred pronouns is highly dangerous to women and girls. No one that is female benefits from enforced pronouns. If it's a choice, ok, you and others have a choice to respect people's pronouns. That's ok. But it shouldn't be enforced. To the point a rape or assault victim is gaslit to deny their own experience.

To be fair look around. Mumsnet are middle aged women. I wouldn't want to come out either.

But what about in real life? Data from gender clinics does not indicate there is anywhere near the same number of middle aged women coming out as trans at the same rate as teenage girls. Why is that, if society is more accepting? Are you proposing that society is only more accepting to young people and not older people?

If that’s true, why are there so many middle aged men who feel confident to come out as trans now?

To be fair look around. Mumsnet are middle aged women. I wouldn't want to come out either

So you think there are a whole heap of middle aged women who want to identify as men but don’t? Maybe you know different women to me but it’s a liberating age for many - they stop giving a fuck about what others’ think. They are much less self-conscious than their daughters.

Young people are far more understanding. My brother's oldest is non-binary. Am I on board with the idea of so many NB people? No. Do I respect their pronouns and act as their biggest cheerleader. Of course

The crux of this explosion in trans/NB identifies in girls, I think, is sense of self. The teens girls I see with trans/NB identities struggle with their sense of self. They are the children you would have been goths/emos/punks in another era, looking for a group to define them. This is the current group.

Whereas the whole “coming out” narrative with trans/NB identifying girls is that their sense of self is strong, and this is who they always were. This isn’t what I see - I see the socially awkward/anxious, autistic, damaged girls identifying as trans/NB.

For the record I don't think there are a bunch of trans middle aged women. I'm just saying if there were why the hell would they come out?

I've said I agree social media is a hug influence. It is very trendy.

But let's not pretend genuine trans people would be welcome to come out on a whole regarding their peers. I mean... I wouldn't want to be associated with men who rape women and claim to be women.

Not all people who claim to be trans are trans. I don't think that's disputed by many.

But again for your average trans person why misgender them? Why misgender my boyfriend on this thread? Just to prove you can say whatever you like? Cool. It seems pointless and cruel but I guess when it comes to trans people that doesn't matter.

Not all people who claim to be trans are trans. I don't think that's disputed by many.

What makes someone genuinely trans? I would genuinely like to know how you distinguish this.

This is hotly disputed. Trans activists claim that anyone who says they are trans, is trans. Gender clinician say any child who says they are trans, is trans and should be socially and medically affirmed as soon as possible. This is what WPATH says. Yet despite this they do not indicate how to determine any truth, or that it is even necessary. How do you do it?

Again, it seems to have passed you by that children are being medically affirmed on their say so, their simple declaration of “I am trans.”

But let's not pretend genuine trans people would be welcome to come out on a whole regarding their peers. I mean... I wouldn't want to be associated with men who rape women and claim to be women.

But you are associated with them. You’re enabling them. By insisting that your partner and nice people are referred to with wrong sex pronouns you’re part of a culture that also insists rapists are referred to with wrong sex pronouns.

Should we be able to be honest about horrible people but have to be dishonest about nice people? Anyone who wants to make me be dishonest doesn’t seem to fall into the bracket of a nice person.

But let's not pretend genuine trans people would be welcome to come out on a whole regarding their peers. I mean... I wouldn't want to be associated with men who rape women and claim to be women.

Yet middle aged men have no such concerns. Why is that?

But again for your average trans person why misgender them? Why misgender my boyfriend on this thread? Just to prove you can say whatever you like? Cool. It seems pointless and cruel but I guess when it comes to trans people that doesn't matter

This isn’t middle aged women being mean. It’s the result of transactivism. There were always trans identified people where, to be kind to them, people used pronouns unrelated to their sex. But TRAs (men, mainly) pushed rhis too far. Somehow it became mandatory to do this, resulting in travesties like “raped with her penis”. Male crimes - often sex crimes - are recorded as female crimes. Female sporting places are being taken by men.

The line many (middle aged women) are now taking is that pronouns should be sex-based, without exception.

For those of us who work with children, it may seem kind to call girls “he”, “they” but it’s not. It isolates them, consolidates their trans-identify and increase the chances of hormonal manipulation to their growing bodies. It’s brave (not bigotry) to show them that they can dress/act how they want and still be female.

I have no doubt your trans male partner passes, women on exogenous testosterone often do. But I don’t see it as a win when trans/NB girls start on “T”, as they call it

To me, it's not mis-gendering. It's accurate-sexing. To me, those that use pronouns that aren't the same as sex, are mis-sexing.

Should we be able to be honest about horrible people but have to be dishonest about nice people? Anyone who wants to make me be dishonest doesn’t seem to fall into the bracket of a nice person

This.