To think we’ve got it wrong about gender identity in children

[Itsmyshadow]

I have a 9 year old daughter who doesn’t fit the typical gender stereotype for a girl. She loves football, gaming and Pokémon. From a very young age she’s liked “boys” things, has always gravitated towards friendships with boys, and between the ages of 4 and 7 was quite adamant that she was a boy not a girl.

As her mum I’ve therefore taken a keener interest in gender discussions and what children are told about gender than I otherwise would have. Being completely transparent for this thread, I would very much prefer she remains a girl as her life will be so much more straightforward if that is the case.

As parents we have therefore done everything we can to help her get comfortable in who she is as a girl. We focus on the success of women in sport as much as men, watch lots of women’s football and will be watching the women compete in the olympics and paraolympics and celebrating how well they all do (we will watch the men too). DD now plays for a girl’s football team and boy’s football team (having only previously played for the boys team), and through sport has has met and made friends with girls who are much more like her.

At present she is happily identifying as a girl. I know this is a very fragile status however.

This is why I am so annoyed that in schools, primary schools, children are being taught that people can change their gender. Last year at DD’s school they had a “Pride Day” and invited an external pressure group in to do workshops with the kids, in which they were told sex is “assigned at birth according to what a doctor observes” and were shown pictures of the man presenting in dresses and told people can change their gender. We opted DD out of this workshop, but another child told her afterwards that she was a boy and should change her gender.

Why are we telling school kids this who are too young to understand? I feel this does so much damage to kids like my DD.

Shouldn’t we stop promoting a trans ideology and instead be telling children that they can be whoever they want to be regardless of their biological sex?

I feel so much good could be done by overtly celebrating women’s achievements (including those who have excelled in sport or in the army) both overtly on International Women’s Day and more subtly e.g. setting a passage to read and answer questions on about Rosa Parks or the England Women’s Football team. Same for men, schools could really celebrate the successes of men who do not meet a traditional male stereotype.

If schools really focused on driving home the message that men and women can be whoever they want to be and that their sex does not constrain them, I really feel most of the gender uncertainty in young people would go away, and we could save young people a whole load of mental and potentially physical trauma.

OP everything you say is self-evident common sense & I am heartened by the pretty much unilateral support you have received on this thread (I confess to skimming).

How did we get to the ridiculous place we are now where perfectly perfect children are being told they are somehow wrong or malfunctioning if they don't conform to outdated stereotypes.

I was born late 60s, was a tomboy to very conservative parents who very much brought us up in sex stereotypes so my brother was brought up to go out to work i was brought up to be a housewife. It seriously screwed me up. I would have transitioned to escape but I didn't need to, I just needed to know i could do anything I wanted. I'm an adult with children both adult and younger. I worry about the youngest, I can see the difference simply in that she's far more accepting of sex stereotypes despite that not being her family experience. Next couple of years are going to be key. I've spent the last few years reinforcing the girls can do anything while also tackling patriarchy so hopefully we can survive.

100% correct.

But having this view makes you a huge transphobic bigoted bully who is responsible for twenty billion suicides and is firmly on the wrong side of history.

Can you expand on this? I’m not clear on what issue you have with the quoted section.

I am also curious to hear what the 6% have to say on this.

I agree.
There are genuine trans people but majority of people confused are tomboys or male equivalent.
Dd 12 is tomboy. Likes minecraft and roblox. She was friends with mainly girls till 7 then only 1 boy.
But none of the other boys accepted her. 0 party invites from the wider group. Now at secondary they are scared of her, she is clever and good at maths.

Whilst the school seems to try to be gender neutral with girls doing football and rugby. Its not many lessons, not enough to bother getting tge kit really. And competitions incl sports days are netball only.

In primary ive seen other boys trying to just be friends woth girls but often arent fully accepted.

I'm intrigued about what singles out gender as something you can choose or self identify.

I'm about the height of a 10 year old....but I can't identify as a 10 year old, play on their sports teams, or join scouts or guides, use their changing rooms and tell everyone else (and expect them to accept) that I'm 10.

Ditto height, race etc

I'm a Gen X, born in the late 60s, and am eternally grateful to have missed all this madness.

I too was a tomboy: short hair, football season ticket, dislike of dresses, gender neutral name and all that stuff. Today I'm a grown up tomboy (sort of): shaved head, football season ticket, trousers, no makeup gender neutral name. But ..... I have 27 dresses, Kurt Geiger heels and pretty pink finger nails.

I would have hated to have been persuaded that I was really male. I wasn't. I never will be.

Just for the stats, I'm neuro typical, not autistic, have completely robust mental health and am heterosexual.

My name is Lucy Jordon. And I am a woman ☺️

That was me till 15 and discovered sex - nothing wrong with being a Tom boy - puts you in good stead - I can climb a tree play most sports and stand up for myself against anyone better than most of my female friends-

I agree wholeheartedly OP. My son (14) has ASD - his favourite colour is pink and he has an unhealthy obsession with Squishmallows. He knows this doesn't make him any less of a boy than his friend who lives and breathes football and rugby.

My FIL once referred to DS2 (who is more rough-and-tumble) as 'a proper boy' - he got very short shrift from me 🤬

Gender woo has no place in schools, except a brief discussion alongside religious faith in PSE type classes. I would like to see much more emphasis on learning about disability in schools. I was never taught not to pet a guide dog, for example.

100% agree.

As a child, I was adamant I wanted to be a boy called Joe. Furious if anyone used my actual (girl) name. Only wore boys clothes, liked boyish activities & toys etc. very much a tomboy.

Over teen years grew out of it & am now a fairly "girly girl". Definitely not a tomboy, at least.

To think that what was a normal, experimental process (& I think a bit of hero worshipping my older brother!) would now be interfered with & I potentially could have been encouraged into a path of no return is SO scary.

If the puberty blocker / social transition route had been available to me then, I would've begged my parents for it.

Now happily married to a man & pregnant. Makes me so angry that could've been taken away from me because of a childish phase

I was very much what was called a tomboy (born '69) - hated dresses and anything 'girlie'. I was also quiet, quite introverted and bookish. Loved trains and guns, hated dolls. My Mum wanted a feminine, sociable, girly girl and didn't quite know what to do with me 😂 I know she was embarrassed by the short haired, muddy, definitely not pretty daughter she ended up with, and i honestly think if she could have explained me away as being 'in the wrong body' and in need of fixing, she would've done.

I'm still quite introverted and bookish, and i'm sitting typing this in jeans, DMs, a shirt from M&S menswear and sporting a no.2 shaved short back 'n sides haircut. I'm also still muddy 😄 (blame my dog). I'm also wearing make up. I have 3 children, born in my 30s as i was convinced as a young woman i didn't want children.

In short, i've been able to evolve into my adult self, and remain true to my core self, without the 'positive affirmation' forced on so many gnc children now, which - thanks to the Cass review - we kmow isn't a neutral act. It's sobering to think if I'd been born 40 odd years later, my personality may have seen adults set me on a path of lifelong hormone treatment and sterility, to make my body match societal sex stereotypes.

We are failing both boys and girls - and it particularly affects those who are gay and/or have autism - by regressing to these archaic notions of what being male and female should mean.

Yes, I still remember the dressing down my mum gave to my dad when he said "Girls can't play football."

It's weird, he did all the trainspotting stuff with me and taught me to throw and catch and to athletics club with him and so on. But football was a bridge too far.

I wanted to be a boy when I was that age - I have my passport photo to prove it! On one holiday with my grandparents I convinced everyone I was a boy at the campsite and they totally bought it.

The truth was that I liked football, pokemon, computer games and all my friends were boys. Society told me those things were for boys.

An acquaintance I know with a transgender child gets so angry about shops stopping saying clothes are for boys or girls as she says that having boys and girls clothing helps her child affirm their gender. I have the opposite view tbh, why place a label on things?

Obviously families differ but I was born in the 50s and brought up playinv with contruction toys, a train set etc in addition to dolls and to believe I could do anything career wise. When I started teaching in the early 80s it was definitely a case of reinforcing equal opportunities and getting rid of stereotypes.

I would have been at the school, asking for an interview with the head/governors. Ask the head face to face if they think people can change sex. I don't mean gender, whatever the hell that is, I mean actual sex. Well done to opt her out of the nonsense. I believe some of this pressure has come from the polarisation of the sexes in terms of clothes/hair/hobbies etc. (loath the word Tomboy, girls climb trees). Not all girls are pink and fluffy, not all boys like cars.
Please do carry on with what your doing, my heart aches for children in this situation. I have a Pokémon playing, tree climbing daughter who's never voluntarily picked up a Barbie doll in her life. She can change a car radio from one car to another faster than her dad. She's great.

I don't have children but if I did I think I would keep them away from school on Pride days.

You’ve hit the nail on the head op. Im
pregnant with my first and hoping that all this nonsense will have died down by the time she hits secondary school!

Sorry, don't understand what you mean.

good for you op wishh more were like you

Also completely agree. As a child, I didn't play with dolls / Barbies, didn't wear anything pink / girly and definitely not skirts. I played Lego, videogames, and spent lots of time outside with boys. At no point I thought I wasn't a girl - it was just who I was, and I was free to do what I wanted. There was no pressure from my parents (or school / society) to be one way or another way.

As soon as puberty hit I started to become a little bit more girly and interested in boys, but again it was a natural progression for me. Now I love heels / dressing up but I still very much have more traditionally male interests.

Agree OP. Men have discovered that women and girls are not giving up-so they've decided that we can't be who we are unless we're men.

As a lesbian with many masculine-esque women in my circle who were very much like your daughter as children, it infuriates me that were they young now, they'd have been told they were boys-and that this is now happening to girls. It's fucking ridiculous IMO.

I would say that a “ boys “ football team that has a girl in ,is not a boys team, in the same way that women’s sport is no longer for women if a man is playing, or the ladies is in fact mixed if we include males.

Agree 100%.

I was a “tomboy” in that I loved playing outdoors, climbing trees, could run and cycle faster than all the boys in my street, had very short hair, hated barbies and dresses (though adored my baby dolls), and massively identified with George from the Famous Five.

Im a heterosexual woman with 2 kids now and I hate that they are growing up
in a world where stereotypes are more entrenched and kids have less freedom to be who they are than in the 90s when I was growing up. It is evil.