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.

And i scrapped the use of the word ‘tomboy’ from my vocab many years ago precisely because it was so limiting for girls. Girls can roll in mud, play cops and robbers and climb trees. They don’t need to be quasi-boys to do this.

In that case I'm GC then. I just meant I see my friends as women and they would never intrude on women's spaces so I guess what I really mean is not fully TERF (I understood the words to be interchangeable - thanks for letting me know they're not!)

Yes I am ‘fully GC’ and this is my position, as is all the GC people I know. Being GC meaning you hate trans people has been hijacked by zealot TRA’s.

We simply need to ask who benefits.

It's not the kids for sure. What's beneficial about damaging a healthy body witg drugs and/or surgeries . Or having to change who and what you are just to be accepted doing the things you like.

Drug companies benefit. Suddenly a new use has been found fir medications that previously had very limited need due to small number of afflicted children/people for a short period of time.

Private surgeons for sure benefit. Thousands of pounds fir these surgeries. Not to mention the corrections/fixes/repairs needed afterwards when it goes wrong.

Suddenly there's a need for multiple groups where teachers would have taught stuff themselves now its all all outsourced to these organisations that have popped up to train businesses, school staff etc

Suddenly there's a new market for adult entertainment. No more do they have to wait for that booking in a night club somewhere. They can visit schools, preschools, nurseries now etc

Suddenly you dont even need to be able to write at a high professional level. You can write a load of nonsense about a boy in a dress and someone will publish and make you.money out of it.

Suddenly toys and clothes cant be handed down so much any more. Not to worry, when you buy one child a lego set theres also a nice pretty legs friends set you can buy too or overpriced flimsy dolls. So much for just buying some lego your 2 kids can just sit and play with together.

And not to mention the all you can eat buffet of confused children that is being served up by their own parents and trusted adults in the kids lives , to online predators akd predators who cab access them all so much more easily now they have been told their boundaries are offensive and/or tricked into no longer using the safe spaces they were befire because their identity requires them to flout safeguarding protocols and put themselves in danger for validation.

There is nothing beneficial abkut this to children at all.

What does ‘genuinely transgender’ mean though? Is there even such a thing as gender - it’s wholly a belief system so then genuine types would simply be anyone who believes they are.

Gp/camhs/mental health services benefit greatly. Because most young people who identify as trans are neurodivergent and/or have a history of childhood abuse, it’s far easier to go along with the transgender beliefs they have and give physical/medical care for that than treat the very typical MH crisis many autistic and/or abused children go through when they’re going through puberty.

Not even the postman?

May I ask what you think the difference is between GC and TERF

I'm glad you started this thread @Itsmyshadow . I've been making similar points in comments on other threads about my DD for years, but it gets lost in the nonsense.

I have been doing the same with my DD for many years. She is 13 now and it is the trickiest time so far. She has been 'mis gendered' a few times since primary school.

DD is autistic and lesbian, the pressure for her to transition from the school environment is quite overwhelming at times.

I'm scared for her future. She is a girl, she just wears trousers! It is absurd that you can put your daughter is physical danger simply by choosing that they wear trousers for their school uniform.

You can't change sex, you should be able to play around with gender stereotypes, all of us with children now had that freedom. It is gone now.

On a purely semantic front, “GC” = gender critical, meaning “I don’t believe in the construct of gender as a separate concept to biological sex”.

”TERF” = trans exclusionary radical feminist, meaning “I don’t include men who call themselves women in my feminism”.

Both two sides of the same coin IMO.

Completely agree OP. This is a really good resource for schools which could be useful as a parent too.
genspect.org/resources/guidance/guidance-for-schools/

Of course it's wrong. Very, very few people have genuine dismorphia. The rest are held hostage to outdated stereotypes and think this will solve it but we should be pushing that girls can love football and don't have to wear sparkles and we should be pushing the boys can like frozen and wear dresses. This is the simpler route. They shouldn't have to change everything about themselves because society is so rigid about gender. Ironically tye people who are all 'you can have a gazillion genders' are the worse at confining people to boxes. You might be in the attracted to girls but like boy things box but you're still in a box. There is nothing wrong about being a goth who likes wearing trousers. That doesn't make you a man.

I do find it crazy as my younger sister reckons about 1/3 of her 6th Form are either trans or non-binary.

I asked her what makes someone a woman or a man and she reeled off a load of stereotypes. I pointed that out and then she screamed I'm a Terf and ran up to her room slamming her door.

I did try to approach the subject again, explaining I'm curious about it as when I was in 6th Form (15years ago now) we were all very much trying to stop women and men being classified in stereotypical ways and stating that the only thing that made someone a woman or a man was their sex and there should be no stereotyping of personalities and characters etc. I explained how we are encouraging women's sports and getting women into STEM jobs but now that's unravelling and I asked her why that could be.

She replied stating she's been taught in school that it's not unravelling but instead we are now understanding how men and women and non-binary people are not defined by their sex but their brains and that men's brains are different to women's brains and that's why majority of care jobs are done by women and men typically go for leadership roles.

I then attempted to explain the patriarchy to her and general history of feminism for her to only scream at me again that I'm not listening and I'm just a TERF.

She sent me a text later that day saying I need to educated myself and not to bring that subject up again if I want to stay on talking terms with her.

Rather concerned about what they're "teaching" in schools.

Gender ideology is nonsense and so regressive. You don't fit in to a stereotypical box of girl so you must be a boy and vice versa. How backwards thinking is that. It is absolutely crazy that kids are being fed this and pushed into a life of questioning their perfectly normal bodies and feelings growing up and made to feel other for not fitting in to some prescribed stereotype. Potentially medicated, binding their breasts and having surgery!

My DD10 has brothers, she is quite rounded in all her interests,l e.g. football, aversion to overly girly stuff but likes dolls, arts and crafts etc. In other words a perfectly normal child with normal child interests. She's potentially neurodiverse so I'd say at an increased risk of feeling 'different' and it concerns me very much that she will be exposed to this. I reinforce all the time that she is a girl, will always be a girl but can wear what she wants, like what she wants etc, as it should be for everyone.

Every single paragraph of this excellent post. The way adults have used children in all this has been shocking.

But finally society is waking up to what's happened. The Cass review has helped by exposing the lack of evidence & data and demonstrating how so many - including shamefully the NHS - have been experimenting on children with all this. With gay and lesbian youngsters being most affected.

But we're all starting to challenge, speak up and most importantly, safeguard children from making these catastrophic decisions.

As a teenager I would have been encouraged to transition. I wore trousers as no make up as I felt uncomfortable in my body, had male friends and liked science and didn’t know I was autistic. Now I’m completely happy I am me and a woman and can be who I want or dress how I want. Today I would have been encouraged to change my sec as I didn’t like pink and sparkly FFS

Of course you are right OP.

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to be a boy or a girl. Shame on anyone who tries to teach otherwise.

There's no such thing as being 'born in the wrong body' and every child deserves to be reassured that they are perfect exactly as they are.

How society lost its way on this point I'll never fully understand.

Wearing women’s clothes does not make them women. So what do they get out of wearing those clothes? Is it sexual? Is it a kink? Do they actually think they’re women? These are older men, with all the benefits of male privilege, who are role playing an identity and fetishising it.

Growing from a little girl to a woman we are all too aware of our biology and the significant impact it has on our lives - it is often painful and traumatic. They don’t take on that mantle do they? No wonder it is problematic.

How, despite our best intentions, do we as women take these pantomime dames seriously given how far removed it is from the reality of real womanhood?

The way adults have used children in all this has been shocking.

Theres a hard truth buried in this - some parents are less ashamed and would fight harder for a child they believe is trans to have a place in this world than they are willing to fight for and recognise that their child is autistic or have gone through some awful childhood event that has caused them to hate their own bodies.

I wasn't even particularly gender non conforming, but I went through puberty early and by 12 had breasts sized 30D. This caused me significant distress and I'm sure that if someone had told me that I could 'be a boy' and get rid of them, I would have considered it.

Puberty is a really tough time. We need to help children realise that it's normal to feel distressed at how their bodies are changing. But that they will eventually become more comfortable with it.

The medical profession has let children down on this issue too. Pre Cass.

They should have nipped this stuff in the bud instead of encouraging it.

She replied stating she's been taught in school that it's not unravelling but instead we are now understanding how men and women and non-binary people are not defined by their sex but their brains and that men's brains are different to women's brains and that's why majority of care jobs are done by women and men typically go for leadership roles.

@Jourl , that’s terrible. Who the fuck is teaching this and why?

The ‘50s called and wanted their attitudes back. The 1850s.

I accept Mumsnet is not a representative cross section of society but 725 votes and only 4% of those say YABU.

Surely it has got to the point now where we can all speak out to friends and make representations to schools and bring a halt to this pernicious ideology before any more children are harmed?

And that’s before we get to the parents who have secretly quite enjoyed the attention and special status having a “trans” child has brought them.

I knew one and to watch those of our mutual acquaintance flocking round her like a rainbow totem on which to display their public declarations of ally-ship and “correct think” was quite something.

Also: parents who didn’t want a gay kid but would be quite happy with a “trans” straight one.

I wasn't actually thinking about parents when I wrote that but that's an interesting point. @Jouri's post (at 16.22) describes how her younger sister is unable to engage in any discussion, instead hurling insults and threats - and that seems a bit par for the course.
I actually feel sympathetic to parents too scared of alienating their children to stand up and protect them from this nonsense. But they are avoiding the "tough love" aspect of parenting where you have to see past the emotional blackmail and anger directed at you and protect the child behind all that from making dreadful self harming decisions. (Easy for me to say but hard to do in the face of captured schools etc)