Being 'held hostage' by "trans" teenage kids

[TryingToGetOrganised2]

In my day, we were goths and emos.

Nowadays, it's gender expression. Don't get me wrong, I am 100% behind the kids that truly feel they were born in the wrong body, but oh for goodness sake, it's not half the flipping population?!

There are a lot of kids who really have gender dysphoria, who I really feel for and support. However, I'm so fed up of being told I'm a transphobe, because I dare question and gently encourage soemone to unpick where their feelings come from. (Read: my own 17 year old son, who is autistic and doesn't know where he fits in the world)

The main military operation is my 16 year old daughter, who is, on the whole, a wonderful human whom I adore. She's just so far down this road of 'you can be anything you want, sod biology' that anyone who asks a question, is shot down and cut off, for having a (possibly) more rounded, adult perspective. She can't see further than her own underdeveloped frontal lobe, and it's driving me insane.

Of course, I'm presenting, gentle, measured, acceptance mum (which, of course - I truly am, if that's who you truly are!) But I feel like she's pushing my son into a lifestyle because he's questioned who he is. Am I being unreasonable to feel frustrated? Or should I suck it up and encourage my boy to be a girl, even though I don't really think it's what he actually wants?

Please be gentle. I've got 3 kids with autism and adhd, amd, having both myself, it's the blind leading the blind. I'm exhausted and just need a bit of support in either direction.

I hear ya @TryingToGetOrganised2 And I could have written your first post. 2 DC the same. They're not as bad as they were (both late 20s now,) but you still have to take your words out of your mouth and look at them before you say anything. When they were at Uni they were so left-leaning their left ear was scraping across the ground. Any attempt to challenge any of their views was met with a chant of 'you're a bigot/transphobe/racist' and they refused to hear the viewpoints of anyone who wasn't far left. They worshipped Jeremy Corbyn!

They're not quite as bad now, but you still have to be careful what you say. DH just sits there and says very little now, (when we're discussing politics/ race/ transgender,) after our older daughter shouted at him for being a massive transphobe when he said it's not right that a man in a wig is allowed to go into the girls toilets. And the racist chant came when we both said it was wrong to have a black actress playing Anne Boleyn. (Because shit would kick off big time if, for example, they had Margot Robbie playing Rosa Parks.)

We get a bit sick of it to be honest, and will be glad when they've grown out of it. Their DPs aren't like this, they're more centric (like us,) and whilst not racist or bigoted, will question why transwomen seem to have the same rights as women, and why black actors are put into roles playing real life people who are white.

Most people like us (and you OP, and some on this thread,) who are more centric or right of centre or right wing, just don't speak to 'the left' about these things (especially the far left.) Because all they do is shut people down, insult them, ridicule them, and call them racist bigots if they DARE to have a view that is not 'far left' like them. I don't take the 'racist' and 'bigot' chants from people seriously any longer, and just laugh at them, because it's actually so pathetic that it's laughable.

@Sturnidae , I’ve often thought that my dd1, if born a few decades later, would virtually have been brainwashed into feeling that she’d been born in the wrong body. Until at least very early teens, and quite unlike dd2, she was very anti anything at all girly - clothes, toys, games - she was a very active, rough and tumble type.
In former times she’d just have been called a tomboy.
Yet she grew into a very female adult, now married with 3 dcs.

As the parent of atleast one autistic child (I have a second who is due to be assessed) all of this troubles me deeply.

I would be, and will be, completely zero tolerance if my NT daughter pulled this crap on her ASD brother.

My DC are 7, 5 and 3 so still very young. I'm hoping all of this bollocks will be yesterday's chip paper when they reach their teens.

Presently, if you were to tell my autistic DS that he could be a girl if he wanted to he would think you're being completely stupid. As he should.

I would get on top of this whilst you can OP. It's a slippery slope.

It’s gone way too far. Identifying as a cat or wolf is pathetic, which is an understatement. These people will be the future, so this country is more screwed than it is already.

This is almost exactly the same as my experience with my DD. And I handled it in the same way. We really just let my (then 12 year old) dress how she wanted, call herself what she wanted (name and pronouns), and encouraged her to talk to us about her feelings on the matter. We also explained that her feelings may change, or they may stay the same, but nothing permanent would be decided until she was an adult. She wanted us to speak to the school (she was at an all-girls grammar school) and they were brilliant, explaining to her that they would use her preferred name at school, but not on her applications to exam etc, and told her she was very brave to tell them how she was feeling.

We told her we loved her, and that she may have a difficult road to travel, but we would always be there for her.

When she was about 14/15, things gradually changed, she went back to using her female name, started wearing make up, jewellery etc. She still mostly wears boyish, baggy clothing, but occasionally will wear a dress.

She's actually now a lot more 'girly' than I've ever been.

The key, in my opinion, is supporting your child, while giving them the space to draw their own conclusions in their own time. It sounds like your DD is not giving your DS the space to do this, but is pushing them along the road too quickly. Your DD is not wrong that 'you can be anything you want, sod biology', but it may be that your DS does not yet know what they want to be, and needs time to work this out on their own, with your support of course.

My DD 15, has reached peak trans. She's had so many friends who were apparently trans and very militant about it change and suddenly go completely the other way. She also is very anti men in women's spaces, mainly because she was sexually assaulted in Y8. She thinks most of the people doing it as attention seeking (in her experience).

Recently there was a very young "trans" person female to male (approximately aged 8) at an activity she does, and she was furious with the parents. I said to her that said young person would probably grow out of it.

I'll mention that she is ND though not autistic.

I think things are changing.

Another thing that is upsetting is that because all this trans stuff is being hailed as a 'new youth culture' it means that teens are blocked from building their own, grassroots, unique culture.
Punks didn't listen to what John Lewis was telling them! Goths wouldn't dress how TV programmes told them to!
Today every kid who wants to be different or doesn't conform to old fashioned stereotypes is being transed.
When you think of people like David Bowie or Annie Lennox, if they were growing up today they would be told they were "born wrong" and put on puberty blockers then cross sex hormones, then major surgery ending in life long complications and no sexual function. They would be so tied up in themselves, their medications and their bodies they would have never made the music they did.

First post nailed it.

My autistic DC is the same, @BlackFriYay - at 8 years old, DC equates being able to “change sex” with flat earth theories, in that people can believe what they want, even if it is absolutely false and unscientific.

DC also understands that liking pink doesn’t make a penis fall off, and that an electric train with a steam funnel attached does not become a steam train….

🙄

SensibleSigma · Today 07:59

A trans identifying youngster I knew said that Keira Bell (detransitioner) had changed her mind but that they wouldn’t change their mind because they’d ‘known for ages now, thought about it carefully, it wasn’t just a fad’.
She was 16/17- ‘ages’ to her was 2 years. I have spent longer than that choosing wall paper.

👏Me too

Wow, that's really interesting.

You can see why young autistic people are vulnerable.

Agree with this.

First post didn't.

The worst Goths and Emos might have done to our bodies (yes, I was one too) is shove piercings and tattoos into it. Yes, tattoos do have one or two health implications, particularly in the earlier days of HIV.

But none of those subcutlures involve medicalisation of the body which render young people infertile, hanging in a pubescent state into adulthood, impairs if not destroys their sexual function, and carries other possible health risks which have not, to date, been properly theorised, analysed or monitored.

Older, music-based subcultures are nothing like the gender contagion we are witnessing now. This isn't even your standard apples and oranges comparison: more like comparing a woolly mammoth with an ant.

And once the fad peters out - as all the indications are it's now beginning to do - who is left to mop up the mess and devastation left behind? One obvious answer is: probably parents, not to mention the gender distressed child themselves.

If OP should butt out and mind her own business, as a PP upthread has helpfully suggested, then I'd counter-suggest that her daughter should do likewise. Her brother's gender expression is precisely none of her business. And given neurodiverse people are known to be particularly susceptible to this ideology, her attempts at persuasion could be downright harmful. OP, you need to shut this down fast - and unapologetically so.

Yes, a very clear, measured response.

This, absolutely ! Very well said.

This is such a helpful thing to think about, thankyou.

I didn’t mention her son because I was talking about her attitude towards her daughter.

You can claim it’s “doubling down” or “backtracking” all you like - you simply either didn’t read my post properly or misunderstood it.

No one is born in the wrong body, we don't tell disabled people they were born in the wrong body we in fact do the opposite, tell them they are more than their bodies.

I would tell your daughter on no uncertain terms to back off, you need to protect your son.

It's slowly going out of fashion, many kids are now reverting back, can't come quick enough.

Nope. I don't see any evidence of this alleged "phobia". Women are calmly pointing out biological reality and refusing to indulge the delusional whims of men who fetishise dressing as women. Neither of these things is in any way phobic. People can dress how they like and call themselves whatever they please but the idea that they can change sex isn't real. It's a delusion that nobody else is obliged to indulge or play along with. Because women won't indulge this nonsense. We won't self censor or alter our thoughts and words because someone wants us to pretend...because women won't pretend that a delusion is real. Because it's not real.

I didn’t miss anything.

Wilbur? That's going way too far!

It has a massive psychological impact on siblings.

Do not underestimate nor neglect it.

Identity is not just individual. It is also relational.

The number of neuro-diverse kids who are caught up in this is frightening.

There's a number of people with experience of this in various ways.

The Cass Review says not to blindly affirm as it's not a neutral act. And it makes sense because socially if you transition it can trap you and make it harder to change your mind.

The worst that can happen if you don't affirm a kids transgender then they just get to wait to access hormones or surgery. Is this a bad thing ? I don't think so because these things shouldn't be rushed into. Waiting can give a child space to find out if this is something they really want to pursue.

Why not? Who would you rather be quoted? Which other research would you like to put forward?