Gender ideology is toxic and creates divisions

[reprobatiusmumius]

I know I’m wading into a toxic debate here. But AIBU to find the gender ideology debate just so poisonous?

I have non binary identifying autistic teenager. I love and accept her but I refuse to get drawn into pronouns and calling her by a name she’s made up herself.

Why? It’s disrespectful to me, frankly. I conceived, birthed, nurtured and named her. I do not wish to capitulate to an ideology I disagree with, and so? My stance is, you do you with your friends. I am going to do me with you. That means I call her by her birth name and I’m not going to force grandma to say they / them which is grammatically incorrect. This is my stance.

It feels like a reasonable truce, having navigated years of chest flatteners, drawings with breast scars and other horrors, when all I want for her is for her to be happy in herself. In her current body. Surely, that’s not an unreasonable stance? And yet, I have been called out for bigotry, transphobia and told that if she walks out on me and never speaks to me again, that’s all I deserve. Not by her, I may add, although she tends to refuse my clothing suggestions- it’s fine- I give her money and she can wear what she wants (except clothes, like binders, that can physically harm her)

I’m sorry, but how have we got to a stage where parental norms, wishes and expectations are so decried, twisted and frowned upon that this debate has become “if you don’t agree then your child should disown you”? Seriously, I’ve got to the point where I’m so angry by the gremlins who have hog hold of her and convinced her something untrue that I feel like I want to go full Trump and refuse to engage in this debate at all, just ban it outright.

This is a debate where there is no allowance for nuance, questioning, watching and waiting and just accepting a rebellion (because that’s what I see this as!). I thank god they have banned surgical interventions on under 18s because the online trolls who push this agenda want to turn kids against loving and cautious parents who just WANT THEIR KIDS TO BE HAPPY as they are!

Sorry, I’m so angry- have just been outright banned by an Autistic with ADHD sub on Reddit for stating the same, and told my daughter should disown me. How did this become so toxic and how is any of this good for families?

The online pushers want more angry converts to their nasty little cult and it’s made me so angry. How dare they poison my sweet little girl and make out that I, her mother, am the problem, because I have an opinion that differs from hers. It’s hideous and I’ve had enough of the insidious compulsion to agree entirely or say nothing.

‘Grin’ is clearly a person desperately craving attention. Sad.

But words generally have a meaning that makes sense. ‘Cis’ doesn’t achieve that.

How old is this child?

So Grin is old enough to be mocked by adults but too young to choose their own name?

Well you’ll get loads of people on mumsnet who agree with you.

Personally I don’t. I have relationships with three trans people and all are so much happier these days now they are recognised by their family and friends as the gender they feel comfortable with.

The world is full of differing viewpoints.

If she changed her name by deed poll would you still refuse to call them their new name?

I agree. It's all about the 'gotcha' here and making out trans identity is about somehow being broken or deluded. As much as I struggle to get my head around it, that doesn't align with the people I know who are pretty normal and just for whatever reason feel better with some degree of transition and are getting on with their lives.

What do you mean by ‘some degree of transition’ out of interest? If you mean ‘don’t feel comfortable with the stereotypes associated with their sex but don’t do anything to impinge on others like using opposite sex facilities, sports or demanding ‘pronouns’ then great - I think that’s super.

However among the ‘trans’ people I know there are families ripped apart and devastated wives and children - in one case the wife was driven out of her family home after many years. There is a self induced disability and depression. There’s a young lesbian girl who had an elective double mastectomy after a handful of months of discovering their trans ‘identity’ and there are countless lies and coercion. I don’t even know that many trans people either.

Disassociating with your body to the extent you want to modify it or lie about it to emulate the opposite sex or make the impossible claim you are neither male or female is not the sign of good mental health any more than anorexia is.

I mean what most people mean - it could be changing their name or using a nickname, presenting differently to be more in line with what we associate with the opposite sex. Medical transition may be the right option for some although this is a huge deal and will make their life more difficult in many ways.

No, it doesn't mean literally changing sex and it shouldn't IMO be treated as such.

'Demanding' pronouns, no, but if requested then I'll do my best to remember. Most people do this tbh and the sky doesn't fall in. If you really don't want to, you might be seen as rude or unkind but it's not the dystopian scenario that MNers seem to think.

I'm sorry you've come across such extreme scenarios, everyone on MN seems to, but that's not really the norm in my experience.

I think actual body dysphoria/dysmorphia is not well understood on here and seen as equivalent to something like anorexia. It might be similar in some ways but it also seems to be associated with differing hormones, early identity development and other factors that make it a different category of issue IMO.

I think the GC movement has been a necessary counterpoint to the extremes of the trans movement in recent years, and I'm happy that we're now on surer footing when it comes to things like single sex spaces and caution/exploratory therapy. But I'm never going to agree with some of what I see (frequently) on here and the tedious stuff about whether you can define what a woman is and how it's not a feeling. The fact remains there are people who wish they'd been born the opposite sex, feel that from a young age, and try to find ways to live more comfortably with themselves as a result. We need parameters as a society in how we accommodate that, but constructing a great argument about why you think it's actually complete bollocks, is not going to achieve that and it's not going to somehow stamp out 'transness' as a phenomenon; it's been around in some form as far back as you can go.

I think you may have missed the point about Elvis.

It's incoherent to think autonomy stretches so far as to enable someone to identify truly as being the reincarnation of the King of Rock'n'roll ... or, by the same token, as the opposite sex.

You're wrong, in other words, to claim, as you did, that people (including, relevantly for this thread, children) can "... decide who [they] are ...".

In particular, then, we (including, relevantly for this thread, parents) do (or at least should) "... get to tell others [viz. our children, in particular] who they are".

Do you see? Think about it a bit more, if not.

There has been a lot of nonsense promulgated about the notion of identity and its connection with personal autonomy. People make mistakes all the time about who they are and what they're really like - about their personal identity in other words.

Children, in particular, are prone to such error about themselves. We recognise the error in cases such as anorexia; it behoves us as parents (and other concerned adults) to recognise similar error in the likes of (recently fashionable) dysmorphia of various kinds, whether socially conditioned or not.

Recognising this in no way belittles or undermines the care and concern of parents whose children suffer from such maladies. But it's very much not appropriate to encourage those who would accept such errors of self-identification and facilitate their continuance, particularly in children.

tldr: your mistake about self-identification (exemplified by the "guy down the chippie") is dangerous for vulnerable children.

What monster doctor performed a double mastectomy on anyone in such a short period of time? That is truly shocking.

Thank fuck it isn't the norm and would never happen under the NHS.

The happiness of the childs need is not what is best for what the child wants but what the child needs. A child doesnt not need to change gender. We must teach children to be comfortable in how they are designed. I told this transgender in early stages to not have the gender reassignment surgery. Its something that cannot be taken back and causes so many problems.

18 will be 19 later this year.

I’m sure the woman I know who’s husband fucked off into the sunset with a new woman (who no doubt feels more like you do), leaving her and her traumatised teenager daughters (who dad had starting dressing like while he was busy finding himself - why not take a minute to imagine your dad at 50 dressing like you and your friends at 15) to pick up the pieces, feels better for reading that rigmarole.

Have a read of this account from Jan Morris’s daughter Suky. For those of us who’ve listened to trans widows, it’s all horribly familiar.

www.thetimes.com/uk/article/jan-morris-was-a-trans-pioneer-and-a-cruel-parent-9x82s5cg9

Archive here: archive.is/iKaQe

She’s not an adult!

It HAS been happening on the NHS. Luckily the Tavistock has been shut down (and not too soon for us) but it’s still happening in pockets around the country although gender reassignment may not be done till 18. Don’t know much more than that on this.

The doctor is based in London. The surgery referral was based on a couple of zoom appointments. The journey from lesbian via non binary to ‘definitely trans’ snd straight onto testosterone was eye wateringly swift. She was a teenager who had experienced no previous issues.

I strongly dispute your claim that it wasn’t the norm. This girl wasn’t a special case and the surgeon and gender clinics gave her a standard service.

Keira Bell had a double mastectomy on the NHS and was put on puberty blockers and x sex hormones after a few appointments so there’s little reason to expect the NHS to be much different for other patients. Hopefully they’ve changed now but given the level of activism and rogue doctors (there’s one in Brighton openly defying instructions not to do this) I’m not confident.

Of the network of gender clinics set up recently, at least some are staffed and run by activists. These people are determined to wreak as much havoc on lives treat as many patients as possible - we need positive action to stop them not just ‘rule changes’.

May be true that has always been around to some extent, but NOTHING like the sweeping craze it has become among today’s teens- and like anorexia, I’d totally associated with asd. By fanning the flames, we’ve provoked an epidemic and going along with it has resulted in many casualties. When I say ban, Trump style- what I mean is roll back the dial so it is not the norm to affirm, but rather set the agenda, so, parents feel they can be parents and not coercive proponents of a frankly nuts ideology.

Can you screenshot?

Here's a share token so that you can read the article on the site for the next couple of days

https://www.thetimes.com/article/68bcdad6-77f4-11ed-b756-a5744446c41f?shareToken=827f4382b77203ad0a491f2112c0bb9a

Oh, that’s better - thank you! Two many screenshots, it’s a long article.

The monstrous ego she describes seems par for the course for men who tradition late (also described as autogynaphelia (soz misspelt) by some).

But, while this is no doubt heartbreaking for so-called trans widows, I’m more worried about the craze for it in impressionable teenage girls (and young effeminate boys) who feel that affirmative care is the ONLY solution to dysphoria, whereas I believe that feeling awkward as a teen is NORMAL, and part of learning to accept oneself. Surely, for most, that should be the first-line route of watchful waiting rather than blind capitulation? Isn’t this more sensible all round? I just feel that good sense has left the building and is now being pilloried by the cheerleaders/witchunters in the toxic online communities…

I did an MA on this topic, so I'm fine with my level of knowledge and of my POV thanks.

We just differ in opinion. I don't plan to start going around telling people 'you are wrong' because I respect your right to think something different to me. Which is my problem really with some people in relation to this topic. A dictatorial and totalitarian POV is not conducive to a debate.

Not sure having an academic qualification on “this topic” is the selling point you think it is. We know that this poison has risen from academia, and that academia is the fetid hole where it flourishes, though possibly not for much longer after Sussex Uni’s colossal fine.

I always find Billboard Chris’s videos of his conversations with students and academics so instructive. Give them a rope and they hang themselves, time and time again. Floundering their way through attempting to define their terms and either still being there half an hour later with nothing, or flouncing off throwing insults.