Gender swap situation

[TenThousandYears]

I know you're all probably fed up hearing about this subject...I just need to vent.

DD has been friends with "Sally" for 10 years. (Both 14) Since nursery. In the last few months Sally has decided to change gender and now wants to be called " Ron"

DD just can't wrap her head around this. If she slips up, she gets nasty looks from "Ron" and so she's treading on eggshells.

Ron's brother still refers to Ron as Sally so DD is very confused by it all.

I'm on DDs side. Personally, I would hate to be in her shoes right now. I think if you meet someone and are introduced to them as whomever then that's easier to accept than having to change names and pronouns of someone you've been friends with for 10 years. On TV shows people just accept this straight away and move on but I'm not convinced that it's really that easy.

I also think 14 is a bit young for these changes but that's just my personal opinion.

Are me and my child horrible people for not being able to accept this right away?

There absolutely is.
You remained she.
Sally/Ron is trying to make she become he.

I know what trans people use it for but find it hyperbolic and offensive.

Um, no. 🫣

well that would be "she", then.

Nope.
100 times nope.
🫣

@Sabire9: "Nope. Most people have a gender identity which is concomitant with their biological sex, though that gender identity will be shaped in some capacity by the culture of the society in which they're raised."

Nope. There is no such thing as gender identity, even though some people think there is. (Just as, similarly, there is no such thing as a guardian angel, despite some people thinking there is.)

As the philosopher Alex Byrne put it, back in 2019, "If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence ... "

The implied challenge - find and explain a way of detecting the presence of gender identity (or else accept its non-existence) - has still not been met.

There is no such thing as gender identity.

The gender change people love to control the speech and views of others. The girl has joined the club of entitlement and control by saying she is now Ron. Lots of attention, lots of control. Hopefully, she will come through this without too much damage done. Depends which adults are around her. Too much affirmation and the poor girl will likely end up damaged for life. I hope her parents are a bit more realistic and talk to her about biological facts and reality of what she can actually 'change' .... good luck.

Your poor daugther. Can she avoid using she or Ron or him completely? Hopefully she doesn't get swallowed up in the hoo haa at the same time. Put your helmet on you might get called Terf or transphobe if you try to use any reality about what you can actually change.

If they are good friends what does it matter if the child wants to called Ron rather than Sally.

Would your DD not just see the friend and support?

Yes getting a pronoun or name wrong will be difficult at first but supporting and being a kind friend would be what I was encouraging my DC to do rather than stepping away because it's easier.

Ron has it tough just now, a lot tougher than your DD.

Exactly. We already have a phrase that we use for “being kind” to someone who has a particular idea that we don’t personally think is true or don’t ourselves believe in: it’s called humouring them.

Daddy thinks he’s a whizz at football because we let him win? We’re humouring him. Polly thinks she sings like Taylor Swift? We all humour her. Granny and Grandpa are coming for Christmas and are vocal Brexiters? Please can you all humour them so we avoid any arguments…

Now sometimes humouring people in order to “be kind”, or smooth social interactions, or get along well, is a good thing to do — like white lies to avoid hurting Auntie Mildred’s feelings about an ill-judged Christmas present, or telling someone they look beautiful when in truth they look tired and ill. But when it comes to untruths with bigger consequences, we all recognise that telling people lies that go beyond the merely inconsequential is a bad thing, and that truthfulness is important for trust, reliability, accountability, mental health, and our wider social fabric.

The implications for young people - or anyone - of going beyond the merely humouring, and trying to pretend gender ideology is real, are profound and wide-reaching. Not only are there wider harms, but it’s simply just not true. And that really matters, because nobody really likes to be “humoured”, in the end, as flattering and comfortable as it might be for a short time.

It’s like setting a young person up for their entire life to be an extended metaphor of that young person whose mum and dad and family and friends have all told them that they are a super, wonderful, talented singer; and they have built their entire “identity” around this, and then after many years they finally get to the X-Factor auditions, and not only is Simon Cowell not whisking them off to a major record contract, the judges, and all the audience, and all the viewers at home, are laughing at them. And the cognitive dissonance of realising that no matter how nice and polite and kind everyone was about your name and pronouns at school, in the end, people you like don’t want to date you, people at work avoid you, and you may well have ruined your body chasing an idea that never materialises, is far worse than just being truthful about sex and gender in the first place.

Im not sure you can call someone small minded who is speaking about proven biological fact. Sally is more than welcome to think that she would like to be called Ron now, however her entitlement does not extend to anyone else in the universe.

Your daughter does not have to believe that Sally can change sex, and she does not have to feel judged for not remembering to join in with Sally's pretence. These are her protected beliefs, for which she should not feel judged. Sally is being unreasonable, petulant and small-minded if she is unwilling to accept that there are people in her world who won't agree with the biological impossibility that she can change sex. Because of Sally's unreasonable stance (expecting people to deny science and then radiating offence when they don't), I'd be telling my daughter to start hazing.

I've known several gender dysphoric teenagers who now live as the opposite sex to their natal sex, and none of them would have made their peers squirm for accidentally deadnaming them.

I also know many more teenagers who thought an answer to life's problems was to assume that they were born the wrong sex, who socially transitioned, and who then socially transitioned back months or years later - so it really is often "just a phase" despite what the TAs shout at us.

When my DS was around this age, a girl in his class declared herself a boy. For much of year 9 and then into year 10, there was a lot of bullying, not of her, but of other pupils, by staff and some other children, if any of them dared to acknowledge that she was actually a girl, or that humans can't change sex, or suggest that they were uncomfortable with it.

It's all gone very quiet in sixth form now she's changed her mind and quietly dropped it.

100%

Is Ron/Sally worse about DD using the wrong name/pronouns than about the other girls getting it wrong?

Usually when people change names they keep a connection with the old name. When I was young "Lucy" who chose an English name to be easy to pronounce at school was still happy when her parents called her by her original Chinese name. And although when I was young some of the immgrants growing up in this country used to get very angry with parents who wouldn't assimilate and use their new "English" name that's now seen as internalised racism.

To me the whole idea of "deadnaming" is part of a psychological problem. The name that Sally was known by for 14 years is suddenly a "deadname" that actually causes her distress if anyone eles dares use it, or if anyone uses a pronoun that refers to her original physical sex. This policing of old names and pronouns seems like dissociation.

Part of the problem emotionally for your DD may be that she feels Sally/Ron is negating their shared history. And yes, Sally/Ron may be doing exactly that. Maybe Sally/Ron is on edge with DD exactly because DD is the one who remembers the old Sally.

Do you know her mum? If yes I would perhaps had a word with her and say while dd will support her after so many years she will slip up, it is not malicious, she is only a child and finding this difficult too and can she support/mentor Ron to take slip ups with good grace.

Actually it IS hard. If you've known someone as Sally for years, used she, and that person looks the same as they always did, speaks with the same voice, then yes, suddenly being expected to use a different name and pronoun without ever daring to get it wrong is bloody hard.

"Ron" 🤣 Get her round to have a look at your dodgy boiler. Has she learnt how to do that sucking in air through pursed lips thing to imply it's going to be a big job?

Again - we're talking about children and schools - not adults. Few schools have the extra staff to manage additional changing rooms - no supervision = safeguarding risk. Plus when Year 9 PE happens, as well as the 2 single sex changing rooms you will also need a mixed sex changing room - for Sally now Ron plus maybe Daisy now Don. And of course Bert - now Wilhemina and Bob - now Roberta will also require access to that mixed sex changing room at the same time too. How would that work? Envisage any problems?

The inability of so many posters on a board called Mumsnet to fail to consider the safeguarding and other issues this adult belief in sex change causes for children is quite remarkable - and very depressing.

If your DD is feeling anxious around her friend and that her genuine mistakes will be 'punished' by her friends anger, its time for her to step away from the friendship. This would be the advice to any child or adult in a relationship that made them feel this way. The fact this involves a trans identity, is neither here nor there. Trans isn't a magic charm that compels others to tolerate situations that are making them unhappy.

My child calls our cat Salamander 😂

I would use their preferred name/pronoun. Unless they were using the ridiculous neo pronouns, which I would draw the line at

This is an actual friend we're talking about

Trans isn't a magic charm that compels others to tolerate situations that are making them unhappy.

^^This, exactly.

Those on this thread like @Sabire9 who are fulminating about narrowmindedness and hatred: can you tell us what it is about “gender identity” that makes it so much more special than any other kind of inner belief system that people have, that it ought to be “respected” (or validated, or venerated, or whatever), when any other belief system wouldn’t be?

Good for Sally's brother.

The more that people affirm Sally in her new "identity", the harder it would be for her to ever admit she has changed her mind, grown out of her contrary phase and wants to be Sally again.

I understand if your daughter doesn’t want to upset Sally outright, but if she spends the whole time with her walking on eggshells maybe she should tell her honestly she finds it too stressful, and start pulling back a bit from the friendship (though that would unfortunately leave Sally with one fewer sensible people in her life).

I think the closeness of the friendship is a really important factor here and will have a big bearing on the appropriate response. (Which could possibly involve the friendship becoming less close than it currently is.)

The truth isn't 'small minded'. Pretending people change sex to align with ridiculous gender stereotypes, is pretty small minded though.