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?

It's not the same as just changing name or using a nickname because of the pronoun change as well.

We expect someone we refer to as "he" to be male, so if a female person indicates that they want to be referred to as "he" they're signalling that they see themselves as male expect everyone to believe that they are male.

We can go along with this and use "he" for that person out of a sense of support or friendship, but we can't force ourselves to believe that this person is now male. "He" is then happy if as far as "he" knows, "his" friends all see him as male. Except when they don't. Because every time someone slips up and uses "she" it becomes obvious that they don't believe it. It's not just compelled speech, it's compelled belief.

men wearing women’s clothing is not new.

asking people to pretend they are women and act in the role play or else is new.

AGP is icky yes!

You believe people can change sex don’t you?

😬

That really is what it boils down to, isn't it? A belief in something that is demonstrably not true. I don't think it's new and icky. I do think it's dangerous for women, children and vulnerable people, and I won't go along with it.

Other people can believe what they want about themselves, but no one has to go along with it. I don't affirm my schizophrenic friend's delusions, and really, it's not different, is it?

There is actually nothing in the OPs posts to suggest that her daughter would be 'going against the group' if she decided she couldn't go along with what her friend requires of her. The OP has given us no indication at all what the other children think about it, other than to say they forget to say Ron at times too.
There's something that really doesn't sit right about adults issuing dire warnings to children that they will lose their friendships if they don't fully meet the requirements of trans people. It's often projection based on what the adult in questions thinks should be the case, and has little basis in the reality of the norms and behaviour within the teen group in question.

No child wants to be left isolated in school. That would be the most damaging outcome for her.

She said she wants to do this as it's all making her uncomfortable but they are all in the same friend group and it's not a big school so she doesn't have much of a choice.

On the other hand, my daughter had a <girl’s name> classmate who she’d known for 6 years in primary, who decided they were now <boys name> and within a week had all got used to it and now 5 years later is still <boys name> and none of the kids were bothered by it in any way.

Maybe it’s only the adults who can’t get their heads round it.

That's not really a good thing. Children that young should not be sold the lie that you can change sex. Of course, it's easier for them because they're still at that age where the line between belief and reality is blurred, and magical things can happen. The older we get, the harder it is to battle our cognitive dissonance and deny the reality we see in front of us.

Having been in a toxic friendship I can tell you, categorically, this is not true.

Seriously, why are you advocating the OP's daughter maintains the terms of a friendship which is making her 'walk on eggshells'?

False equivalence there.

If someone decides they want to be known by a different name, why wouldn’t you make that simple change? Anyone can change what they want to be known by at any time. If a wife takes her husband’s last name, do you agree to use the new one? If someone decides to change their name because they just don’t like their name, would you use it? In both scenarios would you want to be sure they have a clean bill of mental health first?

Someone I know changed their name from a girl’s name to a male sounding version of her name, not because of gender, but because they had a seriously toxic relationship with their mother and she was triggered when she heard her name. Her mental health was in a really bad place because that relationship, should I have decided that was the wrong name and keep using her girl name?

To not use a name because you don’t agree with someone’s choices is a twattish thing to do.

The bullying and coercion techniques used by the trans movement are on full view here aren't they?

Comply or be shunned.

I'd probably use the name because names are inconsequential. I wouldn't be using pronouns that don't relate to their sex though, because look at the mess we're in because we've acquiesced to what was a "simple" request. We've had rape victims being forced to call their male attackers women, for god's sake. We've had rape victims told, but eh NHS, they couldn't have been raped because there were no men on the ward. It's not a simple request.

I think it's more twattish to get annoyed when you're friends slip and make a mistake about this stuff to be honest. We're all only human, and mistakes happen. I still sometimes call my new dog by the old dog's name several years on.

People changing their names is a rare occurrence. And I think that's why it is generally accommodated - it's assumed it's done for good reason,

If it became something that people did more frequently and more on a whim, I think general levels of societal accomodation would change.

It’s absolutely a good thing because it teaches children to be inclusive and not judge, not matter what your views on how someone else chooses to live. Nobody “sold them a lie”, a kid wanted to use a different name. Despite what people will have you believe, there was no widespread contagion, the whole class didn’t then identify as kittens or unicorns, nobody died, nobody was hurt, the world kept turning.

I have seen my daughter’s views evolve over the years in a way that might not have happened if she hadn’t had that experience.

Incidentally, the first primary school she went to was a catholic school (our reasons were complex and nothing to do with religion), and she was told aged 5 she wasn’t allowed to talk about my BIL and his husband, because they didn’t want other children believing it was ok for people to be gay, let alone gay and married. We moved her from that school to somewhere which allowed people to be who they wanted to be. Hopefully this next generation of people will be far more accepting rather than deciding they know better.

You can not judge people without lying about reality, though. It's really not a good thing, and studies have backed this up, to pretend to children that they can change sex and at such a young age, changing names and telling kids to refer to a girl as a boy, will absolutely give them the impression that is possible.

You're being naive if you think kids aren't being sold a lie.

Maybe read some mdetransitioner stories. Maybe read about the young women who thought they'd still be able to breastfeed after double mastectomies, or these transmen convinced they could father children.

People changing their names is no more a rare occurrence than trans people coming out. You have no evidence that anyone is coming out “on a whim”

If one of your colleagues was a trans man, you'd insist on referring to him as 'her', regardless of how it made him feel, because you read a story about a rape victim being asked to refer to their attacker by a female pronoun and because a rape allegation wasn't handled correctly in a situation involving a transgender person?

That's how things work in your moral universe?

Teaching our children that men can become women and vice versa is none of those things.

It's anti-science, anti-safeguarding and anti-women.

Why cant we simply assert everyone's right to express themselves as they choose - whether they're male or female?

There is no 'right' way to be any of those things after all. Nothing about how we engage with gender stereotypes changes our sex.

No, I think referring to people as something they are not, leads to situations like this. There was a man on the female ward, but because he said he was a woman, and everyone had to call him she and her, that poor women was raped and then gaslit about it. Language matters, so I'm not going to use wrong-sex pronouns at all. It might seem like a small thing, but it's not.

I mean, I wouldn't go out of my way to offend them. I would try not to use gendered pronouns at all, but using the wrong pronouns it not a neutral thing at all.

You'd refer to her as 'her' because she's a woman, nothing can change that. Having accurate language to describe things is important.

If acknowledging reality is so distressing for her she needs to see a therapist.

@Sabire9 Why was the allegation not handled correctly? Because everyone was lying about the truth of the person's sex so as not to offend them. In the meantime, that poor woman was put through hell. It's not wrong or bad or bigoted to speak the truth and believe in material reality. Someone being upset at being correctly sexed is better than women being raped, abused, gaslit, and...well the horrors of this new ideology are so many I could be here all day.

Some people tell kids that god is real. Some tell them Santa and the tooth fairy exists. That unicorns are real. That the ice cream van has empty music. We told my daughter the nearest oil refinery was a cloud factory. She went to a live showing of her favourite kids show and for months afterwards thought the theatre was where they lived and asked if we could go visit them. “Reality” to kids is totally different to what we experience as adults, are you saying we should sit them down and explain the adult world to them right from the start? Ask yourself why it’s important to you that this “lie’ is one kids shouldn’t be told, but all the others are ok?

This is no different. They will learn complexities of the world as they mature.

You honestly cannot see the difference between someone asking you to call them what they actually are versus what they feel they are?

For those who think changing pronouns has no consequences, consider this.

The recent court case involving Sandi Peggy (a woman) and Dr Beth Upton (a man).

Here are two different ways of describing Dr Upton's actions.

Using 'preferred pronouns' - She went into the woman's changing rooms and took off her clothes in front of the women present.

Using sex based pronouns (most people's long standing norm) - He went into the woman's changing rooms and took his clothes off in front of the woman present.

Two sentences describing exactly the same thing. But they have a rather different effect, don't they?

Which one helps us safeguard women and which one hinders that?

Nope.
As.already.explained.