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?

I realise it may have been a rhetorical question but the answer is because trans people have put out that they are victimised, marginalised and therefore women have to cede their safe spaces in order to ease their suffering.

And that is bollocks. But it is not bollocks I expect one teenage girl to address alone. Ultimately, addressing this has to be done collectively and not singularly. Otherwise, all you’ll get is accusations of being transphobic. So what I would say to my daughter is to go along with it, be polite, it is not the first or last time you’ll have to say one thing and think another, and be supportive when (hopefully) sally reverts back to sally again.

Yes but you're not a sensitive teen, and also you're conflating what Op's DD considers to be a "dirty look" with an official complaint for some reason?

Not even close in comparison.

I've known a few grown women lose their shit at being called Mrs instead of Ms in my time.

And you must be more tolerant than me if you think it would be reasonable for people to loudly complain about a fat person sat next to them on a flight! I mean, what are you supposed to do!? No diet in the world will work that fast, sadly!

I strongly suspect the OP is using pseudonyms.

Sally is still female, however.

So you think words shouldn’t have clear definitions that are understood by all? You subscribe to a Humpty Dumpty take on language, “words can mean whatever I want them to mean”?

Why?

The correct pronouns are those that pertain to “Ron’s” sex, which is and always will be female.

"plenty of masculine presenting women and girls, or more feminine boys and men are told they're just self-hating trans people.

Are they? Where? Who by? Plenty of transgender women are told they're perverts, mentally ill, shouldn't be allowed near children, are a danger to women, and shouldn't be allowed to access medical care to transition. There are angry, nasty voices right across the debate - plenty at your end too. Social media gives us access to a multitude of voices and opinions. It's not ok to take the most offensive and unkind of these and say 'these are representative of the beliefs of all transgender people, and anyone who supports the rights of transgender people to live in this world on their own terms."

"and trans identified males frequently use feminine gender-norms to justify why/how they must really be women."

Who does? Who are you referring to? How people feel about their gender identity is unique to them, and they're entitled to feel anything they like about it, just like you're entitled to believe and feel anything you like about yourself.

Out of interest, how many transgender people - transgender men and women - do you know? I mean actually know? Because you talk very freely about what transgender people think and believe.

@Takesomeofit you can disagree with someone and still be perfectly polite. People are free to identify how they want, they can't force their beliefs on anyone else.

The way women as a whole have been able to push back at the encroachment on their rights has been one woman at a time - Forstater, Phoenix, Stock, Bailey, Adams, Peggie (tbc) etc. etc.

I’m talking more generally, these things have happened and do happen.

Teachers losing their shit for being called the wrong name by accident? They shouldn’t be in charge of a class if that’s the case.

It's not about it being hard, it's about it being a lie.

@Sabire9

no it doesn’t, shes just trying to help a confused child understand why one day her friend was Sally, is now Ron, gets upset with her daughter when they are called Sally instead of Ron, but Ron doesn’t seem upset with her brother when he calls them Sally and not Ron

Sally/Ron needs to be consistent

Op I would just advise your child to keep trying to remember her fiend is now Ron and leave it at that

Why are referring to Sally, a girl, as he?
It is not helpful to Dally, or the world, to capitulate so easily.

I wonder why people get so upset that some people have no issue with trans people?
I respect that some don’t feel comfortable with it and that is their right. It is also my right to not have an issue.
This post is about a daughter’s reaction to her friend changing their name and wanting to use different pronouns. I have stated I would encourage my child to respect that. I don’t understand why on mumsnet, people are so intent on changing my opinion? It’s not going to happen.

@Ddakji

The 'correct' pronouns are whatever serves the social function they're intended for - language serves us and we adapt it to suit our circumstances and our relationships. My son only uses the pronouns 'they' when he's talking about his non-binary friend, out of respect for this person, because they don't identify as male or female. Their sex is ambiguous - I'm genuinely not sure what it is, and it doesn't bother me. Doesn't bother my son either.

Obviously your agenda is to enforce sex norms, regardless of the feelings and social needs of individuals. Terfs are like that. They don't give a shit about the feelings or needs of gender non-conforming people, because they hate them, and they actively want to make them feel like shite in any way they can. While also feeling self righteous and seeing themselves as 'truth warriors'.

For fear of getting it wrong. The child will stop talking to her and give her dirty looks if she messes up and calls her the name she's knows her as for 10 years.

People who make such demands on their friends and people around them end up isolating themselves.
I respect anyone else who is happy to go along with a lie, so long as my right not to go along with it is also respected, it has to go both ways.

Sally needs to learn how her actions affect others and that it’s not all about her feelings.

Who is sad enough to be making posts like this up? Jeezo!

I'm just a (neurotic) mother worried about the affect this is all having on my daughter.

She doesn't use names mostly is what I meant but when she does, she's now afraid of getting it wrong so she doesn't at all. It's causing her stress and anxiety.

All the people here who say 'its no big deal to use the name/pronouns they want' etc.

I worked for years with a woman who decided to use he/him pronouns at one point but retained a very female name e.g. "Susan" (they later transitioned to a trans man but kept the name). I had to completely retrain my brain to think "Susan = he" so that I didn't make a mistake. It was not easy at all, I had to stop and think every time I spoke about them because my brain just naturally associated the female name with female pronouns, which is actually mentally quite draining. But eventually (after months) it became automatic, so that was great.

EXCEPT - when I moved companies and began working with someone else called 'Susan'. Someone who was happily female. Suddenly I had to go through it all again, because my brain was so used to thinking "Susan = he" and now I had to reprogram myself again. I still have to think about when I mention Susan to anybody and its been over a year!

I think attempting to use someone's preferred name (regardless of pronouns) is a common courtesy. I am hugely sceptical of all this non binary, trans ideology personally. But if I'd known a friend for 10 years and they decided they were changing their name then I'd make the effort to respect that.

To be honest, I'm just as confused. Looks like I can't keep up either.

I remember a girl at school deciding that her name was not 'Louise' and declared that we now all HAD to call her Mary. It wasn't a middle name it's just a name she decided she wanted. Nobody called her Mary, and she eventually got over it. I want the 90s back.

Wait a moment.

Most of GC women absolutely support gender nonconformity. Gender nonconformity means that my adult human female me can wear what I want to, work in a field I want to, and share cooking and cleaning evenly with my partner.

Gender nonconformity means that an adult human male should be free to be as feminine as he wishes. Just it doesn't make them a woman, doesn't allow them to woman's spaces and so on.

The whole idea behind trans is extreme conformity to the concept of two genders and that people should follow their stereotypes. It just suggests people have a choice which of the stereotypes they want to conform to.

It's understandable at only 14 yrs old and barely into puberty your daughter is confused and upset especially when this girls brother gets away with using the birth name. I would tell your daughter to say to herself it's just a new nickname which has stuck. There is every chance it's a phase. If not and she starts altering her body by removing breasts etc then it will become more understandable and acceptable when she starts to look like a man.

Thank you for all of your replies. I will have a chat with my daughter later and see how it has been today but I'm thinking she's gearing towards stepping away. If she had been given time to process the changes without feeling guilty, things may have been different but since it's been pushed on her and she is expected to just change everything suddenly, she is perhaps better off without the friend in general. It's more about the control than the gender issue I think.

your DD can back away or cool a friendship for any reason she wants and doesn't need to explain herself to anyone.

She is getting "dirty looks" when she slips up with pronoun use? meh. Sometimes dirty looks are imagined by the receiver, sometimes not. If she's not doing it maliciously, her friend needs to get over themselves and get on with life. If she is doing it maliciously, time to knock the "friendship" on the head for both their sakes.

It is a big adjustment, and even if you are fully on board with Gender Identity, it can be difficult not to revert to old names or pronouns after a lifetime of using them.

But if your DD wants to cool the relationship, better do that with no complicated explanations/excuses. Just, "we've grown into different people, we had fun but we'd be better off pursuing new interests and friend groups". But only say that if there is an absolute need to do so.