DDs "trans phase" ending?

[Thismightbeouting]

Dd14 has always been stereotypically masculine. Its just a look she likes. No problem.

She hates her birth name so goes by a ridiculous name instead (think Spite or Quasar or Moth etc). Whatever but I do cringe when I speak to the school.

Social contagion at her school is awful so she was very quickly TOLD by her classmates she was trans. For a couple of years she found it funny.

She is a very young looking and quite niave 14 year old but despite that, someone at Pride sold her chest binders 😤. I found one and she eventually told me she was trans. Obviously I gave her a huge hug, told her I loved her and she could talk to me etc but otherwise went down the "that's nice dear" route. I explained the problems with chest binders (which obviously the person at Pride didnt😤) and with her consent I replaced the chest binders with strong hold sports bras. She wasnt ecstatic but was happy enough.

That was last year. Since then shes decided she hates me. If we go a day without her accusing me of something or telling me shes moving out in 4 years and wont ever speak to me again, we're doing well. So needless, to say, we havent talked about the trans thing (or anything else 😪).

Last night someone called her "they". I asked her about it and after being told I dont care about her and it doesnt matter because shes moving out in 4 years, she told me that she thinks she is "gender fluid", not trans but hasn't decided yet (decided?).

I just said ok, that she doesnt need to label herself and that I love her.

She went on to say that she is changing her name again. This time she wants a "professional female name" that has a masculine shortened version. Her current favourite is Nicola / Nick. She said its my fault because she hates her birth name. I just said make sure its a proper name this time and we laughed.

So, do you think she seems to be coming through the other side of the trans nonsense? I think all signs point to yes? Quiety optimistic bit not counting my chickens yet.

Firstly, you are doing really well, but you must feel extremely stressed. I have been through something similar and it can be overwhelming. It does sound like her 'trans identity' is not as fixed as she thought, and you should be applauded for giving her the space to row back.
You may indeed find that she comes out of it more once she changes schools. My son. who is a little older but had secretly got hormones, appears to have broken off contact with anyone he may of mentioned his new identity to. They can feel a bit embarrassed by it all.
I would second what someone else said about neurodiversity. Although I'm cautious about laying everything at the door of ND, my son has since had a diagnosis of ADHD.
Again you are doing so well. You are allowing her space, you aren't dictating, you aren't guilt tripping her, but you are reaching places together where you can move forward.

And yes, as everyone else says, she hates you because she's 14

Edited to add: on the name, I really hated mine for years. Mainly because people didn't get it quite right. She may even come to like hers, but it's no biggy if she doesn't

Sounds a bit like a friend’s Gdd, formerly very much into ‘girly’ things, who decided at around the same age that she was a boy, and chose some ‘way out’ name that isn’t usually even a name. According to friend she had always been a bit of ‘a little madam’ so assumed she was doing it because a) it was very fashionable, and b) it would really piss her parents off but they wouldn’t feel able to object.

So the parents were (apparently) fine with it (evidently not the desired reaction) and after a year or so the novelty eventually wore off and she reverted to more or less the former norm.

You really should be ashamed of yourself

My goodness OP I don't think I would have navigated this so well. You are doing brilliantly. Makes me realise I had it pretty easy with my two DD's.

Does she know she can legally change her name at some point? Do you think knowing this may make her a bit happier regarding her given name?

She’s doing no such thing.

tbh I think she’s behaving with admirable restraint, not so much in relation to her child’s ‘identity’ as to the general disrespect. Maybe a lot of teens are like this but I think it’s mistaken to say that this is normal! (The poster with the list including poking the cat’s eyes sounded a lot like the toddler ‘cutted up pear’ vibe tbh!)

If anything I think maybe the OP has been a bit too reasonable and not set quite firm enough boundaries earlier on - but they are where they are and it sounds like the child is maturing a bit so things will hopefully improve all round.

OP I found my teen was really struggling at that age too. My teen had a group who was hyper focused on being transgender. Out of the 7 friends, 5 ended up with transgender identities. In the end, the severe mental health issues within the group meant my teen found it much better for their own mental health to leave the group. Now as a uni student, my teen looks back and now agrees with many of the issues that they fought us on.

But that period of 14/15 years was hard on the family dynamics.

"You don't need to label yourself and I love you."

This is great.

OP, what’s the new school like?
The reason that I ask is that I’ve had a horrendous time with my 14 year old but I’ve moved her to a new school and just getting her away from a toxic culture/friend group has made a world of difference to her behaviour and attitude. They are so driven by the desire to fit in at that age.

Giving them space to work though this stuff - back and forth - while hard does seem best.

DD1 at uni now thinks her friends were difficult people and she no longer in any touch with them - and some of them have reverted back os so heard on grapevine. She doesn't mention her name now - though if she wants to change it she can now - she does now have tattoo and piercing - which 70+ MIl goes on and on how wonderful they are - not sure that's what she wanted.

Middle kids is sort of be kind but also eye rolls at a lot of it. Youngest 16 fed up with it all - eye rolling nonsense but she had drama in friednship group from kid in care weponisng trans/pronouncs and swapping back and forth.

I think she is realising that identity is complex and not something that is about labels. The fact she is considering a formal female name makes me think that she does understand the difference between sex and gender and hopefully that you can be a female but have traditionally masculine clothes, hobbies and career. Dressing in a androgynous way is fashionable currently too.

fingers crossed for you op

I would ask her why she thought women couldn't be anything they wanted to be? Masculine, feminine, strong, gentle, sporty, demure. And didn't she see that gender fluid was just...sexist? Because it implies women or men have to be a certain way to be women or men.

'Trans is one thing. But we've established you are not trans. So why do you need to give yourself a funny label? It basically just says you have internalised mysoginy Nickypoo, sorry'.

Dd has a friend who at 16 has a daily reminder of her now utterly embarrassing decision to change to her ‘trans’ name on the register. She has dropped all thoughts of being ‘trans’ but the school won’t change it back. They should never have changed it in the first place. 13 yr olds shouldn’t be allowed to make those decisions.

The OP is very obviously giving her the space to explore her identity.

'Trans nonsense'. And the award for the most appalling parenting goes to...

I reported a similar comment earlier week and they ignored the report. What chance do we have as a free and equal country if such vile, transphobic comments are so commonplace and deemed to be totally acceptable by a platform as big as Mumsnet. Both the OP and anyone involved in the ownership and management of mumsnet should be ashamed of themselves.

That sounds very deep rooted and not just about this one incident - before I’d got past the first few lines I was thinking this mum has something going on that would feel all consuming for a child - she would have likely reacted in this all consuming way to whatever the child was bringing , with possibly same outcome - likely history of merging with her children instead of supporting from sidelines

There seem to be a lot of people rocking up to this thread disappointed that the OP's clearly loving parenting has given her DD the opportunity to change her mind.

"Being condescending" - how? By being an adult who has more life experience and a better understanding of the realities of transgenderism than a 12 or 14-year-old? Note: it’s called "parenting".

"Miffed the child is finding their own identity" - how insulting and totally unevidenced.

"Not yet sure who they are at the age of 14" - exactly! So why rush to affirm and reinforce what might be a passing phase, making it much more difficult for the child to change their mind again?

Have you read the 10:13 post from @ShoutOutLucile ? You should.

Have you just arrived from 2018? Things have moved on, and now we are allowed to say that obvious social contagions are social contagions; and that people can’t and don’t ever change sex. Keep up!

Well there has been a huge amount of “nonsense” and/or downright lies, put out by the likes of Stonewall etc to children.

The recent Supreme Court judgement is just one example of their “nonsense” being called out.

So “nonsense” is a very mild term to use.

Quite.

She supported her, used her chosen name etc and has said she always loves her.

worrying about harmful
effects of binders at 14 is not abusive it’s bloody sensible they’re meant to be used post puberty!!

It was hot, she couldn’t sleep, my bed had the cat on it, and was just generally more comfortable, apparently.

That I did not think this should mean she got to sleep in my bed all night makes me the worst mum EVAH apparently 🤣

You’re handling the whole situation so well and I hope you’re Dd is now on the right track.

Generally when my DDs were teenagers and having meltdowns, to keep my cool I’d picture them as giant toddlers having a tantrum. It allowed me keep calm and think of something benign to move them on from their meltdown. It usually worked very well.

Have you actually read the thread which has several stories of teens who have gone through a trans phase and then back out the other side, and realised themselves it was all nonsense? Trans can indeed be nonsense, and I think the OP knows her child well enough to identify that

It might interest you to know that despite the vast reams of writing and many attempts to provide stable and meaningful definitions of words and concepts around trans ideology, coherence has never been achieved. Even Stonewall, one of the most invested trans charities, keeps changing its mind on key concepts.

Therefore we have to conclude that there is no sense to it - so it is non-sense.

OPs daughter was listening to bad actors who are happy for children to be harmed (binders etc) and who utilise parental alienation to achieve their aims. Thankfully OP has helped her daughter do what the vast majority of kids do and is growing up and will mature to be a happy, healthy and proud woman. Why would you think that’s ’appalling parenting’?

I have a teen DD OP you are
doing great. Mine is ND and also very non conforming and my view was that I wasn’t sure if she was just a lesbian or it’s mainly the ND. (A lot of non conforming kids just turn out to be gay of course)

Telling her you love her, minimising the outbursts etc all top notch.