Autism vs trans - clashing views

[sunshine244]

I'm in a tricky position with my AuDHD 12 year old. There is a trans boy in their class who recently started using a new name and pronouns he/him.

My son is very black and white thinking and very scientific. He is a bit grumpy at having to learn a new name as he struggles when e.g. teachers or family/friends get married and change name. But he has accepted that pretty quickly. But he flat out refuses to use the new pronouns as he says a girl can't just decide to be a boy unless they have surgery (which at this age of course isn't going to happen).

I sympathise with his as personally I don't think social transitioning this young is sensible. But I am also aware that the child's parents are very pushy about the situation and have already posted in the parents group about children bullying by not using the right pronouns/name. They got a lot of support from other parents.

I suppose my aibu is should i be forcing my son to use the child's preferred pronouns?

Yabu - I need to push my son to use preferred he/him pronouns

Yanbu - let child decide which pronouns to use or try to avoid pronouns

So where does the calls for beheading, die in grease fire, and so on infinitum come from then? If the “be kind” is reciprocal?

Yanbu. Life is difficult enough for your son to navigate without pressuring him to learn to lie.

Encourage him to try to avoid using any 3rd person pronouns in the presence of this kid. Use their name instead of a pronoun, or make the sentence about several children so that plural They applies.

Nb at some point tackle his mistaken belief that the valid reality of sex could disappear with surgery. There is no surgery that makes a male into a female or vice versa. Male or female sex is encoded into every single one of the 30 trillion cells in the human body. A male body that has had cosmetic surgery is still a male body even if it is missing a bit. A female body that has had cosmetic surgery is still a female body even if it has an extra bit grafted on. Nevertheless it's important that your son should respect the classmate's choice to use a new name and to follow different sexist stereotypes than the ones that society expects for their birth-sex - but your son does not have to believe they have actually changed sex or pretend that he believes it by using wrong-sex pronouns.

I have no idea. I've never said anything like this? Maybe you have be confused with another poster, though honestly, if someone is saying those things I'd report it.

These have been well-documented regularly seen responses to women suggesting that a male person putting on a skirt has not become female. I am sure we have the screenshots if you haven't seen them. I don't expect this child who is OP's DS's classmate has done anything quite so vile but does need to learn that expecting 29 other children to deny the reality in front of their eyes and pretend they don't see what they see is very unkind. A girl can have a short haircut and wear trousers and use the name George. This has been happening for many decades - it was hardly a new phenomenon when Enid Blyton wrote the Famous Five books in the 1940s. But children who want to do these things need to understand that their control and rights and autonomy only extend to their own body and do not reach inside the heads of their classmates.

A couple of years ago now DD11’s end of year school report gave her 1/5 for kindness. I mean we found it hilarious as she’s very matter of fact. I did laugh and ask her if she could try and be a little bit kinder at school. She said that they’re always told that they’re perfect as they are at school so why should she change something about herself if she’s already perfect and that she’s kind to the people she cares about - even if it isn’t that many. I thought it was a fair point actually as how many posters do you get on MN that prioritise every fucker but themselves and struggle to say no due to being people pleasers at great detriment to themselves. School have had her looking after the younger FS/Y1 children and she is very kind to them as she says they need more help than someone who’s crying because they don’t want to be ‘on’ at tiggy.

So no, I let her choose what she thinks is appropriate and try to talk through the other persons point of view so she is more well rounded and can think about it herself. If I told her to be something she is not I don’t think it would be good for her inner confidence and would make her more stubborn. She’s a strange one but very entertaining.

When I’m talking to someone I never use their pronouns anyway, if I want to avoid it in conversations with others I just use their name.

Two autistic children not understanding eachother. Hardly news. Your son is correct

I was being ironic by flipping the confession over.

Well I’m autistic, but I mask well, I am also very polite and the polite thing for your DS to do in this situation is to call the trans child by their current chosen name & refer to them by their current chosen gender.

Explain to DS that in social situations; politeness often has to win over bluntness or what he sees as honesty. Basically little white lies are often acceptable.
To avoid causing huge upset & offence to the individual he is addressing; to keep friends, & to avoid him from being bullied for any perceived rudeness or bad behaviour.
It will be difficult for DS to initially understand / accept this viewpoint but he will find it a lot easier to function in society going forward if he does.

Sadly when you are autistic you can’t always be your true self in this world; there is a lot of hate for neurodivergence.

My personal beliefs on the trans situation are live & let live.. I have a couple of trans friends & it’s all good.
But obviously a lot of others feel strongly in the opposite way.
I just think that at school.. as a fellow pupil you should never decide to upset or cause hurt when it can be avoided. That principle should be more important than ‘being right / honest (in your DS’s view) I think.

If parents are encouraging children to be kind then they could encourage them not to expect others to lie for them

It's not kind to lie. It's putting vulnerable children on a collision course with reality.

Agreed. To quote the late great Magdalen Berns, without the swearing, I’d rather be rude than a liar.

Your son should be Education Secretary.

He is 100% right and just because the lunatics are running the asylum, does not mean that he has to believe the stuff they are coming out with and nor should he condone them.

Pronouns are not a little white lie. They are a transactivists Trojan horse.

Obviously your first sentence has been corrected by others and I’m glad that you understand.

Do you think it is kind to instruct an autistic child to use words they know to be incorrect when you know they will struggle with that?

Do you think it is kind, as an adult, to agree that a young girl is ‘really a boy’ and to instruct a whole school to acquiesce to her parents unreasonable demands?

Making that kind of a whole school announcement means that girl will now find it extremely difficult to back away from this decision made as such a young child. Feelings change so much over a short period for children, especially through the hormonal turmoil of puberty.

If there is no adult encouragement or affirmation, the cast majority of kids with these feelings will grow out of them as they progress through puberty.

That is the best case scenario now, that she will have to make a difficult and hugely embarrassing announcement that she isn’t ’really a boy’ (I have seen exactly this scenario with DDs friend, she had the name change and announcements but is now mortified about the whole thing as she looks back at her reaction to a difficult time through puberty).

The worst case scenario is that she believes the lie by trusted adults that she is really a boy and will need to modify her body to ‘be her true self’. This body modification would involve amputating her breasts (can be done privately from 18) and taking large doses of testosterone (also available privately) which will harm her health in a number of ways. She is quite likely to suffer vaginal and uterine atrophy with long term use which will cause chronic pain, infertility and require further surgery. She is also very likely to wear a binder which will deform her breast tissue and ribcage.

All because the adults in her life won’t tell her the truth, that she will always be a girl and the safest, most effective solution to her current distress at being a girl is to learn to accept it and the feelings will almost certainly pass and she will be ok.

None of this is kind to children.

Its tricky to keep up so apologies if I miss replying to any comments of questions.

My son has been bullied quite badly by several kids in this class. Despite that he's always kind and quiet and never been in trouble at school. His ADHd is very internalised and he's absolutely not the throwing chairs across the classroom type.

As mentioned previously gender has been something has often been bullied about. He plays with girls and pink used to be his favourite colour. Over time people called him gay and a girl regularly. This was merely based on appearance. Its led him to express suicidal thoughts and to self harm at points.

So I can understand that seeing that just changing clothes and names can lead to a new gender is quite upsetting. It has naturally made him question if he should actually be a girl. But he doesn't think he wants to be. So it's really confusing.

While this isn't the trans girls fault I do feel society is to blame for going backwards with sex discrimination. Whatever happened to the idea that boys and girls can wear and do what they want? Who decided that changing gender is the ideal outcome to being a bit different at such a young age?

Also - it has been made clear by the parents that they will view mistakes in pronouns or name to be transphobia and that they will kick up hell if this happens.

Let them. Schools are being told there is no pressure to recognise these pronouns. A child can request it but we don’t need to entertain it.

I quite confidently told a non binary 11 year old (ffs) I will make mistakes and they will need to correct me each time. That way they still have the power. It doesn’t bother me to call them them. But my mind has far more important things happening!

You kick up hell about your vulnerable boy who used to like pink being put in mental danger by this.

Also - it has been made clear by the parents that they will view mistakes in pronouns or name to be transphobia and that they will kick up hell if this happens.

Ignore the parents. They have no authority to view another child's mistakes or pronoun choices in any way at all. I think you need to find out, first hand from school not from another parent's biased take, what angle school are taking, and challenge it if it isn't suitably balanced.

I think most parents do encourage their children to be kind, yes. But I think sometimes the parents of children with trans identities- that is, the parents who are fully on board and affirming of the ‘transition’- can be rather dogmatic; see David Tennant as an example. Such parents can be very strongly entrenched in the ideology (because they’ve been told their child will kill themselves if they don’t). They can be very outspoken about acceptance of ‘trans kids’, and it’s easy to see how those sorts of parents might be busily encouraging their child to stand up for themselves, be their true selves, claim their rights etc. Rather more than teaching the child to be kind, because in their eyes, their child is a member of an oppressed and marginalised group; a victim, and the onus is on all the other children and adults to be kind.

Honestly I'd tell him to avoid this child altogether. Not because they are transitioning but because they think not using their preferred pronouns amounts to a form of bullying. Asking people to change the way they speak and using grammar that often makes no sense is a big ask and even those trying will make mistakes. Plus its no more than 'preferred', we all have things we prefer but dont get and that's life. I suspect they are looking for a reason to play victim, if the correct pronouns are used they will be saying people look at them too much, don't look at them, look at them funny etc. It's going to be a minefield.

A reminder. We all need to be respectful and kind. That means absolutely never colluding in the coercive bullying of any child to attempt to force the child to lie, twist reality and accept being gaslit in order to participate in someone else's fantasy.

To return to the OPs question, of course it would be very wrong to disrespectfully confuse, distress and harass your son by forcing him to comply with fantasy participation demands.

Best to attempt to completely avoid these toxic people and only refer to the other child by name when forced to address them at all.

The parents will increase the coercion and bullying if they sniff out dissent from the party line and unfortunately, you can't help their poor child.

Didn't mean to quote myself, was simply copying what I wrote before, because it's still 100% correct.

Absolutely. The parents are already pretending their child is being bullied because other children aren't playing along with their fantasy. They are toxic, dangerous people. OP cannot help the poor child, but avoiding them all is a very good strategy, whenever possible.

So he doesn’t question is he’s gay- just if he’s a girl?🤔 You’re being disingenuous here and clearly trying to start a pile on.

“Who decided that changing gender is the ideal outcome to being a bit different at such a young age?”

Nobody did, trans teens would happily trade places I’m sure. Everything that comes with being trans is not anything families would choose.

Oh come on, Scorched, it's pretty common experience for autistic children to be picked on for being different, odd, struggling with misplaced honesty, teased for choice of clothing and occupations, and left bewildered by it all.

To express the very foreseeable difficulty one child is going to have with another here is not 'trying to start a pile on'.