Does anyone have experience of having a trans-gender child?

[tootsweets]

I'm really struggling at the moment. School are fantastic but I have no-one else with the relevant experience.

How old is dc? Depending on age then there's some very good councillors (NOT to try and get help for being the way they are! Simply to provide any help and emotional support dc needs). An adult councillor would be more appropriate with helping over certain ages but it really depends on maturity. I'm assuming said child is a teenager here btw?

There is an organisation called Mermaids which has a very good reputation. Also some good blogs out there.

How old is DC?

He is 7 and was born female. I have been in touch with mermaids and they are extremely helpful. Just wondered if there was anyone else in a similar situation?

7?? Forgive me if I'm way overstepping the mark here, but I've never heard of a child that young even knowing what a gender swap was less knowing that they want it? Perhaps I should go educate myself a bit more. Good luck with everything and seriously, councillors do much more than try to fix problems, they can provide a lot of emotional support and help, for both of you.

There are several blogs out there by parents of children much the same age, OP - I just took a look and there's this which I've read before, and various others if you google 'transgender child' - like here and here.

Hang on a mo. He was born female. So you had a girl who now thinks/is being treated like a boy. Or have I got that wrong

Yes, a trans boy.

Surely at 7 she is way too young to know what/which way they want to be. Has something happened that makes her think that being a boy is much better than being a girl and as such she wants to be a boy, iyswim like wanting to play football or something or maybe someone is having a strong influence on her that maybe she should have been born a boy because that's the gender that was wanted/expected

At 7 I was convinced I was a boy in a girl's body. I wore boys clothes, had short hair etc.

I grew out of it.

I'm not saying that what your child is feeling isn't real. But I hope that rather than convincing him/her that they fit into one particular box or the other at this young age that you are rather just supporting him/her as a whole person.

As a result of my own experience I am totally against pushing children with gender confusion to label themselves as one or the other - just let them be gender neutral children and see who they turn out to be later on.

I agree Annie,
as the saying goes "it's a phase" maybe she will grow out of it and maybe not but by giving her a (transgender) label and maybe telling her ie reinforcing that she is a boy rather than a girl will not help her decide which way she wants to go and might even end up with her getting bullied because of it.

somewheresomehow: How is 7 too young? Do many cis children not have a firm sense of their gender by the age of 7? My 9, 7, and 4 year old seem to have a pretty firm sense of theirs, but then we talk about it a fair bit. And even they know that identifying as a gender has nothing to do with ones choices of hobbies (they still all identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, even with a parent that doesn't who talks about gender and self identifying far more often than most, I suspect).

I know gender is not inherently logical and really never will be, but the idea that trans children must somehow have something happen to them and/or have someone talk them into it for them to identify as they do is really cissexist, very out of date, and rather ignores what trans people and even many gatekeepers in the medical establishment have been saying for decades, actually closer to a century. Seriously, we have research texts from the early 1900s which dismissed this idea, it's odd that it's still going around other than so many of them were burnt by those who thought gender self identity was unnatural and would destroy society (and the Nazis, they burnt almost all the books on gender and sex in the Universities).

I mean really, a baby is born a baby, gender is assigned into two categories by what their genitals look like, many children are still mutilated to fit into the false gender binary, and somehow it seems presumed that this is a such a good system that children who do not agree with their assigned gender must somehow have been brainwashed otherwise - rather than challenging the system that sets the concept that ones' genitals somehow tells us important details about a person's identity, we belittle a person's ability to self identify. Even if the person ends up ion their search for their identity not to be trans, does dismissing the possibility, making that possibility pathological, do anyone any good?

Annie - but going with a person's chosen label isn't going to do them harm them, it doesn't cause anymore confusion that pushing the gender one is assigned at birth, giving people the freedom to explore their identity and gender is not the same as enforcing neutrality. One is most free when one feels accepted as they view themselves.

The entire dogma that it is confusion rather than accepting gender questioning and exploration needs to be stopped, it causes many people a lot of harm and is used by many as an excuse to harm those questioning their gender identity and firmly outside of their assigned gender.

TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy - I think we agree though possibly wouldn't frame the argument in quite the same way. I would argue that children up until about the age of 7 have a wonderful fluidity of gender, as it is socially constructed, with boys and girls both being quite happy to play knight or princess, to dress in dresses or trousers, pink or green, to love all things sparkly and love pushing dolls in prams or play with train sets.

It's from about that age that the insidious messages that things are "for boys" and "for girls" start to be seriously absorbed, they start to be ridiculed by adults and their peers for liking the "wrong" things, that they find they have to slot into one box or the other with very little opportunity for overlap. And of course there is a huge number of children to whom this does a lot of damage. With those having the greatest dysphoria between their actual selves and society's expectations of them suffering the greatest damage.

So yes, I agree with you that the society needs a radical overhaul. But instead of making it easier (for want of a better word) for people to jump completely from one box to the other, what we need is a society where genitals are irrelevant to anything except the act of reproduction itself. It's not about being trans or cis, it's about being human in a society that would try to split us into two almost completely separate species.

This is the problem I have with the whole concept of trans - that for anyone to identify with the "wrong" gender, we need rigidly constructed definitions of what gender is in the first place in order for trans people to identify with them. You don't see transwomen wearing jeans, having short hair and not wearing makeup. Transpeople tend to fulfil every stereotype of the gender they identify with. What if there were no stereotypes? I truly believe the answer is to tear down gendered expectations of everything rather than to fight so hard to label people one way or the other. So much effort seems to be being put into accommodating trans people, to the extent that children are being given medication to delay puberty to make gender reassignment surgery easier, rather than any effort at all being put into making it okay for people to just be people, be that a person with a penis who likes to wear dresses, heels and makeup, a person with a vagina who likes to race motorbikes and drink beer, and every point on the spectrum inbetween.

Sorry, OP, I know this isn't what you asked. But the concept of gender dysphoria is a very complicated one and IMO needs examining from a societal viewpoint instead of lots of individual viewpoints.

TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy - cross-posts. It's not that I don't think children shouldn't be allowed to explore their gender. What scares me is when some parents become absolutely determined that their child is definitely trans to the point that they begin actual medical intervention all in the name of being supportive and PC, when children are far too fluid and could just as easily flow back the other way before they settle on who they actually are. I think pushing either way is damaging.

ok, but the op is labeling their 7 year old child as transgender when in fact they may just want to be the opposite gender because they see them as having more fun, exciting games or whatever being able to dress up differently which is a totally different ball game to wanting to actually 'be' the other sex and I still say that at 7 their bodies and minds are changing so much that they need to express themselves without being labeled and possibly ostracized from their peers

My child is much happier now. This is something that has been going on for a few years. I am just supporting him where he is at the moment. Nothing is being done that can't be undone. CAMHS are involved and I just want him to be happy and he is. There is a huge difference between being a tomboy and feeling trapped in the wrong body.

weatherall, you simply couldn't be more wrong. Genitalia is the last thing that defines gender.

and "tomboy"? Really? REALLY? in this day and age.

Not tomboy, just a girl. A normal girl who is not defined by media and marketing as to what she should and shouldn't be doing, liking or playing.

It's time you updated your definitions of gender.

tootsweets. I have no advice i'm afraid as i have no experience. But I have read some interesting blogs from transgender people.

One notable moment was a little boy age 5 playing on the beach and wondering where the top part of his swimming costume was like the other girls.

I hope you find the support you need.

Toots, I'm sure you've come to the place you're at after a lot of thinking and discussion. I don't have any perinatal experience, but I remember a younger sister of a friend telling everyone that she was a boy and only answering to the make version of her name. She's now 30, and although still lives as a woman has clearly worked out the gender and sexuality that she is happiest with.

I wish you and your boy the very best.

Thank you all so much. This is a very difficult and delicate situation. It is my child's life to live and all I want to be is their mum. To protect, love and support him. It doesn't matter to me what he calls himself as long as he is happy and feels secure and in control of his future at this present time.

tootsweets I just wanted to say that you sound like a bloody fantastic mum. Whoever my ds turns out to be, I hope I can be as supportive as you. I think you are superb. :)

Thank you. That means a lot. I have been raising my four children on my own for the last three years and it's lovely to hear something so nice. X