Found diary entry and daughter thinks she is transexual

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I am absolutely in a state of shock and heartbroken. Daughter left her diary open (possibly intentionally??) and I saw the words "my breasts sicken me" and I couldn't stop reading. She spoke about how she had always felt like a boy internally and since puberty hit she has disgusted at herself and her body. She mentioned feeling like this since 7. She then describes having befriended someone online who is just like her and she has been confiding in. She talks about being how called her name and "daughter" and "sister" makes her cry in the toilets.
For a bit of background she has always chosen more male gendered toys, clothes, colours etc. Even used to ask to be a boy as a young child and all her friends were boys till about 10. She has always been secretive and private but when puberty hit 18m ago it became unbeareable. She refused to wear a bra till 6m ago, wouldn't shave armpits and has never asked for sanitary products so I have just put in her draw. About 12m ago she started wearing loads of make up and then suddenly stopped in about October. She wears baggy shirts and trousers and won't wear a bra at the weekend. She has become ridiculously private spending all her time in her room and has now begun to shut her door properly to go to bed (not had door shut since a baby as scared of dark)
She cries about everything. I don't know what to do. I cannot tell my hubbie as he will be heartbroken as she is a real daddy's girl. I am just so fearful for all of our futures, especially hers. She is extremely intelligent (Oxford uni sort of clever and gets full marks in everything) but I just see her future as ruined as she will spend her life being judged and alone. She is the sort of person who is very shy so willnot cope with being stared at if she becomes known as male. I literally am broken and do not know what to do next. To top it all include df I am worried that about this new "friend" as the bit of research I have done seems to suggest he (bale was mentioned in diary) is very vocal on lots of gender dysmorphia sites and tells everyone how wonderful his life is as a F2M.

"may be worth it for a small number of people who genuinely will have difficulty living as a gender-nonconforming lesbian, " Sorry, this should be something like "may be worth it for a small number of people who genuinely will have difficulty living as a gender-nonconforming woman/lesbian, " as not all GNC girls end up being gay.

How gracious of you to refer to a non-transitioned, biologically 100% female person as "she."

This, lady, is prejudice.

If someone says they're transgender it's only common sense and human decency to refer to them as the gender they identify with.

The fact that your immediate, unthinking reaction is to start trotting out a full-fledged plan of medical procedures speaks volumes to me.

I wanted to give the mother a rundown of the entire process, chill out. You've read some newspaper articles and think you're well educated on the entire subject? The mother knows best. I've stressed many times that the child might not have a full transition and will grow out of the phase. Enough of the hostility, please.

The mother knows best.

Well, quite. And looking at the mother's posts:

1. She says that she herself was a real tomboy as a child, and yet she is presumably is happy living as a woman now (and children tend to resemble their parents)

2. She says that she herself almost self-diagnosed with MS based on spending a lot of time online researching it (again, children tend to resemble their parents. People who are prone to anxiety by nature can easily fall into the trap of believing what Dr. Google is telling them. It doesn't mean they are foolish, just that they may be the kind of person who easily worries that there is something wrong with them).

3. She expresses concern about an online friend of this girl's, who appears to be putting a lot of ideas into her head.

4. She talks about how bright and high-achieving her daughter is--exactly the kind of traits that seem to make girls more prone to body-related obsessions (eating disorders, self-harming) that are often linked with social contagion.

I don't see anything by the OP suggesting that her response to finding her daughter's diary is "Oh, thank goodness! This totally fits! At last we know what's wrong! Now we can get treatment for her!"

Have you see some of the figures for the skyrocketing rate of increase in the number of cases of transgenderism being diagnosed in teenage girls in just the last few years? Anyone who believes that social contagion isn't a massive factor here--I have a bridge I'd like to sell them.

I never bought a bra in my life (German schools don't force you to wear them), only shaved my armpits once and decided it was not for me, and wore baggy shirts and trousers all through puberty.

Back when I was young, a woman who never shaved anything, didn't wear a bra and didn't wear make-up was the stereotypical image of a feminist.
In other words, a woman who was loyal to women and fought for women's rights.

Now, all those things are taken to mean the complete opposite - and I wonder why.

I have experience of the whole process up to the point of being offered blockers op.

I would suggest finding a private therapist. It isnt cheap, but, in my case it has been worth it (I will send you a link that someone sent me that may be helpful to you)

When you go down the route of the NHS it's help is limited and stilted and affirming and blockers are offered surprisingly quickly now.

Don't fall for the whole 'blockers are reversible' myth either. They don't allow the child's brain and body to mature, without them the likelihood is that the child will not go on to hormones then down the surgery route. With them it is far more likely that they will.

It isn't an easy road. I've been here with my child for years now. It's difficult and heart breaking and frustrating and endless but I have found a lot of support on here when I have felt close to caving in and allowing blockers to make my child happy just now.

I'll pm you with the link op.

Very true, Vestal. Young women who refused to wear heels, bras and dresses used to be marking themselves out as feminists. Those were the visible signs of gender rebellion.

OP it doesn't sound as if your DD is trans. She is rebelling against the constraints of femininity. She's hating puberty, as so many girls do. I can remember crying my heart out at the prospect of periods every month for maybe 40 years.

What you describe, with some online friend "grooming" her to believe that she's trans is what seems to happen to a lot of kids who get sucked into the gender cult. Older trans people take an often rather sinister interest in child transition.I've got some useful links I'll dig out for you when I'm on my PC. I can't paste links from my new phone.

I would be very cautious indeed about NHS gender counselling. To the private dismay of many doctors, current practice is to encourage transition, as any examination of why a kid might want to transition - social contagion, for example - is perceived as transphobic. I am aware of one parent who,gave up on CAMHS and instead found a private feminist counsellor. That might be an idea you could consider.

Don't let anyone tell you that puberty blockers are either safe or reversible. Do anything you can to avoid medical treatment, which is far more damaging to girls than boys. And do not let lies from dangerous pressure groups like Mermaids about suicide rates scare you. Mermaids CEO had her son surgically castrated at the 16 and MN feminists have been told by ex-Mermaids members that parents "help" their children by sharing sources of hormones and coaching kids as to what to say to access both medication and surgery. It's not a responsible organization.

Wow. Not been on this post for a while. As there appears to be someone who is transgender following this post I would like to ask them " why is gender dysphoria different to any other body disorder?( anorexia, body dysmorphia etc)
An anorexic believes in their mind that they are fat; should we let them starve themselves as the way their mind views their body must be believed?

Wow. Not been on this post for a while. As there appears to be someone who is transgender following this post I would like to ask them " why is gender dysphoria different to any other body disorder?( anorexia, body dysmorphia etc)
An anorexic believes in their mind that they are fat; should we let them starve themselves as the way their mind views their body must be believed?

Because body dysmorphia is a disorder where someone simply has a false perception of reality. They literally cannot see the difference between their real body and the one they have fabricated.

Gender dysphoria is not classed as a disorder but a symptom, where someone has a vision of what their body should look like, but they know reality and it simply makes them uncomfortable.

It should also be known that transgender brains are different, gender identity disorder is very real and should not be swept under the rug.

Should we let suicidal people kill themselves because their mind views them as being hopeless and a waste of space?

Body dysphoria and anorexia are also very real disorders, indeed anorexia is the MH condition with the highest death rate.

I will hunt you out some useful links tomorrow, OP.

Body dysphoria and anorexia are also very real disorders, indeed anorexia is the MH condition with the highest death rate.

I didn't say it wasn't real, I was stressing that GID is real because there are a lot of nasty small minded people in this thread.

Also, dysphoria and dysmorphia are different words.

Transgender brains are not biologically different

Transgender brains are not biologically different

Sigh. Sure thing, wise one, professional in the studies of gender identity disorder I presume?

There is reasonable evidence of some male-female differences in brainsbut a spectrum, rather than an either/or difference. I have no doubt that you will see some gender^atypical traits in gender-nonconforming people. But that doesn't mean they "are trans"it means they are gender-nonconforming.

The question is, should this person be encouraged to live as a gender-conforming member of the opposite sex or should they be steered towards living as a gender-nonconforming member of their own natal sex?

That is a tricky question. It has nothing to do with their being "trans" brains.

I think it is a mistake to think of transgenderism as being like homosexuality/heterosexuality.

Being attracted to your own natal sex appears to be fairly set-in-stonethere is no evidence that conversion therapy works, and the % of people who are attracted towards their own natal sex appears to be fairly consistent worldwidecross-culturally, about 3.5% for men, around 2% for women.

Being transgender, by contrast, is highly culturally malleable. The rate of transgenderism varies enormously from society to society and from time to time, and it appears to be linked closely to social beliefs about gender roles; generally speaking, the more rigid/binary a society is about gender roles, the higher the rate of transgenderism tends to be (hence, many TG people in places like Brazil where there is a macho culture for men. It's hard to live as a gender-nonconforming femme-y man in such places).

Take, for example, the case of a biologically male person who is attracted to men and is gender-nonconforming (likes cupcakes, soft furnishings and other things that are more associated with women; gestures and voice are often clocked as "feminine"). That person would live as a gay man in many societies. In other societies, that exact same person would probably end up living in the role of a woman, with or without surgery.

The trans issue, therefore, requires us all to think carefully about what kind of society we want to be. Do we want to be tolerant of gender-nonconforming and gay-ness, and be the kind of society where most GNC just live as GNC members of their own sex? Or do we want to be a society of more rigid gender roles, where a high percentage of same-sex attracted, GNC people instead choose to live in the role of the other sex?

I have no doubt that there will always be a certain number of people who are very gender nonconforming and find it hard to live that way, and therefore feel it is a better choice to live in the role of the other sex, and I am glad the surgery, hormones and other things exist to help this to happen.

I also believe thatfor the sake of GNC people themselves, and for the sake of society at largeit is better in the long run if we work on the assumption that most GNC people can live healthily and happily as their own natal sex, and that you don't have to rigidly conform to every rule about bras and shaving and hair length if you don't want to.

First port of call for young girls like this should be to talk to her about how she can be a woman any damn way she wants to be--it's fine not to pluck and shave and wear skirts if she does not want to.