Re: DS is transgender ftm 16 and happy.

[crazyhat]

In reference to the suspended thread titled "DS is transgender ftm 16 and happy." I am the 16 year old, writing it from my mother's point of view, everything I said is true, and my mother and I stand by what I said. See, a few weeks ago she told me that when I first started transitioning, she came to mumsnet for help, and was met by people telling her to not endorse it, and other things that (with hindsight) are blatently transphobic. You are all free to your own opinions, I can't stop that. But I genuinely can't describe the feeling I have towards my body, it's such an extreme disconnect, and I know that transitioning is genuinely the only solution. I am very greatful that my parents support me, unlike many parents, evidently are on here. I'm sorry to anyone who feels decieved, but I was genuinely just doing it to have a sense of understanding of what my parents generation think, and to be brutally honest, it was borderline concerning. I feel sorry for people who's have to hear "advice" from some of you. However I, and my situation, is very much real.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/lgbt_children/3732775-DS-is-transgender-ftm-16-and-happy

I think this post from @MonsteraCheeseplant bears repeating:

If being a gender is based on a feeling, why the need to physically transition?

Mummyoflittledragon is absolutely right. Please listen. For the sake of your future self.

@familyofaliens @cheeseplant i have already responded to that

One of the things that worries me most about transitioning at this sort of age, is the side effects of the medical treatments, particularly the irreversible ones.

My sense of myself wasn’t secure when I was 16. I hated being a teenager, I hated puberty.
The bodily changes from puberty were terrifying to me and something I wasn’t ready for at all emotionally.
The side effects of puberty, in terms of the way other people were viewing my body and perceiving it as a female body, and treating me as a woman, was also something I struggled a lot to deal with.
At 16, I was still trying to hide from my body because I didn’t want any of it. This was all a long time ago now. I’d never even heard of people being transgender when I was a teenager.

If I’d thought that stopping puberty by identifying as male was an option, then I’d have wanted to do it. And it would have been the wrong thing for me.
To echo a pp, at least part of the problem was that it’s still pretty shit being female in society, and I didn’t want to be bound by the expectations and boundaries our society places on women.

So I do feel worried about the possibility of some children wanting to transition for the wrong reasons, and rushing into things too fast. Especially given the side effects and irreversible changes involved. 16 seems so young to be making decisions that will change your body forever.

I have already responded to that

Actually you haven’t, but moving on - on the last thread you / your mum / whoever said your counselling covered discussion about fertility treatment. I’m interested to know if you’ve been told you will become infertile and what support you’ve been offered to deal with that.

Crazyhat ithink it’s incredibly brave of you to come on mumsnet and talk to us. I hope you’ve found it beneficial and not a hotbed of transphobia that people would have you believe. I also think it’s incredibly brave of you to go through transition, I can only imagine how difficult it is going through such a change at school. I hope you realise that the posters here are genuinely concerned that children are going through transition at an unprecedented rate these day, an increase of 240% in the last 5 years! Where do you think this increase comes from? www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3371/rr-2
And do you have any concerns or theories why approximately 80% of gender dysphoric children are girls? I do believe some people genuinely feel they are born in the wrong body and will be happier once transitioned and I genuinely hope you are one of them, but these figures and the disparity between girls and boys with dysphoria and the numbers of children with mental health issues and/or autism terrifies me. You will hopefully live to a ripe old age (although hormone treatment can decrease your life span) so you have many many years to go, can you honestly not wait another 2 years before having a double mastectomy?
I wish you nothing but good things and a happy life Crazyhat, I hope you know there is no hate towards transgender people here.

@familyofaliens yes I'm fully aware. I was offered that I could freeze my eggs but for a variety of reasons I decided not to. I plan on adopting.

Does anyone have any comments about the fact that three quarters of children/teens at Tavistock are girls wanting to transition? This is a huge increase in a few years. What explains this dramatic increase? What does it say about the current environment for girls who do not conform to rigid gender stereotypes?

I plan on adopting.

Have you researched into this? You know most children placed for adoption have experienced trauma and neglect? And that many, many people are turned down as not suitable adopters?

I'm relieved to find the other thread was you writing from what you imagined to be your mother's perspective.

You (pretending to be her) said something along the lines of "if my DS regrets the double mastectomy that'll be on him". My immediate thought was "I hope this is a troll thread because if not the mother's a complete sociopath."

But as a teen projecting during peak teenage "the world doesn't understand me", your belief that your mother might think that makes perfect sense. It's completely wrong of course, no mother (barring a tiny handful of sociopaths) would think this. But anyone who remembers their teen years would understand why a teen might think their mother felt that way.

Which is precisely why you shouldn't have a double mastectomy at 17. Your prefrontal cortex (the bit of your brain that does forward planning, assessing consequences, and impulse control) is nowhere near developed yet. You're still in peak teenage "the world doesn't understand me." For all you think you're grown up, you are not, and psychologically, neurologically and developmentally you're in the worst pace you could be to make decisions about life altering, irreversible surgery.

Have you been told about the loss of orgasm and how dramatically reduced your dating pool will be? While there are lots of men who won’t mind a relationship with a female person with short hair and trousers, the number who will find the combination of breasts removed and a vulva and vagina is very reduced. Gay men won’t want you, and the number of straight men willing to say they’re in a gay relationship will be small. I strongly suspect you are being lied to - being told you can change sex, that you will be a man and therefore gay men will accept you.

At 16 you can’t possibly have been in a long term relationship and comprehend what you’re giving up.

We ALL thought we knew everything at 16. It’s a heady, empowering feeling. Most of us were wrong and are very glad we didn’t make irreversible life and body changing decisions at that age. Heck, everyone I know who had a tattoo at a young ages hates it now.

BovaryX

There has been a wealth of comment about this over the last couple of years - government promised an investigation into the sky-rocketing number of girls presenting as trans. I think most people understand why girls would feel they want to remove themselves from the toxic culture of body image, sexual assault and the like.

@boveryx i too am shocked at the amount of referrals, particularly for under 10s. However, this does not mean every AFAB child is doing it for attention/the wrong reasons

AFAB is a meaningless phrase, OP.

As I posted on the previous thread, babies’ sex is observed and recorded. Nothing is “assigned”.

OP you are obviously surrounded by adults that fully support you. They are happy to give you what you want, when you want.
BUT you are only 16years old, your body and mind are still growing. You have a lot of stress factors in your life. Exam expectations, fitting in with friends, first love and growing up with a changing body. Of course, the easiest way to deal with this is by hiding away, not being the person everyone associates with as being you.
My advice is, wait, see how you feel when you "come out the other side of puberty". Everyone can grow into the person they want to be mentally and physically - but first accept who you truly are.

Sure. But in many ways the situation for women in the West in the 21st century is a historical zenith. Not a nadir. Surgery seems like an incredibly draconian option to deal with the challenges of being female. After centuries of feminism, it seems incredibly regressive that this is now regarded as a reasonable option.

You are so young to decide you don’t want to have a child. If nothing else, please reconsider freezing your eggs if it’s not too late. The constant, always-there gnawing pain you feel at your female body sounds so similar to the deep pain for those who want but can’t have children. It can be a desperately all-consuming sadness which you couldn’t anticipate at 16, when having children often seems like a distant place to imagine.

Like others, I do feel you are making a mistake to do anything physical to change your body when you are so young, but it is of course your choice. However, please do consider making different choices with regard to freezing your eggs.

Yes @littlemeadow thanks!! That's exactly why I said it

To reiterate, gender isn't to do with social stereotypes, but it's "an inner sense"

That's exactly what gender is, a social stereotype, nothing else. People wishing to transition are reinforcing gender stereotypes. What else is it since you can't actually change sex? You want to look like a stereotypical male, what's wrong with just refusing to accept societies expectations of how a female should look and just being you?

I am female, I have no inner sense of being male or female, only my biology ascertains that I'm female. I can be feminine and/or masculine and that's fine.

Hmm you can't keep asking this young man to answer questions on what female/male/gender/sex is. That is just language. Language is fairly limited when trying to describe a feeling.

In the same way you cannot fully explain the way you feel when witnessing the sunrise or a view from a mountain.

You can try but you will never fully do it justice, and often the phrase 'you had to be there' will be used because no words can relate to how that made you feel.

Not everything can be described using language which is why these discussions will forever go round in circles!

Sometimes there are no words and if we can get our heads around that then we can all be more accepting of the feelings that words can not fully explain.

Crazyhat, I guess what many of us are saying is that what seems like rock solid certainty at 16 may seem very different in five years. The irrevocable nature of such a step is something that I think is very worrying.

Quote....
because it's based of something (its not a feeling but that's the easiest way to explain it) and that feeling makes me believe my body should be male. Socially transitioning would not be enough.

......
In the same way someone with a delusional disorder believes their arm is made of wood, the solution isn't really to chop off their arm is it?

The problem @crazyhat Is that most people consider your issue is a mental health illness where surgery is the solution and society are deeming this is ok.

Why is it ok to remove a girls breasts and call it treatment and ask everyone to accept, yet we would never consider the same for FGM and have been campaigning for legislation against it for many years?

It's fucked up. I get that it's not your fault but it's fucked up. Society, including your parents, need to campaign for funding and investment into more appropriate and less damaging forms of treatment. More research is needed, much more. The long term effects of this are completely unknown.

You also shouldn't assume every poster on Mumsnet is 'your mums generation'. (Whatever that is)

If you wake up aged 25 and wish you hadn't done it what then?

As well as all the physical changes how would you cope socially?

I imagine embarrassment stops people doing lots of things.

When I was your age I was so CERTAIN about everything. I was right everyone else was wrong. I was the only mature teenager. Older people didn't understand. And so on.

I don't know you, but I'd like you to be happy. But why this? Why can't you just dress as you want? Call yourself a male name? Shave your head, whatever. Why does it have to be medical?
I say this to my son. He is waiting until he is 18 to do anything socially as he things then I will stop objecting.

What difference does it make? It must be like having a medal. A validation?
' I'm real I got treatment'

Can't you wait?