11 yo DD opening announcing she’s Non- Binary, concerned about bullying

[ConfusedBaboon]

My 11DD is due to start high school this September.

About a year ago she announced she was a lesbian. I have no issues with this at all, thought it was a little young, assumed it was just a phase but didn’t really give it much thought. Before this she’d had a few ‘boyfriends’ (usual primary school stuff).

Over the past year she has changed quite a lot, cut her long hair, mostly stopped wearing girly clothes, found a sense of style.

A few weeks ago she told me she now identified as Non-Binary.

I’m just wondering what, if anything to do? I have no problem with it at all, but I do have concerns about potential bullying as she moves to high school.

She says that all her friends at her current school know that she is a lesbian and there have been no problems there.
I know that different sexualities are more widely accepted nowadays, but kids can still be horrible and will single out anyone that’s different.

Just now she’s making an ‘About Me’ poster she’s been asked to do for her new school and it’s dominated by the Non Binary flag and I’m just quietly cringing inside and worrying that that is what her new classmates will home in on and it could go badly for her.

Should I try to gently discourage her from making it public? I do not want to suggest that she hides who she really is, but I do still wonder if it is a phase or more of an interest at the moment? She does spend too much time on Tik Tok and the likes and has taught herself all about the different gender identities/sexual orientations. She has flags of different rainbows colours in her room representing things such as lesbian/bi/non binary/pansexual – there are a lot, most I am not familiar with. It’s almost like she found a cool new idea and rolled with it?

But then, I myself am bisexual, not something I have shared with my family, and have only been with males since the age of 15, but I can remember being attracted to girls at her age, and she has consistently claimed to be a lesbian for close to a year so maybe this is more of a phase.

She’s happy in herself, though has been slightly withdrawn lately, and shows a little bit of the start of teenage strops, she is starting to develop so it seems puberty has started.

This was a long drawn out way of asking if I should suggest she keeps it to just her closest friends or continues being proud of who she is with no fear of expressing herself – something which I admire.

@ConfusedBaboon such a tough questions. My gut feeling is if you try and persuade her to keep it under wraps she will resent you for it. And the most important thing is that you and your child have a good relationship and she can feel she can tell you about anything.

If you say being open can lead to bullying and it does, she may feel she cannot tell you for fear of 'I told you do'. I think I;d maybe just encourage her to think about all that she is 'interested in animals'/'good at football'/'into this band'/'learning French', whatever so she appears as rounded and full as she is.

Any bullying I'd tackle in the normal way of alerting school and make sure she knows you have her back, always.

If I thought she would keep it quiet for now, I might say yes, encourage that for a quiet life, but I think she would see that as wrong.

Good luck.

I was bullied alot in school and spent a few years pretending to be something I wasn't to try and fit in I was still bullied but when I tried to fit in I hated my self too. I guess my thinking would be that bullying could happen either way but at least if you support her choice to share it and have her back then she will feel empowered. kids now are alot more accepting of gender and sexual identities.

honestly, I think she has to navigate this on her own.
My 12yr old dd says shes non binary too and is about to start a new school. She says if people dont like her, thats their problem. Youll probably find she gets shit from some people and others will be very protective and supportive as in many schools its actually seen as quite cool. This generation have lapped it all up and are more accepting than my generation would have been.

A lot of kids are doing this now. Just see how it goes. Bullying will be dealt with

I'm hoping that this is so widespread that it's not a bullying issue in a way that it might have been in our day. (That said, some kids will bully over just about anything.) DD14 announced a few weeks ago she was bi and has been shifting through bi-gender, bi-sexual etc labels. She's really happy with this and I'm really happy for her. I think it's a normal part of teenage finding your identity. She may stay bi, she may change, I'm not worried. What would worry me is if she wanted the rather horrific medications some of the trans lobby insist on. I'm relieved that no-one is now saying puberty blockers are safe. Fortunately so far she's expressing herself and definitely well against medication and surgery. I suspect your daughter's peers will have no problem accepting her for the person she is. Good luck to them all when schools start back.

Have you talked with her and asked why she feels the need to label herself non-binary in the first place?

I would discourage her from putting the flag on her all about me.

When I do an “all about me” for meeting groups of people at work, I talk about hobbies, pets, holidays and favourite travel locations, what music I like, my pet hates, my favourite restaurant, my greatest fear, my most treasured possession, 3 things I’m aiming to do this year, my favourite film or actor, etc. It’s supposed to be relatively light-hearted, isn’t it? You don’t have to interpret the “all” in ‘all about me’ so literally. I would not dream of announcing to a group of strangers anything about my sex life. I just think that is an overly personal thing to share, plus I don’t want my sexuality to define me.

I would not have let her mess around on TikTok though, and I would try to rein this back in and protect her from social media that has content for older adolescents. You should try to have a frank discussion with her about sexuality. She is still just a child, she has many years to figure it out. Cool that she’s cool with it, but sounds like she’s experimenting a bit and may not really know what she wants yet.

I expect being non-binary is, unfortunately, seen as more acceptable than being a lesbian.

I would discourage this & encourage any child of mine to consider that 'all about me' is generally about connecting to others and, for kids, making friends. Would she really want someone to be friends with her just because she identifies as non-binary? What does that actually tell anyone about her if they wanted to talk to her? There are probably ways to infer it by giving some of her favourite media which would then at least be something to talk about & give a bit more limited control.

My advice to my kids (especially my daughter who came out as 'probably lesbian' at a similar age) has always been to view sexuality as a trait rather than an identity, that puberty is a time it develops & there is no need to rush into anything, that it isn't 'hiding' not to talk about it & that at school, it's a cat that can't go back in the bag & it's entirely out of one's control after that. Others will apply their own ideas of what that means once someone is out(ed). It's not a battle my daughter needs to fight yet and I don't think it's a battle she should be fighting when she has such limited control and power in that environment. Thankfully, she agrees, just having the rumours and nasty comments about her over the last year or so from turning down guys has been enough stress without making it a thing.

I'd put the same on gender identities with the added caveat that we're never entirely in control of our social identity, it's always a blend of what we put out there and how others interpret us with a lot of other environmental factors thrown in. We may want to be perceived one way, and putting a label on it is one way to try to achieve that, but it's a really weak one compared to people seeing her actions & it would be putting her in the position of being the spokesperson for a large and varied group, as many visible minorities often end up being.

It is such a difficult one. I probably wouldn’t ask her to take it off or encourage her to specifically, but I would probably have a conversation about how not everyone is as accepting. And also a conversation about how personal of a thing sexuality is, and does it need to be public knowledge for all in the first place.

I think partly the problem is, at this age, people are still finding themselves, she may very well change her mind, she may stick with it, there may be another label she finds fits better later along the line, should she want one.

I agree the ‘all about me’ should probably be more lighthearted stuff and sexual orientation is something we should be sharing with close friends maybe should we want to but not the whole public, it’s actually none of their business.

I would try and just have those conversations and see if she makes the decision to change it on her own. If she doesn’t then, she will need to just weather whatever comes with you there to support her I think.

10/11 year olds have no reason to announce their sexual orientation from the rooftops . Maybe just tell her it's not relevant at school. Announcing she was a lesbian in Year 6?!

To be honest this is all the rage the cool kids at dds all girls comp are pan/non binary/lesbian. The straight girls seen as very dull and “basic”.

@MsTSwift

To be honest this is all the rage the cool kids at dds all girls comp are pan/non binary/lesbian. The straight girls seen as very dull and “basic”.

Bloody hell

So things have changed a bit among teenagers. In the past ten years or so I haven’t seen any homosexual bullying- in fact I think it would be seen as being a bit weird of the bully. That’s not to say it won’t happen- but it certainly isn’t like it was back when we were at school.

It is maybe a bit odd to be going on about your sexuality/gender identity in Year 7. At that age many of the year group are still quite little. As a teacher I’d probably flag it up as a concern about your daughter and the fact that she’s questioning aspects of her identity at such a young age- I’d expect that activity to produce things like favourite bands, pets or foods. Your daughter’s response says possibly more about her maturity and personality than her gender identity.

You’re lovely for being so supportive. I think she’ll probably be fine. She sounds like a strong personality!

I thi k you need to stop her having unfettered a cess to inappropriate internet sites. She is 11 years old fgs. How on earth can children with no sexual experiences declare their sexual orientation to the world?
She should be thinking about ponies, or sport or books or suchlike rather than what bloody gender identity she has!

Wonder if it’s a way for young girls to “opt out” of the over sexualised grim porn culture. Can’t blame them really.

I wouldn't ask her to hide who she is.
I would encourage her not to define herself totally by sexuality. That's just a small part of 'all about me'. Let her do what she wants but point out that the teachers are probably looking for things like what she likes to read, what sports she is into, her favourite foods etc. Does she want to be forever defined by her sexuality?

I think there's a very long road between "hiding who you are" and understanding that not everywhere is an appropriate venue for spilling your guts about things the world and his dog doesn't need to know 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think she got the expression somewhere. If it was from friends at school that's because everybody's talking about it. If it were from the internet is the same internet everyone else is looking at. It's not really about sex is about identity. If you're trying to get people to talk about their identity you can't very well say (in effect) 'no not that one'.

Now I've just realised this thread was started in June. How did it go @ConfusedBaboon?

@Thisismytimetoshine

I think there's a very long road between "hiding who you are" and understanding that not everywhere is an appropriate venue for spilling your guts about things the world and his dog doesn't need to know 🤷🏻‍♀️

This absolutely. My son has just gone through a very similar thing. Not about his sexuality (about which he has nothing to say at this point) but about our family setup. It’s something not to be ashamed of but it’s not something to broadcast to everyone. He wanted to put it as a ‘fun fact about me’ on his leavers year book. I too cringed about it. I did get it removed from the book - it’s my job to help him tread the line between openness and inappropriateness.

Also agree that every 11 yo girl is non binary now. I think it’s a way of saying ‘I’m not ready’. I support that view - they are not ready for the pressures on them. I just don’t agree with their solution which is to claim an identity that promotes an unfortunate ideology.

They're not asking about her identity, they expect to hear what books she enjoys reading and whether she's chosen ballet or horse riding as her favourite hobby. Really, nobody expects "I'm non binary!!" to be the prominent feature on an " introduce yourself to the class" poster for an 11 year old 😂

Tbh I think if kids are going to bully, they're going to bully. Glasses/weight/hair colour/orientation etc, whatever they can pick on they will. Sometimes they'll bully without having a specific 'thing' to pick at.

Having said that I'd try to ensure that her poster didn't overly emphasise the non-binary thing. Include it for sure but as someone else said, favourite colour/music/YouTuber etc are probably more what is expected.

Honestly, this is the kind of bollocks you get for letting a young impressionable child on to social media platforms that are not appropriate at all for them.

I’m not talking about the ‘lesbian’ bit, she may well be gay, children used to know if they were or not without the aid of a search bar.

But the navel gazing ‘non binary’ bullshite...I’d be mortified if my daughter was sucked in by that cult. Mostly because I’ve raised her to understand how damaging gender stereotypes are and that anyone with half a brain cell doesn’t listen to them. Who exactly is strictly ‘binary’?!

She probably won’t get bullied, as it’s very much in ‘vogue’ at the moment. At most the smart kids may give her a wide berth. Narcissism, even artificially learnt narcissism, is no fun to be around.

Like a PP said, my concern is that would be that she is using this as a way to identify out of being (a possibly non-gender-conforming) lesbian, which, as far as I can tell, is a lot lower down the kudos table than being non-binary. It's shit but that's how it is. I'd take a look at the feminism board on here to understand more about the bigger picture, if you haven't already.