Trans Child

[kiwiwatermelonsugar]

I just need some advice and support on here.

My 15 year old daughter (I don't know if she's still that??) has literally just come out as trans this morning. Wants me to use He/They pronouns but I'm still struggling to come about how exactly I'm supposed to do that. I don't even get They pronouns at all. Or the idea of making pronouns seem like something huge anyway.

I'm just so confused because I thought I supported Trans people despite having some issues with women's voices being silenced over their rights but I'm just finding it so difficult when it's my own child. I never really expected it to be honest but I'm trying to sort myself out for when she comes home as she's currently revising with her friends.

She said she wants to start using a binder and wants to cut her hair and dress more masculine. I'm fine with the cutting of hair and dressing the way she likes but the binder thing worries me - surely that's dangerous, I mean kids have broken ribs and stuff if they're this young. Wants to start hormonal pills as well. 😥

I feel like she needs to wait till she's at least 18 because she's so young and decisions change so easily. But she wants to start now. She says she's been trans for about 3 months which is long enough to her but I don't think it is. I know it's selfish but I'm just mourning my little girl. I'm a single mum and I have 3 younger boys aged 9, 7 and 1 and there isn't really any family who can help me. I don't want to reveal to friends yet as I need time to process.

i keep coming back to this post.

I don’t really understand the first bit. Do you have the evidence to support the figure you posted of 3% or not? Do you understand that you posting on a support thread with misinformation is harmful, or not?

And regarding the a”30 people or less” comment. You are here presenting yourself as someone who apparently is more empathetic and knowledgeable than MN posters. That being the case, you would know these very brave people’s stories and how much they have been abused in person and across the internet for speaking about their experiences.

And here you are dismissing them and their experiences!

And you fail to make the logical connection that these are vulnerable people who are still brave enough to try to get their stories out. Plus you seem to then fail to make the easy leap, if these “30 or less” are being abused, why the fuck would others come out to speak?

Why? So you can denounce and diminish their experience too?

There is a Reddit thread currently with at least 40 - 50k detrans members. And there are probably now about 10 cases going through court in the near future, in fact in Canada a group of legal professionals recently set up a specialist practice to deal ONLY with law suits against gender clinics for mistreatment.

You don’t seem well informed at all and yet you are comfortable repeating misinformation.

TLDR

Just to be very clear. People who detransition will rarely have a presence in public speaking. They have either been abused or have seen extreme abuse and threats to those that do. Sinead Watson, mentioned up the thread gets sent messages telling her she should die or kill herself!

Those “30 people or less” are a miniscule number of detransitioners out there. They bravely carry the burden, despite their vulnerable mental health.

Could I recommend the book ‘when kids say they’re trans’ by Stella O’Malley, Sacha ayad and Lisa machiano or the podcast gender a wider lens. It was a complete eye opener for me. Being non affirming is not transphobic. It’s protecting your child.

OP and others, I am not sure if this will be any further assurance if you were / are questioning what is happening.

https://www.thefp.com/p/gender-affirming-care-dangerous-finland-doctor

This is one of Finland’s pioneering child psychiatrists who put in place their gender treatments, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala.

It seems she was also an early alarm raiser.

In this article she also points out that by 4 years, in the US military health insurance study “nearly 30 percent of patients in the sample ceased filling their hormone prescription within four years.”

“Usually, it takes several years for the full impact of transition to settle in. This is when young people who have entered adulthood confront what it means to possibly be sterile, to have damaged sexual function, to have great difficulty in finding romantic partners.” (Note: This is a study I posted upthread).

It is so important to go and do the research for yourself, as many have done on this thread. Despite what @Helpingmom1930 posted, and never backed up, clinicians don’t all agree. The support for affirming only is crumbling very quickly now with ever growing clinicians speaking out across the world and each month another court case is started.

This psychiatrist is another voice worth reading. The link has articles that she has found important, some have been posted here already.

Hey, I know this is late but I wanted to offer some advice as a fellow trans person. I get it's challenging, but you will learn. I suggest doing some research into safe binding and having a conversation with your son about it. And as for hormones, 3 months is absolutely not long enough. I've known I was trans for about five years now and that's still something I can't just jump into. So do some research and have some conversations with them.

This. Do you think she would be claiming to be trans if she had never been on social media?

Stop being silly, it's her daughter, not her son.

I also wanted to add that over the years I've identified as trans I have also known people to go through phases. One of my old friends came out as trans, she was certain she was a boy. A few years later and she's an amazing young woman. Trans people do exist. Real trans people who genuinely aren't their agab. A lot of people these days may think they're trans and change their mind which is also okay, but it's important you support them even if you think it's a phase. Because through supporting them they'll see that you care and love them as they are. If it's a phase they'll know you support them no matter what and if it isn't a phase then they'll have a loving, supportive family to help them through it.

Real trans people who genuinely aren't their agab.

'Real and genuine' gender?

Gender is an arbitrary set of ideas; it's not really something one can apply a judgement of 'real and genuine' to.

I was under the impression that this thread was supposed to be supportive. If you cared to do the research you would know that gender and sex are different things. Gender can be influenced by biological sex.

Sex is a biological material fact. Gender is a belief and should be considered a belief. If ‘a gab’ is assigned gender at birth, this is rather harmful misinformation. No ‘gender’ is assigned at birth. Only sex and it is observed not ‘assigned’.

Telling teenagers that gender is assigned at birth is harmful.

And i and others on this thread love studies and peer reviewed academic papers. If you have peer reviewed studies showing that gender is ever assigned at birth, please do link us up so we can read them.

https://open.substack.com/pub/hazelappleyard/p/my-advice-for-gender-critical-parents?r=1b23t2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

You completely missed my point lmao. Maybe I should have said 'Asab' or whatever. But yes, gender is a belief and a manmade consept. Anybody can be any gender no matter their sex. You can medically transition to affirm your gender.

It is no laughing matter to give such misinformation. Sex is observed. It is not assigned. Again, to speak using such terminology is harmful and it is inaccurate.

On your birth certificate you're assigned a name and a sex and other such things. People can change their name and their sex characteristics to affirm their gender. When I said agab I wasn't thinking and have never seen an acronym for assigned sex at birth so I defaulted to agab.

So your name is ‘assigned’. Your sex is observed and recorded, as is your date of birth.

This is a support thread for a parent of a 15 year old. Should parents of children support a decision that a body should be changed through irreversible treatments to affirm a belief?

Or should a parent love their child and show that they understand that their child might have gender dysphoria and seek to support gender dysphoria that doesn’t include changing the child’s body?

Did you read anything I said? A parent of a trans child should show love and support while doing their own research. Getting help. For gender dysphoria and having important discussions with the child.

Sorry, but this just doesn't make sense.

Gender is an infinite range of arbitrary thoughts and feelings, so how on earth could any sex be said to 'match' any set of arbitrarily assigned thoughts and feelings? What you're saying is anyone can wear any clothing or hairstyle no matter their sex. I wholeheartedly agree.

But then why on earth would medical transition be required for anyone? Everyone can wear what they like, no medical treatment required. Boys can have long hair. Girls can play football!

Eh aah, OP and her daughter sorted this ages ago. OP very sensibly said yes to haircuts etc and no to binders or anything medical. Daughter has since desisted and is grateful that mum didn't let her go all in.

Whether some people "really are" a gender or what that would even mean is obviously a contentious question. I suppose you can "really be" a gender in the sense you can "really be" a Christian. Both belief systems that people can feel very deeply, and can stick with for life or can change their minds.

But the binders and hormone demands make it a lot more worrying than trying out religion from a loving supportive parent perspective.

And research will indicate there is no ‘safe’ way to bind. So, I think I am a bit confused as to the advice you have suggested which seems to be not based on evidence but on misinformation.

I fully agree that parents should love and support their children. I think though that with the current findings from clinicians and Dr Cass that even social transitioning is not neutral that it is important to be also clear that parents are not emotionally manipulated by people who may be well intentioned but is giving misinformation. Using terms such as ‘son’ for a female child in a post is not neutral and this is where people giving support needs to be factual and evidence based in that advice.

So absolutely parents should be doing their research. Including understanding that socially transitioning might be very harmful to their child and that there is no way to ‘bind’ safely.

Because some people have gender dysphoria. Anyone can wear whatever, but the gender usually associated with female is girl. And the gender usually associated with make is boy. Some females feel more like a boy and to alleviate the crushing dysphoria they transition.

Have you actually done your research? Because I've done years if research as a trans person. A full social transition may do more harm than good at this point, but allowing the child to experiment with pronouns and presentation will not do any harm. Either they'll like it and it'll stick or they'll decide it's not for them. There are safe ways to bind. Well, maybe not as safe as not binding but if the alternative is suicide then I very much think binding is safer. If you have the correct size, put it on correctly, and only wear for short amounts of time it likely won't cause any harm. Don't wear a binder to sleep or during exersize and if there's any pain take it off. There are also other ways to bind such as using trans tape which is definitely a lot safer than using a binder unless you have sensitive skin. If neither of those work then a sports bra usually does the trick to a lesser degree.

Allowing the child to experiment with presentation doesn't require transing at all, I'd encourage any kid to experiment with style. & Of course if they're finding boobs uncomfortable or annoying, a good sports bra should be a first stop. Surely most of us have been there? You suddenly can't run comfortably without the scaffolding, but bras are new and feel weird, and hard to find the right fit without digging in somewhere. There are some lovely soft supportive sports crop top style things now.

If the child is suicidal they need mental health support not breast binding. The solution to a child thinking of self harm is not "give them whatever they say they want". And that is belittling the seriousness of threatened self harm.

Not that we've had any indication OP's daughter felt like self harming. Pushing that narrative on kids and parents is in itself harmful, if there's one thing that is strongly evidenced to be subject to social contagion it is self harm.

Please stop using the 'better than suicide' rhetoric. It is seriously very harmful to be posting phrases such as this on a support thread. And gender clinic clinicians have also stated the harm of using this because in the UK there is no evidence to support this. Gender clinicians, even Carmichael from GIDS, have said there is no evidence that children with gender dysphoria have a higher prevalence of suicide than other children with poor mental health. However, suicide support groups have also stated that irresponsible discussion around suicide such as using suicide as a leverage for treatments or binding or using pronouns.

Have we done research? You mean going to original sources of studies and not just listening to people who might have a heavy investment in believing misinformation or repeating emotionally manipulative tactics? Yes. Many of us on this thread have kept up to date on the studies and evidence.

Using 'pronouns' is not a 'neutral' act (Interim Cass report) and can lead the child to feel they cannot desist. It is therefore not something to 'just let them play with'. Clothes should not be 'gendered' in any case and this should be something that children feel free to experiment with in any case.

'There are safe ways to bind. Well, maybe not as safe as not binding but if the alternative is suicide then I very much think binding is safer.'

This is what I am referring to. Posting this type of emotionally manipulative statement on a parent support thread is harmful as in the UK it is without merit.

But thank you for admitting that binding is not safe compared to 'not binding'.

Why on earth are you introducing suicide, @AahWheelers Nothing the OP said suggests that her daughter was contemplating anything of the kind. It's grossly irresponsible and manipulative to sneak in that kind of rhetoric.