Help! I have a gender non-conforming DS, and feel like the rubber is hitting the road.

[WankmasterBastardDeLaShithead]

DS (10) has been "gender non-conforming" since he was a toddler, and able to choose clothes and toys. We've generally just let him get on with it, not making a big deal about it, and letting him know that it's fine to be a boy and wear a dress/play with dolls etc. He's navigated his own way through all sorts of situations with ingenuity, and grim determination .

Anyway as he's getting older we're encountering more and more tricky situations. Toilets have been a sticking point, although we've mostly got round that by encouraging him to use "neutral" loos where possible. The school organised a meeting for us to discuss this, after an incident where he wet himself (after feeling uncomfortable/unwelcome in the boys' loos, but discouraged by me to use the girls' loos). He now uses the neutral loos at school.

Today though, I've come up against two dilemmas to do with sex /gender identity, and I'm just not sure what position to take. Firstly he goes to gymnastics in a mixed class. His teacher spoke up me after the class, referring to him as 'she' and taking about putting him forward to a (sex segregated) competition at some point in the future. I had registered him for the classes as a boy (obviously), but haven't had an explicit conversation about his gender. He does look "girly" (longish hair) so I completely understand why they're mistaken. I didn't correct the teacher in the moment, as it was in public and this is one thing (correcting people on his gender) that DS finds embarrassing. He doesn't mind being called he or she, but he does mind any "fuss" about it.

I then got home to find an email from his school about an initiative aimed at encouraging girls' confidence, and his teacher feels that he would like to do it. Argh. It's well-meaning, and I know comes from an understanding that his friends are nearly all girls, he looks like a girl, and he will feel left out if he isn't included. Obviously I'm very uncomfortable about this, but my heart is also aching for DS, because this will probably be difficult for him.

Basically if there wasn't such weird gender stereotyping in our society, I'm pretty sure DS would be happily rocking out as a girly boy, but because there is, he's being made to feel that to do the things he likes doing, he has to "be" a girl. It's so shit.

Anyway, I just feel so stuck as to how to do the right thing by DS. Any advice?

Do you live somewhere very woke or very conservative? If the former I would take the please don’t ‘misgender’ him, it makes him feel embarrassed that people don’t accept his gender line. If the latter just say, he’s a boy, he just likes to have long hair like Samson from the bible. I appreciate that you shouldn’t have to spout this nonsense but equally you run the risk of someone trying to convince him that he’s a girl otherwise and we all know how that goes these days.

The only thing he can do is find his voice and say I’m a boy. And move on without fuss.

Your ds at age 10 shouldn't feel forced to use gender neutral toilets because he is afraid of boys toilets

Quite.

This is the reason many transwomen give for having to use women's spaces - because it's too dangerous to use the men's.

Re: the toilet issue, the way DS had described it hasn't sounded like bullying. It's been more like clumsy curiosity, or mild challenging eg "why you wearing girls shoes" etc (before I get any grief, they are dark blue flat ankle boots with my little ponies on, not stilettoes or anything). This was in conjunction with his friends (girls) actively inviting him into the girls loos, which I discouraged. The solution seemed like a low key and easy alternative (to simply use the neutral loos) so I didn't push the issue.

I think the message I'm getting is that I need to encourage him to speak out more when people get it wrong. I will have a chat with him about it, but at the same time I do think some posters are unaware of just how insistent some people can be about gender assumptions, and how this must affect a relatively young child.

So he’s an effeminate boy who doesn’t care what gender people think he is.

If people think he’s a girl because he looks like one, let the, think it. Your son doesn’t care anyway you said.

As for toilets, if he’s got a willy he uses the boys loos.

Sorted.

Delorean, that sort of attitude has served me reasonably well until now, as people are not just thinking he's a girl, but actively including him in girls' activities, which isn't appropriate.

Is the problem people genuinely think he’s a girl due to his appearance and behaviour, or that they are trying to be supportive of a trans/gender non conforming child (as they’ll be making assumptions about which)? If the former, I’d agree with the advice about responding with “DS will not be joining the all girls group/comp as he’s a boy”. If the latter, they obviously have at least some idea of the conversation around this topic so I’d be more explicit and say “DS has agreed his pronouns are he/him and although he has very feminine presentation he identifies as a gender non conforming boy (or whatever terms you’ve agreed on). Therefore he won’t be joining the all girls class. Hope that clarifies things for the future.”

I get it’s difficult to do this if DS is standing right next to you and it upsets him. I think you either need to have a conversation with him explaining that it helps everyone to be clear. If that will really upset him too much, then as his parent you need to be his advocate and make the effort to get a 1:1 quick conversation with the teacher at the start of the next class to clarify things. It doesn’t help anyone to dance around the issue and his teachers are probably terrified of saying/doing the wrong thing in the current climate and would love the clarification.

How can he not mind whether people think he’s a boy or a girl? That’s just nonsense, if he’s not prepared to correct people who mistake him for a girl because he doesn’t mind, then he’s created the problem all by himself.

So he has an androgynous sounding name as well then?

Else how else can teachers mistake him for a girl just because he looks effeminate unless they have to address him as ‘Teri’ or ‘Jay’ or similar sort of name that sounds both male and female.

Kids going to have to get used to this confusion if he insists on being so vague about his gender.

"but actively including him in girls' activities, which isn't appropriate."

Surely that's because he doesn't insist on being called he so they are "supporting his choice"?

So it's not just him having long hair but it's having long hair, wearing a dress and my little pony boots and more feminine facial features and a shortened name that doesn't go with a particular gender? And he doesn't like to tell people they're wrong when they understandably refer to him as a girl? Is he actually happy they think he's a girl or v angry about it but doesn't want to tell them?

How does your ds want to handle it? He could go by his full name for a while to give people a bigger clue.
You could persist when someone says "she made the pizza" etc and say sorry, why are you saying "she" about my son?
He's still at primary so the toilets should be more police-able. He shouldn't have to use a different toilet. We've reached the point in society where people are expecting to see a trans child were none exists.

74newstreet, I'm finding your tone quite hostile. I'm not sure why you find it all so unbelievable, bizarre, etc, and it strikes me as quite uncompassionate to describe this all as a problem DS has brought upon himself. He's 10 years old, and is contending with hugely powerful messages about gender. He's doing the best he can, as am I.

He has a masculine name, with an ambiguous shortening, eg Patrick - Pat. I use his full name on forms, but all his friends etc call him Pat.

I think you need to chat to the school as well, OP.

10 is still really little, and he sounds like he's dealing with a lot of this on his own. I have a 10 year old boy who's very averse to 'making a fuss' too. If this was him, he wouldn't want to say anything either. I think you need to advocate for him and insist the school know that he wishes to be known as a boy.

If from these conversations, you discover that he's given the teachers a rather different impression, and that's resulted in all of these misunderstandings, then you can go from there.

DS has agreed his pronouns are he/him and although he has very feminine presentation he identifies as a gender non conforming boy (or whatever terms you’ve agreed on)
This is horrendous advice. This ten year old boy has given no inclination to his mother that he has an "identity" different to his biological sex or that he has any opinion on pronouns usage other than the ones that match his sex.
It's woke-grooming to tell a child they need a fucking label because they don't conform to sexist stereotypes.

Hi op, I have a 12 year old son, he has waist length blonde ringlets, blue eyes, wears a lot of pink and is forever being called a girl, has been since he was tiny.
Honestly, I used to and now he just corrects them 🤷‍♀️ no embarrassment, no uncomfortable just sorry I'm a boy. Pretty much universally people say oops sorry and smile.....job done.
I wouldn't use the term gender non conforming about my son, he's just who he is. He is a boy, knows it, is comfortable with it....ergo no issue.
I'm wondering if the school/classes are causing this by being, well frankly, odd?

10 years old and contending with hugely powerful gender messages.

Jeez. He should still be making mud pies and wondering which Lego set to buy next with his pocket money.

Who’s putting all this into his head? The mothers. Let him have his innocent childhood and stop trying to be a trendy parent. Marking you off as another attention seeking parent looking for ‘likes’ on their social media.

I am so glad I was born in the 1960s when it was fine to be a tomboy or an "effeminate" boy. I spent my early teens scrambling motorbikes, competing with boys (and winning).
In the 70s we had loads of long haired Male heart throbs, didn't make them women!! Seems like society is regressing sometimes.

It’s so sad that this poor child is being subjected to all this hassle, purely because he doesn’t fit in an outdated sexist stereotype box.
When I was young, back in the 60’s, plenty of boys had long hair, many were gentle pacifist hippy types, some wore flowers - but nobody accused them of being girls and they didn’t feel any need to label themselves or have a “gender identity”. They were just their own kind of bloke.
This modern obsession with stereotypes is horribly regressive.

Delorean, you are so far from the mark here is unreal. I have come here for advice because I've been getting on with all this as quietly and undramatically as possible, and have reached a point where pressure from other people has built to a point that my messages (that him being himself is fine, no biggie etc) has become unsustainable. I'm about the most untrendy avoider of social media you could imagine. But you just project away.

Cross posted, Serin , sorry! Glad to see another boomer with similar views.

My ds was very into typical girl things when younger - long hair, nail polish, art etc - and asked age 4 ish when he would turn into a girl. I told him that boys can't become girls, they can just be boys who like stuff that isn't football. And then robustly eye rolled at people smirking at his ballet lessons etc. Not many did, most people just leave people to it I think.

Anyway, I would just be clear that your ds is a boy, and not leave room for doubt. I'd also try to find out what has been going on at school and if there's more to this.

No way would I have let my ds be cowed into using the neutral toilets (school didn't have them anyway) rather than the boys loos: I'd have named all the culprits and expected school to deal with them.

Talk to the school/ gym and say it's time for them to widen their very narrow bandwidth for what a boy should dress like etc and to educate children that having a penis doesn't mean you can't have long hair and bright clothes. (You may well have a dad or uncle who was doing this way back in the 60s? Or be able to google Mick Jagger?!)