Gender non conforming child (mine!).

[moofolk]

This is the thread I've been avoiding starting for ages and looking for feminist input. This is about my particular circumstance but more generally how should we be encouraging our children to be awesome, happy and strong.
My son, now getting on for 10, has long been gender non-conforming. From nursery age he loved the fairy dresses and dolls, wanting girls' names in games, female characters always his favourite; so far so Mermaids, right? I thought of taking him to Mermaids before I realised that it wasn't a play group for GNC kids to be themselves (which sounded very appealing), but a transition priming group.
Anyway, being a gender critical feminist mum I never had any problem with his non-conforming, if anything I was proud of his strength and individuality. However, now I'm terrified for him. He's not quite internet- ready but when he is l can see why he would find the trans ideology appealing and how easy that would be to find. I can also see how I may have 'done this to him' by not pushing gendered toys when he was littler as I saw many other parents do without realising it. This to me is more proof that the idea of innate gender is bullshit but I digress.
He has over the past years at primary school pushed this down to some extent but it is still there and he would love to be a girl.
He has very few male friends, a very strong girl best friend and adores women and girls. He cries when confronted with structural inequality and poor representation of female characters in films (which is, as you know, often).
So wimms, WWYD? I want to help him show that men can be good, strong and sensitive (his dad is!). I don't want to slate 'being girly', or push him into masculine stereotypes but to be prepared for what may be presented as an easy option ahead.
FWIW he has two very gender conforming roughty-toughty-lads as younger brothers.

woman I do feel he's got adults around. We are very lucky like that.

I feel for you OP the only thing I can suggest is to use lots of really positive language around being a boy who doesn’t conform. The ‘Stories for boys who dare to be different’ book could be a good conversation starter. How about taking him to the pride festival? He can see that being a man can still be colourful, flamboyant and fun.

Sounds very much like my DS2. He is now almost 15 and at a specialist performing arts school surrounded by like minded kids.

You mentioned his dad... So that's a positive role model, right there. Teenage girls that I work with respond with astonished gratitude when I talk about what being a teenage girl is like from a personal perspective - how physically awkward and uncomfortable I felt, and how ambivalent I was about myself physically, and how others reacted to me, and trying to pick my way through other people's expectations. Maybe your son needs to hear about being an adolescent male from someone who's experienced it, assuming that's something your DP would be comfortable with (and even if it's not, to support your DS).

Just to chuck in there once they are of an age where all their friends have phones you no longer have control over what they see on the internet. If they have no phone they can just look at a mate's. if you restrict what they can access on the internet, you can bet another child's parents will have not.

In my experience peers started to have access to internet-enabled phones from around 10yrs. Those that got them first seemed to be those whose parents worried least about which apps/sites they were looking at (e.g. Free rein on YouTube, that awful dance app that is ripe for grooming etc).

Once they are at secondary basically they all have phones and the game is up. It is quite different than primary and they grow up and become much more independent and independent-minded super fast.

The best protection is to talk to them about anything and everything long before they stumble across it via the prism of their mates.

Books with good boy-girl pairs or groups - Swallows and Amazons series.

Would he be interested in doing modern or acro dance?? How about all star Cheer - usually males end up there via gymnastics.

I'm surprised you can't find a Latin/Balloon dance class anywhere nearby

I think you are doing a great job but Y6 onwards the mobile phones turn up and the internet access is rampant and very likely the unpleasantness from others may start

I have a GNC DD1 (never knew there was a term for it) who has been through a lot of confusion in her teenage years.
I agree the internet is a godawful place for GNC teens.
We have always told her she is ok as she is, she will know what she wants when she is older, she can love who she wants etc.
She had therapy when she was 15 as she was very anxious.

She also has Aspergers (finally going through assessment but it’s pretty clear to me now) is in her first year at uni and since recently now in love with a girl.

To the poster who wrote about the private boys’ school, my son (17) is at a very selective boys grammar, and it has had quite the same effect. Lots of arts, music, drama etc, very tolerant and not pushing the tough alpha male role down everyone’s throat.
My son has gay friends who came out recently and he’s known them for almost 6 years and he’s been supporting one of them because he feared his parents’ reaction.
My son has always been very sensitive and he found friends at this school who are the same and he has grown into a resilient and still sensitive young man.
I have always told him it’s ok to cry, to like “girly” things and to just be who he is.
For a long time I thought he may be gay (falling prey to my own stereotypical thinking) but he is not and has had a girlfriend for 6 months now.

Our 9 yo DD2 wanted a pixie cut for ages and after going shorter for a while (from very long) she now has a pixie and tells everyone at school who says she is a boy that she is obviously a girl.
It suits her, she is my little feisty pixie.

Somehow none of my kids fall into the ‘typical’ boy/girl category 😄

I’d like to know more about GNC maybe to forward websites to my DD1, although she might know them already.
For years we have stalled/talked her out of binding citing the consequences for her health, but I know she is still interested.

Just putting this here as although Welsh folk music might not be your DS’s thing it’s great to see boys and girls playing harp, fiddle, guitar and dancing. It’s the first video on the fb page

www.facebook.com/trac.cymru?hc_ref=ARQ6IAAXJ6ZjB3lOEsykii1Xhr0JAYKadgWCimffx7fXvco-cpsSxNg38B0I_vurliY

My DS went to ballet and later to a musical theatre group where one of the older boys from ballet was enjoying singing and dancing. I struggled to find ballroom dancing too and I’m sure DS would have particularly loved the make up and sparkles and also struggled to find a choir.

Just thinking about books, I wondered about Skellig? That's a boy/girl partnership. Haven't read it for a long time tho, but in my memory, it could be suitable.

My dd now in her late 20s came out last year as non binary transgender.
She said she’d felt like this since around 14 year she old. But was too scared to do anything or talk about it...and didn’t even have a name for who she was until now. She’s has suffered years of anxiety because she was too scared to come out and reveal how she was feeling about herself. Years of relationships with lads that when things were getting serious she’s broke up. She’s is now seeing a psychologist and is on anti depressants.
I call her she but she’s not a she any more. I have to use the noun they or them. In my head she’s still my little girl, but I love her and support her and always will
All I can say is support your child if it’s a phase then it is. But if it’s something they continue with through life, they will be happy from the love and emotional support you gave them and the transition will be much easier for all of you I’m sure.

Daisy you sound really supportive, your child (? What noun to use? We don’t have good words for grown up children anyway), well they/your DD are lucky to have you.

Moo my DS did world book day as the Boy in The Dress. He did have jeans and tshirt underneath in case he changed his mind or was teased but the dress stayed on all day.

Sorry I haven't read the thread yet.
I think the best way to go about it is to make it as normal as possible for him to like any toy. Otherwise I think they'll look for a reason they're 'different' and lock onto the trans thing. I think it's the same with many disabled people because they are pushed into feeling 'different' and want to know why. It's honestly so sad, and being pushed into taking hormones that wreck your body 😓

I totally agree with those saying talk more not less about it. I think if you can help him to have a ‘click’ moment before teenagehood and secondary school it will see him through. As in, wow how terribly sad that young people feel they have to physically change themselves in order to feel they are accepted. For me, it’s inherrently perverse and abusive that our society pushes this. It’s absurd that you should have to have your penis chopped off to be able to enjoy make up or musicals or dancing or feminist political thought! Help me to embrace who he is and know how to be critical of the culture and other opinions that might come his way. Don’t stay silent. I think it would be leaving him vulnerable to Mermaids ideology that prays on children having been made to feel wrong or ostracised for their preferences and personality.

interestign about single sex school. Both my ds and dd are in single sex schools becuase they happen to be the grammar school. Ds is very stereotypical, but I do think that the arts/cookign etc are not thought of as 'girl's' subjects. I am not sure though that a GNC kid would do well there, but then I have only met ds friends.

dd1 is a different matter, we thought long and hard about whether or not to send her to a single sex school, and she is GNC, (although we didn't have a name for it.)
We decided to send her, as we thought it would be a better environment, with no sexual pressure from the boys. And also no jokes about what she wears and hair cuts from the boys. We also thought she might find like minded kids there.
The school does have a very good reputation for pastoral car too.
It was the best decision we could have made, she is very happy there, and there is actually a trans boy in the sixth form, so the whole school is very aware.

The down side is that she has foudn a group of kids who are all identifying as gender non binary etc, and I am not sure the whole situation is very healthy