Poor kid

[Pratchet]

someone should answer for this

I lived on a farm and climbed trees. Girl children born in the late 1950s weren't routinely wearing trousers.

I would imagine that, living on a farm, you weren't given white socks or patent shoes, and weren't clad in an outfit to exactly match the one your sister was wearing? I would imagine that farmers have a more pragmatic approach to clothing getting damaged or dirty. Growing up in an urban environment in the 80s would be rather different. Luckily, I didn't see too much of my grandmother and my mum didn't inflict the same shit on me. But my grandmother's treatment of me, coupled with observations of the other girls at school, informed me that my mother was an anomaly in letting me play with chemistry sets and lego and wear trousers most of the time.

Lass: when girls are put in impractical clothes that get caught in chains and wheels so that they can't ride a bike

That is not true. You can look around any street in any city and see plenty of girls and women on bikes wearing skirts. I'm always struck when I'm in Amsterdam just how elegant many of the young women look. Copenhagen is the same.

My primary 7 class did their cycling proficiency test at school - all the girls were in school uniform skirts.

Hi Lass. When I was a child (70s mostly)

I was born in 1959 and grew up in rural Scotland. I don't recognise anything of what you describe as being the norm for girls and boys. I remember Raleigh chopper bikes. I thought they looked ridiculous but boys and girls had them. The only difference between boys and girls cycles were girls didn't have that pointless bar.

I am 5 years younger than you Lass. My childhood was spent partly in a seaside holiday town (Whitby), partly in a big urban city (Durham) and then finally for my teenage years in a naice village in the Cheshire commuter belt.

I can assure you that although your lived experience differs from mine, what I experienced actually happened and was not unusual in all those places. Your different childhood doesn't invalidate mine, in the same way that mine doesn't invalidate yours.

Your different childhood doesn't invalidate mine, in the same way that mine doesn't invalidate yours

Not saying it did. I was querying the over-egging of the "I was such a tomboy, I had a bicycle" posts. No one actually says girls should not have bicycles.

I didn't say that.

Point was that we were expected to have different bicycles. No drop handlebars. No gears. Girls bikes were upright, sedate, practical. Boys bikes were rugged, fast, tough.

I will make it clear from the outset of my comment that I am not talking about the child in the article - I have seen these types of threads go to swiss cheese.

For many of us, raised as girls, we can go through phases. Perhaps the idea of being dressed up like a doll (forced femininity) makes a girl reject this most strongly - I know I hated being dressed like a doll for weddings, when male cousins were not restricted in play by their clothing. Also what Transplants said, about being singled out for femininity treatment, in a sex-imbalanced family unit.

And the biggie, for many girls, the looming puberty ("what do you mean I am going to start bleeding down there?").

For some girls, it can be early realisation of being a lesbian. For others, even just the feminist awakening of "how come the boys can do that and I can't?"

And sadly for some, it is an attempt to escape being the victim of CSA. Particularly if the abuser says "how pretty" the victim is, you can bet your bippy the girl will do anything she can to make herself "look not pretty".

Many of us on this thread that we went through our stages, for however long, without 'gender intervention' by some clinic. Otherwise, if it were now, off to the GI Clinic we would go.

I disagree with all the photos being in that article. How horrible for the child later on.

Another article full of stereotypes of how boys and girls are meant to look and behave, but being trans is apparently nothing to do with stereotypes 🤷‍♀️ someone should tell this child’s mum before the blockers are prescribed

"It's a newspaper article. In The Daily Mail. Have a little think about that."

It's actually in the Hull Daily Mail. This is part of the Mirror group, and has nothing to do with The Daily Mail.

www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/boy-12-changes-name-charlotte-1682446

The Daily Mail had nothing to do with it, aside from moving Hessle 50 miles west from Hull to Leeds.

I had a look at mum's FB. I agree with the posters who said there don't seem to be too many IQ points going round. It is a shame that such people are vulnerable to this sort of ideology.

Also the subject of this article has only very recently done this - she appears in quite recent photos with long hair, etc. It seems like dubious journalistic ethics to report on this sort of stuff if it's still at the 'reversible' stage.

What LaSqrrl said.

If I’d been able to not have periods I would have done.

If I’d been able to escape the world of beauty, fashion and other people trying to make you look pretty I would have done.

If I’d been able to enjoy the same freedoms as my brother I would have done.

It sounds like this mother has given her child the idea that not wanting to have your hair braided or make up applied means you’re not a true girl.

That’s the crap you need to get rid of.

Why ? What on earth is "tomboyish" about having a bicycle?

like Yambabe - it's not the bike, it's the type of bike. Girls in my village had the ones with the dropped cross bar (is that a 'shopper' - the ones where you have to pedal backwards to brake) - or as I got older and mountain bikes came in, they had mountain bikes with a dropped cross bar - generally in white/purple/pale colours (racers were old hat by then - it was the number of gears you had on your mountain bike that was important!)

My first bike was a black and red BMX, followed by a black and red mountain bike when I out grew it. I got some grief for that (especially when I parked it up for my cycling proficiency).

And yeah.. the crushing embarrassment of growing breasts, of starting my periods and having to sort out bleeding every month, getting hairy.. hell? Not exactly, tough, and something that it took me a long time to come to terms with.

The only difference between boys and girls cycles were girls didn't have that pointless bar.

Not pointless - in my street it was important so you could stand on it (or your saddle) to show off your 'tricks' - we watched a lot of kickstart and tricks were important, along with ramp building.

That's really sad. I was a 'tomboy' (for want of a better word) and I'd have hated being forced into taking the hormone blockers etc, somebody needs to tell this mother that they don't have to go down this route - her child can live as a boy without all that added treatment until they are old enough to make a decision.

There is nothing wrong with being a tree climbing, mountain bike riding, den building girl just like there is nothing wrong with being a boy who likes my little ponies, make up and so on and it makes me mad when people think there is.

Puberty blockers will stop his breasts growing, which to a child like Gabriel would be very disturbing.

Roughly 80% of GNC kids who don't go on blockers become reconciled to their bodies during puberty.

But practically all kids who go onto blockers then move onto cross-sex hormones, which means they're left with the genitals of children & therefore infertile. And that's before you even get onto the side effects of Lupron or the number of young women who realise in their late teens / early 20s that they made a mistake. But by that time it's too late to reverse the effects of the testosterone.

The crossbar on a bike gives it structural stability. Dropped crossbars on bikes for women were introduced for reasons of decorum, or so I have always understood - integrity of design was sacrificed for societal reasons.

I agree with Lass.

There is some confusing posting by posters who seem to think it is a badge of triumph to reject dolls and pink. Or that ‘we’ all struggled with these girly things imposed on us.

Being a girl can involve riding a bike and loving pink and climbing trees and liking dolls and playing football and liking mermaids and unicorns. All of it.

The great female cyclists of the '30s & 40s rode wearing shorts on 'men's' bicycles.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Barry
www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/billie-fleming-happy-100th-birthday-121964
www.lavelocita.cc/la-velocita-rides/billie-samuels-1934-melbourne-to-sydney
www.cyclinguk.org/article/cycling-guide/eileen-sheridan
sites.google.com/site/boltonclariongroup/_/rsrc/1256588866588/home/bygone-times-pictures-1896-1960/1936-JUNE-SAT%20AFTERNOON%20RIDE%20TO%20BROCK.JPG

People talking about their experiences of rejecting the things that were imposed on them in childhood are relating their experience of their family's sexist attitudes. Or the sexist attitudes of the society that they grew up in. That's where it comes from. They haven't invented it. In their experience/upbringing girls and girls things were treated as lesser.

It's great that Lass and others had childhoods where they were free to be feminine and not treated as lesser. But that isn't what many other people here are reporting. I'm sure now as adults they know that pink is just a colour, and it is possible to ride a Rayleigh Chopper in an elegant skirt.

I wasn’t that child, I’m not that adult. Apart from being gobby and outspoken I’m very gender conforming.

I agree with the fact there are certainly a lot of shit bits about growing up female, I never did the ‘tomboy’ thing though and was always very ‘girly’. It has always enraged me that girls being GNC was considered a good thing and more socially acceptable than boys being GNC.

I have several daughters, when some of them wanted to shop in the ‘boys’ section for toys and clothes I just bought them what they wanted. It never occurred to me it meant they were really boys and that I should try and get them medicated and call the local paper

And sadly for some, it is an attempt to escape being the victim of CSA. Particularly if the abuser says "how pretty" the victim is, you can bet your bippy the girl will do anything she can to make herself "look not pretty".

This was reported on From Our Own Correspondent in exactly these terms yesterday. A child of a prostitute, surrounded by predators, was told by her mother's friends that to reduce risks she should bind her breasts, have boy-like scruffy hair, and be generally dishevelled.

I find many things about this story to be disturbing, but the fact that the mother has splashed her child's personal struggle all over a newspaper is the one that stands out as abusive.

I genuinely can't think of another way to describe such a blatant breach of a child's privacy. That story will be online forever, how could anyone do that to their child?

nauticant that’s very sad, makes sense though. That’s what’s behind breast ironing. Sudden obesity and poor personal hygiene are also known to be potential indicators of CSE.

HubrisComicGhoul

I could not agree more with your post!