Poor kid

[Pratchet]

someone should answer for this

It’s pretry terrifying where this is heading, and the ramifications when these children reach adulthood. It seems to me that this is a “quick win” for parents who want to be in the spotlight or want their children to be seen as special, without much effort on their part in the way of time, investment, learning or skills.

It’s like social media turned reality.

It's so strange how overall to this day girls are still seen as lesser. But yet people seem to want girls so badly. They "keep trying " for a girl. People experience disappointment at scans if it's not a girl. Get actively upset if people mistake their baby for a boy. I don't know if anyone else notices but when people have 2 or three boys then have a girl often there is almost pressure on the girl to be the stereotype pink sparkly child hundreds of photos posted of said child in dresses and at ballet and duck face selfies etc. People have drawers full if dresses and sparkly shoes before the poor thing is even born.

It's no wonder so many think there's something wrong with them.

"Stalking as well as judgemental. You really need to get a life,"

It's not stalking to look someone up on Facebook.

And I don't have any kind of issue with being 'judgemental'. If we didn't make constant judgements we would have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers tens of thousands of years ago.

Let's not have too much of this 'mustn't ever form an opinion' bollocks.

Could some of this be about parents unable to say no to their children?

Giddy, you said I hope the mother does not ever read this post as its just vile to see another women being slated in such a way when she is only doing what her child wants.

I believe that parenting isn't about what a child wants, it's about doing what's best for the child, and guiding them though their childhood, even if it means that the child doesn't agree and causes friction in the relationship. Parents primary focus isn't to be their kids friends, it is to be their parents. IMO this is a case of lazy and selfish parenting, amongst other things....

Whilst we are all discussing our childhoods: I wasn’t exactly a “tomboy” but I wasn’t a girlie child either.

I was a strange child, always an outsider. I moved around a lot as a kid, went to 5 different schools in three different countries in my primary years. I was sexually assaulted for the first time at the age of 7 by a boy a year or two older than me. I was sexually assaulted the second time at the age of 9, by a boy the same age. Different country, different school, same shit. I guess my small size and lack of friends due to moving all the time had me marked out as a victim. The third time I sexually assaulted at age 12, I grabbed the boy by the arm and threw him over my shoulder across a playground. He flew through the air in slow motion for what seemed like miles, and I thought “YES.”

I still remember the Xmas I got my first brand new bike (as opposed to a hand me down). I desperately wanted a Raleigh Grifter. I’d been talking about it for months, and even forgo a birthday present that year so that the money could go towards the bike I so desperately wanted.

When I got up that morning I was absolutely beside myself with excitement at the sheet-covered-bike-shaped-object in the living room.

Only when I pullled off the sheet I found instead of a coveted ‘Grifter’ my parents had bought me a Raleigh Bianca.

I tried not to appear ungrateful, but I crept off for a bit of a cry. Luckily my sister got it.

Sorry pressed post too soon.

By the time I’d hit 12 I’d started my periods with little pre warning from my mum about how shit it would be. I was developing breasts that my dad mocked me about relentlessly and crassly. I hated my body and how I was constantly being labelled and shamed and poked and prodded for it.
I was living in a rural village and the one thing that made me happy was being outside in nature. I roamed for miles through farmland, woods and chalk downs. I climbed trees, wore what clothes were comfy, made forts and prided myself in my ability to identify plants and birds. I got interested in Wicca and magic. If I hadn’t had that, I’d have been miserable, utterly miserable, and a prime candidate these days for YouTube and Tumblr to make me feel like my hatred of my body, the gendered violence it made me subject to, and my general feelings of otherness was somehow tied up into not actually being a girl at all.

Grifter -photobucket.com/gallery/s153.photobucket.com/user/VST502L/media/10340074_716670008376996_146815523092692606_n_zps0cuguftf.jpg.html

Bianca -
www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/318066792412473626/

betty

I had very similar.i wanted a mountain bike. I still remember my first bike I loved it but I think it had been bought with handing down to my brother in mind . When I got my bike one birthday or Xmas I didn't get the mountain bike I got a baby blue thing with basket. Similar to the Bianca.

To this day they have no idea how much I wanted a different one.

I had a Grifter.

giles

I thought dd was going to be a boy and had nothing

I had a c section on the Thursday morning and on the Saturday morning i was in mothercare BUYING HER A DRESS GODDAMIT!!!!

so i see your point

It is not about being one or the other (part time GC or NGC girl), it is all about the NGC part - that is what gets you marked as 'weirdo girl'. I certainly did a mix of things, even from early primary school, but was really a bit bored with most of the 'girl things' as far as play. With one exception, I did like designing clothes for the (not barbie, but similar) doll. But it was the designing part, because I also liked doing the lego thing even more. Building, creating, making, was my real thing. And that carried on to woodwork and metalwork (and art) in high school, but was a bit bored with home ec and needlework!

All children should be able to explore all avenues of play and interests, without the agenda attached to them, or the expectations that they are not conforming to 'good girl' or 'good boy' by doing certain things or not doing certain things. This is Feminism-101.

And that is primarily what is so wrong with 'transing kids'. Just let them be kids, and explore their interests, without pressure and expectation.

I was convinced dd was going to be a boy too.

Id bought everything white and blue and green and yellow etc

It was eveeyone else who then basically vomited pink and dresses over us....alot was just put on photo taken and removed again

I got handed down a load of stuff so I won't complain as it was a lovely thing to do. But omg the pink...

I don't understand why a parent would want to put their child onto this path without being absolutely sure that they'd already exhausted all other options.

I as a tomboy growing up. I liked wearing dresses and having my long hair put up. But I also spent most of my days climbing trees and building dens. I occasionally played with dolls, but was more interested in reading or being outside running about. I can remember being about 5 or 6 and going through a phase where I insisted on standing over the loo so that I could pee standing up - because I thought it was unfair that boys could go to the loo so much quicker and more easily than girls. I also remember being around the same age and pretending to 'shave'; my Dad would lather up my face and I'd use the end of my toothbrush whilst we stood side by side in the bathroom in a morning.

When I was in my teens I had relationships with other girls. I know how to use various tools because my Dad taught me. I have never been particularly interested in 'girly' things. I do a lot of manual and heavy work when I garden, which would traditionally be associated with males - at the moment I'm in the middle of a project which involves building a retaining wall.

I absolutely shudder to think that if I were growing up right now, there's a real risk I would be labelled as 'trans' because my behaviours and interests didn't neatly fit the gender stereotype. That liking climbing trees, imitating some male behaviours, having experimental lesbian relationships alongside having boyfriends in my teens and not being 'girly' means that I must be in the wrong body and need to be a man.

I am happy with my body, I am happy being a woman, I am happily married to my DH.

I feel so desperately sorry for children being taken down this path. The physical effects are often irreversible and I genuinely worry that for every child who really does want this kind of intervention, there will be several dozen who, if left alone, would come through the other side and be happy. I wonder if the NHS has considered the possibility of class action lawsuits in future years, when some of these children reach adulthood and realise that they weren't trans and have been left sterile and with permanent physical damage.

ResistanceIsNecessary: "I don't understand why a parent would want to put their child onto this path without being absolutely sure that they'd already exhausted all other options."

I think there are two kinds of parents. There are those who are deeply homophobic, possibly for religious reasons, and for whom the idea of a trans child is less awful than a gay child.

The other kind are people who just don't understand the implications. All the literature from charities like Mermaids and so on is celebratory, all about how being wonderful being trans is. They don't understand the dangers of puberty blockers, or the likelihood of permanent sterility, or the probability that their child won't have any kind of a sex life.

It's great that Lass and others had childhoods where they were free to be feminine and not treated as lesser

That isn't what I was saying. I was referring to the determination of some posters to include in their lists of " things which prove I was a tomboy" things which no one would think in the least bit remarkable- like owning a bicycle or liking cycling or that holiest of holies- climbing trees.

I see that being interested in reading or being outside running about has now been added to the list.

This awful story made me think of a friend of my daughter. She is now in her very early teens, but some years back when she was about 9 or 10 (so similar to Charlotte / Gabriel) she announced she wanted to be a boy: she cut her hair, wore boy's clothes ( although not at school where the uniform is very strict), came up with ideas for a new name and joined the football club. Pretty much all her friends just ignored it and let her get on with it. Her extremely sensible parents did the same and took the view that most children grow out it. A couple of years later that was exactly what happened and she happily and without fuss declared she was back to being a girl again.

At the time, my daughter, in an effort to understand, read some YA novels about trans kids and these did concern me. I don't know if any of these have ever been discussed on here (fairly new and delurked only today!), but the message in the one I saw was so overwhelmingly affirmative: breast binding and hormone suppressants were presented as if they were the most natural thing in the world. It also reinforced regressive gender stereotypes (including a weird period fetish) and some, frankly, creepy notions of teenage relationships. Fortunately, my daughter is a sensible soul and declared that an inability to throw a ball did not a girl make. I dread to think what some kids make of books like this however. It was very mainstream and seems to have been well reviewed.

Not directly on point re wanting girls most of my friends don't have children. Of the few which do none of them wanted boys and in fact have only girls.

One couple has 2 boys and a girl- the girl being the third and final attempt at a girl.

I was asked if I was disappointed my son was a boy.

Yes, Lass, that's the difference. In your upbringing those things weren't considered "for boys" and no one classified you as tomboy for liking them. I'm sure as adults people know that climbing trees isn't an activity just for boys or tomboys. But that's what they were told as children.

Lass

My daughter was described as a "tomboy" recently by an older family member because she likes football.

The comments about bike types/climbing trees and short hair are the types of things that got you labeled as a tomboy when I was a child in the 70s and 80s.

I agree that it was /is ridiculous. The point is back then, if you were lucky you were labeled a tomboy and left to get on with.

However, now things that are considered gender conforming are sometimes being used to show why a child needs to transition.

Oops gender non-conforming.

dolor

Yes, I certainly didnt tell people i was a tomboy...people told me i was a tomboy all the time

Even with hair down to my bum

I'm sure as adults people know that climbing trees isn't an activity just for boys or tomboys. But that's what they were told as children

Some children were told by some adults. I remain wholly unconvinced that all or even a majority of adults were telling girls they were "tom boys" because they liked the things listed on here as proof of gender non conformity.

I don’t understand how people can’t see that being trans is just enforcing stereotypes to the extreme. fucking idiots everywhere.

Just to add, for a long, long time I was convinced I wanted to be a boy. I told myself this was because I wanted to stand up to pee. The reality? I was being sexually abused from the age of 8 and wanted to be a boy because then I wouldn’t be touched. I hated growing breasts as it was another part of me to use sexually. I took to trying to fuck up my hair and gained weight (I wanted to be fat so stole money to buy junk food) so that I would be unattractive to my abuser. None of it worked of course and I am perfectly happy being a woman and love that I’ve brought two wonderful girls into the world because I am a woman, I’m still overweight so that was a bad idea at the time. Point is, I reckon most who wanted to be the opposite sex either came from some sort of trauma, not necessarily sexual abuse or jealousy that boys were seen to be allowed more freedom. Not all obviously, but some.