What would they say to the kids?

[catkind]

Yesterday I had one of those conversations with the kids where I explained different anatomy. Y'know, boys have penises, girls have vulvas, what happens to girls at puberty, what happens to boys at puberty. It struck me just how impossible that conversation would be in genderland.

Small children don't actually have an innate sense of gender do they? Then they go to toddler groups or nursery and start observing and generalising. And generally draw the wrong conclusions at first. Over-categorising. They say things like "I'm a girl because I'm wearing a dress" or "I like football because I'm a boy". Then adults explain that actually no, you're a boy if you have a penis and a girl if you have a vulva, and everyone can play football or wear dresses or like pink if they want to.

Is it actually proposed that instead of explaining biology, we tell children "you're a girl if you feel like you're a girl"? How would you even explain to them what feeling like a girl feels like so they can tell?

I posted something gender critical on my own social media and got told I should go and listen to trans "lived experience". So I did go and read some more stories (not that I hadn't before). It's noticeable how many trans narratives start with something along the lines of "I always knew I was different, from a very young age I wanted to wear dresses/hated wearing dresses/wanted to climb trees/hated rough and tumble". It sounds like a 3 yr old's conception of what being a boy or a girl means. It's not helping cast light. How would transactivists explain to their kids what being a boy/girl is?

I have a preschooler and have wondered this too. My child currently thinks all tops are for boys. I explain it as you describe:

you're a boy if you have a penis and a girl if you have a vulva, and everyone can play football or wear dresses or like pink if they want to.

How do Followers of Genderism explain what is a girl, and what is a boy?

I'm confused about how you teach sex Ed effectively. There are people who gestate and people ejaculate. Wasn't it easier when we had words for those two types of people?

I've come out from lurking on mumsnet just to reply to this because I have direct experience becuase my partner (my daughters dad) started transitioning when our daughter was 5.

We treated it the same way we'd treated her query (upon seeing a homeless man with one leg begging in the street) of 'why has that man got one leg'?

The answer was 'I don't know.... it'd be rude to ask him but it could have been a bad accident or maybe he was born with just one leg....'

She came back with 'but people always have two legs'... and here's the key phrase in all situations like this

'No' we said.... .most people are born with two legs but not all'

People come in all different shapes and sizes and colours and variations but 'most of them' are pretty standard in having two arms, two legs, one head etc etc

Easy conversation... and it set my daughter up to never judge a person based on difference.

Now, shortly after that, daddy began to transition and we were already on a winning wicket because we and our daughter know that not everyone is the same and we could explain that sometimes those differences aren't always clear from day one.

So when we got the 'daddy has a willy so he can't be a girl' it was an easy peasy step... not all people born with willies are men.... some people just know that they don't match their genitalia.

So she asked at one point 'so am i a girl?'

Do you feel like a girl. (and I guess 'do you feel like' can be interpreted as 'are you happy as')

Yes.

Then you're a girl.... that's pretty lucky that you match what we thought.

Had she said no we'd have simply gone along with it...kids who think they are something today are often something else tomorrow.. a cat, a tree, a boy...whatever they are trying things to see if they fit. But when a person of any age is transgender they 'know'...it stays with them and worries at their very essence and they don't grow out of it.

Our daughter is now in her twenties and she's a well adjusted adult who accepts people for what they are, she's grown up around trans people and hasn't a judgemental bone in her body.

I've no idea why people insist on trying to make the world full of 'definites' and 'absolutes' - children are great at accepting grey areas and differences.

Same when I used to teach primary children and kids would tell me 'boys can't wear dresses'.... and I'd say - of course they 'can' just because they don't usually doesn't mean they can't.

But 'why would a boy wear a dress'

I don't know...but probably becuase he thinks dresses are comfortable or pretty or his legs get too hot in trousers.

We used to have to do this with girls being doctors or fire fighters or whatever.... just because they don't 'usually' doesn't mean they can't.

Change can happen if children are taught to accept there are always more possibilities than the most glaring obvious thing in front of them.

I hope that answers your OP. I wasn't explaining all that to my child as a transactivist but as a parent but I guess becuase i lived through someones transition I became a transactivist becuase I don't understand why people would discriminate against anyone just becuase they're different or 'not normal'. people are people and every single one of them has a personal story that makes most sense to them and to those closest to them.

Queennooka, thank you for taking the time to set that out. It sounds like by the time you had these conversations with your daughter, you had already passed the gender=stereotypes stage. To quote my own post:
Then adults explain that actually no, you're a boy if you have a penis and a girl if you have a vulva, and everyone can play football or wear dresses or like pink if they want to.

Would you still have that explaining biology stage if you were bringing up a child now, or what would you do instead to explain that it's not just about liking pink?

I'm confused about how you teach sex Ed effectively. There are people who gestate and people ejaculate. Wasn't it easier when we had words for those two types of people?

My guess is that there is a spectrum of belief amongst transgenderimists. Some will teach their children science, some science and biology and others will deny science as a social construct. You will in time as more millennials become parents we may start to see schools and home education groups spring up that believe science and biology are social constructs.

Much like in other religions you get people that believe the earth was created in 7, 24 hour earth days and others that believe the universe was created slowly not using earth time references. The former will likely send their children to a school that supports their belief or home educate, the latter will likely send their child to a state school.

People in my opinion need something to identify with, we are in general social creatures and our survival depended upon joining a group.

If people no longer have a supernatural being based belief system as it's now deemed out dated, there seems to be large numbers of people latching on to other types of beliefs like a flat earth, conspiracy theories and now we have transology where they can trans age, gender, species, race, ability and so on.

The baby boomers wanted to change the world and they did, the rest of us are seeing and living with the consequences, some great and some not so.

Queen nooka, it's impossible in transworld for a 'brain' or 'gender identity' to match a male or female body, because in transworld bodies are not male or female.

I've no idea why people insist on trying to make the world full of 'definites' and 'absolutes'

Your partner was 'definite' about being trans though weren't they? Or are they not 'absolutely' sure?

You can't have a conversation about this in genderland without serious amount of fudging.

If male/man and female/woman can mean anything, they mean nothing. You are left with stereotypes, inner souls of gender or going down the ridiculous route of uterus owners etc in order to not use a word that already exists.

Sex is not a social construct. It exists whether humans want to acknowledge it or not. Everything after that is what we humans assume about and force onto people because of their sexed bodies.

Some people with Dysphoria can have their symptoms alleviated by socially and or medically transitioning to the opposite sex but this does not mean they are literally the opposite sex. We do not have the ability to do this.

It is perfectly reasonable to tell children that male and female exists and what the differences mean. That people should not be held back from the lives they choose because of it. It is perfectly reasonable to explain what Dysphoria is when it is relevant just like any other difference a child may notice.

catkind -I suppose that stage of explaining the basic difference between girls and boys was earlier and as an easy guide it's not a bad guide. I think now I'd just stick the word 'usually' in there. Usually boys have penises and girls have vulvas.

I've had more children since (that relationship eventually broke down so I have kids without a trans parent) and we've done the same approach and never ever fallen for the trap of gendering colours or activities.... whatever the child enjoys is good and I've found they don't start falling into all the gendered nonsense of pink for girls and football for boys until they start mixing seriously with other kids or watching tv and then it's just an ongoing battle to always provide the let out clause of 'you don't have to like that because youre a girl/boy' - that an an understanding that what is popular and the majority view isn't always 'right'.

Only where people have disorders of sexual development do boys not have penises and girls not have vaginas. Trans is not one of those circumstances.

fairenuff - my partner had decades of self doubt, followed by years of angst and doubt as to whether coming out as trans was the best thing for them to do. Inside she 'knew' but she didn't recognise what it was she was knowing. (that's the best way I can describe it)
Each step of the process a bit that doubt was stripped away.

I celebrate the fact that nowadays being trans is so much more in the public domain tht many young people don't need to doubt themselves for so long as transition is easier when you are younger.

Hormones were a massive indicator of whether my partner was doing the right thing or not and in my opinion having two years where you have to live as a woman while essentially looking like 'a man in a frock' to anyone who doesn't understand the transitional process is heartbreaking and hormones could safely be used as a diagnostic tool in many cases. So often I see people being cruel about wigs and chicken fillets but what choice does a trans woman have early in their transitional journey?

But every step of immersion into the world of women, every point where women welcomed my partner into social spaces affirmed her decision and made her happier.

Her dysphoria meant that she had surgery but by that point it wasn't a major issue...more the last thing that needed doing to feel the process was complete and to be able to stand in front of a mirror and not feel like a freak.

There is nothing wrong with being absolutely sure...or definite about something but that's something that comes after you've weighed up the alternatives and looked at the broader picture. I never liked forcing my ideas of 'definite' onto my kids... they should come to their own conclusions about things and aparents job is to allow them to see all and any sides to something so they can make an informed decision.

For the record - I don't know a single trans person who thinks there is a magical process that changes a persons cellular structure.

Trans people tend to be more aware that the whole XX XY thing isn't as simple as it used to be made out to be so you can never say ALL women are XX... you just can't because some women aren't.

When a trans woman says they are a woman... shit..when I say i am a woman all I mean is that my place in society and in law is 'as a woman' and it's 'as a woman' that I expect to be treated becuase that's my pigeon hole and thats my comfort zone.

Stripping the gender debate down to overly simplistic biology just doesn't feel like it helps anyone except those people who were lucky enough to match the 'majority standard'

queen that's fine if that's how you want to look at it. I don't think anything I say will change how you see it because that is what makes sense to you.

I agree that many people who have had full surgery (old school transexuals) do not infact think a person can change sex. However, they are not in a majority within the trans movement from what I can see. Hence why there are some vocal trans people who support either fully or in part a gender critical view point.

I do not understand what 'woman' is in the context you describe. What is treated as a woman? Or living as a woman? What does woman mean when it is divorced from biology?

Our sexed bodies are designed to produce one of two gametes. Some people cannot produce the gametes their bodies were designed for and some people have intersex conditions that can make them look like the opposite sex but they cannot produce the opposite gametes. However intersexed conditions should not be conflated with trans and they do not provide evidence of a sex spectrum.

pratchet - I'm not ignoring your posts it's just that they seem to be coming from a position so alien to one I understand that I just don't know where to start in responding to you.

I guess - since you are clearly have been thoughtful about this issue for so long QueenNooka - I would be interested in knowing where you feel the boundaries for someone like your ex-partner: for the challenging things like:

• if they were sportive, do you believe they should compete against natal women
• if they committed a crime, is it a crime committed by a woman or a man
• if they needed a refuge or prison or hospital, would you expect them to be housed with natal women, even if some of these with a history of abuse are frightened of male bodies

There are others... and I would be interested in your reflections on any of them.

I am confused - in a way I wasn't before - that now the TRAs are so active, about where to draw the boundaries to protect the rights of women and children ... while not jeopardising those of transsexuals.

I feel very angry about the heterosexual men who are commandeering the transgender space, without allowing any discussion of how this would impact on women....

And I - like many others on here - feel an enormous compassion for people like your ex-partner who have transitioned in a meaningful way, and have grappled with so many issues during their journey

soapboxqueen - I don't claim to understand the whole 'gender thing' I guess thats why people have made it into an academic study - it's complex.
Just like sexuality is more complex than the biblical one man has sex with one woman thing.

In a way I think what you call old school transsexuals are the lucky ones becuase they have a clear journey that goes from point A to point B and both those points are clearly defined as 'man' 'woman' and that fits in so nicely with traditional views of what gender is
.
When I was struggling with my partners transition (which I did..I won't deny that) I was put in touch with a wives group and that was a scary place full of wives whose husbands had been cross dressing for years, going thorugh a cycle of cross dressing and then giving it up in guilt - stopping and then going round the cycle again.

For some of those people that was a step on a long convuluted transitional journey from A to B. For some that was where they were comfortable but being with someone who didn't accept them made it uncomfortable and some of them used it as a way to have affairs with other men.

People are SO complex.

Trans is what gay was 30 or 40 years ago and people are experimenting more openly and I'm happy that people can experiment and we won't end up with people locked into miserable existances with wives who need to join groups to try and understand them.

I promise you that if anyone should feel bitter about trans women it's me. But I don't because I understand at least one persons personal journey and know that every single trans person has an equally valid (probably very different) story.

As to what a woman is devoid of the biology.... it's how we lead our every day lives. I've never had my genes tested - I've never had to justify my entry to a womans space by showing my vulva (or any genetic statement). I live as a woman and people are happy to let me and I think anyone who wants to live as a woman should be offered the same respect whatever their starting point.

They come from a position of coherence and truth. This may be why they are alien to you.

queennooka
What made the wives’group scary?

I think we all make peace with various issues up to a point while others continue into more detail. I was at a similar understanding to you from a theory basis (obviously without the real life experience of having someone close to be transition) until a few years ago. Most of it I would have put down to just differences between folk until the very real chance of legal changes made the whole thing vastly more important.

I do not think I (or any other woman) lives as a woman. I do not shop as a woman or eat as a woman. I just am a female human and the word for that is woman. There should be no different treatment or expectations or barriers because I am a woman unless they are as a result of my sexed body.

There should be nothing stopping gender non-conforming people from going about their daily lives. Though in honesty I don't know anyone who is totally gender conforming.

The more I read the more I am convinced that the current trans agenda is regressive not progressive, misogynist, homophobic and often racist. That has a different set of values from those with actual disphoria who need treatment (eg surgery) to feel more at ease and I wouldn't class them any different to the transabled or transracial.

As to what a woman is devoid of the biology.... it's how we lead our every day lives

But I really don't understand how I live my life as a women, other than I use female loos, etc. Lots of things I do tend more towards the masculine than the feminine. Pretty much everything I associate with being identified as female by other people is negative- harassment, being patronised, feeling afraid walking home at night, etc. I'd be much more comfortable if I was viewed by other people as a man.

If, as a child, I'd been asked whether I felt like a girl I would have definitely said no. I strongly identified with boys because they got to do the fun stuff and didn't have to wear stupid dresses.

But none of that means that I'm not actually a women, it means that girls and women actually get a bit of a shit deal.

So I really struggle to understand the rhetoric around trans identification.

I have no idea what it feels like to be a woman or a girl.

I do wish someone would let me in on the secret.

When a trans woman says they are a woman... shit..when I say i am a woman all I mean is that my place in society and in law is 'as a woman' and it's 'as a woman' that I expect to be treated becuase that's my pigeon hole and thats my comfort zone.

Really? Maybe that explains the whole shebang! I hate how societies treat women 90% of the time and for 90% of human history. Being pigeonholed annoys me and constricts me. I am a women because my sex is female. Feminine is a whole different ball of wax. Doesn't mean I want to be or am a man.

loveyouradvice - I hope this works - theoretically my answers are within your post in italics :$

• if they were sportive, do you believe they should compete against natal women

they certainly weren't sporty and nor am I - it's not an area I know much about but I understand sporting bodies have been pondering the situation long and hard, not just becuase of trans sports people but becuase of steroid use. And i expect in the long term we'll end up with what we have at primary school sports days which are mixed gender races based on time earlier time heats..but that's just me winging an answer for you

• if they committed a crime, is it a crime committed by a woman or a man?

if they have started (or are thinking about starting) transition then legally they are a woman as with any other situation in life that's the legal position as far as i know.

• if they needed a refuge or prison or hospital, would you expect them to be housed with natal women, even if some of these with a history of abuse are frightened of male bodies

again as far as I know all these things are treated on a case by case basis and if you can get past the tabloid scare stories that are often based on quotes from random people in exchange for money then they ARE dealt with effectively and sensitively. I'll refer you to the Man Friday stunt the other week where they booked rooms in a male YHA dorm. Man friday turn up and don't look like men but say they are and are sensibly put into a private room. That's how things happen in the real world - organisations have processes in place so everyone can access the service they want.

There are others... and I would be interested in your reflections on any of them.

I am confused - in a way I wasn't before - that now the TRAs are so active, about where to draw the boundaries to protect the rights of women and children ... while not jeopardising those of transsexuals.

I was a long way past needing to be involved in trans politics but over the last couple of years for some reason the level of anti trans narrative has been ramped up in the press at a point where they 'had' started to get quite good at reporting this stuff.
That was bad enough and then much started to be made of the changes to the GRA (which are intended as small administrative changes) - somehow it became this massive thing about womens spaces whereas the right for trans women to go into womens spaces has been law for years . Lots of people suddenly starting to complain about something thats long established and where there havn't been any problems in this country.
I, personally, think a lot of the problems are conflating what is happening here and what is happening in the US and there are some very nasty neo-con alliances like Hands Across the Aisle (or something like that) that are edging into our political space and thats not healthy at all.
As i said above we tend to manage trans rights and womens rights pretty well in this country as a rule but extremists ON BOTH SIDES are making that difficult

I feel very angry about the heterosexual men who are commandeering the transgender space, without allowing any discussion of how this would impact on women....

I don't know what you mean here. I don't know of any instances where heterosexual men are commandeering trans spaces

And I - like many others on here - feel an enormous compassion for people like your ex-partner who have transitioned in a meaningful way, and have grappled with so many issues during their journey

thankyou - whilst they were grappling with their more acceptable version of gender journey they were on several occassions threatened by violence (twice in front of our child) because from the position of being a bystander it's impossible to know if someone is the 'right sort' of trans person or not. That's why however a trans person presents they should be given the benefit of the doubt as long as they are just going along and getting on with just being them and leading the life they have to lead that isn't hurting anyone else.