Daughter with ROGD - issues with school

[Hoggirl765]

My daughter presents with ROGD. Her school is going forward with affirming this by way of calling her by her boys name and male pronouns. That's all so far. This despite our repeated requests to step back and watch and wait - to go at our pace as a family (basically back off). She has had a lot of emotional upheaval in her short life and has always found it hard to fit in. We have found a wonderful counsellor and that's all we're prepared to do at present. She is just 14 and at present is very enthusiastic and keyed into her school work and in general seems happy. No self harm etc. The school have caused us as a family so much unnecessary stress and then said that's it you'll have to wait til September now. If it wasn't for the excellent teaching we would be moving her. Has anyone else has experiences with unsupportive, insensitive or unsympathetic schools?

Just a thought about deletions. Could mumsnet let us correct our offending posts and then repost it with the said agreed terms. A second chance?

Tww1

you can ask for that in the internal mumsnet threads.

Interesting article about the process of social contagion with regards bulimia nervosa.
'The Strange, Contagious History of Bulimia'
By
Lee Daniel Kravetz

"The theory of media’s culpability in the spread of social contagions is not a new one. Psychologists studying the developmental psychopathology of eating disorders have led dozens of controlled experiments finding a near-perfect link between mass media and eating disorder symptoms. The question in my mind now isn’t whether media have a part to play in replicating social contagions; if we were able to purge ourselves of certain conduits of influence like media itself, we might have an easier time stopping transmission. Rather, I question just how big a part media actually play in spreading them."
www.thecut.com/article/how-bulimia-became-a-medical-diagnosis.html

Kravetz is the author of 'Strange Contagion: Inside the Surprising Science of Infectious Behaviors and Viral Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves'

Thanks again for some really useful advice. I've never considered AUtism though have about links with GD. She doesn't appear to have any signs of this.

AngryAttackKittens

She's not sporty at all. However she has said she'd like to try tennis. I've found a summer course at s local tennis club which starts next week. I've just put her in for one week but I'm hoping she'll ask to do all three.

So hard to keep her off the Internet without taking her phone. She'll just see it as a punishment. I am intent in keep her otherwise occupied.

Bathshebaeverbusy

It's helpful to hear a similar story to ours. Thank you for sharing.

Hoggirl765, sounds like a good plan.
Do you check phones? I know I do with both my daughters, they also know I can spotcheck them. I have also told them not to watch certain youtube channels, not about transgender btw, but other stupid things. And I checkup on their history.

Circle With Disney can be a useful devise for controlling internet useage.
You can set daily or weekly time limits and/or times of the day where internet access is withheld. You can also control/limit time spent on specific apps (e.g YouTube or WhatsApp).
Many of the families I work with have found this really helpful. The downside is that with phones, access can still be achieved through contract data allowances. Where this has been a problem, some families have just used contracts that have small data allowances that are capped.

Mumsnet - we really need a support thread for parents that TRA agendas get automatic deletion from (like the transwidows thread).

Parents come here for support outside of the dominant Mermaids narrative and as a parenting website, it’s scandalous that instead of support they get guilt tripped and berated by trans identifying adults.

Please do something about it @MNHQ because it’s not acceptable and not what Mumsnet is about.

(As the parent of an 18 year son with ASD who was suicidal in high school and spent a year in a vulnerable pupil referral unit, I very much recognise and sympathise with the anguish that ROGD parents are posting with. It comes off the screen in waves. Please, please give them their own space to support each other)

Interesting discussion here - I thought the article referred to at the beginning about the myth of parental rejection was really important. It is so wrong that authorities and schools are sometimes not distinguishing between parents who say 'Hold up here, can we look into this, I'm concerned about my child and their reasons for feeling they are trans' and parents who say 'You're a freak and no child of mine, I'm going to throw you out onto the street unless you stop right now'. I saw this thread quoted on Twitter by someone going 'Oh that poor child with their parents who don't accept them' uhhh, the OP totally accepts their child, they just don't accept or have to accept the proposed likely over-radical solution to their child's feelings.

@hoggirl my situation is slightly different but there are similarities. My teen is intelligent (diagnosed at age 9, although we were against it but ended up giving in when we had to seek out a therapist due to signs of depression). She started self-harming and controlling her food earlier this year. Thankfully her current therapist managed to see through her intelligent answers and realise that she hides/is incapable of feeling emotions perhaps. Her control over food is clearly a sign of something else. She spends a lot of time online but refuses to engage on social media. It pains me to see the scars, to see how she fails to see her own perfect body. She is currently undergoing evaluation to see whether she has autism (it runs in the family in various degrees). I had the most good-natured balanced child until a year ago. I am currently riding the wave. Hopefully it will all even out in the end. For us. For you.
On a last note: we had friends in a similar situation as yours. Their daughter went through life as a boy for two years but is now identifying as a girl again, posting pictures of herself in a bikini on the beach etc.

On a last note: we had friends in a similar situation as yours. Their daughter went through life as a boy for two years but is now identifying as a girl again, posting pictures of herself in a bikini on the beach etc.

I think this is really important to remember in all. this that not everyone is trans and that young people can work that out for themselves with help. and support.

It sounds like a really difficult situation. Have you sought legal advice in case this goes further once she returns to school? If she is for example binding her breasts that is potentially physical harm.
It may be worth asking for record of their decision making in respect of allowing her to change name etc. Particularly as you imply there may be other historic difficulties that may still impact her and that the school may have failed to take into account. That may put the brakes on things, when they realise they may be held to account.
You child's school has no legal parental responsibility for your child, the only way that can be removed is through the courts and the threshold for that is very high. They should not be making these decisions without you.

Sounds like you're doing everything right for now, Hoggirl. Hopefully a parent who's negotiated this process successfully with their child's school will at some point see this thread and be able to chime in with some advice about that (my instinct would be to pull her out of the school if you can't get them to follow the treatment plan you and the child's therapist have decided on, and if at any point the school is/was actively withholding information from you as parents that would definitely tip the balance in favor of pulling the child out of that school for me).

Threadreader version of Transgender Trend's twitter thread of parental descriptions and experiences:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1022884731476746240.html

Thanks for posting that.

Not one parent on that thread is saying they hate or are scared of transgender people, that they will reject their child for being transgender, or that transgender people do not have a right to exist.

They are saying that their child has many other difficulties that they want fully explored, that they are concerned that social contagion is playing a part; that schools are enabling social transition without parents knowing.

Not one parent on that thread is saying they hate or are scared of transgender people, that they will reject their child for being transgender, or that transgender people do not have a right to exist.

& yet just as recent FWR threads about ROGD have been derailed / attacked / targetted by some here, there also seems to be concerted attempts to silence some accounts and discussions on Twitter.

twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/1022882134606802944