My DD6 just said 'I wish you could change gender'

[herethereandeverywhere]

Honestly, I'm . I'm trying to understand whether she's heard it elsewhere but so far I've found out she thinks she learnt the word gender from DD8. We live in a non-English speaking country (though at English speaking International School) so access to anything in the media is highly unlikely.

She is a classic tomboy, will only wear boys clothes (costs me as she won't wear any of DD1s hand me downs), only has boys as friends, is distressed when her hair grows long and cries, makes a real issue until we take her to the hairdressers for a short cut. She described he clothes as boys clothes, her hair as boys hair. This has been the case since she was 3 and I have posted about it previously.

I'm actually very relaxed about her choices and at every turn we explain away stereotypes ( girls can play football/have short hair, boys can wear pink/have long hair etc) her school have not questioned the fact she wears boys uniform.

I've tried asking why she said it and explaining how she can do or be anything as a girl. I'm not planning on confronting or raising it again but I'm .

I'm very concerned about the rise in trans activism, the transitioning of children via harmful irreversible medical processes.

I'm not sure why I'm even posting this... just a bit shaken and wondering how I handle anything similar in the future I guess.

I am also surprised that a 6-year-old said they wished they could 'change gender' rather than something more likely, such as 'I wish I could be a boy'.

Has she been told something at school , teased perhaps ? Because I agree that gender isn’t a word six year olds generally use.
Just keep on as you are. Telling her that clothes are just bits of fabric and don’t indicate what sex you are. They are just coverings, and fashions for men and women shift about, so that clothing that looks female now will have looked male at some point and in some cultures. Girls can do anything that boys can, although they might not be quite as physically powerful. Boys can do girls things, but they can’t give birth. There are biological limitations, that is a fact that all of us have to accept, but aside from that children can choose the things they like to do. I would explain that is isn’t possible to change your sex , and look for positive images of girls and women for her. Sounds as though you are doing all this anyway, it is the stuff she hears from other children that is the worry.

I'm concerned that that pro-trans converters may get to her or that teachers who have been reading 'helpful trans inclusive' literature might reinforce these concepts.

She just needs to go through childhood feeling confident and secure in herself. Puberty hormones may prompt a change in outlook (or may not, we shall see).

We've been presenting examples of non-stereotypical boys/girls men/women consistently, again and again since she was 3.5 years old and all the traditional girls stuff was rejected and/or made her upset. Thanks for the advice on that front but we're doing that already.

My dd sometimes says she'd like to be able to change to a boy. Because they don't get shouted at for the same things in other words- if a teacher catches her climbing the school gate or wrestling she gets in much more trouble than the boys who do the same. She wants to play football and laugh at farts and play, actually play, not stand to the side listening to music and reading magazines

I think girls, when they are expressing this want to be boys, are becoming future feminists. Because they are noticing the inequality. They are seeing the privilege and double standards , the everyday sexism that starts the day they are born regardless of how feminist and equally we treat them at home. The fact is that I am a feminist and I fight for equality because I want to be boy! Or rather- I want to be treated by society the same way that they are. It's a childish and simplistic way of expressing that.

I don’t think we can shield girls completely anymore.

“You can be any gender you want but you can’t change sex.”

Might that be useful?

All girls experience gender dysphoria? No way.

Some kind of discomfort/dysphoria with their bodies/self/identities/whatever as a result of being female in a patriarchal society - yes.

Surely gender dysphoria is one expression of this. Another being anorexia. Another being self harm.

My DD declared she wished she was a boy recently. She's 5. When I was 5, I thought I was too big and I see both of those thoughts as roughly expressing the same thing.

I don't believe all girls experience gender dysphoria. Most girls seem to experience some kind of distress (I'm not sure what to call it) but that certainly isn't always around wanting to change gender as such.

At least it wasn't. But that 4000% increase to GIDS suggests that now - a lot of that distress is being expressed as gender dysphoria. Before perhaps it was more likely expressed as something else (anorexia?)

I have a lot of empathy for teen girls wanting to trans. I haven't come across one who hasn't had some kind of prior mental health input.

Social contagion is definitely at work here. To go back to the anorexia example - that works the same way. Once one child in a school is diagnosed with an eating disorder, more follow. Then once in treatment, children pick up new behaviours from other patients.

A therapist friend of mine who specialises in adolescent psychology told me ALL girls experience gender dusphoria. It’s a condition of being female in patriarchal society

I didn't.

She didn't say it was lasting, but that all girls, at some moment, could be diagnosed as gender dysphoric based on the criteria of unhappiness with one's secondary sex characteristics and one's gender role

Nor that either.