I’m a mum teaching her children that people can like whatever they like regardless of whether they’re a boy or girl and gender stereotypes that they see every day in toys, clothes, books, films, etc are largely made up by the shops to sell more stuff. I try to challenge every tired sexist stereotype and encourage them to do the same. I talk to them honestly about their bodies and what they can do. I want them to be fit and strong and comfortable in their own skin. I encourage sport, healthy eating and watch what I say about my own body (I don’t want to pass on any body hang ups I have to them). Anyone with young children knows it’s virtually impossible to have privacy and when they’ve seen things such as blood in the toilet when I’ve been on a period or run into the bathroom when their dad or I are having a shower, we answer questions as best we can, in an age appropriate way, using facts.
The idea that an organisation can come into school and undermine our parenting by teaching our children not only that gender roles are somehow hard wired (which flies in the face of most modern neuroscience), but puts the idea in their heads that if they don’t fit these roles that somehow they were born in the wrong bodies and that a lifetime of medical intervention is something that they should consider, is terrifying. I want them to understand that they can love anyone they want without judgement. I want them to explore their identities and express themselves however they want but I don’t want them wearing items of clothing that restrict their ability to breath and exercise, or taking medication that could have unknown side effects, or treatment that leaves them sterile before they’ve reached an age where they can make a decision about whether they want children. I don’t want them contemplating the mutilation of their bodies that could potentially leave them unable to enjoy sex in their adult lives before they even understand what that means. And I don’t want ANY of this happening behind my back, in an air of secrecy.
I don’t feel I have a “gender identity”. I have an experience of living in my female body and everything that entails. I also experience the social expectations of being a woman. I am comfortable conforming to some of those expectations but not others. I don’t believe that my failure to live up to society’s ideals of what it is to be a woman is because there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, I believe it is because stereotypes are a load of rubbish. I want my children to grow up critical of restrictive ideas about sex and gender in the same way that we teach them to be about race or class or anything else.
I will never support an organisation run by people with NO background in either science or education, being let loose to teach my children pseudoscience and pop psychology, encouraging them to potentially harm their bodies while undermining my parenting choices and the bond that I have with them.
I’m genuinely sorry your experience growing up was so traumatic and I hope you have now found a way to live your life in a way that makes you happy. If any doctor suggested the ‘treatment’ you received, I’d be horrified but holding that up as the only alternative to puberty blockers, breast binding and removal of body parts is ridiculous. They are both wrong.