Phoebe Waller Bridge wanted to be a boy but changed her mind at 11.

[Cismyfatarse1]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fleabag-star-i-wanted-to-be-a-boy-26tmzpqxs?shareToken=4de8e8cc8646a4a30eb58b8c231de521

Interesting article as she changed her mind. It is all about the usual stereotypes but a few mor3 people might join the dots.

hopefully this will make a few people stop and think...

Well done Phoebe 🌟

Yes. But it's notable that what she says made her stop wanting to be a boy was 'discovering boys' and that she realised they probably wouldn't like her boyish appearance. Lesbian teenagers are more at risk of doubling down.

www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=722776834&t=1558253504314
This interview is referenced on Twitter.

I've just realised there's another thread on this already

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3589349-sunday-times-phoebe-waller-bridge

It didn't make my friends stop and think when I told them of my experience of wanting to be a boy through my childhood from around age 4-15/16. I told them all about how I wanted a mastectomy, hated my body, hated my periods, etc, etc.

My feelings were minimised. I was told I wouldn't have been trans. Counselling would have stopped me. I guess back then, yes, it would. Nowadays I would have the internet and would know the cult script to get me some puberty blockers.

I lost my friends. I'm on the wrong side of history. These kids just want to be their authentic selves. I should do better.

I seem to remember that man actor whose name I can’t remember (gay man, played handsome young man roles in the 80s and 90s. Elliot, Everit?) anyway he said he would have been prime material for ‘girlification’ as a child.

Rupert Everett.

I was close!

I'm not vouching for the spelling. There are at least four ways to spell that surname.

Also Katherine Hepburn. She made her family call her Jimmy, had her hair cut short and wore boy’s clothes until she went through puberty.

Didn’t Joan Collins say something similar?

This has been picked up by Stylist magazine (so woke it hurts) but I think it’s really interesting that the inference which is so obvious to us (thank god she wasn’t around today to take puberty blockers etc) isn’t apparent to woke readers. I find the cognitive gymnastics involved impossible to understand- how can you not see that destroys the very IDEA of trans kids?

I think so many of us felt this way, which is why we're doing our best to protect young people from being brainwashed and changed forever through surgery.

It's our duty to protect them from the likes of the Webberleys

I felt like that too, till I was about 12; I blame George from The Famous Five.

I know so many girls who were adamant they were boys/wanted to be boys, short hair/boy clothes etc who changed during puberty and most of them didn't even turn out to be gay either. Most ended up married (hetrosexual marriage) with kids etc. I'm not saying that is necessarily the case for everyone, but it certainly is for most. I know a few effeminate hetrosexual men, but most tend to be gay. I'm of an "older" generation though so most of my experiences are around the 80s when there was still stigma about being gay. Most teenagers now couldn't care less and that's great. I couldn't care less either but we would have been quite shocked if one of our friends had said they were gay back then. Some things have moved on for the better.

I think I was telling people I wanted to be a boy until around 9-10. What I really wanted was to utterly reject the soft, pink uniformity that I felt was coming at me from every direction and I didn't know how else to do it.

All the virtues and strengths I admired or aspired to seemed to have been co-opted by history and culture as masculine or male (rationality and evidence-focus, abstract thinking, coolness in difficult situations etc..). Most of the main characters in books and films back then seemed to be male or very soppy females, certainly no one I felt able to identify with.

Years later, I watched the film "Iron Jawed Angels" (which I didn't think was that good) and a quote from the Hilary Swank character stuck with me:

"You ask me to explain myself. I'm just wondering, what needs to be explained? It should be very clear. Look into your own heart—I swear to you, mine is no different. You want a place in a trades and professions where you can earn your bread; so do I. You want the means of self-expression, some way to satisfy your own personal ambitions; so do I. You want a voice in the government under which you live; so do I. What is there to explain?"

I never really wanted to be male. I just wanted all the things that seemed automatically accessible and open to boys and not the dumbed-down and pinkified version.

I'm sure some people really do want to be the opposite sex but for many of us it's a childhood phase driven by different psychological motives.

There are some excellent comments under that article!

Yes, I was exactly like this too.

Me too. I didn't want to be soppy and I didn't want to be rescued. I despised the women in adventure films (who weren't even there in the books they were based on) who wore high heels and couldn't run, and shrieked at spiders so putting the whole crew at risk of discovery. I wanted to be strong and cool headed and logical, and I wanted to be able to climb trees and turn handstands without boys seeing my knickers.
(Hollywood has a lot to answer for.)
I could say a lot more but am in danger of ranting.

I really wanted to be George in the famous five. She was the cool one, and she had a dog.

I wanted to be a boy too. I think as others gave said so many of us did and then accepted being girls as we got older. Now though we would be put on puberty blockers before being able to accept ourselves and our lives destroyed, it's heartbreaking.