DD is gender non conforming

[Rushhomeroad]

DD is 9 and has been gender non conforming since about 3. When I say gender non conforming, I mean she prefers to look like a boy ('male' clothes, short hair, 'male' activities and games). She has been mistaken for a boy all her life and she's not particularly bothered. I've asked if she wants me to correct people but generally she doesn't.
I've never been bothered by what she chooses to wear or play, as long as she's happy, so am I (DH is the same). She saw a few children's programs about children changing sex when she was about 7 and asked if she could become a boy. We talked about it and I explained that there was no magic wand that would give her a penis - the children in the documentaries still had female genitals in their pants. I explained what they would have to go through to become a different sex (surgery, medicine etc). I also told her she was born perfect, and that I loved her just the way she is without needing surgery or medicine to feel accepted. The relief she felt was very obvious - immediate reduction in tears and tantrums, more cuddles and happier child. We're all happy... apart from the increasing number of times she is confronted by strangers. She rarely goes to clubs or classes if she doesn't know anyone, following being cornered by 6 older girls in a girls toilet, telling her she had to leave as she was a boy. She's had similar at holiday clubs. Her swimming lessons had group changing and three families moved class as they didn't want their daughters changing with a boy. So what do I do if society isn't ready to embrace gender non conformity? DD has even used men's public toilets when out with her dad rather than go in the women's alone. So how do we make women's safe spaces safe for girls/women who are non conforming? I even laughed at one parent and asked that if I was trying to pass my son off as a girl, I would have put a lot more effort into it!!
So she doesn't need a third space, she is using facilities intended for her sex, but still isn't safe.
Suggestions?

That was my sister. She even had a male persona that she used (she gave me a boys name too). This was 1970s AFN Scotland. It’s today’s poisonous trendy gender crap that is the problem.

Her swimming lessons had group changing and three families moved class as they didn't want their daughters changing with a boy

Do these people not know she's female though? Does she wear trunks rather than costume?

This is what I feared, the society the trans lobby want to engineer is to further reduce our options for women and girls as well as remove our rights sanctioned in law.

The world we allow to be created will not benefit GNC girls (or boys).

Now we have an additional fight to ensure GNC kids are accepted by their peers.

I'll come back with something more constructive later OP but hope someone comes along soon with better advice.

I'd talked to the mums during lessons. Dropped things into conversation about how she likes wearing her brothers clothes etc. She wears a rash vest and (tankini) shorts for swimming - not worn a girls costume since she was three.
They couldn't get passed her looks to accept what was being said to them. I have (on a bad day) snapped back that she has two ovaries and a uterus which is all the credentials that should be necessary to be in the girls changing room!

Families changed lessons so they didn’t have to change with a 9 year old who looked like a boy? That doesn’t ring true. She would have presumably have been in a girls swimming costume and they don’t exactly hide your contours. And how could they be sure she was 9 not a large 7 - an age when children get changed with their parents regardless of sex.

In terms of suggestion - fight to keep single-sex spaces and overturn gender ideology.

She wears size 10-11 years. The black shorts are mostly covered by the rash vest, so not obvious what's inside, I guess.

Your poor DD, caught up in all this current palaver through no fault of her own.

Keep supporting her as you are, you are absolutely right in that clothing or activity preferences say nothing at all about biological sex.

My husband does all the cooking (and food shopping) and I do all the DIY (currently brick laying raised flowerbeds but will be moving an internal doorway next).

Be warned though, the pressure to assume a trans identity will likely intensify at secondary school. We’ve been going through an episode where our 13 year old has been encouraged to take on a boys name by a school counsellor, simply because she is uncomfortable with her brand new pubertal curves, wants to wear trousers and doesn’t like changing with the girls because of lesbophobic bullying (she’s been out as bi for a year and girls make some very cruel jokes about not wanting to change in front of her. School has been absolutely shit at dealing with the bullying and instead suggests she change in the ‘gender neutral’ loo. 🙄

Lockdown has been brilliant because all that nasty peer bullying can’t get to her, so she’s been admitting that school wanting to change her name and gender marker is driven by staff, not her.

Depending on how things shake out by the time schools go back, we may change her school and/or instigate legal action.

Buckle down, but keep doing what you are doing.

When someone told me I didn't look/act like a girl when I was younger I always said "What does a girl look/act like?"

When people have to actually think about their obvious sexism they tend to get a little flustered.

I think everyone is GNC, because nobody is 100 percent Barbie or 100 percent Action Man.
You're doing a great job with your daughter. Just keep letting her see all sorts of women, so she can understand how absurd the concept of "looking" or "acting" like a woman is.

I know it's little consolation at this point but it won't belong until change to her body tell everyone what sex she and then hopefully she can live a happy gender non confirming life.

Thank you DuDu. Her school got involved when they organised school swimming lessons and said girls had to wear one piece girls swimming costumes. My daughter refused and would rather not go than have to wear one. I eventually got them to back down and she was fine in her rash vest and shorts. But it got the school involved and they recommended I contact mermaids for support and would be happy to help transition her as they had just done it for someone else. I explained my take on the situation, and the headteacher was very supportive of helping her accept herself as she is. I worry about her next school though as they have many transitioned pupils and seem to use it as an inclusive selling point.

Those families are nuts. I also "presented as a boy" until I was about 12. I regularly passed for a boy and sometimes used the men's when out with my dad and brother. But I was never challenged in the ladies or in changing rooms. Gender non-confirming girls are surely not that unusual. I can think of several in my kids school. Pre pubescent boys and girls don't look that different. I'm amazed it wouldn't cross someone's mind the the 'boy' in the changing room couldn't be a girl with short hair.
One things for sure. I'm very glad I grew up in the 70s / 80s as I think the thought of transitioning would have really appealed to me

My daughter is 13 and was gender non-conforming since age 9. I say was because she is no longer with the constant assumptions that she is trans or thinks she is a boy. Like your daughter she has been challenged when with me in ladies public toilets. She is now growing out her short hair and (before lockdown) started wearing a skirt rather than trousers to school. It makes me want to weep for the fucked up gender stereotypes our daughters have to battle. I don't like the phrase "tomboy" but when I was a kid in 70s/80s she would have been described this way and allowed to get on with it.

That's outrageous Dududu. Your poor DD.

I worry about her next school though as they have many transitioned pupils and seem to use it as an inclusive selling point.

That is setting off all sorts of alarm bells. Please reconsider sending her. If the school is that pushy then she'll end up going down that road.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alok/id1498855031?i=1000477661706

I found this podcast really interesting on the subject. Sounds like you’re doing an amazing job of letting her know she doesn’t have to conform to any gender role and she can be exactly who she is.

Dear god, this terrifies me. There should be no need for a boy or a girl to change their body to conform to what is becoming and increasingly damaging approach to it by a small but vocal section of society.

Alok also has an excellent book ‘Beyond the gender binary’ which may interest your DD.

This is so sad, I was gender non conforming as a child and no one took any notice. I thought I'd started to dress in a more feminine way as I reached my teens but been looking back at old photos and my hair is always short and I'm wearing men's shirts in most of them through my 20s and 30s.
If there weren't males trying to go into female changing rooms no one would be worried about non conforming girls

Unfortunately, for all of the rhetoric about "gender fluidity", gender non-conforming people are obvious victims in this new world of gender ideology. No one used to care if little girls wanted to wear boys clothes (I was one of them) yet now we have to pathologise it.

As PP have said - puberty and secondary school will be a big moment for her. When I went to secondary school I started dressing a bit more girly as it just made my life easier. I still never wore make up or plucked my eyebrows or got my ears pierced though.

Maybe you could help her find some role models of cool gender non-conforming women to look up to. There are lots of female footballers, rugby players, climbers and extreme sportswomen who are awesome and thoroughly reject all the girly stuff.

I am very confused at the idea of supporting someone in being nonconforming and at the same time pressuring them to conform. If you get pressure from transers, tell them to back way up. You stick to your guns, Mother. I don't see why "gender noncorming girl" isn't perfectly clear. Let her be her original nonconforming self, just as she is--not a stereotyped boy, but an original girl.

The main thing that jumped out at me was your comment about her not being safe. If you think this for even a second, please, please remove her and then find a solution.

Don't you think a LOT of girls would rather wear something more modest than a traditional girl's bathing suit?

The school she will be going to is an academy, which is owned by the same company that owns all the other local schools. They all have the same SMT ethos. The only other option is a religious school, which set alarm bells ringing more when I spoke to them than the other options available.
For anyone thinking it's hard to confuse a girl for a boy - her own doctor accused me of presenting the wrong child at an appointment. I corrected him and said this is my daughter - he didn't look at her for the rest of the appointment, referred to her as 'he' and after we left, DD said he had referred to her as 'it' at one point (which obviously I didn't hear as I would have kicked off) but a complaint to the practice manager got nowhere.

I'm so sorry to read this OP. Children are massive casualties of this push to force them into narrow gender stereotypes.

Re secondary school - I would take the risk of being seen as "that parent" and make it very clear to the Head before she starts that the school must stick to their role and under no circumstances are any staff to initiate discussions with her about sex, sexual preferences or identity. They must stick to their role as supporting her learning. Any conversations come from her and not be adult led (just to alleviate any concern that you're trying to silence her).
There is far too much inappropriate adult dominated imposition of ideology in some schools at present. It's well meaning but it's led by adult lobby groups and is adult male centred, not child centred.

My dd has had very short hair and constantly got called a boy, she's not even gender fluid, that she's mentioned, she just liked short hair, but it was such a pain to put up with the silly comments from boys at her school, people in the street ('look mum, a boy in a skirt' was one of the better ones) that she's grown her hair long.

Gender has got more constraining, not less. My dd knows she's a girl, and that the people who think girls have long hair are utterly ridiculous but has given up trying to change from within. It's absolutely ludicrous. Some of her friends are gender non conforming/trans/diverse sexuality anyway, all this boys have short hair is so regressive.