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?

Long standing member of mumsnet, name changed as changed email and lost login details. (cheques in the mail, parking threads, picture or it never happened, biscuit etc).
Actually decided to post as have been following all the threads on JKR, Dan Radcliffe etc and my anxiety over the way in which the wider world reacts to my DD started increasing. I desperately want women to be women, have safe places and improved women's rights, but how can this be achieved whilst acknowledging that my DD is challenged when using these spaces? As the only way to protect these spaces is to challenge.
The doctor was an older male doctor, who presumably assumed that she was transitioning - I don't know as I usually refuse to see him due to his first question to me when presenting a child with a non responsive fever and non blanching rash at 3 years old, was to ask me if this was my first chilld.

OP you are her mother.

You and only you, can love and know her in the way you do.

You do not need to be pressured by society into raising the subject of transition with your daughter, who seem to see it as the only confirmation you are supportive of her choices. Please be very clear with the school on how you want this to be approached.

Like I said, i was very tomboyish at school, I dont remember anyone mentioning it. I remember thinking my sister was weird for wanting a baby doll though if anything a lot of my interests caught on in my friendship group.

There was also a girl at my (all girls) school who dressed in boys clothing, wore a suit to our prom etc. Nobody batted an eyelid, it was just 'that's just so-and-so'. She was very popular and had plenty of friends. I'm not sure if she was a lesbian, nobody asked or cared really.

I think the trans lobby has removed a person's right to be individual and dress how they like without their gender being challenged. Everyone just assumes you will transition, I think it is a harmful assumption.

Why can’t she just be herself? A female who doesn’t enjoy stereotypical female things. That’s absolutely fine. She can dress as she likes, play how she likes and love who she likes. None of it makes her male.

I don't think the OP was about whether she should be able to 'be herself' or not though - it was how to make single-sex spaces safe ... from... comments? Being cornered by older girls - I have no idea tbh, bullying is a really dreadful problem and especially now people are going to be wary of males in places they previously thought were female-only. There's all sorts of fallout from this fight, it's awful.

I'm a wee bit older than your DD but I was very much a tomboy (now called GNC) and still have "male" haircut and wear pretty much masculine clothes. At pre pubertal age you really can only tell sex from assumed appearance sad as it is, thats how boys can fool people with the right clothes and hairstyle (as one "new girl" did at DDs school for about a year). You are doing the right thing embracing GNC but steer her from any notions of medical pathways. I still get the odd look in toilets/changing rooms and more now thanks to halfwit TRAs but having been through female puberty I maybe second looks but not third.

so she doesn't like pink and frilly, likes to do interesting stuff rather than the princessy nonsense and has short hair. Why does that mean she needs an operation or a transition?

the sillybitch mothers of her classmates do indeed need to get out more. (Actually they all need a good slap but you'd get in trouble for that) They are bringing up their daughters to a very limited set of choices as well as teaching some terrible attitudes.

if she doesn't have male genitalia she gets changed with all the others who also don't have male genitalia. Where's the problem? Why did no-one intervene to explain that she is biologically female?

sounds an awful school and an awful set of holiday clubs if this bullying is allowed. I hope she can find some places where people aren't so pig-thick.

This is horrible. I don't remember this kind of shit when I was a kid, decades ago - some girls had short hair and it was no issue. What on earth has happened?

This is horrible. I don't remember this kind of shit when I was a kid, decades ago - some girls had short hair and it was no issue. What on earth has happened?

Indeed. Look at photos of primary age children taken in the 60s and most girls had short hair - I can still name the 2 girls in my own Junior 4 (Y6) class who had long hair!

What happened was in the last 20 years, the media ramped up - especially via social media - pressure on girls and women to be "feminine" according to a set of stereotypes like never before.

This has been massively part of what has caused so many young people in particular to believe they're 'trans', in my opinion.

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 know TRAs like to use the whole obsession with “what’s in trans folk pants” as a sort of gotcha but it seems a bit weird to use those terms when talking to a (then) 7 year old.

Why not just say that she can’t turn into a boy?

I’ve seen on twitter a person who sells mini penises for girls to ‘wear’. Now who’s obsessed with what’s in people’s knickers?

Keep supporting her. Bringing up in conversation how ridiculous people are who put people in narrow boxes. Give her the strength to believe in who she is and how that has fuck all to do with the clothes she wears, the length of her hair, her favourite colours, her hobbies etc. There is not a school in my city that doesn’t have an active LGBT+ group. Where a couple of years ago I would have thought this a lovely supportive thing for a school to have I now just think ‘how are they at supporting girls and championing their rights’ because I know from experience that these groups totally over emphasise rigid stereotyping, encourage exploration that gender non-conformity = trans and usually have mainly young girls who don’t conform to the cheerleader stereotype and therefore believe they’re ‘masculine’ which in turn tends to lead on to them believing they’re a boy.

As long as she’s supported in her non-conformity by you she’ll hopefully learn to stand up for herself. And I personally would never challenge a young teenage person in a toilet If they looked androgynous and I’m surprised that any woman would. I would just assume they were a lesbian, butch, a plain old non-conforming girl (like I was) or non-binary girl or transboy - all of whom have a right to be in the women’s toilet. I truly believe that I am able to distinguish a 14 year Male from a 14 year old female no matter what their hairstyle, stature or dress. And I certainly would not want to embarrass anyone of that age by accusing them of being in the wrong toilet (unless their behaviour was off and therefore caught my attention) Would anyone else on here?

What exactly is gender conforming anyway... without any sexist tropes?

I have no idea whether Anna McNuff considers herself GNC, but she's certainly a fab role model for all young girls.
www.annamcnuff.com

Thanks for the link! Not heard ofAnna McNuff before - a quick look at her website looks just like the sort of thing DD would be interested in.

You're welcome. I'm really passionate about all young women having access to role models who aren't vacuous YouTube stars or Instagram influencers (and I'm sure I do some a disservice by tarring all with the same brush), but especially those girls who don't automatically conform to what society expects from them in terms of looks and behaviour. If your looking for another 'looks like me' outdoor pursuits fan, Ellen McArthur may be a good one.

I don't understand how this thread has turned into yet another thread complaining about trans people. No trans person or trans ally would EVER challenge someone for the facilities they're using. That's literally the opposite of what they want. So who do you all think it is that's harassing this little girl? Surely it must be GC feminists and those who agree with them, because they are assuming she is male-bodied and they don't want non-binary people or trans women in their spaces so they're policing them? (Not that I'm saying your daughter is non-binary or trans, OP - sounds like she's perfectly happy being a gender non-conforming woman which is, of course, a completely separate thing to being trans). And yet it's GC feminists who are (and rightly so!) the most vocally supportive of a woman's right to present any which way she chooses and still be a woman.

So what's the solution from a GC perspective? And I'm asking that genuinely. Because even if you manage to somehow make trans women using women's spaces illegal, you can't be sure people won't break that law. So will you continue to challenge people you think don't "pass" as a woman, even if you're running the risk that they might well be biologically female and even though one of the core tenets of your beliefs (which I agree with entirely) is that women shouldn't have to present as femme to have access to women's spaces? I'm genuinely curious.

peach it would help if you could copy the bits from posts that you're referring to.

So who do you all think it is that's harassing this little girl?
People that think if you conform to masculine stereotypes you must be male regardless of your biology.

I think the only reason people are bringing the notion of 'transitioning' onto a thread about children who don't conform to sex stereotypes is because as of recently, not conforming to sex stereotypes is now supposedly a sign your child is transgender and as a parent you might find it hard to argue that they aren't. From the GC perspective I would prefer if we did away with sex stereotypes.

I don't think there is any law that 'you can't be sure people won't break' so it's a bit weird that suddenly I'm meant to come up with an unbreakable law rather than just say 'biological males shouldn't come into female single-sex spaces' (or jobs, or sport etc)

We need to stop calling it ‘gender non conforming’ and simply call it “doesn’t follow fashion” I agree with poster earlier who discussed the rigid stereotypes that children are currently exposed to and this definitely carries across to clothing, and children’s clothing is particularly bad.

But 200 years ago men wore wigs and tights and before that boys were traditionally dressed in pink, and men had long hair, go back to the vikings and men and women decorated their faces, etc etc.

Anyway my point is that it isn’t “gender” your girl it is simply “fashion” she is rejecting.

Surely it must be GC feminists and those who agree with them, because they are assuming she is male-bodied and they don't want non-binary people or trans women in their spaces so they're policing them?

Um... Magdelen Berns, Ann Ruzylo, Julia Long, the women of Get the L Out ... all of them dead keen on reinforcing gender stereotypes, aren’t they? 🤦‍♀️

Gender Critical means critical of the entire concept of ‘gender’ (as in, the spoken and unspoken rules societies set for how men and women should look and behave).
Huge numbers of GC feminists are GNC themselves.

It’s not GC feminists that see a butch woman or a girl with short hair and assume she’s a man/boy.

That’s twisted TRA logic.

*It’s not GC feminists that see a butch woman or a girl with short hair and assume she’s a man/boy.

That’s twisted TRA logic.*

This is baffling to me because it's so far from accurate in my experience of the trans and non binary community who are, in my experience, the most accepting of varying gender presentations. Because they believe that gender is about how you feel on the inside, not about your outward appearance. So they would readily accept OP's daughter as a woman who prefers to dress in a masculine or androgynous way. Equally they would accept a trans man who preferred to dress in a feminine way but still considers himself to be a man.

There seems to be a disconnect. If trans people and their allies aren't challenging people in bathrooms (because they believe all people should use the bathroom which aligns with their identified gender regardless of presentation) and you say that GC feminists aren't challenging people in bathrooms (because they don't believe in identifying someone's gender by the way they present but by their biology which you can't see from outward appearances) then who is? Because it sounds to me like we're universally agreed that it's wrong.

I think of all the misconceptions about trans people prevelent on this forum the one I find the most frustrating is this idea that trans people assume someone must be trans simply because they're gender non conforming. When in fact the trans and NB community is full of people who are gender non conforming and for whom presentation has very little or nothing to do with their gender, which they believe to be innate. If you're a biological woman who dresses in a masculine way and has traditionally masculine hobbies but still happily and contentedly identifies as a woman then nobody in the trans community would say you were trans. Because you're not. The two are mutually exclusive.

Maybe you should spend some time in women’s liberation movement, listening to butch women about how trans propaganda harms them, then?

These are some of the women your friends dismiss as ‘terfs’ and threaten violence against:

Gender is a set of oppressive sex stereotypes. There is nothing ‘innate’ about it.

I don't really understand your point. Is it that butch lesbian aren't trans? Because I know that, and so do all the trans people and allies I know. I also know that being a butch lesbian doesn't make someone a "t*rf" (starring as it's against the MN rules and I'm only using it in response to your usage) - I know lots of trans inclusive butch lesbians.

But my question is if trans people and allies aren't policing bathrooms and you say that gender critical feminists aren't policing bathrooms either, who is? If neither group wants it to happen, who is our common enemy here, for want of a better phrase?

(The above women are Julia Long and Ann Ruzylo, Linda Bellos and Liane Timmerman)

The women in this post are PeachYogurt, Magdalen Berns and Sheila Jeffreys.

Transactivism is a men’s sexual rights movement, please don’t encourage women to shore it up with internalised lesbophobia.
If you won’t listen to us, how about listening to some detransitioned women?

But my question is if trans people and allies aren't policing bathrooms and you say that gender critical feminists aren't policing bathrooms either, who is? If neither group wants it to happen, who is our common enemy here, for want of a better phrase?

No one is policing public toilets. The whole thing is a transactivist talking point. See Helen Belcher on Women’s Hour this very day.

Feminists are fighting the Male/Female axis of oppression, so I don’t think there is a ‘common enemy’.

This Magdalen Berns video sums up perfectly why non-binary people contribute nothing to dismantling oppressive sex stereotypes:

The parents in that changing room are idiots and possibly also unconsciously homophobic.

It is also possible that they want their daughters to perform femininity and so don't want OP's daughter giving them "weird" ideas.