"My child is transgender" or, count the number of stereotypes...

[WeeBisom]

www.parents.com/parenting/my-transgender-child-this-is-how-i-know/

This article has to be one of the most craziest ones I've read yet. Things that are apparently 'masculine' and a sign that your girl is really a boy: finding farts funny, Pokemon, wanting to play baseball, watching wrestling, wanting short hair, zombies, Minecraft, mud, superheroes, selecting 'boy' pieces in a board game, having boy friends, wanting to wear a Transformers t shirt, Mario...

Also, can anyone with children tell me how realistic the initial conversation with the four year old child is? Do four year olds even ask what death is? And would a four year old even be able to grasp (let alone pronounce) the concept of reincarnation?

I think what makes me angry about these articles about trans kids, and their endless sea of stereotypes, is that could have been me. This child sounds a lot like me - even down to the funny interaction in the clothing store with her insisting on trying on boy's clothes. Except my mother didn't make a big deal of it and just let me wear what I liked. It's chilling that if I was a child today I could have been put down a lifelong path of medicalisation just because I liked dinosaurs and Power Rangers.

At age 2-3 dd1 asked a few times when her willy will grow - she didn’t understand biology so I explained it. She’s now 12 and yep, still a girl. All my girls love pokemon, wrestling and farts are hilarious. Why are parents confusing individualism and trying to shoe horn them into a category?

Yes, aged 4 I'd tell all and sundry I was 'born a boy but my willy fell off' and this didn't trigger any soul searching about my gender identity - I also had all male friends at primary school and cut my hair cropped aged 8 and kept it that way until my mid 30s, but I was always perfectly clear I was female. TBH, I don't believe that 'if I was like that these days I'd be straight on the path to surgery' as I think the vast majority of parents of GNC kids still know they're just GNC and nothing more (or possibly gay)

DD at 4 was very concerned about death, we did have similar conversations and my reaction was similar, to tell her what different faiths thought about death. DD also liked the idea of reincarnation at first. I can't remember who she fancied being reincarnated as because it didn't strike me as a remotely significant aspect of her upset.

Otherwise- the sexism, the shocking sexism! Your child doesn't like pink, so don't buy her pink. She thinks the cool clothes are in the boys department, they fit her body perfectly well because small child. If you tell her her body's wrong for the clothes she likes, no wonder she thinks her body's wrong. Long hair the last sign of XX chromosomes? What a ridiculous drama. DD also at 4 decided she didn't like long hair and cut parts of it to a couple cm long with paper scissors. The only people who thought it made her a boy were some other preschoolers - small kids don't really understand how sex works- and she was happy to tell them they were being silly.

Also this mother remembered she'd been the same as a child. Why did she not use that memory to inform her understanding of her own child?

I can’t of a way of expressing my opinion on why without risking deletion.

*think of a way.

These are the DSM 5 criteria for diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children (my bolding):

“In children, gender dysphoria diagnosis involves at least six of the following and an associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months.

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender
• A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the opposite gender
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
• A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
• A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender
• A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender”

www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

I’ve bolded the “at least six” part. I imagine in theory this means to those who came up with these that they thought it would make it harder to diagnose. In fact what it does it just mean that more ridiculous stereotypes are applied to children when a diagnosis is made. You literally cannot diagnose a child without agreeing that there are rigid stereotypes of each sex: clothes, toys, games, role play, friends you want to play with. It’s so utterly regressive and these are the official criteria.

@NotBadConsidering

These are the DSM 5 criteria for diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children (my bolding):

“In children, gender dysphoria diagnosis involves at least six of the following and an associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months.

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender
• A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the opposite gender
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
• A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
• A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender
• A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender”

www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

I’ve bolded the “at least six” part. I imagine in theory this means to those who came up with these that they thought it would make it harder to diagnose. In fact what it does it just mean that more ridiculous stereotypes are applied to children when a diagnosis is made. You literally cannot diagnose a child without agreeing that there are rigid stereotypes of each sex: clothes, toys, games, role play, friends you want to play with. It’s so utterly regressive and these are the official criteria.

What a load of tosh!

So my dd for example, can’t play with boys if she doesn’t play with girls too.

She can’t like cars, dinosaurs etc as they are a “boys toy”.

She can’t play certain games that are aimed at boys..what games are aimed just at boys?!!

She can’t pretend to be superman or batman cos they are men

Ugh! It’s just bullshit

To me, the first six points in that list are about gender (non) conformity. Only the final two describe experiences that might point to something more than GNC and could warrant further exploration.

So, according to the diagnostic criteria, a GNC child could easily be given the diagnosis of GD.

When I read articles like this, I'm so glad I didn't grow up as a child today. It would have left me incredibly anxious and confused. I never had an issue with my body but for some, this is all the push they need to go down the 'medical' pathway.

Instead of throwing off 1950s sterotypes, we have embraced the Kim Kardashian, Drag Queenesque, pink-only, Barbie, bunny-ears, Youtube beauty vlogger idea of what it is to be a woman. Utterly Depressing.

I always say if reincarnation is real I’m coming back as a cat, yet furries creep me the fuck out, what do I dooooo??? Must I don a cat outfit anyway???

All female household here (47,12 and 10) and we routinely laugh at farts!
Two of us have very short hair. Both daughters play Minecraft, lego, knex. We frequently go to the 'boys' clothes section to get better tshirts or hoodies that aren't all pink and glitter.
Oldest wears trousers for school and someone asked her if she was a boy!
I turned up at school with my youngest's scooter and a boy classmate asked me whose scooter it was and when I said my daughter he said but it is blue!

Thank God I grew up in the 1980s. These sexist stereotypes are doing my head in.
Girls can do anything that is what we should be teaching them not that they have to trans in order to be accepted.

This concerns me because, were I child now, this could easily have been me.

I didn't really play with the many dolls I was bought but played with my brothers cars and He Man figures.

My mum and I clashed constantly when i was a child because i didn't like dresses - they were impractical and i felt ridiculous and embarrassed in them. I had one that I liked but other than that... then, as a teen, most of my friends were male, I had typically male hobbies and interests (I still do). I still didn't wear dresses or try to look 'sexy' for boys. I wore skinny black jeans, band t shirts and checked shirts. I didnt wear make up. And I realise that most of the difficulties I had as a teenager and most of the emotional abuse I lived with was down to her anger and frustration that i was getting being a girl all wrong.

Had she had the option of believing I were a boy instead, she might well have taken it! Believing I was actually a boy who was born into the wrong body might have been preferable to accepting I was a girl who wasn't the sort of girl she wanted me to be. And, tbh, I might well have gone along with it. After all, you tend to believe what your parents tells you as a child.

My daughter started choosing clothes from the boys section when she got fed up of only having various shades of pink, ponies, fairies, ballerinas and unicorns to choose from.

Trans advocate Jazz Jennings on life before, after gender ... "When I was 2 years old, I went up to my mom and asked her, 'When is the good fairy going to come with her magic wand and change my penis into a vagina?'

What an impressive command of the language for a two year old. Has anyone contacted MENSA?

Exactly. 2 year olds generally haven't even clicked that there is a difference between boys and girls.

On the precocious language, I recall when DD was small and hadn't quite grasped things like prepositions and time, her language could be a little confusing. She'd structure a sentence like "When I am a baby" and it was clear to me she hadn't mastered the past tense, because 'child intuitively understands she will be reincarnated' never crossed my mind. I can well see how parental bias towards a particular belief system would cause misunderstanding.

She went through a period of saying when instead of if for hypotheticals too.

All these reported linguistically-precocious transkids, I'd bet good money what we're actually hearing is the parent's misinterpretation.

That gender dysphoria criteria was me as a child. For far far longer than 6 months. From about 4-15. Especially during puberty - my periods started when I was 10 - I then definitely had a strong dislike of my sexual anatomy then, and wished I could get rid of my breasts, stop my period etc.

It's fucking awful that these things, which are normal for some kids to go through, are now medicalised into this.

What the hell would happen to a kid like me now? Here I am, a straight, recently diagnosed autistic, woman with kids. Someone like me would end up an infertile gay "man". Just because they didn't like "girly" things and found puberty fucking hard. And also maybe found fitting in hard, because autism.

My brother was no 3 of 3, f,f,m. Aged about 3, he asked when he'd turn into a girl. It made sense, because his older siblings clearly had!

He accepted the answer "Never" and we moved on with just a funny family story to show for it. If it had happened in 2020, who knows?

And if I were a pubescent or pre-pubescent girl right now, and were aware of society's expectations for me to fellate boys on demand and prepare my anus for male penetration, I might well choose to identify my way out of that scary future.

When are we ever going to tell girls that sex is supposed to be enjoyable for them as well as for males and that they can say no to anyone or anything they don't want or enjoy?

My dd (7) wants to be Voldemort! Has the costume and very often goes out wearing it, including to school for world book day. Not sure how we're supposed to handle that transition.

I pulled her back toward the girls' section. "Over there."

She’s 4. Who cares? Kids bodies are the same except genitals at that age. Seriously?

nearlygranny my 3 year old is exactly the same, he has a 1 year old little sister so sometimes says "when I was a little girl..." or asks when his sister will turn into a boy. Its just logical too him that babies are girls and then you turn into a boy when you get bigger. He also knows, and will say, that one day his sister will be a woman like me and he'll be a man like daddy. He can hold both of these contradictory beliefs quite comfortably because HE'S 3 FFS! These people who take the weird beliefs and opinions of 2/3/4 year olds as somehow literally representing reality are just baffling. Have they never met any other children before? In a surprise to no one, this is a way of thinking that I also find really prevalent amongst religious communities. Lots of "I first became aware of (god/souls/my pasts lives etc) when I was only 2", or "I took my 4 year old to church and she immediately said she could feel the power of God there". I think they think it gives the ideas credibility, that even a child can be aware of it therefore it must be true and intrinsically knowable. But all it says to me is that this child has experienced indoctrination and/or is being coached to give certain answers and/or the adult is rewriting history to suit their own narrative.

Nobody has a gender or a gender identity, it's not a real thing. No one is born in the wrong body, in fact there isn't a "you" that is divisible from and therefore "born into" a body full stop. Toys, colours, and clothes are for everyone. Stop telling children that they have the wrong personality for their body, or the wrong body for their personality. Just STOP IT! Believe whatever unscientific nonsense you want but leave children the fuck alone!

The gender dysphoria criteria (and the author’s references to pokemon and buying clothes) are very specific to a place and time.

Until a couple of generations ago in the U.K when toys and clothes started to be mass produced, many children didn’t have toys and clothes were just whatever was handed down.

Until relatively recently (early 20th century) even very rich families dressed girls and boys alike till the age of 6/7.

It’s easy to understand why a child might feel completely excluded by current gender expectations, certainly to the point that they would declare they are the other sex, but the gender expectations are wrong, not the child.

Until a couple of generations ago in the U.K when toys and clothes started to be mass produced, many children didn’t have toys and clothes were just whatever was handed down

Yeah, I had my brothers old toys and clothes as hand me downs, I also liked 'boy' things. Surely the best outcome rather than to convince young children to transition is to work to eliminate gender stereotypes.