Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

[Icanseeourhousefromhere]

Regular poster who has name changed for this.

I'm not entirely sure how to deal with DD atm. She is 13 yo, and until July was what I would consider a normal child. She was a bit of a loner in lockdown, happier to stay in her room - she enjoys spending time in her room drawing. In July she suddenly started drawing the flags of various gender identities, and started signing her work with a nickname instead of her own name (which is what she used to do.) She started messaging various friends from school and has moved away from her old friendships and made a new bunch of friends. They are all in her classes at school, and at least 4 of them that I can tell are now identifying as either male or non-binary and have all decided this since July. I'm a bit surprised that such a number of girls can reject their female-ness so comprehensively in such a short space of time. DD has cut off her hair and wears boys clothes now, and seems to want to spend her time doing typically male sports but will only play on female teams, eg cricket and rugby. She was offered the chance to play cricket last year on a boys' team as she is good and there were not enough girls training to make a full girls team, and she rejected this saying she would rather wait until there were enough to make up a girls team.

I gave some of them a lift today to go shopping. One of them my DD had been referring to by a male name and pronouns. She has had her hair cut into a severe crop and wearing boys clothing. She was very quiet and said that she didn't go out these days because of her anxiety. When her mother came to collect her, she seemed so grateful her child had been somewhere, anywhere, because she spends too much time on her own not interacting with other kids.

I can't help feeling that this is a bunch of children who have been kickstarted into a lot of introspection, amplified by the isolation lockdown brought about. I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm definitely in the GC camp - I work in a traditionally very male profession and much fuss is made of women who do my job. I have a motorcycle licence and used to fix up my own bikes. I'm UK champion in a sport that men and women compete at on an equal footing. I mostly wear gender-neutral clothing (my work clothes are a uniform consisting of a trouser suit with shirt and tie.) I don't wear make up or dresses or do 'girly' hobbies. I'm quite comfortable myself being a female person who does what I want to do and don't feel I need to conform to any gender 'box' to do so. What my gender might be has never even occurred to me - I know what my biological sex is. I hope I set a good example to my kids. But I'm nonplussed as to why my DD wants to reject her sex. I think she does not like puberty (and neither did I frankly) but this does not make her 'not-female' and nor will identifying as 'not-female' help it. I do think her current friendship group are all affirming each other's rejection of femaleness. Does anyone have any advice as to how I tiptoe through this?

Say nothing. Don’t fuel it. Unless your child talks about gender clinics and hormones just let them be. If you start questioning you will start the questioning process. Just wait til they come to you. The more you talk about this the more they internalise. I think

Keep on being yourself, as a good example. Sounds as if sex and gender are no match for you, and your dd will probably find her way through. Watch out for pressure from school though.

I did the opposite with my nearly 13 yo and we started to have very frank discussions about the girls at school all going on about being pansexual. We have listened to Irreversible Damage together and continue to have a lot of discussion about women's rights and about the ideology and disregard of biology.
What does your instinct say to do? For me I wasn't going to not say anything when her friend group all started on the gender stuff and I'm glad I went in and talked to her straight. It's difficult but I started out by asking her about her friends and asking if there was anything about them that annoyed her. Those sorts of conversations lead on to more openness. My worry with the not saying anything approach is that it allows more woo woo to fix itself in a child's brain via all the nonsense that they hear from the friend group. Kids tend to believe the first sources they hear things from.
I'd also get her out and away from the internet and friends as much as possible. No phones at weekends etc . You have power as a parent and I've never had any qualms about saying no phones. It also means I dont have mine when we go out either so it's better for both of us. We spend a lot of time together talking.
Talking with parents and other safe adults is what these kids need. Otherwise their friends and by extension the internet and people like Memraids etc are who they end up talking to.

Memraids? Mermaids!

I am in a very similar situation with my daughter’s new friends. They are calling themselves the ‘gays’ and half have identified out of being young women .

I was able (before I knew about her friends identifying out of being young women) to have a frank conversation with her about ROGD and how social media and chat platforms has fed it. I also was very up front about how the willingness of some women to give up women’s rights to males. And just how that could play out for her generation based on my own experiences and reminding her that the discrimination is still happening. Which is why I am trying to do what I can to keep progressing female rights and fighting the erosion of even the language.

I also told her that many women I knew went through wishing they could be boys when they were girls. That has not changed. I am happy not being stereotypical, like you OP, and she had been brought up to believe she has the freedom to like and do what she wants as a girl. When I showed her that Mermaids was using the Barbie scale she was horrified. And ‘the wrong body’. So she also now understands a little about the interaction with social media and the portrayal of women. she told me she felt that mermaid’s slide was really harmful and actually reinforced those stereotypes. That was her own interpretation.

My daughter fully understands you can’t change sex and now understands the unfairness in sport, the issues around single sex spaces and other places rights conflict. And she agrees females should have those protections (because she understands her friends are female and still will need them too). However, she has found her ‘tribe’. She accepts labels because she wants to be accepted. Even though these kids are supposed to be the non-conforming ones.

It is very hard to know what to do. I am sure if I tried to have that conversation with her now rather than four months ago, she would not listen. I have never met her friends but she would probably think I was ‘coming at’ them if I tried to talk about this now.

How open is your daughter to talking about some of the issues that she feels is causing the girls to identify this way?

AvocadoBathroom and Winesalot thanks for sharing. Given me some things to think on. I have been keeping quiet, observing, and trying to set a good example, but the thing that has made me think I really do need to talk to her was her friend (who is clearly a lot deeper in) yesterday saying she suffered from anxiety. It all seems to be interconnected with a fragile mental state, and very self-affirming and self—perpetuating, and I want to help her develop to be mentally stronger than that.

When I was her age there were no women in the role I’m in now, and those who led the way did so by making a case for women’s rights to be and do whatever they wanted, not by abandoning womanhood. I want her to understand she gives up far more by abandoning it than by embracing and standing up for it.

Icansee

The mental health aspect is vital to watch for. My own daughter is seeing someone to learn how to deal with her anxiety. I suspect some of her anxiety comes from her friends doing and saying things she is not comfortable with. I suspect some feel very uncomfortable with their parents and some of them do have anxiety. I know one has started drinking vodka and monster when her parents are not home. She seems to have very poor mental health but I do not know her or who her parents are.

I also had a policy that we check my daughters phone (she agreed to this) from time to time to check the apps etc. I also insisted on access to her Instagram when she first started because she was under the legal age. I now check her messages on the off chance having not checked for a year or so.

I am glad I had been on these chat boards and had read about the predatory nature of some of these chat mediums used by gender questioning kids. Shit. My daughter had told me about some new online friends that her friends were ‘meeting’ in Discord. When I looked at what one or two of the girls (recently NB) were posting I know what ‘friends’ they were meeting.

One of the girls posted a csa ‘story’ the group supposedly came up with together. It involved blood play, very willing incest and an orgy. Supposedly Created in the discord group these two have joined and shared to my daughter’s school group. My daughter was absolutely disgusted with it and messaged that friend to please never share anything like it again.

I haven’t told my daughter I have seen this. I had seen it about one month after it was shared. I did talk about me reading in the media about child sex abuse was a huge issue in lock down and how even the act of sharing it with unexpecting friends as a teen is committing abuse. Her dad and I felt she had handled it in the group and will just keep an eye on it. I have asked the school to maybe do a session on grooming and cyber security without going into why. I haven’t heard back yet.

But to me, clear signs one of these girls had been exposed somehow to CSA and to the concept of blood play (I ask any female who thought of sex during a period as being sexy and empowering to come forward and let me know they came up with this by themselves at that age). And from listening to the detrans YouTubers and reading about some of the beliefs being pushed from some sectors in the LGBT groups, I can conceive what might be happening.

I tell you this story because the mental health aspect is very prevalent in my daughter’s group. Including her own. It is well documented.

It IS hard to know what is best. And it depends on your relationship obviously. I came onto this board looking for answers as to what the fuck was happening to women. I picked up on the threads on ROGD (plenty of wonderful posters sharing their stories). Then one of my friends daughters was identifying as a boy and I started to really take notice. (Our kids are friendly but this friend’s daughter is not in that same group).

I did this knowing my daughter might be susceptible. And I am glad because now her friends have started to ‘come out’ over the past 3-4 months and she has been talking to me about them for the past month.

I can only sympathize. I expect as a long time user of MN that you know where the right threads are when you need them.

I ask any female who thought of sex

This is referring to any female who thought of this type of sexplay as a young teenager. I don’t care what adults do between adults but care very much to people exposing children to fetishising period sex.

I'm so sorry this is so common.

My only advice is keep close to her. Keep your good bond and relationship.

You're not the only one!
You may find this thread some help?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3744776-ROGD-Parent-Support

I think talking is best but proceed extremely carefully, and actually listen more than talk. Some girls feel certain feelings that seem out of place to them and they look for an explanation. Being ‘trans’ seems to supply that explanation and the ‘rightness’ of this answer is reinforced by their peers with similar feelings. That’s how more people are reeled in, like a kind of unconscious, no -deliberate recruitment process.

So, I’d continue to set the good example that you are and I’d also talk about how natural these feelings are and how common. This has to be done subtly not in a way that suggests your DD or her friends are wrong.

I’d also strongly bear in mind that some of this could be the beginning of understanding their sexuality and that some of the girls might not be straight or might be exploring the possibilities.

When you mentioned the nickname and the art, that did make me think about social contagion. So many girls in similar circles identify as NB. Understanding why your DD might be interested in this as an idea is important. Does she feel she’s not a ‘girlie’ girl? Does she feel she doesn’t fit in with her peers and their interest in boys, etc? Is she finding puberty hard and thinking this is a way to subvert it?

Listening and sharing is the way forward, I think. But I’d also very, very carefully try to disengage her somewhat from those new friends.

So difficult isn't it.
My DD is quite a non-conforming girl, but very clear that she is a girl and happy with that.
I think I would talk to your DD about this in a roundabout way. Perhaps even ask her to explain to you why so many of her friends are NB and what that means.
Internet access - what is she looking at? A gentle conversation around how sometimes very affirmative groups can be a good, but there's a fine line to grooming and alienation.
I asked my DD not to look at certain themes until she was a bit older. She has mostly followed my advice but came to me very upset one day after following some threads to a place that had made her very uncomfortable.
My DD and I have talked a lot about how finding out who you are and what makes you tick is a lifelong journey. Finding similar people to you is great, but resist putting yourself in a box.
I made it very clear to my DD that I would always love her and support her choices in life, but I wouldn't support anything damaging or irreversible. Luckily she seems quite happy and confident in her body and hasn't come up with anything that has concerned me.

I think we can get into thinking we have to tread lightly around our kids, which in the end can do more harm than good. A very good mother I know with several daughters once said to me “YOU are the parent. Remind them of this. You pay for that phone, you pay for that credit, you make the rules in your house, not the other kids they hang around with. Make it clear you will not be disrespected or talked down to. And the at times do this is to make it clear to your daughters that you know about life, sex, drugs and anything else they think you are clueless about. Kids like to think we don’t know, that we are naive. And if they think we are clueless they will dismiss us.”

“And the way to do this” that was supposed to say. Sorry I have an injured hand right now!
I also make sure that all our kids have a lot of chores to do to help out in the home, so they aren’t just sitting around with too much time on their hands to get self absorbed. And I say no to them constantly hanging around with their friends. Saying no is a massive thing really. My kids know that they cannot say “but my friends are doing this” because from a young age they have been told that other people’s rules aren’t my rules.
It’s got to the point with my daughter now I just give her articles and message threads to read about these issues, and then ask her what she thinks, I feel we have to be really open and speak plainly to our kids, because the language is being bastardised and history rewritten and they need to know the truth.

I would invite them round more to increase your understanding and give opportunities for gentle guidance. Be there mending your bike and mention it’s normal to find puberty difficult and it will pass.

OP would your DD watch a detrans video on YouTube? there are tonnes of them.

Also for you OP:

• Perhaps some advice on www.reddit.com/r/detrans/ might be of use to you?

e.g.: A key part of personal growth and eventually moving on from gender issues is the realization that you don't really have to like or subscribe to the societal appendage of gender to feel comfortable in your skin. There is no assigned gender for you to come to terms with, neither is there one acceptable way to "do you". A productive approach, imo, is internalizing the notion that you're of certain sex and although it's immutable, it doesn't have to dictate who you are as a person and how you can express yourself any more than you yourself would like it to.

• Also, Benjamin A Boyce has done hard hitting interviews with parents and detrans girls (some not appropriate for a 13 year old as they detail CSA). www.reddit.com/r/detrans/

Sasha Ayad is a US therapist working with adolescents & has a lot of experience with gender questioning kids. She's worth looking up.

Wandawomble I'm glad you think that its not beneficial to tread lightly. DH and I have been disagreeing over this. He thinks she will figure things out on her own if I give her the space to do so. I worry that she is taking the space we give her and using it to fill with 'other stuff' she is learning from friends and elsewhere. He has looked at her internet usage on her tablet and the laptop she uses for homework, and says there is almost nothing there. He thinks I would be invading her privacy to ask to look at her phone. I can't just sneak a look at it, because she has it password protected. I've tried to point out to him that she seems relatively clued up about things she would really have had to have been researching in depth about so it must be coming from somewhere, and I think it is on her phone.

I did talk to her yesterday, and asked her why she referred to her friend as a boy but when her mum's friend came to pick her up she referred to her as a girl, and she replied 'oh, he's trans but he doesn't want him mum to know.' So I asked her if she knew why. She said it's because he feels wrong as a girl. I challenged her with what does if feel like to be a girl, and what exactly is the bit she feels wrong about? And she had no answers. I tried to keep her talking, but she sounded very confused and seemed to be telling me things she had been told but didn't really understand.

So I explained to her about my job - how when I was her age there were no women doing my job, because it was a man's job. I still wanted to do the job, as did lots of other girls, and we didn't assume that made us men, we assumed it meant we had to fight a bit harder for our right to do it. And we won that right. I explained to her its important to fight for those rights because that means that women can be whatever they want to be as women, and not feel uncomfortable about wanting things that are only perceived as male. I don't know how far that sunk in, but I'll be continuing to repeat it regularly, about sticking up for being whatever kind of woman you want to be. I used to be able to take my children to work with me when they turned 12, and I was only able to take her once before Covid stopped that freedom, and it is such a shame because I would be able to introduce her to all sorts of awesome women at work who do our 'man's job' and have hobbies like skydiving, motocross racing, air racing, iron man triathlons. I work with women who are mothers or with no children, married and single, lesbians - the one thing that unites us is our willingness to fight for our place in a man's world. I want my daughter to be aware of that and not to give it up because it is easier to imagine her body is wrong.

icansee

The way you approached the topic of employment rights is similar to me. I also was able to tell my daughter that my own mother never finished yr 8, even though she could have easily done a degree I believe. And her other grandmother had to leave her job when she was married. I also told her the discrimination I had fought against even 15 years ago. So, these examples of just how recent women’s rights are as we have them today and she acknowledges the gaps still there. For women and for race. I then pointed out the roles set aside for females going to males and she was uncomfortable about supporting that.

Sport is also a good topic. Sam smiths girls thighs and breasts were a good one although I noticed this weekend she has started to call another of her friends ‘they’ so that now makes 4/7.

We don’t discuss gender often but when it is appropriate, it does get discussed from both points of view. So it becomes bite sized and easy to think about.

The space will definitely be filled by other influences and the internet. Who pays for the phone? My dd knows that the deal for her to have a phone is that I can look at her phone if I want to, actually I never need to, but we have an open book policy. She can also look at my phone, I hand it to her often, and I’ll actively talk to her about what she’s been looking at that week and what I’ve been looking at.

I’d talk about the friend in skeptical terms. Don’t affirm it. When I said to her first about this I just said “a lot of your friends are suddenly going to announce they are pansexual or trans in order to be different or cool.” She rolled her eyes and said “actually a couple of them have already.” For some reason as soon as you say someone is doing something to try and be cool, with a slightly dismissive air, a kid picks up on it and sees it in perspective. I think we get into a habit of tiptoeing around daughters because they are good at being moody when they actually need us to take control and assert ourselves.

Kids are much more sophisticated than we give them credit for. I give mine articles to read and then say “what did you understand from that?” She has a 10 year old brother who we’ve been together talking to. He’s at a different school and says that he knows two trans kids in his year. Again we mentioned that they are doing it to be different and cool rather than talking about them being confused. Talking about them being confused makes it into a muddy emotional conversation, talking about it in more focused ways and being direct has helped me a lot. I never talk down to them, I will start conversations by saying “I think you are old enough to handle this even though some of the things we are going to talk about are quite mature.” The internet is already teaching her stuff that’s way beyond her age, be sure of that.

Husbands tend to be more hands off and scared of dealing with this, mine leaves me to it but will back me up if he needs to. Don’t get into arguments with him about it.

I’ve told my daughter that she needs to fight for women rather than getting into a ridiculous anti woman position - and I talk about amputation rather than pussy foot around talking about top or bottom surgery.

And science! We talk a lot about fake science and real science. A big one is getting her to read studies about how puberty is good for us to go through as things settle down afterwards. Kids are not being told this and instead the magical unicorn thinking is taking its place. I got her to read the JK Rowling statements too. Just get her to read articles by handing her your phone and saying “Read this, I think it’s interesting, what do you think?”

We use a lot of humour too. That’s a big one. We watch the IT Crowd.

Another thing is me saying “I’m trusting you to understand.”, “I’m trusting you to read this stuff with an open mind.”
I give her a lot of trust. And that trust extends to telling her to the truth.