When your daughter's friend is trans.

[Sirranon]

I've lurked on here for a while, reading the gender critical stuff. But I've not seen this addressed.

How do people think is best to handle it wisely when DDs best friend is trans. Would you use or not use the requested pronouns? Are there any good resources I can give to DD to persuade her her friend is potentially on a bad path. 🙁

DD has fully bought into all this and is providing support and encouragement.

I've just found out her friend is binding and I'm horrified. Even though I know it's not my daughter or my business.

Why would you not use their preferred pronouns?

My dd’s friend is NB. Her parents don’t use her preferred name or pronouns. Now I know this, I feel ok to follow suit.

I guess understanding the parents position is crucial in deciding how to respond.

I’m so sad that my dd won’t discuss trans issues with me. It’s very difficult. Thanks for starting the thread op, i’ll look into the irreversible damage book.

Waffling Willow has just done some guides for parents on YouTube

@haveaday

I'm sure he is fully aware it's not biologically true but it's a bit rude if you don't respect his wishes. Especially as it's someone your DD is close to.

Really? Why do you think he's any more scientifically informed than most stonewall-informed people?

'Today I was upset 😡 and said what I thought (to my daughter obviously not the friend). Ie that it was mutilation of young women.'

It's out of line to say this sort of thing to your child.

She's young.
She can't do anything about her friend. Maybe if her friend shows doubts but really generally they're young
What you said may well really make her upset and worry about her friend and that's not fair on her

If you need to get it off your chest talk on here or to an adult. Don't say it to your child.

'My dd’s friend is NB. Her parents don’t use her preferred name or pronouns. Now I know this, I feel ok to follow suit.'

This is to her face or when she's not there?

If it's to her face I think that's not on tbh.

'I’m so sad that my dd won’t discuss trans issues with me. It’s very difficult. Thanks for starting the thread op, i’ll look into the irreversible damage book.'

I wonder why she doesn't want to discuss it! Blimey.

Could you tell your DD about Keira Bell, or maybe she would be interested in reading herself. So she knows you are coming from a concerned place rather than a judgemental one.

www.persuasion.community/p/keira-bell-my-story

You use their name not their deadname.
You use their preferred pronoun.
You discuss with your daughter, if they are able to listen without prejudice, that there are safeguarding concerns and sports equality concerns which compromise women's safety and fairness.
You can expect to be called a transphobe at some point (probably when you use the wrong pronoun by mistake and are told you are doing it on purpose) but you can end up agreeing to disagree.

@TheOnlyKoiInAPondOfGoldfish

20yrs ago my pre-teen DD declared she would henceforth be known as "Fred" (not the real name, it was a masculized version of her given name). She cut her hair short, declared she was a boy. Her friendship group used the new name, her teachers did not, her parents and GPs did not. After a couple of years, and the onset of periods, she let her hair grow long again and was experimenting with makeup and clothes. Some of her friends, to this day, call her by the male name but it's become just a bit of a nickname.

She is in her 30's, a GC adult human female who says she's now aware she wanted to be a boy because they had more fun and did all the activities she wanted to do. Once she realised she could do those things, even though lots of other girls didn't, she relaxed into herself.

Grown ups need to hold the line here IMO. Teachers and parents are failing their children by going along with this. I have no doubt that if my DD had been a pre-teen now she would have been "guided" down a trans path. That horrifies me.

This. Ask yourself who are the adults here? Moreover, teens telling parents what words they are allowed to use is terrifying really. Our job is boundary setting, it is safeguarding, it is resisting compelled behaviour. It is holding the line until young people reach maturity and are able to really think through consequence. It is hard standing alone as parents though, the more we stand together the better. The thing I find really hard is seeing parents just falling in to line.

Inter my DSis has appeared to embrace being mum to a boy. I cried when DN had her double mastectomy. I've been at odds with my family about this and thought I'd lose them.

Luckily my niece had come to realise that I love her as ever and we get on well.

@haveaday

I'm sure he is fully aware it's not biologically true but it's a bit rude if you don't respect his wishes. Especially as it's someone your DD is close to.

There is no way on earth I could bring myself to refer to a child I had known for years and years by the pronouns of the opposite sex to the one I knew them to belong to. Change of name, OK, lots of people change their name. Change of pronouns, no. I'd be going in for a lot of convoluted sentences like 'Yes, I did like Joe's top. Where did Joe buy it?'

If my child came home and said that her best friend was convinced she was overweight although she was quite obviously underweight, would I be expected to buy into that obvious psychological problem? If she said she was convinced her left eye didn't belong to her and should be surgically removed, should I just nod and smile?

Ask yourself who are the adults here? Moreover, teens telling parents what words they are allowed to use is terrifying really. Our job is boundary setting, it is safeguarding, it is resisting compelled behaviour. It is holding the line until young people reach maturity and are able to really think through consequence. It is hard standing alone as parents though, the more we stand together the better. The thing I find really hard is seeing parents just falling in to line.

YES!!!!!!!!

It's not safeguarding to refuse to use a different name etc to an individual.

Your DD will simply stop having her come round.

Or the friend will stop.

It could cause trouble in their friendship. I imagine that may be what you're angling for though.

@Sirranon

I absolutely don't want to drive any wedges. They are good friends.

You clearly do or you would accept her friend for the person they are not the person you want them to be

Not accept them. They are still the same person! What changes about your personality when you change a name?!

The hardest thing for me is remembering!

DD close friend changed her name and I took s while to get used to it.

But that's her name at school now etc. It's what all her friends at school call her.

DD knows my views. However. She appreciates that I call her friend her new name because I'm sure she thought I wouldn't. That means although we tend to avoid the general topic, she knows that I'm not super hardline to the point I won't listen. That's good.

And I mean. If she said Alex did this today and I said oh good for Jane. That's just being arsey for the sake of it.

I don't see what possible good refusing will do OP. Genuinely.

@NiceGerbil

It's not safeguarding to refuse to use a different name etc to an individual.

Your DD will simply stop having her come round.

Or the friend will stop.

It could cause trouble in their friendship. I imagine that may be what you're angling for though.

You've obviously not read the thread, as I've never said I wouldn't use their new name, which is gender neutral.

What a nasty assumption.

Save your effort for the massive orgs, institutions and vocal individuals - adults -who are driving this.

Children who socially transition are much more likely to physically transition. 80% of children who are not supported in social transition desist.

Am I on the feminism board? It feels weird

Because these are individual children. And this child is not the OPs.

Being essentially a dick about your child's friend achieves what exactly?

I'm also taken aback at this thread but in a different way.

@JoodyBlue

I agree. I suppose my question is really about, how do we hold the line without behaving in a counter productive way and alienating our daughters.

@moomoogalicious

I'm sorry, I really hope things work out for your child for the best.

*This is to her face or when she's not there?

If it's to her face I think that's not on tbh.*

I haven’t seen her since before the first lockdown tbh. I have made an effort to use the new name and pronouns with my dd, but since seeing her friend’s mum and establishing that she isn’t using the new name or pronouns, I feel like it’s ok not to either, out of respect for them. It clearly isn’t easy for any of them, but I don’t feel it’s right to undermine another parents decision.

I actually think that what has happened on this thread is very clear. OP has a DD with a trans friend. The trans person is biologically female.

As this is the feminist board, all posters here are instinctively supportive of this trans person. Everyone is concerned about the breast binding as this may have serious short term (breathing) and long term (damaged breast tissue) consequences. Everyone here would be even more concerned about medical interventions. At the same time, women here feel that OP should be polite (I would say kind, but that word has bad associations on this board) to the trans person and not alienate her own DD. Most women here do not believe in gender stereotypes and think that this person can dress however they want.

Women here rage against institutions that, in our opinion, push young people to transition, they rage against pharmaceutical companies pushing experimental drugs and they rage against doctors who let young people transition without asking enough difficult questions.

Women here do also not want biological males in spaces where biological women are vulnerable.

This is not a transphobic board. Women here are focussing on supporting biological females, trans or not trans. I think this thread show how supportive women are.

@Sirranon I think one has to set a boundary and hold to it. Not in a way that is antagonistic. I am not prepared to change my language, my fundamental understanding of human reality on a whim. I would change it based on evidence and discussion and common agreement. So it is modelling how one assimilates, orders, and understands information, relating to anything, not just this issue.

I think I would just demur. I wouldn't use pronouns at all. If I slipped up I wouldn't berate myself. I would believe in my own value as my daughter's mother, and hope that stood me in good stead. Basically I wouldn't buy in to coerced speech. I may well just ignore it and carry on as normal.

And I would not let my child dictate the way I think or express myself. That is a failure of the adults in the room.

wonder why she doesn't want to discuss it! Blimey

Not sure what you’re getting at here tbh.

You hold the line by discussing the big obvious issues with your child when they come up.

With DD we have discussed sport, prisons, stats. We have discussed that male and female bodies are different- we're just too clever apes, mammals.

When we put some music on YouTube there's a healthy dose of music I like that happens to have GNC people. Annie Lennox sweet dreams. Culture club. Bowie life on Mars is an amazing song we all love and his look in that video is awesome by anyone's standards. Marilyn. Adam ant stand and deliver. The totp Cyndi lauper girls just wanna have fun- she's done up but is so clearly just doing her thing. No shoes. Climbs up the set . Siouxsie Sioux. All the bouffed made up blokes. Human League...

Sorry went off on one! But. The point is. You can't change sex. You can and should dress and etc how you feel comfy. Things have gone backwards.

Focus on your DD.

This child is 13, the friend. The stuff around this in the mainstream is that being trans is a struggle and you'll likely be attacked, suicidal etc. Her parents aren't doing it. I understand that but it's tricky.

At that age, having adults not doing it. Given the messages they get. She will not say oh I'm probably wrong. She will say no one understands me. It will make it more entrenched because the things she's read on the net are 'true' and she's fighting a battle against a world that doesn't understand.

What was that program. Ab fab! Edina behaved like a teen and would strop and say shocking things to her mum. And her mum would say 'that's nice dear' and take the wind out of her sails.

It not being a big deal at all will be more effective with a 13 yo than giving them the 'no one understands me' thing.