Utterly confused?!

[katemuff]

My friends DD13 has 'come out' as trans and is describing herself as a demi-girl, non binary, and has daily changing pro nouns that are impossible to keep up with as far as I can tell. She was she, then they, then just her name now they again, I think. Today they ran out of a cafe screaming and crying because a very elderly Italian man said "Buon appetito bella".
They are very feminine in appearance and when I politely and gently asked I was told that as they didn't like make up, shopping, watch love island etc then she was more masculine and a demi-girl.
Now I am sorry if this sounds offensive, really, I am so confused. I work with looked after children and victims of grooming and exploitation and started to wonder if these gender identities have become a way in which privileged people are able to elicit sympathy. Is this not just a phase that a very privileged girl is going through? Am I missing something?
The children I work with would be suspended or expelled for much of what my friends DD has been up to which include screaming at teachers for being transphobic when they are delivering lessons on an almost daily basis she also physically attacked a boy in her year with ASD (badly scratching his face) who used the wrong pro noun, there have been a lot of incidents which she details on social media and gets hundreds of validating comments - many from adults!
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? My friend is very concerned but any attempts to settle it all down have been reported to her support worker at school as transphobic. I do not know what to make of it all, I was tempted to tell her what some of my clients have experienced and ask her if she still feels oppressed but resisted!
Sorry if this offends anyone, I am just going over it all in my head and would appreciate some sensible opinions!
Thank you

This is the confusion that occurs when some people say man/woman and mean gendered crappy stereotypes whilst others talk about man/woman as sex.

I don't like love island, I like star wars.

Am I am demi-girl? No I am not. I'm a grown woman (female!) who likes a variety of things, all of which have absolutely no effect on my sex! Everyone has a sex (no matter how much they scream about it). Not everyone believes in gender. Therefore, gender should not be trumping sex.

If DD started screaming and running out of restaurants, screaming at teachers and attacking other kids she'd have a bollocking till kingdom come and told in no uncertain terms to pull her head out of her arse. And if I got 'told off' by anyone in education for not falling over myself to her every whim she'd be out of that place before you could say "home school"

Thankfully she's only 3 so I'm hoping all this woo woo contagion is knocked firmly on the head when she's older.

@Tuscancat

I'm just going to start telling people I'm a non binary rainbow otter or whatever. As soon as anyone over the age of 40 starts doing this it will no longer be cool and kids will start to rebel. I will be channelling Edina. La Croix sweetie, La croix

I choose to be open about my disregard for these expectations. I do not identify with them. I will not be reduced to them

That's probably the same for a lot of the women that post here. I suppose the difference is I choose to reject labels altogether whereas you chose to box yourself in with another label.

I don't get the comment about how difficult it is to not conform to stereotypes. I've been doing this since I was a child and apart from constant questions about when I will have children, which are tedious, I haven't found it difficult. I suspect there was a huge benefit to being a child of the 80s, when it comes to enforcing gender stereotypes we do seem to be going backwards

@Itsanewdah with respect this is how a lot of teenagers and young people feel, we just called it not fitting in when I was young (30 years ago)'.

'Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform

Actually I think it can be difficult to not confom

I think it depends on the people around you. Many none conforming people can be bullied or disregarded or just left out as a result of their none conforming

This is particularly hard for younger people who need to spread their wings away from the ( hopefully) loving family snd find thier place in the world .., if all they get is rejection that's hard

'Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform

If you think that, I wonder if you might be startled by how many people (including women) have literally been battered, beaten, ridiculed, bullied, harassed etc. because they don't conform to other people's expectations of what:
– they think they know/presume about them;
– they are entitled to from them.

A word of encouragement: you seem to think that gender stereotypes are unavoidable and impossible to remove. Im sure it feels that way for anyone joining adulthood in the last decade or so, but its really not the case. Actually, gender stereotyping became less prevalent following the end of WW2 (because women had been doing all the "mens jobs" during the war) but started to get worse again at the end of the 20th century (largely driven by media and sales/marketing e.g pink toys and blue toys). I don't know for sure how old you are, but if you're around 25-30 or even younger then you've grown up when stereotypes were at their worst and it makes sense to feel that theyre inevitable. But I promise you they're not. You can be anything you want, and still be a woman. So says a sporty, non-make-up-wearing, hates-pamper-parties, short-haired woman.

This is such a good point. I grew up in the 70s. When I look at childhood photos of me and photos of dh we are essentially wearing the same clothes - brown cordroys, green jumpers and the like - and have more or less the same haircut too. Most of my friends looked like that too. I saw a photo recently of my high school graduation. There were about 10 girls out of 60 who had long hair. noone wore makeup. At the same time the whole Depeche Mode/Boy George/David Bowie look was going on (for those who had a bit of style and money). My nieces went to my old school and I was at one of their graduations - it seemed to me like every single girl had long, highlighted hair and full make-up. The world has become more gendered not less. It has no effect on biology and I wish people would challenge it more

@MoreRainThanAnyYet i am a biologically female person. I am very definitely NOT a woman.

Can I ask what makes you think that there is any difference between 'biologically female person' and 'woman'? They are one and the same thing. Whatever the gender-woo people would have you believe, clothes and feelz don't make you a woman.

Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform

I don't think that's true at all. I expect that the majority of people have felt the discomfort and stress of not conforming in some way at some time in their life. And even those who haven't will have witnessed the ostracising of people who didn't conform, and seen how distressing it can be.

[quote Itsanewdah]@Soontobe60 you proof my point quite nicely. Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform. They just don’t get it. But you don’t need to get it to accept it. I’ll never understand how somebody can refer to themselves as “woman” (or “man”). Gender makes no sense to me (biological sex makes sense for medical reasons - my body is different to a male one, not much i can do about that). I can accept it though that other people have a sense of gender.[/quote]
Oh, m'dear. Believe it or not, you are actually not far off the feelings of many feminists on this very board.

Many of us have spent a lifetime 'not conforming'. You'll get used to it. You don't even need a label, you know!

Could be talking about my granddaughter who says she is non binary also that her friends are as well one she has been friends with for about 8yrs is trans has dropped a letter off her name so now it's a boys name. I said is this a trend that everyone is doing ,she says we are all homophobic

When I look at childhood photos of me and photos of dh we are essentially wearing the same clothes - brown cordroys, green jumpers and the like - and have more or less the same haircut too.

Same here. It's almost comical how similar me and my partner's photos at about age 5 are, apart from hair colour. Same pudding-bowl haircut, same dungarees. Sexes not super obvious, but decade certainly is.

Not terribly economical to make opposite-sex children have different outfits when they grow out of them so fast, is it? And long hair isn't terribly practical for play.

I don't think I know any women who identify with regressive feminine stereotypes. I certainly don't. Does that make us non-binary too?

PO, if I were the parents I'd be really concerned - it sounds like the kind of behaviour typical of a personality disorder.

In a better world I'd be looking at therapy, but not as things are. But I'd be removing my child from that school, cutting off most internet, and instituting some consequences for the things she's doing. And ideally getting her involved in some more satisfying things, spending time together, etc.

[quote Itsanewdah]@Soontobe60 you proof my point quite nicely. Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform. They just don’t get it. But you don’t need to get it to accept it. I’ll never understand how somebody can refer to themselves as “woman” (or “man”). Gender makes no sense to me (biological sex makes sense for medical reasons - my body is different to a male one, not much i can do about that). I can accept it though that other people have a sense of gender.[/quote]
Actually, most teens are very aware of how stressful it is not to conform, and spend most of their teen years trying to do just that - to belong to a group, taking on a particular identity, whether as a pp has already pointed out it’s a goth, enby, or Kim Kardashian look-a-like. All of those teens then unsurprisingly grow up into adults, as everyone on here are. There’s nothing special or different to being confused about your identity.
Non binary means not presenting as either male or female. In my youth the word used for that was gender bender. It’s all part of the gender ideology movement. When the overwhelming majority of people say they are men or women, they are referring to their sex.

About this not conforming business:

One of the things we learn as we go through our teen years is that sometimes, we won't fit in. Maybe only in small ways, maybe in big ways, but almost everyone has this experience to some extent.

This is important. It's important to realize that we can live with it when that happens, that we're strong enough to manage it. That in fact, it's not so important. That maybe we shouldn't be so quick to pigeonhole others for either being weird, or not being weird enough. That sometimes we will be lonely and not find our people, or others who share our beliefs and values. That some standards or customs aren't as rigid as we think.

It's because we learn these things that we can function as mature adults with some level of rootedness, knowing ourselves, and being open to knowing others. It's where we learn real tolerance for ourselves and others.

All this business about trying to avoid it through gender ideology or other means only prevents real maturity. We put up with silly teen phases like being goth or whatever because we know that they will move through them. Adults who take these categories seriously just look silly, like people who haven't grown up, and few people continue to see themselves through such a narrow lens as they grow into adulthood.

After the physical interventions of gender ideology, this is one of the most disturbing things to me - the way it tries to prevent normal and important developmental angst.

I think lack of awareness that most people know how stressful it is not to conform indicates a problem.

(Ick, that was an awkward sentence.)

There's a sort of drive here to affirm a belief in "I'm different" for people having trouble fitting in. It's like encouraging anorexia - "I'm fat - yes you are". "I'm not like other people - that's right, you're not".

That's what "non-binary" is - this affirmation that someone really is different. The make-believe that there are all these "binary" people that don't have these not-fitting-in feelings.

I'm sorry, I don't think those "binary" people exist.

Part of growing up is realising that you are like other people. You don't have to conform - god knows everyone here is not conforming by standing up against this stuff! - but you do have realise that other people are just as real as you, and they have feelings like you.

That's the teen dilemma, isn't it?

The horror of being different.

The horror of conformity.

[quote Itsanewdah]@MoreRainThanAnyYet i am a biologically female person. I am very definitely NOT a woman.[/quote]
But what is a woman if we exclude genitalia and breasts? I’ve had long hair, short hair, I wear jeans and DMs, I don’t paint my nails, I sometimes wear pink but mostly wear whatever. Who am I? Biologically I’m female but I don’t have a gender. I wear make gender clothes and female gender clothes.

I'm sorry, I don't think those "binary" people exist.

Me, neither. Who are they?

I think by many people's standards I must be non binary or a demigirl too - I have long hair and like going to the spa BUT I also like lifting heavy weights, wearing men's perfume and androgynous clothes and don't usually bother with makeup. I'm also competitive and opinionated. I figure I am just a woman, adult human female person.

I never wear make up, have worn a dress or skirt once in the last couple of years, never liked playing with dolls and would rather poke my eyes out than watch Love Island. I would rather climb a mountain than have a spa day. What does that make me?

If this was my daughter I would be telling her that is is being a little shit. That she needs to come to her senses and stop being a little shit.
Abusing kids with special needs is just vile.

The non-binary stuff isn't 100 miles away from gender-critical is it?

It's just with NB you get the whole ready-made rainbow friends and glitter family cheering you on and with gender critical you get rape and murder threats.

[quote Itsanewdah]@Soontobe60 you proof my point quite nicely. Most people are completely unaware how stressful it is to not conform. They just don’t get it. But you don’t need to get it to accept it. I’ll never understand how somebody can refer to themselves as “woman” (or “man”). Gender makes no sense to me (biological sex makes sense for medical reasons - my body is different to a male one, not much i can do about that). I can accept it though that other people have a sense of gender.[/quote]
I don't get your point of view at all. No-one conforms. At least no-one I know conforms 100% to the expectations that society has traditionally had of their sex. And most of us middle-aged women do understand how difficult it can be to not conform, and how much society tries to put us back in the traditional box.

And most of us refer to ourselves as women as the word woman relates to our sex. If you accept that sex makes sense, everyone born of the female sex grows up to be a woman, whatever personality they have.

So that makes someone like you a woman with varying interests and opinions. Just like everyone else .

If society stopped telling girls what they ought to be like, look like and be interested in they would be left as what they are. Girls, later women. Full stop.