10yo Daughter wants to go to pride

[NeedDDadvice]

Deliberately posted on sex and gender topic. Please don't move

Yes, I name changed. I want advice free of my previous posts on Mumsnet. I am an old poster of the COD and Riven era!

My 10yo daughter who has pictures of all sorts of flags on her bedroom wall, asked me to take her to pride.

My response was yes, if I can find a family friendly one. She asked what might be inappropriate and I said men dressed in leather dog suits. We both laughed.

She doesn't have a label yet but is so interested in the pride flags.

She thinks that because I don't believe in gendering, that I am Transphobic. Which is ridiculous. As I pointed out if I don't believe in Christianity that doesn't make me Christianphobic.

All my children have been raised to look for evidence, to debate ideas, not to blindly fall into an ideology.

I am worried about this blind faith in trans and LGBT+. I believe in the Lesbian, Gay and Bi sexualities but the rest is personalities or gender woo woo.

She is very like me at that age wears so called boy clothes etc. I have been very clear that it doesn't matter what DD or my DS wears from any department. Clothes, haircuts mean nothing to me, as a 70's kid.

I don't want her to be sucked into gendering and lose the ability to debate and research the evidence and looking for the science and reality of the subject.

I will start to take her to any womens right march's locally and of course find the best family friendly pride event to attend as well.

How do I help her keep her mind working?

Ps. I said I didn't care if she brought a woman or a man home to meet us in the future but I would struggle not to lol if they quote a genderism label at me. (A joke, I will of course be very welcoming to any new member of our family)

I think it depends on the Pride event and you don't know for sure what it's going to be like until you go unfortunately, which is why I would avoid with a child that young.

We used to go every year and carried on going to the local daytime event once our kids came along as it was family friendly and a lovely atmosphere. The last one we went to was in 2019 and it got hijacked by a huge hen party (the bride to be was marrying a man, ironically) carrying massive inflatable cocks and behaving obscenely. We decided that would be the last time we took the kids.

Pride is a celebration of adult sexuality surely? Perhaps there are family friendly events as pps have suggested. My gay friend stopped going to the big demos , says its 'too corporate and BDSM '.I fondly recall my first gay rights demo , Tom Robinson sang Glad to be Gay at the end. Innocent times perhaps.

@EishetChayil

She doesn't have a label yet

This is so depressing. Why does she need one? She isn't supermarket produce.

She doesn't needs a label. I tell her, I have lived my whole live without a label and she can too.

I said the only thing that matters about relationships is that you both fancy each other.

DD insists only labels matter. How can they? You fancy each other but your labels don't match, so you forget about each other?

I am a believer that we fall in love with a person (not sodding labels)

I don't think she is either straight or gay but too young to have feelings for anyone beyond friend. I only started fancying people around 14yo.

I would rather we keep lines of communication open than make genderism more interesting to her.

Over the last couple of years we hllave talked about gender and sex a lot in loads of short often initiated by her conversations.

We agree that :-

1. No one can change sex.

1. Sex and gender are different things

1. Lesbians are not transphobic for only wanting to sleep with biological women.

1. Women deserve to be safe.

We disagree on :-

1. What Gender is (I say personality, DD thinks serious unchangeable thing, but no definition other than stereotypes)

1. Gender is stereotype based (I think it is, DD thinks it isn't but all attempts at describing gender end up in stereotypes)

1. No child under 25yo should have hormones blockers, CSH or surgery. (My position. DD thinks this is unkind)

1. Not believing in Genderism is not transphobic. Which is the one I am concentrating on most atm. I want to keep conversation going and by not allowing her to close any talk by using this unmeaning phrase. I pointed out that by agreeing on points 1 and 3 with me that she would be considered transphobic she doesn't believe it.

1. Some men are using gender politics to physical attack, threaten, get women sacked. DD dismisses all this as fake, even though I point her to websites like this never happens, for her to do her own research. I also suggested as a Potter fan she reads up on why J K Rowling is getting death threats. She dismisses this as a few bad eggs.

So that is where we are up to atm.

She is definitely a people pleaser and just wants to be nice. But women rights must be defended and retained until this fad is over and the current young people grow up and understand why we have these protections in the first place.

How does a 10 year old have all the different gender flags in her room? This suggests Stonewall brainwashing at school or way too much time on the Internet. If it’s the former, make sure she’s getting balance to what they might be teaching her, if it’s the latter, you really need to clamp down OP. There is absolutely nothing gained from a 10 year old having unfettered Internet access to gender ideology, and everything to lose. The fact she’s only 10 and talking about “misgendering” and “transphobia” is concerning. How about stopping the Internet access, and letting her be a kid who does kid things rather than an adult before her time?

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I really do hate it when kids are learning about stuff online, if that’s the case. It’s just not reality.

Sorry, x post OP

I suppose much of it will depend where you are.

I took my daughter when she was 5 to our local one- but it was very small with lots of pricey face painting stalls (more expensive than when it’s a face painting stall at a kid’s event) a thing for Momentum, a Unison stall and some “Have Your Wedding Here” stalls. I wasn’t interested let alone her. There was a stage which had a drag queen singing covers of pop songs but by then we had gone to the kid’s library which she enjoyed a lot more.

So at ours there was nothing I would not let her see but it was “boring adult stuff” rather than “inappropriate adult stuff”.

I forgot one. DD thinks everyone has a gender. I don't believe that nor have a gender. I point out that practically no-one over the age of 25yo approx has a gender just youngsters. Because this is a modern idea only appearing in the law book and in society in recent years.

DD did the "your gender and sex match if you don't think you have one" idea.

I said this pushing of an unprovably point onto non believers was another example of this being a belief system. No different than Christianity, who report that we all have a soul if we are church members or not.

@NotBadConsidering

How does a 10 year old have all the different gender flags in her room? This suggests Stonewall brainwashing at school or way too much time on the Internet. If it’s the former, make sure she’s getting balance to what they might be teaching her, if it’s the latter, you really need to clamp down OP. There is absolutely nothing gained from a 10 year old having unfettered Internet access to gender ideology, and everything to lose. The fact she’s only 10 and talking about “misgendering” and “transphobia” is concerning. How about stopping the Internet access, and letting her be a kid who does kid things rather than an adult before her time?

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I really do hate it when kids are learning about stuff online, if that’s the case. It’s just not reality.

The flags are hand drawn by her on paper alongside other drawing and paintings of animals and her friends.

Are they the various gender or Pride flags? How has she learned about them? I have a 9 and a half year old DD and I can’t imagine how she would know what the different flags are.

I'm boggled that a 10 year old has picked up all this gender crap already.

What on earth gas school been teaching them.

I'd email , ask to see the materials they have used and who's been in. This doesn't sound like it would be acceptable, the DofE have guidelines regarding what's to be taught and who by.

I find this obsession with getting kids ri define their sexualities at an age the only thing they should be worried about is playing outside with their friends beer disturbing.

Its just creating the confusion they claim to be the solution in solving.

Where is she getting so much information about Pride from? Where is she getting the idea that labels matter so much? It can't all be from school can it? I have a 10 year old and she basically knows that some people are gay or lesbian, and knows that the rainbow flag is both for NHS and for Pride which is linked to being gay. That's it I think really?

Probably via the internet, @NotBadConsidering (sorry if I’m wrong, NeedDDadvice). I have a similar-aged family member who’s also been researching the topic via the internet - Instagram, reddit, TikTok etc, and is having similar issues with their identity. It’s unclear to me whether these particular issues started before or after finding the material online (I know what I suspect, but don’t want to make assumptions and I could be wrong). I can see the appeal of gender activism to young people on the cusp of puberty, especially ‘non-conforming’ and creative children.

I think right now you’re doing the right thing OP - talking about it with her and not banning the subject. Honestly, I would be tempted to take her to a Pride as well; I’m sure you can find a more family-friendly one as a previous poster had described (not one with pups though ) I think saying no at this point will have the opposite effect to the one you are trying to achieve.

I would however be much more attentive as to what she is accessing online (assuming that’s where she is getting info). I wouldn’t want my pre-teen on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit etc, but accept it’s a bit difficult if she already accesses these sites. Plus, I know this is easy for me to say as mine has so far shown little interest in surfing the internet - they would rather waste time playing mindless games!

@Phobiaphobic

I'm boggled that a 10 year old has picked up all this gender crap already.

Same here.

Other conversations about her hobbies, friends, future career options, current TV series of choice, her collectibles are all age appropriate except this gender woo woo.

That said, I am glad it is out in the open and we can discuss it. I wouldn't want to be arguing with at 15yo about this and I worry I will be!

If the local pride is boring adults, then I don't mind taking her, hopeing that my support will take the shine of any rebellious thoughts.

If it is sexualised kinks, then she won't be going and I will tell her that.

I will make getting to the next after Portsmouth Fillia a priority. Shame, I had been offered a lift down to Portsmouth, as one of my friends is speaking but due to my health, the distance makes it too far this year.

Why this urge to be labelled and Influenced? I find it amazing the way this generation have been persuaded to make themselves so wide open to advertisers. And I think we're realising now how valuable the now-lost pop and rock music scene was to children's emotional development. It's a massive chunk of British and American culture that has pretty much gone, and been replaced by this sort of introverted focus on the body.

Pride isn't vile, that's a vile thing to say.
Elements of some Pride festivals aren't family friendly, so you choose where you go carefully.
But Pride is amazing for the children of gay parents, in particular, to see their families celebrated as they should be. I would have no problem taking my DS to Pride and I speak as a regular GC poster.

Also, I knew I was straight when I was 4, I hate this assumption that gay children don't know their sexuality. I know it's a TRA shitstorm out there but that doesn't mean we have to man the barricades on every LGB and even T issue/question/post.

DD did the "your gender and sex match if you don't think you have one" idea.

Okay, then how does she explain Non-binary?

Also, I knew I was straight when I was 4, I hate this assumption that gay children don't know their sexuality. Iknowit's a TRA shitstorm out there but that doesn't mean we have to man the barricades on every LGB and even T issue/question/post

And I didn't know until my late teens. We do need to normalise not knowing and not caring. Instead of trying to pin them down in primary school.

My dgd is ten in January. I feel I’m living in a parallel universe, she would have no idea about any of this at all.
Least I don’t think so. Mind boggling.

We accidentally found ourselves in Bristol on the day they had their big pride event a couple of years ago. Mostly it was fine, loads of teens in rainbow stuff with bright hair… then we hit the square.
One of the circuses that comes to our town on its tour has a family friendly show, then at night it’s adults only with leather, whips, drag, grinding, fire… it was like I’d taken the kids to the adult show my mistake and nobody was on the door to stop me. It was very sexualised and in your face! I had a lot of questions to answer that day, especially from my aspie son who doesn’t have any filter

No chance would I take a 10 year old

I think it comes from school.

She has supervised screen time downstairs in our sight and mainly plays Robloxs and watches Minecraft YouTube videos.

She thinks there are 6 pride flags adding pan, trans and non binary to the standard rainbow pride (not the progress flag) gay and lesbians flags.

When I talked about how some people think there are far more than 6 flags maybe even thousands or millions. She couldn't believe that, too many, it would be silly.

Plus she had never seen a picture of the progress pride flag.

So she isn't getting this stuff from the Internet. She is getting a fixed view of 6 flags, which what makes me think of school.

Now I went in to see her old head teacher a couple of years and made it clear that my daughter was not to be taught anything homophobic which included this new fangled gender woo and explained why this new stuff was homo/lesbo phobic.

That headteacher is off on maternity leave last year, I am wondering if the replacement added more in? I will be looking into this in September.

Personally I doubt any kids under 15yo has any understanding of sexuality and they are far too young to bother about this type of labelling.
So all those kids under 15 who have sex?? I was a late bloomer like you but its massively naive to think your daughter won't have any of these feelings until mid teens
My sister is a lesbian
Do you know at what age she knew she liked girls not boys?

@NoYOUbekind. Totally agree

Just because they have sex doesn't mean they are sure if their sexuality

Many will have been raped or pressured into it or groomed or whatever.

Some don't even figure it out until adult hood having married and had kids etc