My 17 yo DD tells me she is a boy but I seem to be such a terrible mother for not going along with it

[pixiecolour]

My DD has a terrible time growing up, really struggled, was bullied at school and has had issues with mental health for a while now (we have entered the CAMHS zone 💩). Aged 13 she spent time at school with a girl who transitioned, and told my DD that all her worries were really down to the fact that she is actually a boy. Cue the Dysphoria (self diagnosed) and now she is 17 hates me because I can't go along with the whole thing, but I can see through it. Communication has broken down and we are in a very dark place.

Being gay doesn't involve lifelong medication and removal of healthy body parts.

Same as you might have to accept her joining the army might be a better analogy

@midgemagneto

Children just want ...

Isn't the same as children need

Children do need acceptance, love

But they need more

They need acceptance and love for who they are not who they want to be

They need to understand how they fit in the world . Feet on the ground as well as head in the sky

It's incredibly hard because unlike when I grew up there is so much misinformation and manipulation that affects their heads and mental state and capacity

This may be controversial but at 17 I don't see my daughter as a child anymore. She is almost an adult and capable of making her own decisions.

She hasn't yet asked about hormone treatment, surgery etc but I think that's mainly because she is still getting used to this feeling and weighing her options up. I have told her to take it slowly and got her on the waiting list for gender counselling but it's a verrrrrry long list.

I suppose my point is and always still will be that it's a very very fine line between supporting your child or protecting them. And only the parent can know which is right. We have managed to get a very good balance of using the preferred pronouns and name but not going down the route of non reversible treatment but just letting her explore her identity. I will pick up feminine clothes for her that she is too nervous to buy alone (I get this is very different for female to male trans as a girl in boyish clothing is much more accepted).

I think the overriding thing I'm taking away is that you accept and protect your child whether you agree with those feelings or not.

Your mum is your safe port in a storm, your safe place, that one person that should have your back. And that's what I am doing.

Ah!

My daughter is 22 and whilst often presents as a full adult , at other times it's clear to see the child

At 17. Mine was determined adult , then aged 18 on the day I left her at university ....,

My mother reakons by 30 children are fully adult

All of us grow and mature and learn over time , younger you are the less life experience, the more you can learn about yourself snd the world

If at 17 may daughter had become Christian (we're atheists) of course I wouldn't have rejected her or loved her less. I might have stopped using 'Jesus' and 'God' as expletives but I wouldn't have pretended to share her belief in them.

And the reason I wouldn't use inaccurate pronouns is because although it seems a small thing, it's part of a pernicious, misogynist and homophobic belief system that I refuse to endorse.

Part of mental health issues are thought distortions. It doesn’t help to embrace those distorted thoughts.

@Lettera

If at 17 may daughter had become Christian (we're atheists) of course I wouldn't have rejected her or loved her less. I might have stopped using 'Jesus' and 'God' as expletives but I wouldn't have pretended to share her belief in them.

And the reason I wouldn't use inaccurate pronouns is because although it seems a small thing, it's part of a pernicious, misogynist and homophobic belief system that I refuse to endorse.

This x 1000

Religion is the closest analogy for gender ideology. I wish trans rights activists would stop appropriating the struggles for gay acceptance and racial equality.

There are many young girls at my kid's primary who wear hijabs. I don't agree with the reasons their religion asks them to wear them (I am atheist) and I don't understand why such young girls wear them. But I would defend those girls against bullying and I'm happy they are my kid's friends.

I support all measures the school takes to ensure inclusion of these girls. Tolerance, friendship, diversity, kindness. But the school would be massively wrong to enforce that we all believe the same as these girls' families. Yet this is what trans ideology asks of us. There is no room for gender atheism or tolerance. There is only believers and heretics.

I think the parallels with religion are really misplaced. The most popular religions have authoritative texts which prescribe all manner of external beliefs, and detailed actions and behaviours and consequences of them - not just on believers themselves but on society (and different people; women, men, children, non-believers in society) at large.

It is an end goal of many religions, if they are followed faithfully and comprehensively, to detail quite precisely how a person should act in daily life and how they should be judged and treated, or what they should expect, if they do not believe and behave in that manner.

It is about beliefs directed outwardly, not simply a self-conviction.

Having a sense, conviction, that you are gay is similar to having a sense, conviction that you are trans; it is an internal sense.

So as a gay woman I find the trans rights parallel with struggles for gay rights acceptance far more convincing than a parallel with religious ideology.

Sure, you could make a parallel that both are a question of unverifiable faith, but the sheer level of detailed, prescriptive consequence is very different.

I think the similarities between trans rights and gay right are a lot more than the fight for religious and racial equality. I genuinely don't get why its ok to be gay but not ok to be trans. People say trans is a mental issue. In the past they used to say the same about being gay. And with treatment it could be reversed.

I think the parallels with religion are really misplaced. The most popular religions have authoritative texts which prescribe all manner of external beliefs, and detailed actions and behaviours and consequences of them - not just on believers themselves but on society (and different people; women, men, children, non-believers in society) at large.

Apart from the authoritative texts, this also applies to genderism. We are told that we should call males 'she' if they so demand, and that they should be allowed to enter female only spaces if they wish. This is imposing actions, behaviours and consequences on everyone, including non believers.

Having a sense, conviction, that you are gay is similar to having a sense, conviction that you are trans; it is an internal sense.

In that sense it might well be similar, but that's where the similarity ends. Being gay doesn't require other people to believe anything new about people who are gay, just to accept that some people are gay. Requiring other people to believe that someone has changed sex and treat them as though they have just because they say so is not the same sort of acceptance. Insisting that people believe that 'transwomen are women' is similar to requiring them to believe in God.

@Viviennemary

I think the similarities between trans rights and gay right are a lot more than the fight for religious and racial equality. I genuinely don't get why its ok to be gay but not ok to be trans. People say trans is a mental issue. In the past they used to say the same about being gay. And with treatment it could be reversed.

a gay person doesn't require me to believe or do any thing

a trans person wants me to behave as if they are a member of the opposite sex, or at least behave as if I believe it

they want to make single sex spaces mixed sex

it's the impact on others (among other things) that makes it different

If trans rights activism was fighting for rights for adult trans people as trans people and not to force us to believe they have changed sex I'd be fully supportive in all ways.

I genuinely don't get why its ok to be gay but not ok to be trans.

Homosexuality and gender being totally different things does not necessarily mean one of them is ok and one of them isn't though. Being trans, by definition, means identifying as a different sex class of person, i.e. as something you cannot possibly be. Being gay simply means you are attracted to people of the same sex as you. That's not something which is a materially observable fact, nor something which can be proved or disproved scientifically. People who are gay are not claiming to belong to a group to which they do not actually belong. Nor are they demanding rights which conflict with the rights of another vulnerable group.

Pleased I found this thread. I'm supporting my friend atm whose ds wants to be a dd and is taking blockers. Mum is fine about it all but I don't like the trans thing atm which pushes ASD children down this route, presumably encouraging them that this will help? But I think it will make their problems worse.

It's so sad. Being trans means you want something you just can't have.

Being trans means you want something you can't have

And insisting other people pretend to believe you have the thing you can't have

If a 17 year old tries to become the opposite sex, they just can't can they?
They haven't experienced growing up as a girl, how society treats you, discovering your body, and having a boy touch you, first kiss, bad sex. How your brain works and how you feel pre and post a period.

What does being a women mean? To you? How would you explain it? It's so complex. Putting on a dress and a bit of lipstick doesn't change the 17 years you were a boy does it?

Why do you want to be a man? What does she think being a man means?

"Anorexia is an illness. Dysphoria isn’t."

What is dysphoria then?

@Viviennemary

I think the similarities between trans rights and gay right are a lot more than the fight for religious and racial equality. I genuinely don't get why its ok to be gay but not ok to be trans. People say trans is a mental issue. In the past they used to say the same about being gay. And with treatment it could be reversed.

It is "okay" to be a person who experiences distress related to their body.

I'm not sure anyone has ever said it wasn't okay to be a person experiencing distress!However, I have huge reservations about the current fashionable conceit that the best way to manage that distress in teenagers is cross-sex hormones and surgical procedures. I am especially concerned about the health ramifications of this pathway for teenage females, as the complexity of female body does not seem to be well understood by trans activists.

Did you see my post above?

What is a vaginal vault prolapse?

Vaginal vault prolapse commonly occurs following a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus (womb)). Because the uterus provides support for the top of the vagina, this condition occurs in up to 40% of women after a hysterectomy.

In a vaginal vault prolapse, the top of the vagina gradually falls toward the vaginal opening. Eventually, the top of the vagina may protrude out of the body through the vaginal opening, effectively turning the vagina inside out. A vaginal vault prolapse is often accompanied by the weakness and prolapse of walls of the vagina.

Source: www.oxfordgynaecology.com/conditions-we-treat/vaginal-prolapse/post-hysterectomy-vault-prolapse/

I read this article. Vogue, about sex as a trans woman and how it isn't talked about.

vogue

In the article, the below is linked.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y5Ohdl6-eU

But there was just something about the way that she described bad sex. She Said she had been very sexually active as as a man/boy but the sex she'd had a woman was basically shit.

There was just something about the way she said it. I just thought that's not normal, that's not the way a woman would describe bad sex,

once I had sex at university with a man who was large and very conceited and just thrust away a few times and then he was finished. I think I actually said "is that it. "

So it's not unheard-of for a woman to have bad sex and comment about it and talk about it. but it was just the way that she did it, it was shit. this hadn't occurred to her to think through this during all her trans journey?

and that's because she is a man and has lived a predominant part of her life as a man, thinking like a man and so she cannot think like a woman. she cannot think the way that I think and feel the way that I feel about sexual intimacy etc.

and to me this just proves a point, you cannot change. you can dress up and you can try and convince other people that you are something, but you cannot change certain things.

This just proves my point. You can't change what you are. Thus The trans-journey is a very very lonely and sad one.

@Slythermum

"Anorexia is an illness. Dysphoria isn’t."

What is dysphoria then?

I thought anorexia was a symptom and/or behavior that resulted from dysphoria. I had a friend with severe dysphoria in the 1990s. Her disease was manifested in various forms from cutting to anorexia to bulimia and unhealthy fixation on grades (hyper perfectionism). She was also at risk for committing suicide because she felt like an extreme failure if she got an A- or ate too much.

She went to in patient treatment and has had intense therapy for decades. As a result of her drive to be well, she's led a productive and healthy life - but it hasn't been easy. Thank god she got intensive treatment in the 90s rather than today. She's always eschewed fashion and makeup, she's just a very practical clothing kind of person, so imagine had she been young today.

If dysphoria isn't an illness*, why are we told not using pronouns causes suicide etc?

*I'm not necessarily saying it is an illness. It is probably sometimes a very understandable response to the horrifically misogynist and homophobic world some people find themselves in. But the way our treatment system works seems to require the label of an illness for a person to receive help.

I think the overriding thing I'm taking away is that you accept and protect your child whether you agree with those feelings or not.

yes, accept and protect the child- but i wouldnt (and i didnt) meekly accept or agree with everything a child/adult says. its strange to me that some parents feel compelled to do that.

They haven't experienced growing up as a girl, how society treats you, discovering your body, and having a boy touch you, first kiss, bad sex

This reminds me of an interesting point in Abigail Shrier’s book. She points out that many of the children she interviews who identify as trans, or with complex gender profiles, have a lot of their social contact online. Many if the girls have never even kissed a boy.

Nolonger, my point exactly.

@op I haven't got any great pearls of wisdom, I just wanted to offer my sympathy to you and your daughter, clearly this is deeply distressing. I hope she does manage to accept herself as a young woman and I hope in time she understands you just want to protect her from irreversible decisions she may regret later. Has she heard of detransitioners/desisters, looked at any of their accounts eg Keira Bell? Or there are a few on youtube now, theres one called Watson, I can't remember names of the top of my head though.