Conversation with dd about pro nouns, a new level of confusion

[NautaOcts]

Dd13 has been questioning her sexuality recently and talking to me quite a lot about it.
Initially she felt she was pan sexual, and then for quite a few months she has said she feels she’s bi, and came out as this to her grandparents, and put it on her WhatsApp status etc which I think was a big deal for her as people at school now know.
Last week she told me she thinks she’s a lesbian actually.
Throughout I’ve encouraged her to be herself and we’ve talked about how it can be a fluid thing and not to put yourself in a box, see what happens etc. She has not had any romantic interests that I’m aware of.
The trans thing has come up and I had sort of hoped I’d managed to just plant a seed about questioning things and thinking critically, talked about some of the concerns from some women about self ID and what it could mean etc. I thought I was doing quite well!

Then yesterday she said she thinks she’d like her pronouns to be ‘he/they’.

I’ve got to admit I was stumped.
I thought they them, he him, she her, went together. But no apparently according to dd you can mix and match????

She also said I ‘just don’t understand’ when I said that I would think that a female who wanted to be referred to as ‘he’ identified as a male?
But no apparently this is not the case. She said she doesn’t identify as male but ‘he’ and ‘they’ ‘just feel right’.

She has enough self awareness to say she’s just thinking about it and might change it when she’s new somewhere like 6th form rather than introduce it now (oh and also change her name to something neutral)

But omg I’m trying so hard but I feel like I’m in a parallel universe and I needed somewhere to say it - this pro noun stuff is such bollocks 🤦‍♀️

Should also say dd is awaiting asd assessment and can get very intense about things.

I really wish I’d banned tiktok from the off as I feel a lot of this stuff is coming from there.

this pro noun stuff is such bollocks

Yep. Convoluted bollocks too it would seem.

I’m sorry OP.

Ooof.
I think you are doing really well, by being non committal and questioning. Sixth form is a long way off.
You are right it makes no sense, but probably best not to say it...

Was biting my lip very hard.
And trying to question it in a measured way to keep lines of communication open.
But finding it very hard 😂

Just at a really low level I don’t want her to cringe in future. She already says she regrets coming out as bi (a month ago) as now she considers herself gay.

I know she’s saying she’s not going to announce it or anything but knowing her feel that this could change quickly.

Also worried she could be open to ridicule if she had got the wrong end of the stick? He and they can’t go together can they? Would be they/them or he/him surely?

Feel for you. Talking to a friend whose dd is at an all girls London school and she said there was so much focus on gender and identity, I feel this generation of teens are so self-obsessed, maybe it's just teenagers generally and this is the latest fad?
Secondary schools don't help, mine recently devoted a tutor time to non-binary pronouns, cynic in me thinks it's a very easy way to look like being inclusive without doing anything difficult like addressing sexism and ableism that's rife.

Also worried she could be open to ridicule if she had got the wrong end of the stick? He and they can’t go together can they? Would be they/them or he/him surely?

I believe it is feasible for pronouns to mix and match as wanted. The normal rules of grammar don’t apply. This bit I wouldn’t worry about.

God puberty and adolescence is rubbish these days. It always was but it all sounds so tiring now!

'this pro noun stuff is such bollocks'

Certainly is!

I would nod and smile and ignore as much as possible. We've all been through phases as teenagers where we believed utter nonsense, and then moved on to something else soon enough. As for defining her sexuality, she will sort this out in her own time. 13 is so very young, she's just trying on identities right now, which is a normal part of development. Hopefully the pronoun bandwagon will move on for everyone before long

I saw an interesting thread online (comments thread on AskAManager which is a fairly woke & USA centric blog on office life) where people were discussing pronouns in email signatures. Most of the comments were from women who didn't want to put she/her in the email signature because it might attract sexism, and ideally didn't want to be forced to declare pronouns at all. Many seemed to settle on using she/they as a compromise to signal 'please dont treat me as a silly little woman'.

So I guess that just adds to the idea that pronouns are a muddle and that people shouldn't pay too much attention to them.

I'm with you OP, happy to be corrected if I'm wrong. But I'd of thought he/him and they/them would be the pronouns not a mix. However i also would of assumed to identify as a lesbian you'd identify as female so then why would you want to use he/they?

Not trying to offend anyone, just an ASD adult who really struggles to understand all of this.

This forum really helps as i can ask questions without being flamed for it.

Yes exactly
I did try to say that I thought that if she used ‘he’ people were just going to be quite confused and might assume she identified as male which is she adamant she doesn’t. For context at the moment she enjoys quite traditionally ‘feminine’ clothes, make up, hair style etc.

Anyway, hopefully she will work through it all
But it’s nice to get it off my chest since I feel like I can’t tell her exactly what I really think!

It’s just for the first time made me feel there’s a real generational divide. I’m 40 and so far have felt quite ‘down with the kids’ with her 😂

I think it's an incredibly hard time to be a teenager. There's so much pressure coming from all angles, and it's almost 'trendy' to identify as some kind of alternative gender. By doing so, you get exactly the attention that so many teenagers crave.

I'm sure there are some teens who are genuinely struggling with identity, and I even understand people who opt for a sex change - but all of this that's going on at the moment is bollocks, and our teens are being sucked into it.

My niece (16, all-girls independent school) says that of her friendship group of circa 14 girls, only two 'identify' as straight. A couple are gay, but the majority are some convoluted made-up label.

I smile and nod, but good god, it is hard. And the fact schools are pandering to this nonsense and giving it the same level of recognition and respect as, say, race or disability, is absolutely maddening.

I smile and nod, but good god, it is hard. And the fact schools are pandering to this nonsense and giving it the same level of recognition and respect as, say, race or disability, is absolutely maddening

This is what boils my piss. As a middle-aged woman from a working-class background, I faced real and still face real oppression. But this has to take second place to what is essentially a sub-cultural identity, and, meanwhile, they have the temerity to not only overlook my oppression but to question my identity for something that for many people is completely made up. And, of course, this overlooks structural oppression in the form of sex-role stereotyping and patriarchal gendering on the basis of sex.

My teenager says they are non-binary. They have always dressed androgynously had varied interests and never met either male or female gender stereotypes.

We try to use they/them pronouns to respect their choice but nothing else has changed. We suggested they wait until they have lived with the label in the comfort of supportive close family and friends and are happy that it fits before announcing it to the wider world. They seem happy with that so far (about 6 months now)

It seems to have given them more confidence in their choices to be themselves and not conform to stereotypes so I have no issues with that.

We also spoke about how questioning sexuality and identity (including gender) is normal and that while they can use whatever labels they want life can throw you curve balls and it tends to take time and experience for you to work out what fits. We said that we will support them but we suggest they live and grow with their choices before they make drastic changes or announcements as taking back those if they don't fit a few months down the line is often harder than making them.

Being a teenager is so hard these days. If a label helps them navigate it that's fine by me. I don't agree with making physical/medical/irreversible changes at a young age but a label can easily be adjusted.

I think people say their pronouns are "he/they" when they mean they don't mind which out of he/him and they/them is used.

What I'm very confused by is your daughter saying she doesn't think she is male, that she is gay (presumably attracted to other girls?) but wants a male pronoun?

Could she be making a distinction between gender identity and sex? So she knows that her body is female, but she feels like her gender identity (personality) is not very feminine so wants a non-female pronoun. Perhaps she also feels exclusively attracted to people with female bodies? Or people who identify as girls?

It's probably not worth getting too hung up on the pronouns, given that the internal logic of this stuff is non-existent, but just keep reassuring her that it is ok to be attracted to whoever she is attracted to; that it's ok to explore different things and then change her mind; and that she can enjoy whichever hobbies and interests she likes without having to explain herself to others.

I'm not convinced it is a good thing for 13 year olds to be announcing what they think is their sexuality on the internet.

It's become a locus for identity, rather than just a fact that happens to be true, which is why they are so keen to "come out" at that age. It's like a remaking. Finding your sense of self is a major part of the teen years but it can be made simpler, it seems to them, by trying on all kinds of identity markers. Usually though, even when they reflect something real, maturity comes from realizing these things don't define us after all.

It's par for the course at the moment for 13 year old girls to decide they are anything other than straight. At my job this summer there was a box of Pride type buttons people could choose from, the 13 year old girl cohort quickly picked out all the bi, pan, and lesbian buttons, and somehow I do not think that 10 years from now that will reflect their actual sexual and romantic preferences.

Oh, forgot to add - I really think that allowing teens to change pronouns, in 99% of cases, makes development of a mature sens of identity more difficult, not less so. There are some things about who we are that are fairly fixed, our bodies being one, and also our past, who our family is. Whether we are a boy or girl, attractive or not, athletic, of a certain ethnicity, bright etc, are all things we will have to accommodate ourselves to. Trying to escape these things by pretending they aren't true doesn't really help even if it feels good in the short term.

But it’s nice to get it off my chest since I feel like I can’t tell her exactly what I really think!

She's only 13. You actually can tell her exactly what you think, because you're her parent.

Allowing or encouraging pubescent girls to speculate about their sexuality on the internet is all part of the revolting grooming culture that genderwoo is alllllll about.

Well said, Palsy. So many adults seem afraid of defending reality

13 is so young to be "coming out" as anything and trying on labels and pronouns. I just feel a 13yo should be climbing trees and mucking about with friends in the last week of the school holidays.

I wish TikTok could be invented.

Pink news certainly are on board with she /they. Not that they're trustworthy.
If she feels and identifies as a female, what does she think the new pronouns add to her life? What need do they address?

I don't understand the use of 'they' because it just doesn't make sense grammatically in a sentence. They is plural. It should therefore be 'It' to make any sense.

It must make life even harder for foreign language users.

I identify as what a load of arsehole this all is, be whoever you like totally on board with that but just don’t see the need to label yourself or announce it

I think social media has encouraged teens to focus unhealthily on themselves and their image (as if they needed help with that). Instead of understanding their place in the world through their relationships with people and place (eg.I am my mum's daughter, she runs the house even if we argue. I am a pupil at X School, I wear the uniform and hope to get house points and compete at Sports Day. I live in this neighbourhood, and I make sure I don't litter and don't upset my neighbours), it's all about how they can dissect and label every inch of their being. Sorry for the essay, my only advice is to encourage her to have some privacy (13 year olds talking about sexuality online is NOT good) and to judge herself on what she DOES, how she treats others, not on WHO she is or might be. I hope she can find a hobby that isn't internet based too. Too much "head in a jar" thinking online.