Help me explain to my teenager!

[biggirlknickers]

She thinks there is “no debate” and if a man decides he’s a woman then he wouldn’t go to all that trouble if it wasn’t genuine. He should be seen as a woman. His rights cannot be viewed as different from women’s rights. Even if he is anatomically male. Chromosomes have nothing to do with it, people can be born in the wrong body and I am “not grasping this”.

I need some very easy to digest, difficult to refute points to give her. I’m absolutely overwhelmed with work, health issues etc and I simply don’t have the brain space to give to this right now and I know you lot will help me out.

It doesn’t help that she is very feisty snd I am super placid.

I don’t want to shrink from this though - she needs to understand the other side. She has only been exposed to TRA beliefs so far, from her friends and on Tiktok etc.

Help me!

@titchy

what makes you think I don't have children?

Because you have absolutely no awareness of just how vulnerable teenage girls are.

and people are advising to expose OP's "vulnerable teen" to horrendous stories of abuse, porn and the like?

and people are advising to expose OP's "vulnerable teen" to horrendous stories of abuse, porn and the like?

Not sure why the inverted commas - don't you agree teen girls are vulnerable?

Yes, teens (of both sexes) often do need the abhorrent things some men are capable of spelling out. Teens are well known for having an 'it won't happen to me' attitude to life. They need reminding that yes, actually something abhorrent could happen to them, and need to be aware of that possibility and mitigate that where possible.

Honestly, with whatever information you get, I wouldn't try to 'convince' her, especially as you are not an 'up for an argument' type, plus you won't be able to sway her, she is a teenager, all righteouness is on her side etc etc.

I'd tell her that this is your view and that of many other women, perhaps that trans rights are different from others in that there are just a few that may come into conflict with those of others who need protections.

And she'll do with that information what she will - probably reject it in first instance, but perhaps she'll come back to you one day and you'll have opened the door.

Ask her if she can extend the same empathy she has for transwomen to women and girls who will now be excluded from single sex spaces due to their religion, fear of male bodied people due to previously being a victim or children who will be frightened by the presence of a male bodied person.

Ask her if she can imagine being a victim of rape / domestic abuse, requesting a female therapist or medical professional due to this prior abuse and being told its transphobic and not a reasonable request. Would she agree that is ok?

Ask her if an elderly woman who requires intimate care and requests a female carer for this role should be labelled transphobic for doing so.

Don't frame these as 'gotcha' questions. They genuinely aren't, they are exercises in critical thinking and application of empathy outside of an echo chamber.

If it's important to 'be kind' why is it more important to be kind to transwomen than it is to women and girls who need single sex spaces?

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwisktDgqYz0AhUIZcAKHU5cAnQQFnoECAQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2018%2F10%2F11%2Fliving-with-body-integrity-identity-disorder-a-condition-that-convinces-sufferers-to-amputate-their-own-limbs-8023938%2F&usg=AOvVaw3cpg2a2mVvR8k5g5xe9nOG

Ask her how this is different from identifying as trans. Should sufferers of this condition have their limbs amputated?

Or why there has been a 4000% increase in recent years in the number of girls who identify as male?

Why are they not considered to have a mental health problem? There's a much higher incidence of autism in girls who identify as trans than in the female population generally. Men who identify as woman are much more likely to come from dysfunctional homes than men who don't.

The presence of a Y chromosome makes someone male. There's no third gender. Y chromosomes are detectable long before birth.

@titchy

and people are advising to expose OP's "vulnerable teen" to horrendous stories of abuse, porn and the like?

Not sure why the inverted commas - don't you agree teen girls are vulnerable?

Yes, teens (of both sexes) often do need the abhorrent things some men are capable of spelling out. Teens are well known for having an 'it won't happen to me' attitude to life. They need reminding that yes, actually something abhorrent could happen to them, and need to be aware of that possibility and mitigate that where possible.

they are quotation marks. Somehow, I raised mine without horror stories maligning whole groups of people based on a few members of that group. That's really not healthy.

Somehow, I raised mine without horror stories maligning whole groups of people based on a few members of that group. That's really not healthy.

Really? So you never mentioned male violence as a possibility or suggested mitigating actions they could take? Gosh...

@mibbelucieachwell

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwisktDgqYz0AhUIZcAKHU5cAnQQFnoECAQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2018%2F10%2F11%2Fliving-with-body-integrity-identity-disorder-a-condition-that-convinces-sufferers-to-amputate-their-own-limbs-8023938%2F&usg=AOvVaw3cpg2a2mVvR8k5g5xe9nOG

Ask her how this is different from identifying as trans. Should sufferers of this condition have their limbs amputated?

Or why there has been a 4000% increase in recent years in the number of girls who identify as male?

Why are they not considered to have a mental health problem? There's a much higher incidence of autism in girls who identify as trans than in the female population generally. Men who identify as woman are much more likely to come from dysfunctional homes than men who don't.

The presence of a Y chromosome makes someone male. There's no third gender. Y chromosomes are detectable long before birth.

It’s over 5000% increase in girls referred to Tavistock between 2009/2010 & 2017/2018

35% of those girls have autism.

Compared with less than 1% of the female population who have autism.

In the de trans group it’s mostly made up of girls with autism, lesbians and girls who were victims of csa.

This article makes a good basis for discussion.
Married dad, children, successful, cross dresser with no plan to transition further. Are they are a 'top woman' or have they taken the place of a female?
www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gender-fluid-exec-named-on-list-of-top-100-women-in-business-a3942896.html

Ask her what makes a woman a woman.

absolutely do NOT tell her horror stories about trans criminals, because she is not ever going to talk to you again

I make sure my daughter knows all of this stuff so she can make her own mind up. It's sensible to make sure people are aware of the facts.

Somehow, I raised mine without horror stories maligning whole groups of people based on a few members of that group. That's really not healthy.

It's not healthy to give your children only half the story.

Why focus on some unknown male or female.
Ask her if she analysed her own life experience splitting it between sex and gender role expectation.

What would she feel are the life experiences which changed her from a child into a woman?

Which ones would she celebrate, which would she change?

Did the experience originate from the biology of sex or the social expectation of doing that thing that women do?

How would they have differed if she had a male body?

Simple things like body hair (head, face, underarm, legs pubic), like makeup, like shoes.
Why she wears a top to cover her chest area.
Why she wears a bra why she changes the style with different outfits.

How much does she know about how her sex organs work and it differs from a male body?

Has she ever modified her behaviour around males

horror stories maligning whole groups of people based on a few members of that group.

One of the most useful lightbulb moments anyone can have in looking at the gender identity ideology is to understand the nature of the trans umbrella and that it embraces a number of disparate groups having nothing in common with each other apart from a label. Teenage girls like to think that trans means the gentle feminine transgirl or sensitive transboy in their school or that they see on social media.

It might not be nice but developing an understanding of reality is part of growing up.

ok, so there are lots of 'gotcha' points here, but a 'gotcha' is not normally a good way to start a discussion and change someones mind. it normally just makes them more hostile.

OP - start being open & keep the conversation going. ask her to explain her opinions to you. ask her to explain what it means to be born in the wrong body. ask her to explain what would happen if a male-born person competes in women's sport. Don't jump in with any gotcha arguments or the examples of criminals. Just keep talking openly about the topic and let her come to realise that her explanations aren't quite working.

you'll never get her to change her mind in one conversation, so the best option is to keep talking and exploring the ideas.

@Luckydog7

Ask her about Karen white. Was kw...

1. A genuine transwoman who sexually assaulted women in the female estate, maybe the most male crime of all. Not very womanly.

Or 2. A predator who identified as a women to enter the female estate and terrorise women?

The answer actually doesn't matter that much because neither should be possible and how can we tell the difference between the two?

Looks like Catherina has answered this as they referred to KW as a trans criminal.

So, the question becomes, why do TW criminals belong in the female estate which was segregated by sex, not gender? What has sex (physical) got to do with gender (an innate feeling) to the extent that gender replaces sex in everything, yet it's supposedly so separate that they are not linked in the slightest and either sexed body can contain any one of 100+ genders?

This might be interesting for both of you to read.

medium.com/@ignatiusweeks/i-am-transgender-and-i-was-not-born-in-the-wrong-body-4d3219473fc2

Yeah, I think @parietal is on the money. Just discussion points and keep it open, not 'I'm going to convince you'.

She thinks there is “no debate” and if a man decides he’s a woman then he wouldn’t go to all that trouble if it wasn’t genuine. He should be seen as a woman. His rights cannot be viewed as different from women’s rights. Even if he is anatomically male. Chromosomes have nothing to do with it, people can be born in the wrong body and I am “not grasping this”

With my teens, they made these sort of declarations when they had a trans friend of theirs in mind. Teens will defend their friends beyond all logic and reason. So it helps to validate what you can agree with first...as in...say yes trans people do in fact exist, and yes they deserve support to get the surgery/hormones to transition, and yes society should accept them as their choice of man or woman. It’s a softly softly approach.

Then you say, however, there are also confused people who are not trans and regret does exist..cue stories of detransitioners. And that study of these people has found that certain girls are vulnerable to confusing themselves as trans...lesbians, ASD are common things “misdiagnosed” as transness. So obviously, our current process needs improvement as it isn’t filtering out nontrans who think they are trans and as a result we do them real harm with irreversible surgery. Making it easier and faster isn’t something we should do until we get it right/better. Because the whole idea of you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette is wrong when the eggs are real human beings.

That then leads into, how young is too young to know you are trans...common factor on detransitioners is also they were very young when put on the trans path....so obviously...you can be too young. And puberty blockers are not without risk and permanent damage. It’s not easy to just give them on demand when you know a certain number will figure out they are not trans and be actively harmed. The complexity exists because we should always be trying to do the right thing for everyone.

Then there are a few bad predators who pretend to be trans, to access women/girls. This has happened. How do we protect women and girls while supporting genuine trans? This leads into why self ID with no cross checking is negligent. And that most actual, genuine trans people have no issue with the gender recognition process. It’s mostly nontrans activists and pretend trans that have issues. Is it fair for these nontrans to drown the voices of actual trans?

@titchy

Somehow, I raised mine without horror stories maligning whole groups of people based on a few members of that group. That's really not healthy.

Really? So you never mentioned male violence as a possibility or suggested mitigating actions they could take? Gosh...

maybe just read again what I have written before putting words into my mouth.

None of the "shock" suggestions will improve the OP's relationship to her teen.

Thanks bloodingutters. It horrifies me that vulnerable young people are so unquestioningly encouraged to undergo medical and surgical treatment.

The very concept of trans is illogical. If you're in the wrong body then how can you transition to what you already are?

@Echobelly

Yeah, I think *@parietal* is on the money. Just discussion points and keep it open, not 'I'm going to convince you'.

this - your comment was also good

maybe just read again what I have written before putting words into my mouth.

You said you didn't tell them about any horrible things that can happen because you wouldn't malign a whole group of people.

So you presumably wouldn't malign men as a group, so how did you warn them about male violence?

@mibbelucieachwell

Thanks bloodingutters. It horrifies me that vulnerable young people are so unquestioningly encouraged to undergo medical and surgical treatment.

The very concept of trans is illogical. If you're in the wrong body then how can you transition to what you already are?

It is crazy.

It’s preying on the most vulnerable groups of girls there are.

Ops dd may think she’s being kind, but she’s only thinking of the trans people she knows/reads about. She’s not thinking of the thousands of detransers. She’s not thinking of how her attitudes and behaviours feed into that, how her being kind is propping up an ideology that’s most definitely not kind to these vulnerable groups.

OP- you know your dd best, of course. Take the varying suggestions and go with what you think will work best with her/for you and her relationship. There is no right answer, just what you think is right for your relationship with her.

@titchy

maybe just read again what I have written before putting words into my mouth.

You said you didn't tell them about any horrible things that can happen because you wouldn't malign a whole group of people.

So you presumably wouldn't malign men as a group, so how did you warn them about male violence?

I warned them about specific situations when those situations arose. Like for example, we had a chat how drink spiking works (including a vodka neat/vodka in coke tasting) when DD started going to parties.

Since the OP's daughter is not about to be sent to prison, horror stories about rapists in women's prisons will add little to the mother - daughter relationship (in my opinion and experience).