For those of us with very young daughters

[pinkrabbithell]

Sorry in advance if this isn't the most coherent!
I've been following this board for a long time and it's really opened my eyes to everything going on. JKR has become something of a personal hero of mine as it was her words that truly woke me up to the situation.
It's something thing I feel incredibly passionate about but not able to speak about in everyday life. I would without a doubt lose my job if I went public with my real thoughts. I should probably add I got married at 23 to someone 15 years my senior who turned out to be an emotionally abusive trans man, constantly telling me I was fat and ugly if I didn't maintain my low weight / wear make up and heels as I was lucky enough to be born a woman - basically jealousy. So this whole thing is very personal too.
Anyway I'm now happily remarried to a wonderful man (who is as horrified as I) with a 3 year old daughter. I find it terrifying what is happening within schools, and I'd like to start helping her with gentle critical thinking to try and insulate her against what (sadly) seems is inevitably coming.
Any suggestions/ thoughts about how best to go about this?

I would just re assure her that girls can do, like & wear whatever they want. Liking the colour blue makes her a girl who likes the colour blue, playing with trucks makes her a girl who like playing with Trucks etc

I don't have all the answers but I do think it's really important to encourage ou children not to subscribe to ridiculous gender stereotypes. Because it makes the trans argument, especially for younger children/teens, that much harder. So that by the time it may feature in their life, I would hope their attitude would be, "you want to wear a dress, sure go ahead, but that doesn't make you a girl."

I know this is a bit simplistic, but I think the scariest thing about some of these issues is how they are based on ridiculous perceptions of gender so removing as many of these from our children as we can seems like the first step in the process.

Also, I'm very matter of fact about the physical differences between girls and boys and have always answered questions about sex/periods etc (in age appropriate way) from the start. I think this is important because it just makes the understanding that there's something intrinsically biologically that differentiates us a point they just accept.

She's 3, don't panic, plenty of time to induct her into the terven. Just raise a curious, questioning child. I have a 14yo RadFem in the making and these are my tips:

Never, ever make any concessions to gender ideology. No preferred pronouns, no "identify as", no "be kind".

Reject sex stereotypes: "boys are more energetic", "girls like unicorns" etc. They are ubiquitous and insidious so you need to keep alert!

Beware the default male. That cute squirrel in the park? Not always a he.

Use accurate descriptions, not "trans" or "transgender woman" but "men who want to be called women".

Beware the default male. That cute squirrel in the park? Not always a he.

I've been actively trying to change my default to she recently, it's hard when you've gotten to mid 40's always defaulting to he though!

I have been very clear with DD about what is happening, which, to summarise several long conversations, I told her:

1. You’re either male or female, and changing from one to the other is impossible.

1. Some unhappy people who don’t like themselves the way they are, sometimes start saying they wish they were the other sex. This is very rare. (Usually it is because when they were little they knew sexist people who told the lie that boys shouldn’t have pretty toys and girls shouldn’t climb trees and have short hair, etc.)

1. Sometimes when they get older, those people decide to dress up like the opposite sex, change their name, and demand that everybody pretend they are the opposite sex. They may even ask doctors to damage their bodies to make it look more like the opposite sex. They have persuaded schools and even the government to join in with the pretending, because they say their feelings get hurt get otherwise.

1. If you say to those people that they are only pretending and it isn’t real, they get extremely angry and mean and try to get lots of people to be mean to you. So it is best to avoid talking to them about it if possible. Most of them grow out if it and those that don’t end up with permanently damaged bodies and it is all very sad.

DD understood. Kids get pretending and get mean people.

Get her into martial arts training as soon as you can. That's what I'm planning for by DD.

I’ve started talking to my eldest about this. Just very lightly.

I tell him I don’t care who he loves, boy or girl. I don’t care if when he’s older he wants to wear dresses or heels or date someone who identifies as a double decker bus. I just want him to know you cannot change sex. You can change gender, but not sex. But I’ve also said it’s something we can talk about at home but outside the house you smile and nod.

I consider myself a kind of GC fight club representative.
1st rule: You do not talk about Fight Club.
2nd rule: You do not talk about Fight Club

Do you mean you were married to a male who subsequently identified as a woman? That's a transwoman, not a transman as in your OP.

Others have given and will continue to give good advice, but it's important you know that when people talk about TW they're talking about male bodied people.

I have daughters a little older than yours OP but still young enough to be unaware of all this.

I am increasingly hopeful that the tide will have turned on this particular issue by the time they are teenagers. More and more people are saying the Emperor is naked.

(Sadly I am less hopeful about other things like porn, sexual harassment, and expectations around presentation and image).

@RhymesWithOrange

She's 3, don't panic, plenty of time to induct her into the terven. Just raise a curious, questioning child. I have a 14yo RadFem in the making and these are my tips:

Never, ever make any concessions to gender ideology. No preferred pronouns, no "identify as", no "be kind".

Reject sex stereotypes: "boys are more energetic", "girls like unicorns" etc. They are ubiquitous and insidious so you need to keep alert!

Beware the default male. That cute squirrel in the park? Not always a he.

Use accurate descriptions, not "trans" or "transgender woman" but "men who want to be called women".

The doctor in ‘Miss Polly had a dolly’ is always a she when we sing it.

@minipie

I have daughters a little older than yours OP but still young enough to be unaware of all this.

I am increasingly hopeful that the tide will have turned on this particular issue by the time they are teenagers. More and more people are saying the Emperor is naked.

(Sadly I am less hopeful about other things like porn, sexual harassment, and expectations around presentation and image).

I see many hopeful green shoots in the younger generation - my 14yo and younger - but the problem is that so many organisations have been stonewalled it's going to take a lot of effort to turn the ship around.

We don’t subscribe to the ‘be kind’ mantra - they know they are under no obligation to ‘be kind’ to everyone. Respectful maybe, but if anyone makes them feel uncomfortable they get away by any means. Consent/boundaries - we’ve tried to introduce this concept through different ways, for example - they both have cameras, they ask consent before taking a picture of anyone, as we do of them. Granny got told off once by my daughter for sending a picture of her to me without asking! Their bodies are theirs, no one has a right to touch them. We avoid stereotypes and let them play and dress as they please. My son put on a dressing up dress today - my daughter laughed, so we had a discussion about why, after all we wear trousers, so why can’t he wear a dress if he wants. They are 6&7.

I agree with the wise advice here: don't let stupid sex/ gender stereotypes anywhere near her. I was a muddy, scabby-kneed tomboy as a child, and if anyone had suggested I was 'born in the wrong body', they would have been considered insane.

It sounds as if she'll know you love and support her, whether she likes 'girly' things or not. But remember to give the same message about other children: the gentle pink-loving boys and rowdy football-loving girls are just as they should be.

I hope by the time she's a teenager the idea of 'non-binary' will have died out too. Sad that rejecting both sexes' stereotypes pushes people into another gender identity these days -- when I was young, it was simply called being a feminist!

Someone posted a link here recently to a detransitioner's story. She (the detransitioner) was an incredibly intelligent young American woman called Helena, I'm afraid I didn't save the link. Two things really struck me from Helena's eloquent testimony:

1. She suffered emotional damage as a child - a bereavement, and a lack of emotional openness in her family which made the loss harder to deal with. Striking,

because we can't avoid tragic events like a bereavement, and it's not as if her parents were terrible either, just not perfect - who is?

1. She was always a feminine, indoorsy girl, not a tomboy. She was heterosexual. Striking, because we often worry about the tomboys and young lesbians getting drawn into this, but she wasn't at all like that.

1. Tumblr. She describes Tumblr in its heyday as being like a cult, a world unto itself. All social media has this potential. Her loneliness is what got her sucked into it.

Like you, I worry about the young girls in my family growing up in this mad new world, and Helena's essay was both (in some ways) reassuring and discomfiting. It made me think that perhaps the biggest factor in all this is childhood confidence, security, resilience and all that. Which is, of course, what all of us mothers try to give our children, and it's not entirely within our gift to do so - we will inevitably mess up at some point anyway. So, mixed feelings. I'm less worried about gender stereotyping specifically, but more alert to the vulnerabilities that adverse childhood experiences and environments can cause, and lead to problems that nobody could predict. E.g. even if this one blows over, what's the next trend to get its claws into lonely and insecure girls? And if they emerge from their teen years unscathed by online cults,what about abusive relationships and other ways in which women are gaslit and controlled. It's clear that intelligence is no barrier to being taken in.

@titchy

Do you mean you were married to a male who subsequently identified as a woman? That's a transwoman, not a transman as in your OP.

Others have given and will continue to give good advice, but it's important you know that when people talk about TW they're talking about male bodied people.

See I don't accept this at all and think the OP is right. When we are talking on a thread about clear language, why refer to a man as any kind of woman? That's an untruth.

@LauriePartridge4Eva

I always think about including 'woman' in the description of a man as being the same kind of thing as,

• sea horse - actually a fish
• sea cucumber - actually a mollusc
• star fish - actually a crustacean (or are they molluscs? definitely not a fish though!)
• sweet breads - actually...testicles?? (not sure...but you wouldn't make toast with them!)
• bombay duck - a dried fish

etc etc etc

If a trans woman was anything other than a man, then they would just be 'a woman'

I think thewindwhispers has been very charitable and age-appropriate in what she has explained to her DD and what she has not explained.

See I don't accept this at all and think the OP is right. When we are talking on a thread about clear language, why refer to a man as any kind of woman? That's an untruth.

Whilst I agree in principle, the reality is that the Karen Jones' of the world are referred to as TW, and confusing the words is dangerous. If KJ was sometimes referred to as a trans man, then most people would assume a biological female and not to too worried.

I hardly think one should go as far as villainising all trans people to get a point across. I totally believe some people are trans and I have friends and family who are (and who have been long before being trans had the profile it has now).

But I take the line that trans is a rare thing, it's not a case of 'everyone can be whatever sex they like'. Also reinforcing you can express yourself however you like regardless of sex. And I think that's all that needs to be said to young children.

Incidentally, I did all the non-default-male-gendering and non-female-stereotyping with oldest (13.5) who has identified as non-binary like a few mates for a year or so now. We're respecting that but also encouraging and open and critical mindset - ie, you don't really have to worry that much about your gender identity/sexuality at this stage; yes, you can always change your mind and you don't have to feel 'silly' about it, exploring is fine; I have expressed that if you don't like gender stereotypes I feel it's a more powerful statement to identify with birth sex and show you can dress and be however you choose; make sure you've read the whole story, not just an outraged social media post; you'll see lots of stories positively reinforcing how overjoyed people are that they've had surgery/intervention, but remember that while it may be solution for them, that doesn't mean that would be the answer to your problems and so on.

And thus far that seems to be working - they know we're not rubbishing their feelings, that they can trust us (rather than creating a whole separate world about this shared only with their friends) and that the door is open for their choices in life.

I think it would be a good idea to teach her something about the history of clothes and fashion and hairstyles and colours, and how men and boys used to wear skirts and gowns and frills and long hair and bright colours too, and still do in some other cultures.

@AryaStarkWolf

Beware the default male. That cute squirrel in the park? Not always a he.

I've been actively trying to change my default to she recently, it's hard when you've gotten to mid 40's always defaulting to he though!

I'd forgotten I made a conscious decision effort with DD when she was little to refer to women as much as possible.

The big boat, the train, the biplanes doing the loop the loop, we always waved at the lady driver/pilot.

Thanks all, some really useful thoughts, comments and perspectives to ponder. It feels like a bit of a minefield but while I can have limited impact on the outside world, I can hopefully help steer my daughter through this safely.

In relation to the question about my ex, he was born male but wanted to be a woman. In my opinion he was actually very sensible and never went down the route of surgery as in his words "I'll just look like a man who has had surgery." However sadly his jealousy of me having the "luck" to be born female was not pleasant.