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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Former Trans Child of Gender Critical Parents (very long). *Trigger warning - descriptions of self harm and suicide* - Title edited by MNHQ

541 replies

pop91 · 26/03/2022 22:33

Hi,

To start I wanna say I'm writing this post in good faith to provide the viewpoint of a Trans person with Gender Critical parents but I know this is the internet and this will probably just be trolled to death but here goes.

I had a pretty regular 'happy' family setup, and apparently first told my parents of my identity at just 5yrs old but the first I remember is at 8yrs old when I refused to go by my 'very gendered' birth name but my parents insisted on using it especially publicly.

My parents were never particularly strict on gender roles in the home - my sister would wear my dad's glasses and jacket and stomp around with his briefcase in hand and my brother had an emo phase with heels and mascara to match and apart from some grumbling from my father it was never the biggest issue in our house.

Sexuality was different though even though my father would class himself as a pragmatic centrist, barring a socialist university phase, and my mother a card-carrying progressive New Labour type whose Best Friend was the most flamboyant gay man and an Aunt who lived with her 'friend' until she passed. There was an uncomfortableness with sexuality where both my parents would call it a lifestyle choice and opposed gay marriage - cut to three years ago when my older brother came out as bisexual and last month the youngest sister as a lesbian Grin but rest assured the other 3 siblings remain firmly 'normal.'

Back to me and by 12 I had started puberty and was experiencing debilitating gender dysphoria - I would look into the mirror and see nothing that matched my brain. I would continue to feel this way until the bullying and dysphoria got so bad that one night I climbed into my bathtub with a kitchen knife hoping I could change my body to fit my brain somehow I managed not to perform self-surgery in my bathtub.

A couple of months later I came clean to my parents, I wasn't expecting a big hug but I wasn't expecting what came next. They ignored it as if I had told them what I wanted for dinner, they decided they didn't hear what I had said at all.

Over the next year, the internet became my friend as I found ways to affirm my gender by doing hidden things at first and then slowly more outward things. I came out to my siblings and although they found it confusing my oldest brother and sister were a godsend who I wouldn't have survived without, They helped me pick out a new haircut and new clothes and we came up with a new name.

I came out in school and sure there was bullying but I was feeling so Euphoric that it almost didn't matter. When the teachers found out they informed my parents and that's when everything changed! My parents sat me down and said I was just confused. They threw out my new clothes, anything that I used to affirm my gender, even my shoes and magazines then they took my bedroom door off and took away my laptop and phone and forced my older siblings to refer to me by my birth name, my older brother and sister stopped supporting me and I lost my only family support and anything that was helping me.

Eventually, when they realised everything they had done hadn't worked and I still felt the same way, they decided to try both religious and non-religious conversion therapy which left permanent scarring to my mental health and I frequently have nightmares about it.

At 15 I had my first suicide attempt and my parents forced me to lie and say it was due just to bullying at school but that wasn't true it was the dysphoria and conversion therapy that was killing me.

From 15 to 17 I had multiple suicide attempts and after the third one, my parents finally allowed me to stop the conversion therapy but still forcibly live as my 'biological' sex.

Eventually, I managed to get to a great University and at 18 I socially transitioned and by 20 I had started hormones. I now have a job that provides me financial stability and have an amazing partner, with 2 children from a prior relationship that I now consider like my own. We are also now having a baby very soon.

My mother now describes herself as Gender Critical and frequently posts online about how she will be unable to see her grandchildren because of her views, which is true as I will not allow my parents to see either my child or stepchildren.

My parents continue to refuse to acknowledge my identity and pronouns. The last time we talked, she said she believes I am just gay, which neither makes sense considering my partner's gender nor the fact she also has a terrible relationship with my lesbian sister and bisexual brother who also rarely allows his child to visit my mum, due to her comments about their sexualities.

I finally have the support back of all my siblings and we do frequently gather without my parents. I hope one day my parents change their minds but honestly I don't hold much hope and I don't know if I could forgive what they did to me.

A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals but I don't, it wasn't very nice at all. If you're going to ask if I think kids should transition, the answer is I don't know as I didn't transition as a child and a social transition helped plenty for me.

Well that's it I think, just the perspective and experience of a trans person with Gender Critical parents, feel free to ask any reasonable questions or respectful questions. Smile

OP posts:
Whingasaurus · 27/03/2022 10:25

I wish you all the best but it's not really relevant to this section? Women's right are under attack from men pretending to be women. I wish every man, woman and young adult genuinely suffering from gender dysphoria the best possible outcome for them. But they can't and won't ever change sex and men can't usurp the places of women. Your journey is not relevant it's got nothing to do with feminism your struggles with your family's bigotry is a separate struggle that i hope you resolve and I'm sorry you've struggled with but I'm still of exactly the same mind I was before I read this. No to men in women's spaces. Only women can be mothers only men can be fathers. Your medical, criminal, educational and sporting data must record your sex.

tabbycatstripy · 27/03/2022 10:29

'If you don't see yourself as a woman then you aren't a woman.'

We differ in this opinion. I respect your right to call yourself what you like and I sympathise with your pain, but I will never think this. The only coherent definition of 'woman' is a biological one.

Whatsnewpussyhat · 27/03/2022 10:30

You say a woman is someone who sees themselves as a woman but trans is thinking your body doesn't match what is in your brain.
You, for example are what we would traditional think of as a dysphoric transexual.

That still doesn't explain a 30 year old male, who is perfectly comfortable with their male body and looks and dresses in a stereotypical male way, beard etc. Who has no dysphoria who suddenly declares 'I'm a woman'. How can he have a woman gender of he isn't performing woman? He hasn't had woman gender his entire life so what change magically happened?
It what way is he actually trans under your definition?

The entire ideology is one huge contradiction, trans people can't even agree on definitions of their own words.

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 10:31

[quote pop91]@Wafflemaker

though I don't suppose this is a good-faith question of what is a woman I will give the definition I find most appropriate:

Firstly women are in 99% of cases an adult human female who identifies as a woman and secondly in 1% of cases either a woman is an Adult Trans Woman who identifies as a woman or anyone who falls towards the women end of the gender spectrum and identifies as a woman.[/quote]
Not 99%. 100%.
A transwoman is an adult human male.

What does the ‘woman end of the gender spectrum’ mean?

SayYouDontMind · 27/03/2022 10:33

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

RufustheFloralmissingreindeer · 27/03/2022 10:36

@SayYouDontMind

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

I think they would be dead in 100 years

Someone should rescue them a bit earlier

RufustheFloralmissingreindeer · 27/03/2022 10:37

Within 100 years 🤔

Even blue lagoon they weren’t babies were they?

LosingTheWill2022 · 27/03/2022 10:39

What does the ‘woman end of the gender spectrum’ mean?

This makes me so angry. OP is clearly conflating the noun woman with the adjective feminine. Resulting in the misogyny that says women who are not "feminine" are somehow 'less' of a woman. In 2022 !!

Clymene · 27/03/2022 10:39

@SayYouDontMind

PS. I am a little perturbed by the hypothetical example you gave us of leaving a black baby and a white baby alone on a desert island and coming back 100 years later. And observing that race was not a real thing but sex and gender is? I just hope someone checked to see whether there was a male baby and a female baby otherwise that would have been an even more callous and ill-thought-out social experiment then it already was!

Now I've got The Blue Lagoon flashbacks...

My first thought was that if you leave two babies alone on an island, they'd be dead within day :(

@pop91 - I just reread your OP:
A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals but I don't,

That seems a very strange and rather disturbing position to take.

And I don't think shift work. I think Manchester Uni, having enjoyed a rant at women on Thursday night

StopLying · 27/03/2022 10:39

[quote pop91]@Wafflemaker

though I don't suppose this is a good-faith question of what is a woman I will give the definition I find most appropriate:

Firstly women are in 99% of cases an adult human female who identifies as a woman and secondly in 1% of cases either a woman is an Adult Trans Woman who identifies as a woman or anyone who falls towards the women end of the gender spectrum and identifies as a woman.[/quote]
Saying you identify as as a woman does not make you a woman. The only way you can be a woman is to be born one. Biology. That's it. Women are in 100 percent of cases adult human females. Men wearing mascara and lipstick are simply that. Men wearing 'woman face'. Even if they identify as women. It's not actually real. And not possible to change sex.

LosingTheWill2022 · 27/03/2022 10:41

Or that you can degrees of being a woman???

IcakethereforeIam · 27/03/2022 10:41

AlexaShutUp
Oh, bless you (in a non-religious fashion), try to get some rest.
I feel your username BTW, worse than having a barky dog sometimes.

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 10:43

@pop91
Well to me Man, Women and Non-Binary are all identities whereas male, female and intersex are biological and normally they work together:
Female = Women
and sometimes they don't:
Female = Man

Non binary indicates non identity. Ie not make or female. And of course that’s just nonsense as we are all either male or female. It’s impossible to not be one or the other.
Anyone with a DSD (please don’t use ‘intersex’, it’s offensive) is still either male or female. You’ve phrased it as if it’s a third sex. Again, it’s offensive.
In law, a man is an adult human male, a woman is an adult human female and non binary doesn’t exist.
You seem very confused.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/03/2022 10:47

A lot of online trans activists wish trans children for Gender Criticals

Why would they a) want a "trans child" to be looked after by people they think are awful and don't understand gender dysphoria and b) see having a "trans child" as a kind of punishment?

Confused
IcakethereforeIam · 27/03/2022 10:47

You'd come back to a few fragments of baby bones impossible to tell sex or race.

tabbycatstripy · 27/03/2022 10:59

I'm not worried about having a 'trans child'. There are no 'trans children'. If one of my daughters has serious dysphoria then we would seek non-judgmental, open-ended therapeutic help to get to the root of it, and I would limit her access to the internet so she could engage in rational real-life discussion about the causes of her distress. If she just decided one day to call herself Jack and change her pronouns, I would indulge it with patience and kindness, until she changed it all back again.

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 11:02

Because race is cultural because if you put a white baby and a black baby on a desert island and come back 100 years later, race probably wound't exist for them whereas Sex and Gender would

The fact that you think this speaks volumes. Race may well be cultural, but it is based on reality - one’s genetic make up if you like.
I’m assuming that these fictitious babies are of either sex? If not, you’d go back in 100 years and find 2 skeletons - which you’d be able to identify as male or female almost instantly. You’d also be able to identify their race, or at least their racial composition, via dna. What you wouldn’t be able to do is know what ‘gender’ they identified as.
If, however, they were opposite sex babies, you’d go back in 100 years and find a community because they’d be having sex - and the females would give birth. And as this desert island wouldn’t have WiFi, they’d have had no access to The internet so there’d be no ‘gender identity’ in existence!
Id like to think I wouldn’t find all the women at home looking after the kids and doing all the cleaning whilst the men went out fishing, but I’m pretty sure that would still happen, because men, generally, have stronger physiques that women, and only women can give birth and breastfeed!

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2022 11:10

[quote pop91]@Testingprof

you need to read this post. As a mixed race (androgynous) woman your posts are becoming increasingly racist and offensive. Race exists, it’s clear the you are white, race is not cultural.

I'M MIXED RACE! as you might have guessed from me mentioning further up that my Father is Muslim! He is of Pakistani ethnicity and my mother's father is half Nigerian. The assumption that I'm white is VERY weird considering I've alluded to the fact I'm not!

RACE IS NOT REAL! IT'S A SOCIAL CONTRUCT!
If you mean ethnicity then that is VERY different to race![/quote]
So if race isn’t real, why are you claiming to be mixed race?
It makes no sense!

Lovelyricepudding · 27/03/2022 11:21

Because race is cultural because if you put a white baby and a black baby on a desert island and come back 100 years later, race probably wound't exist for them whereas Sex and Gender would

On a desert island? Do you think it is coincidental peoples living nearer the equator have darker skin? The white baby would be struggling within a day due to their race.

Debinaround · 27/03/2022 11:59

What do you think about trans age? Can people identify as a different age? I saw a 60 odd year old bloke on the telly saying he identified as a 40 year old. Was told in all seriousness that he couldn't do that by a trans woman. Grin

I have never seen feminists threaten rape. It's a physical impossibility and something only men can threaten and carry out.

donquixotedelamancha · 27/03/2022 12:01

Race may well be cultural, but it is based on reality - one’s genetic make up if you like. I’m assuming that these fictitious babies are of either sex? If not, you’d go back in 100 years and find 2 skeletons - which you’d be able to identify as male or female almost instantly. You’d also be able to identify their race, or at least their racial composition, via dna.

It's really not. Scientifically humans do not have races (as in subspecies) wolves do and cabbages do but humans don't; not even close.

We don't and can't identify ancient groups of people by race, we do it by language group. There are villages 20 miles apart in Spain with greater genetic diverity than someone from medieval England and North India. Humans have huge genetic diversity and the factors which get called race are a tiny part of it.

Racism exists and as a result groups are referred to as races but it's based on skin colour, culture and prejudice. We shouldn't buy what races are selling.

No can we please stop equating gender stereotypes with racism? It's never going to go well.

Eyesofdisarray · 27/03/2022 12:15

OP you can believe what you want to and be whoever you want to be- you cannot force others to do the same. Not right or fair.
Cis is offensive- please don't use it- I'm not in a sub set of women.
You didn't answer re dysphoria/pregnancy.
Death threats etc mainly come from TRA not GC people or feminists. Women en can't threaten rape - not possible
Equating with race is just offensive and you don't seem to grasp the difference between race and ethnicity anyway.
Posters have been civil yet you seem to be losing your temper ie CAPITALS to emphasise it
So bored with being told what I should think
Really bored

Eyesofdisarray · 27/03/2022 12:16

But I wish you all the best with the baby and your future

sanluca · 27/03/2022 12:17

I just went through Pop91's posts to ser if I can understand their points.

Basically sex and gender are different.
Female and male is sex, man and woman is gender.
Gender is personal. Gender dysphoria is a disconnect in their brain that they feel they should be male but are female (or vice versa).
Using female for female humans or woman & transmen is fine with them

Now is where I get stuck. Social transitioning means presenting as the gender you feel but the sex you are not. Again, it is personal.
When transpeople socially transition they feel that they should then use the facilities and services that is named the gender they are now. So womens changing rooms, womens sports etc.

So if we relabel women to say female (female changing rooms, female sports) then transpeople would stay out of them? Because I don't think this is the case and this is why so many transwomen say they are female now. Like transgender female athletes like Lia Thomas. So pop91's definitions are contradicted by their own community now.

And doesn't the whole 'disconnect' mean you have to have gender dysphoria? That wouldn't be self id. Unless you can self diagnose gender dysphoria but then having gender dysphoria becomes a bit meaningless.

So no, pop91. I don't think what you are saying is what transactivists are demanding. I think it is very self centered and probably caused by your parents behaviour towards you.

That said, good luck with your life but it is still a big no from me. You don't get to demand legal terms are changed without providing a new definition that gives female people the same protections from male people they have now'

KimikosNightmare · 27/03/2022 13:13

isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception?

How is it possible not to know and understand sex is determined as soon sperm meets egg?