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

[pop91]

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 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.

Sex determined later in pregnancy?? What????

[quote NurseBernard]@pop91 - are you able to have another attempt at defining ‘woman’ and ‘man’ that doesn’t actually use those words in the definition?[/quote]
This is a good indicator as to whether they're here in good faith or not... or at least whether they've actually thought about it.

@ScrollingLeaves

“We are also now having a baby very soon.”

I am glad for you that you are happier now and congratulations on your baby soon to be born.

I was wondering if your baby was conceived through intercourse with both of you being your baby’s parents ( rather than with a donor)? If so, given this would be the result of the function of your sex, did this feel as though it was confirming your sex and therefore trigger your dysphoria again?
Similarly, if you are the pregnant one, does this feel dysphoric?

I may be confused here I realise.

Also, I was just wondering if your parents ever sent you for general counselling to talk about your desperate feelings?

What form exactly did the conversion therapy take, how old were you, and how long did it go on for?

We didn't conceive through intercourse. Yes, we used a doner but not a surrogate.

No, but NHS did send for general counselling.

I've noted the conversion therapy in another comment.

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

Every cell in your body apart from gametes have two sets of chromosomes (leaving aside for the moment differences such as triploidy). When your gametes are formed these duplicate chromosomes split so each gamete has just one copy. In women this means all their ova has an x chromosome. In men 50% of spermicide have x and 50% have y chromosomes. The sex of the child conceived is dependent on whether the ova is fertilised by a spermicide baring an x chromosome or one baring a y chromosome and from that moment of conception sex is fixed forever.

No. Sex is determined when we are conceived. This is why we can perform sex-selective fertility treatments, by examining the embryo.

I think you mean when the sex of a fetus can be determined? That would be from about 9 week via maternal blood test (looking at cell free fetal DNA) or from an ultrasound (16 weeks onwards).

I can do a more detailed explain action but that’s the quick and dirty version.

Meant to quote isn't sex determined later in pregnancy, not at conception
On that

@GreenBlueRedYellow

What will you do if your children or step children reject you and prevent you from ever having any sort of relationship with any future grandchildren ?

I don't know.

I won't hurt them for who they are but rather love them for it so hopefully that never happens.

*sperm nor spermicide. Autocorrect.

@LosingTheWill2022

I'm so sad reading your story.

Your parents are abusive. I will not challenge anything you've written other than your description of your parents as "gender critical". They are homophobic abusers. To equate their views and actions as being "gender critical " is disingenuous.

I wish you nothing but happiness and hope you can come to differentiate between the appalling actions of your parents and the legitimate concerns being voiced in the face of "no debate".

Thank You and I'm not for 'no debate' hence still debating on here at 12 in the night

@titchy

I hope you understand now OP, from reading posters here, that although your mother identified as GC, in fact she very clearly wasn't. That's the difficult thing when people identify as something - often they're not the thing they identity as.

Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

and why then should conversion therapy not be banned?

Not to throw shade on you OP but it’s worrying when people don’t know the basics of how we are conceived and become - well- who and what we are.

IVF counselling is shit though. I regularly meet couples who have had multiple rounds yet have not the basic grasp of any of it. The mind boggles. If I was a cynic I’d say it’s about making money out of misery but that would be uncharitable.

Conversion therapy SHOULD be banned. Almost all GC women agree on this matter. It’s homophobic and vile.

Aren't welcome where and to do what? Do you think we should send them rape threats and get them fired from there jobs or something?

@PrelateChuckles

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

What is the definition of the word 'woman' in your definition of the word 'woman'? What is the thing - woman - they are identifying as? What is the thing that all women have in common, that people who aren't women don't have?

(These aren't multiple questions - just the same question but with ways to help you think about how to answer in a non-circular way).

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

Why would you think GC would be in favour of abuse? Conversion therapy absolutely should be banned.
Not believing in gender doesn't equate to transphobia

^ pop91

titchy

I hope you understand now OP, from reading posters here, that although your mother identified as GC, in fact she very clearly wasn't. That's the difficult thing when people identify as something - often they're not the thing they identity as.

Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

and why then should conversion therapy not be banned? ^

Not welcome from where? We're bot eunning a gender critical pub, gender critical is a loose tern to describe some ideas of some people. It's not q club or an organistion, or a physical place to throw anyone out of.

I don't think of quality mental health support as 'conversion therapy'. Working through someone's body dysmorphia / dysphoria and exploring how that person can accept their body without having to surgically or medically damage it, is not conversion. That is proper cpunselling helping someone alleviate a mental health issue.

Is a psychotherapist working through someone's anoerexia nervosa then 'conversion therapy'?

Gender dysphoria is the only mental health issue where you change your healthy body to match your perception. Ultimately one might say it creates an unhealthy body to match an unhealthy mind.... I think a healthy body and a healthy mind is a much better outcome.

@Sandinmyhooves

If it’s not just clothes and haircuts, why do so many (an overwhelming majority) only define via clothes and haircuts?

I guess because it's an easy signifier.

and it's the same for cis people, most women dress like women and most men dress like men.

So it's not surprising that trans men dress like men and trans women dress like women.

personally, I'm playing around more with my clothing than ever before as my top surgery gave me gender confidence that I don't need clothes to signify as much.

How old are you now?

The behaviours of your parents sound extreme - I don't know any gender critical parents who would throw your clothes out - we grew up with loads of gender bending role models.

Also religious and non religious conversion therapy?
Are you parents religious? Most GC women I know are left leaning non church types.

Well to me Man, Women and Non-Binary are all identities whereas male, female and intersex are biological

This is what I am still struggling to understand. If being a woman (or a man) is an identity, what does that actually mean? Is it about feeling an affinity with the gender stereotypes typically associated with one sex or another?

If so, where does that leave people who firmly believe that they are women (or men) but don't feel any affinity with the stereotypes that are traditionally associated with their sex?

I struggle with the fact that the definition of being a woman always seems to come back to feeling like a woman, but there is never any clarity about what this actually means. I really do want to understand where people are coming from with this, as from where I stand, it really does seem to be about little more than gender stereotypes, and I would like us to get rid of those rather than reinforcing them.

Female refers to the sex with large immobile gametes but alone is insufficient as it doesn't tell us what specied. A female could be a tib, pen, sow, nanny, mare, jill, cow, bitch, hen, doe... obviously human females are none of these. The words for a human female are girl and women. The words for human males are boy and man.

^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^

Ok but up until now woman = female. Our laws are based on this. Every reference of the word woman in a literature has meant female person. Why on earth should we turn this upside down. Why would anyone require such a confusing change of language?

Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

The 'GC movement' are just people who think biology is real and sex immutable.

We don't have a head office, a secret lodge or headed notepaper.

@OvaHere

Should the GC movement not make it clearer than that ppl like my parents aren't welcome?

The 'GC movement' are just people who think biology is real and sex immutable.

We don't have a head office, a secret lodge or headed notepaper.

We should have headed notepaper. I want headed notepaper.

Yes lovely rice pudding!! Perfect articulation.

@oliviastwisted

Good for you OP. Your parents sound absolutely shit. Sorry.

I’m gender critical my teenage DD and all of her friends are massively experimenting with gender. I joked to her that the are in the Matrix because they have all chosen to my ear computer sounding nicknames rather than male/female names as quite a few are NB and now they call themselves the matrix as a group.

I couldn’t be prouder of her as a mother and I will always support her whatever she decides. I do caution her about the clashes between extreme gender ideology and womens rights and the perils of medical transition because there simply is no magic wand to achieve a full transition - however if she needed to medically transition to alleviate dysphoria I would totally respect that- but I use pronouns for her and her friends as she asks me, hers change on and off, I encourage her to present how she is comfortable very gender neutrally etc

I can have GC views and mother my child as she is and she is absolutely perfect as she is as a gender non confirming child.

Your parents should have parented the child they had. You did not deserve those experiences. It sounds very traumatic.

@oliviastwisted

You sound like a really good mum, to be honest.

I wouldn't have minded anything you've just said from my mum even if I disagreed.

I hope you and your daughter are doing well