husband called me a terf 😡

[3kidsandcounting2022]

Dd 8 had always preferred playing with boys and most of her interests aren't things her other peers dont like or understand. She has been saying she wants to be a boy for a while now and my response is that she can't be and she cant wear and play with what she likes.
She wears clothing from the boy section and she can play with anything she wants. Anyway dh is under the impression that she is transgender and we need to support her with it.
Long story short we had a massive row that ended in him calling me a terf.
I honestly dont know what to do :(

Omg so much mistakes there.....

Tell him exactly what happens to girls who are affirmed as ‘trans’ including the impact drugs have on their bodies - sterility, no sex drive, atrophy of genitals, early hysterectomy - let alone the fad for having a double mastectomy. Does he really want a lifetime of untested medication for his daughter?

Has he used terms of abuse before?

To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to carry on. Your daughter is 8. She is a girl. Transitioning is a process adults are within their rights to choose, and ‘transgender’ has no legal definition.

(Carry on with him.)

Tell him she can be called transgender if he likes
But that is just a label
It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with her
It doesn't mean she needs anything changed

It might mean she needs more love and support since she may find it harder to find her place and friends and acceptance of her WHOLE self as it naturally and perfectly is

I would honestly leave my DH for this (and he knows it; we discussed it again this morning!).

If he was anything other than gender critical, I'd be off.

Carry on as you are OP, you're saying all the right things. My DD was the same as yours between ages 4 and 9, and I took the same approach as you, encouraging her to dress/ express herself in whatever way felt comfortable, but continually affirming that she was a girl and could not become a boy. In year 5 she suddenly got fed up of being mistaken for a boy, and grew her hair, started wearing 'girl's' clothes. She's now 12 and says that she's glad I took the approach l did (like you I occasionally doubted myself - I think that's totally normal) and that it was definitely the right thing to do. Stick to your guns, and I hope you get more support from your DH going forward!

So, does he say he thinks she has actually changed sex? But yes, maybe show him the various stories of the Desisters, ask him if that is what he wants for his daughter? Or if he wants, instead, to support her as she navigates her way through a patriarchal society that seems to think girls are lesser than, including him, it would seem.

You know that what you are doing is the right thing. Support her, talk to her, be honest with her. She can wear what she likes, do as she pleases, even change her name. But she will always be female and needs to build that into her conscious world view.

She could be just like many of us when we were kids, total tomboy, happy and supported. She doesn't need a bloody label that traps her into a dangerous ideology!

That's ridiculous, my 7 year old openly says she doesn't like girls toys and she likes to wear Minecraft and avengers clothes. That's fine she can do as she pleases but she knows she is a girl and that's the end of the conversation in our house. You are not a 'terf' and your DH needs to realise your child is 8 and the word transgender shouldn't even be registering!

You need to support your daughter - don't tell her she can't be something or she will push even more! Don't have these arguments in front of her either.
Tell your daughter you support her but that she is a long way from having to make a decision and for now do as she is doing - driving a wedge between you will have the opposite effect and push her in to more drastic measures.
Your husband will also cause her damage if he goes down his route of transgender. You need to be working together for your daughter whatever your beliefs.
I am a teacher and we have a lot of kids saying they are trans - but half change their minds as they get older.
As hard as it is, for now, you have to be supportive, together

Hard though this is, don't fly off the handle. This could be dangerously polarising for your daughter, and that's a lose lose outcome.

Take the heat out of this, and explore it positively together.

Do you both want nothing but the best for your dd? Yes? Great, that's something you have in common.

Do you both think she should be able to play with, wear, do, whatever she likes, irrelevant of whether she's a boy, a girl, or transgender? Another yes? Great!

Do you need to do anything differently for her? If there are changes, are those changes safe? Has she asked for those changes? If not, who is driving them? This is really important!!

If she's Georgina asking to be called George, then that's probably fine. If she's asking to wear binders, then that's not fine- explore why.

Find the common ground and work from there. It doesn't help her if you start from opposing ends.

Confrontational option: tell your husband that only one person has the lived experience of growing up female and realising the social expectations of girls are narrower than they are for boys, and it's not him.

Tell him you are a feminist and you do not want to medicalise a girl to fit his sexist, misogynist boxes, you want to support her to be herself, despite her father.

More conciliatory option:

once upon a time I had a trans friend. I will not give their sex, because it should be immaterial. I will call them Quinn, for the purposes of this anecdote. One day, a mutual friend was showing off to Quinn about how trans-inclusive he was, and he said to Quinn, "if my kid was trans I wouldn't care and I'd support them with it all".

Quinn hit the roof

Quinn went through the financial costs of their planned surgeries, the psychological impact of experiencing gender dysphoria, the recovery from surgery, the possible risks of surgery (you have a risk of dying every time you go under general anaesthetic, the risk of irreparable nerve damage) and on and on.

Then Quinn told our friend that if they ever had a child and that child said they were trans, Quinn would take that child round every therapist Quinn could, to work out if their child to feel peace with their body without having a single operation.

The medical transition pathway is a shit path. Did you know that there is a 30% of longterm constant pain for women who have mastectomies? That risk is one thing when you have cancer and the only other option is dying of cancer. It's quite another thing when you're having a mastectomy as an elective procedure as a teenager.

If he had a son, would he want his genitals removed?

Tbh it sounds like your daughter is just a tomboy. Respectfully, I think your husband is being a dick. Watchful waiting will help.

Dh is a great father and he has only started to look into transgender recently. Both of us only want what's best for her. He honestly believes that telling her she can change sex with older is in her best interests. For context his older brother was pretty much abandoned by their parents due to being gay so i think part of him doesn't want to repeat mistakes.

If he’s only just begun to look into it, first, tell him to back off with his big old opinions. He doesn’t know anything about the topic.

Then show him what a double mastectomy done on a teenager looks like.

If he still wants to tell your daughter she can actually change sex, then you have a very big problem.

What exactly does he think you should do? What would you do if she wanted to be known by a different name?

I was a tomboy when I was 8, lots of people thought I was a boy. At that age boys had much more fun than girls. By the time I was 16 I was very, very much a girl and delighted that I was 😃…… and still am at 67 😂

Whatever happened to "tomboys"? I knew several growing up (I am old), they hated wearing dresses, wanted to play with the boys at football, climb trees etc. They just didn't like dolls etc.

Ask him to read the stories of detransitioners. Eg Watson. Lots on twitter.

Also the recent film by Gussie grippers - which highlights the medical issues for girls and women who take these drugs.

The Swedish films on transition, trans train, especially the latest one, highlight the medical issues too.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9ZNINhdhN0

Meant to add, just leave her be. Let her wear what she wants, let her collect model cars (I did, and collected Superman and Batman comics), climb trees, play football. Just leave her be.

www.svtplay.se/video/33358590/uppdrag-granskning/mission-investigate-trans-children-avsnitt-1

She is 8 and he's talking about her changing sex one day? She's 8 fgs she's far too young for him to be thinking along these (very serious) lines of change imo!

Send you DH to the Break it Down For Me thread

At the moment nothing apart from wanting me to look a a book he's ordered from amozen. When she's older he wants us to support her by getting her referred to a local gender clinic. I haven't thought how i would feel if she wants to change name etc as Shes 9 ( forget she just had a birthday)