Help with talking to a 12 yr old about trans issues

[GoingOnce]

My son has a friend whose sister is apparently now his brother. I sense my son wants to talk to me about this and I want to have the right language to engage sensibly in a conversation. He has swallowed whole the ideology that people can change their gender as this has been “explained” to them at school. The child does not attend my son’s school but still attends a girls school - whilst going by a new name, wearing an adapted and having a special toilet assigned just for them.

The child in question (and the entire family) is struggling. There is self-harm and have been suicide attempts. I do not want to criticise them or their child. But I do want my child to realise that they are being presented with one narrative here. (I am quite certain the parents are simply going along with the whole thing because they are terrified of their child’s mental state and what they might do next. I feel very sorry for them).

Any advice for how I can discuss this sensibly? I can’t believe at age 12 we are already having to talk about all this.

@stopwaitingforpermissiontobeyou - you asked me where I had answered the OP's question. I answered it yesterday in a post made at 12.36.

I earn more than my husband, I'm far more technically minded than he is, much better at household repairs and do less housework than he does.

Is he same gender attracted? Maybe he's gay.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson @youvegottenminuteslynn

I think "stereotype" has a slight perjorative overtone, implying that aside from sex differences, males and females are the same.
I am female. From early childhood very many of my choices have been masculine and I also have somewhat masculine appearance. That didn't make me a boy and doesn't make me a man, but it does give me a lived experience that leads me to think the differences between male and female behaviour is not purely conditioning.

Your implication isn't one that the average 12-yr-old would take from the word 'stereotype'. And your posts completely ignore the other points in my post about biological sex; culture; history; society; adoption of different stereotypes associated with gender in different countries, etc.
Fwiw your choices haven't been 'masculine' and your appearance isn't 'masculine' either. Forensic archaeologists and facial recognition software identify sex easily. As do most humans. And the meaning of the term 'masculine' changes so much depending on time; country; demographic - that it's rendered meaningless as a descriptor.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson if I say "gender is nothing but stereotypes", then I think a 12yo would understand the scorn in the words.
If most humans recognise sex from faces, why did I used to frequently get mistaken for a boy? That's my reality. Your statistics can't erase my lived experience.
My choices were masculine within the social context where I found myself. Words aren't meaningless by having context-dependent meanings.

Thanks for your honesty on this.

Statistics don't portray the lived picture. They don't represent my friend who is regularly treated badly in toilets because women think she is a man. They don't represent you. They don't represent the teenager who is called a boy because of her haircut.

I'm sitting next to a man on the bus right now.
How can I tell he's a man?

See, here's the thing Wanda.

I'm not sure you can.

How sure can you be that he's not a trans man and has a vagina?

Smell? Ask him a question and listen to his voice?
This is why people use conventions of dress, hairstyle, and behaviour to confirm which sex they are.
When I realised I was confusing people I took care to make it clear that I am female. Sometimes I forget, though. In the last year, I have occasionally had teenage boys speculating whether I'm MtF or FtM.

If posters think teen boys calling them 'boys' or 'men' can only be explained by them not knowing which sex you are then you don't enough teen boys.

Personal anecdotes do not outweigh statistical research and science. Regardless of anonymous posters on the internet, the science and research is clear on the biological differences between the sexes. And only people who are deeply rooted in Western conventions and stereotypes could think their coded behaviour sends an universal message. The inherent privilege and racism of assuming because you have bought into consumerist sexist marketing that it somehow relates to a wider perspective on sex, is quite frankly inane.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson I'm not sure if you intended it, but your post is outright rude.
You know almost zero about me.
You can't see me.
I have written about words having context-dependent meanings. An example would be "masculine" in the context of clothes in different communities. For some groups, at some times, trousers have signified "male". For other groups, both men and women are expected to wear trousers.
The OP is asking how to talk to a 12yo about his friend's teenage sister. I think saying "gender is nothing but stereotypes" carries the risk that the sister will receive a message that she is being silly.

But the op shouldn't lie to the child to bail out someone else's lies to their child.

Gender is stereotypes. Every story even the head of mermaids story starts with dresses amd dolls. What is that if not stereotypes.

@Whatwouldscullydo I am not advocating lying.
Gendered clothes and gendered activities are not mere stereotypes.
Some reflect physical characteristics of the two sexes.
Others are customs or conventions to signal sex.
Others reflect social organisation around communication between the sexes, friendships, and parenting.

I am not an gender scholar. This is what I have learned through having a female body with some masculine characteristics such as large feet and hands, narrow hips, broad shoulders. I often wear shoes and trousers designed for male feet and legs. If I have to wear a blazer, the men's fit me best.
To make matters more confusing still, my day job is one where, in spite of decades of "initiatives", I am still often the only woman in a roomful of men.
Are dresses and dolls a stereotype? Or are they practical choices based on the biological fact that girls squat to pee, and the social fact that women have babies and small children tend to see women in personal care roles?
I haven't looked at anything to do with Mermaids so I can't comment on what they say.

Dolls and dresses appear to be enough of a worry they require marriage counselling and throwing away should a boy want to play with them so yes I'd say they were very much a gender stereotype

Personal experiences will always outweigh research. Please remember that PP is a human being

The context here is if the OP's son's friend's sister was never interested in dolls and didn't like wearing dresses then she might think that is evidence that she is in fact a boy.
If she comes from a family which expects a high level of conformity to gender norms including girls wearing dresses and playing with dolls, then I imagine maybe that would contribute to dysphoria.

It's also possible that the girl comes from a family which is open-minded. Yet the girl still noticed that other girls enjoyed dolls and dressing up, while she preferred playing football, which hardly any other girls would play.

If the girl hears the view that her evidence that she is in fact a "boy" is being dismissed as mere "stereotype", i can not see how she will feel heard.

So are you saying that the OP shouldn't say to her son that someone 'identifying as' the opposite sex is probably doing this because of stereotypes, because his friend's sister might be upset if she hears that they have discussed transgenderism in those terms? The OP can make it clear to her son that it might not be appropriate to discuss this with his friend, and definitely not with his friend's sister and the rest of his family. The OP should be able to discuss this with her son without worrying about how someone who isn't even there might react to what she is saying.

And the girl doesn't have 'evidence' that she is a boy, because she isn't a boy.

TeamSukhareva , I would be interested what 'evidence that she is in fact a "boy"' might there be? In my personal opinion it's a misapprehension - she is a girl and will grow up into a woman. That's what girls do when they become adults?

If they call themselves trans men that doesn't mean they're not women, as they are adult female humans. Trans men cannot, by definition, be male.

Until they're not. As a parent of teenagers, I have seen a number of their friends believe they are trans, but then realise they're actually gay...or actually just deeply unhappy about being female because they suddenly realise just how society treats women. I know of two female to male teenage transitions (one of whom is autistic and I worry for them and their family as I don't think this will be the answer for them) and 5 who have realised they are not trans. I have compassion for all our teens. It is a big part of teenage life. I do not believe that you are born in the wrong body, I think it has more to do with societal stereotypes and the misogyny which women suffer.

The concept of trans children is so important to trans activists. That's why schools / education have been relentlessly targeted, gaslighting children into believing the wrong body narrative, that puberty blockers are harmless / essential for children, along with attempting to separate children from their parents.
As this discussion shows, people tie themselves up in knots trying not to be unkind to or about confused, often mentally unwell children. These children are being placed at the forefront of campaigns in order to make the ideology acceptable to people - even the incoherent or socially unacceptable bits.
If you've a bit of time this is well worth a listen with Helen Joyce and Stephanie Davies-Arai engaged in a fascinating discussion unpicking a lot of what's happened, especially with children.

The concept of trans children is so important to trans activists.

It is. To quote American transactivist Autumn Sandeen:

“I’ve always said there are two groups that are going to make change in transgender legislation and the “gender identity and expression” related language in legislation. It’s going to be trans youth because … they demystify it and take the sex right out of the trans experience."

TRAs need a constant stream of children identifying as trans, so that they can point to these children and say they were just like that as children, and that no trans people are motivated by a sexual fetish (because that is obviously not what motivates the children). Children are an important part of desexualising transgenderism. People are also unlikely to criticise children, and instead feel sympathetic towards them and concern about their confusion. For this strategy to work effectively, these children also need to be medicated while they are still children, because otherwise the vast majority of them will naturally desist once they have been through puberty and show that for the most part these children don't grow up to be transsexual adults. These TRAs don't care about children - they are simply human shields and collateral damage.

The language is part of the problem here. If, instead of 'trans children' or 'transgender children', people had talked about 'transsexual children', I don't think this would have gone as far as it has.

I feel so incredibly sorry for children these days.
The adults who should be safeguarding them are going along with all of this.
There are red flags everywhere when it comes to these organisations that target schools.

I have had a conversation with my children's school about this and voiced my concern.
We need to keep talking about this and flagging it up.

Kids are being failed and very obviously so.
I am so thankful my children aren't going along with it and can see it's harmful.
I think for one of my children seeing the real mental health issues some of these children display and even some of the things they say such as ' they are being erased' has all the marks of indoctrination online, these trans rights activists don't care about these kids, the language they use to manipulate and frighten them infuriates me.

Actually the context here is that no-one suggested dismissing everything as stereotypes. You have created a strawman, dismissed research as less important than your personal experiences and are framing the 'other' DC as the most important person here when the thread was about how OP spoke to their own DC. Their DC doesn't need to ensure another DC feels 'heard'. And OP definitely should not be basing her conversation with her DC on how that could hypothetically make another DC feel. Feelings and anecdotes do not trump facts. That nonsense is partly why this agenda has been able to get the stronghold that it has.

@OldCrone

Oops, the site keeps hanging and I can't compose a post.
I don't think you are reading my posts properly. You are talking as if I am in favour of transgenderism and I am totally against it.