Is there any sensible advice on how to parent tomboys in the current climate?

[Neithhotep]

I have a 10-year old daughter. Short hair, plays football, wears her brother's hand-me-downs, don't think she owns a dress.

Over the next few years, as she and her peers get access to social media, she will be inundated with the suggestion that SHE MIGHT BE A BOY. Her peers will suggest it. Her teachers and authority figures will support it. She will get her period and her body will start to change and she will be asked if she's comfortable with the changes, because if not, she might be a boy! What young teen would be strong minded enough to say no?

I feel as though my baby is about to run a gauntlet, and I'm not completely sure how to parent her through it.

It may well be a non-issue.
My DD is similar and has just finished yr7 at a co-ed state school. Amongst her peer group is a girl who identifies as non-binary, a girl who identifies as a boy and one who has switched twice already this year.
DD continues to play football, continues to have male friends, continues to not even consider wearing a dress (family wedding recently made the question come up) but she has recently started wearing mascara and had her ears pierced, as have most of those in her year. Her clothing has changed from leggings and a plain hoodie to what seems to be the ubiquitous young teen girl look of jeans/demin shorts and a crop top.
She's learned at school that there are a ridiculous number of genders (over a dozen) but she has never questioned her own gender and nor has anyone else.
We've had plenty of chats over the past few years about biology v gender identity, how behaviour doesn't determine anything, don't live in a particularly stereotypical household (DH cooks; I do the DIY) and have always tried to challenge stereotypes. DS is 2 years younger than DD so wanted to do whatever she did as a toddler including wearing princess dresses & all of that sort of thing. I think DD is more embarrassed that she used to have a pink t shirt with a sparkly mermaid on than DS is about the fact he had an identical one!
I was also conscious that I didn't want to do or say anything that would suggest to DD that I had any concerns about her gender due to the way she behaved.

What are you talking about? Your sex can’t change but you can ‘realise’ you’ve always been a boy, because otherwise you’re reduced to your genitals? What on earth do you think makes you a boy or a girl?

Returning to the question of advice, I very much agree with the sensible suggestions made by previous posters about limiting social media, keeping her engaged in positive physicality, positive role models of women of different shapes/sizes/looks doing a wide range of activities. Plus discussion about the simple facts of biology, and the way that societies like to impose roles/behaviours on women because of their sex.

You have to keep talking to her and anticipating the kinds of thinking she'll be coming up against and give her the tools to make good, informed choices.
Don't allow unfettered internet access and keep an eye on what she's looking at. Be interested in her interests and keep alongside her without crowding/controlling.
Make sure she has other interests in the real world, activities that use the body and help her grow into it as she changes
Talk about those changes in a way that she's comfortable with. Periods and physical changes aren't easy for most people and discomfort and disconnection are not unusual or pathological.

Oh another thing I think helps is seeing others in real life who are like you - one of the teachers at my sons dojo is a lady, and my dd loves her. Unfortunately she only teaches the older students! But I think it’s good for my dd to see that ‘look, other girls and women like doing this - I’m not an odd one out amongst the boys, I’m just like x.’

It isn’t accepted that we refer to people based on their gender
identity. Referring to biological sex does not reduce someone to their genitals. Gender ideology is just that, an ideology and not one that I subscribe to. What I do find dehumanising is reducing women and girls to ‘menstruators’ or ‘vagina havers’ which so often happens when people do not use commonly understood biological terms like girl / boy or man / woman.

there is no wrong way to be a girl.

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I ❤️ this

My son has long hair and a affinity for pink he is a boy he corrects people when they call him a girl gets aggrieved when people question him he is 9 years old with sen im not too concerned because he advocates for himself thankfully but its the audacity that people have trying to tell him what he is and insist that is what he is when he himself states no

But your ideology calls biological women womb carriers or period havers, Gwyneth Paltrow calls men penis Havers on her Goop website. Doesn't that reduce people to their body parts?

People are programmed to recognise others sex, not their identity. Gender identity is entirely subjective, unstable and often unclear, hence the need for announcing pronouns to others etc.

Also sex is observed in the womb, have you had children? How can sex be assigned unless it's for a DSD baby?

I agree with this.

When my daughter was in primary school she was with a group of really girly girls. Think into make up, boys and facials by 8-9 years old.

After I withdrew her from school due to unmet needs (nothing to do with the subject in the OP) she started to share with me that she felt she didn't fit in with anything that girls did, she didn't think there were other girls who were like her. I emphasised that there were but she just hadn't found them yet.

She carried on playing her sport, with boys, in a boys team and eventually got good enough to trial and be selected for the girls county age group. Hey presto she's found her peer group of girls! This has been absolutely life changing for her.

It's very unlikely that your child would be told that they're a boy, trans issues are barely talked about in school now.

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Depends where you are is our experience yet here you are strongly suggesting that any of these feelings which most teens experience may mean "she's a boy ".

In DDs close friendship group of 5, 3 claim to be non binary/possibly the opposite sex. DD needs to check in weekly which pronouns are right this week.

There is absolutely a degree of social contagion going on.

It is always, always good to hear views that present different views.

However, when it comes to children's identities, it is very good for OP to realise that you, mythro, are very much in the minority with your ideological and not science based thinking. And we can read it along side others who have brought up children during this time, and who also have been following very closely to the very unscientific viewpoints vs the studies and the clinician articles and papers, and decide what level of credibility your posts have when you post what you have here.

And yes ... a very happy ex tomboy here too

And this is also from mythro

trans issues are barely talked about in school now.

Do you live in the UK with a school aged child? Where is this place where neither children nor teacher or outside resources talk about trans issues?

In DDs close friendship group of 5, 3 claim to be non binary/possibly the opposite sex.

In my teen's group, there are 5 out of the 7.

Following with interest. I'm hoping to navigate it through keeping lines of communication hopefully open, talking at home about how noone needs to be sticking labels on themselves, just be yourself. She's very into rugby and I'm hoping the women's rugby will be a good role model - women of all shapes and sizes and orientation there, all playing for the women's team. Can't get a better counter stereotype than that.

I have to admit it worries me though - it's hard enough being a teen and having to navigate everything that does with it without the additional worry being put in your head that somehow you're in the wrong body....

@Helleofabore I do, it's not talked about

Psychologically it is indisputably the case that a non-trivial proportion of males have a feminine temperament (which essentially means that they experience higher levels of negative emotions such as anxiety and the analogs of pain – grief, frustration, disappointment, depression) and are more agreeable (compassionate/polite) than typical males, and equally true that a non-trivial proportion of females have a more masculine temperament. But this does not change how, objectively, professionals and other people should measure a person’s gender. The fact is that when a kid is going through puberty a lot of hormones are racing around and everything is mixed up. Kids go through anxiety about their bodies and someone comes up with the magic solution that they are in the ‘wrong body’ whereas since Eve girls have wished their bodies away. I read Jane Fonda’s biography. She hated her body so what hope is there for us? The reason was far more complex and to do with her father not because she was in the wrong body. In the 1950s psychologist reckon everyone had to have part of their brain removed. Now it is their breasts and privates. We sure don’t learn lessons

See, this is what terrifies me. If it was just a label they slapped on themselves, or it was something like being a goth when I was a teen, I'd just smile and nod along. But it ends in mutilation and it's so frightening

I've also told my DD that self discovery is a lifetime process. You don't need to make any absolute decisions about yourself. Labels are only good if they're helpful and flexible.
You may have strong feelings about your sexuality, your gender expression, you may not. Be aware that they can change - that's not to invalidate how you feel now, but give yourself room to change.
I'm fairly gender conforming in appearance now, but haven't always been so. I showed DD a picture of me aged about 10. Short hair, androgynous clothing - I did look like a boy. That was how I was comfortable then. This is me now.

I am absolutely fascinated by this. My daughter was a total tomboy, short hair, boys clothes, nothing but football, no female friends. Somehow the trans thing has passed by her school and friends with none of them identifying with non binary or trans which I think is quite unusual, and as she has got older her friends and many of her interests remain mainly stereotypically male, at times she has felt like the odd one out but at 6th form age she has long hair, crop tops, lots of piercings, a love of fashion and has just started wearing make up and nail polish. Thank god she has always known she's a girl just one who liked different things. We always told her that didn't make her a boy and she says to me now, that she is so pleased we never put the idea into her head as when she was 7-12 she would totally have run with it.

Psychologically it is indisputably the case that a non-trivial proportion of males have a feminine temperament

Could we please see a link that shows this please?

And a link that shows what falls into a 'feminine' temperament, please. And who has decided on these temperaments and were these temperament decided in an era when females were being constantly told they had to behave in certain ways to be acceptable as females? Or were these temperaments noted in females who had had no socialisation at all?

So in this instance the child would have always been a boy but only realised recently.

@mythro This is complete nonsense. You are insane.

It's weird, almost like every teen anywhere since time began they are saying it just to fit in

Mine is only 9 but one thing we've always done is to shoe her female role models for her interests. Dinosaurs... Mary Anning. Army... she knows her Dads last two bosses have been women (both Brigadiers). Football.. Lionesses! She loves the suffragettes.

She knows some things are harder for girls but they can do them.

She gets very angry at boys being the default. (I saw there had been some fuss about a shop changing g 'two man delivery' to 'two person delivery'... she would agree with that as women can do it too for example).