How to handle DD potentially getting pulled into social contagion

[needsomehelpreDD]

Name changed for this. My DD is nearly 15. She has always been what would previously have been known as a tomboy. She’s an active member of the LGBTQI club at school and consumes a lot of media featuring gay, non-binary and trans storylines. She is known by they/them pronouns at school and has recently asked us to use them also.

Very recently she has started wearing a binder - I believe she ordered it from one of the orgs that send them to young people free of charge. When I discovered this, we had a conversation about it - she had clearly done a lot of research around how to do this ‘safely’. I said I needed some time to process the info and we left it at that.

She has just discovered YouTube. My DH found her watching content on ‘trans relationships’ earlier.

I’m GC and a feminist. She knows this - we’ve talked about quite a lot of this stuff over the past couple of years in a reasonable and respectful way. This situation is basically my worst nightmare and I’m not sure how to handle it. She’s previously said she’s gay, and I had thought since she was quite young that she might be a lesbian - no issues with that whatsoever. But I don’t believe that she’s trans, and I’m terrified that she is getting sucked into the social contagion around that. We have a pretty good relationship and I don’t want to ruin that, but I don’t know what to do right now. She does really well academically but she struggles with the social side of school and doesn't have many friends - I’m worried that she’ll seek the approbation and approval she’s missing IRL online and will be being encouraged to think she’s trans when she’s really a non-gender-conforming gay woman.

How do I deal with this? If I come out strongly against it, it will likely just push her further in that direction and damage our relationship. But I can’t just do nothing - can I? Any advice from someone that has been here would be much appreciated. I’m really scared for her. I love her quirkiness and her difference, I want her to feel loved and accepted but also to protect her from this ideology that seems to predominantly be affecting adolescent girls who don’t quite ‘fit in’ for whatever reason.

Many sympathies OP.

I think you continue to do what you're doing. Love her and listen to her. Keep her as involved as possible in the family doing plenty of 1 -1, keep her involved in real life, sports, hobbies and (if possible) limit the amount of time she has to access the toxic online influencers. The binding is a worry and there's a lot of evidence about the harms these cause. The "charity" Mermaids are being investigated for supplying these to children behind their parent's back. Many parents insist on a sports bra?
Some organisations / individuals try hard to alienate vulnerable children from their parents so I'd do everything I can to alert her to that - reassuring her that you have her back and will support her while protecting her.

These organisations have lots of support:

Try genspect - genspect.org/,

safe schools alliance - safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

Transgender Trend : www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

Quietly I would be challenging the school and finding out the details of the LGBTQI club - schools have no business running these and I'd want to know precisely who runs it, what oversight there is and how age appropriate safeguarding is managed? Just imagine what would happen if Mr Smith tried setting up a group for heterosexual teenagers to discuss sex and sexuality!

You'll probably find that this thread doesn't last very long - this board is monitored closely by some very anti child safeguarding people who frequently descend to disrupt and accuse posters so don't worry if it disappears.

@MrsOvertonsWindow Thank you very much.

I would probably contact Bayswater support or at least have a browse of their website. As parents themselves, they seem to have lots of experience on how to help young people who are questioning their identity.

@Justme56 Beach Thanks, will do.

@Justme56 Sorry, don't know where the random beach came from!

I heard good recommendations for the baywaters group too.
My youngest dd is very similar but it only 12 at the moment. I've been drip feeding challenges to the ideology over the last 2 years with her as she rejected everything female when she was 10. She goes to the lgbt group at school as well and I have concerns with the messages she gets.
I haven't got any real answers other than to gently question some of the logic of the ideology. I have had small wins with my dd over her accepting that she can dress however she likes, like any hobby and that doesn't change her sex.
I'm careful not to over do it as many of her friends are identifying as non binary etc.

@reallyisthisallthereis Thanks, that all sounds familiar - mine also has the friends at school. I get that it's their particular subculture - I'm just really worried about where it might end up.

As the parent of older children I feel for parents struggling with this. It could be a relatively harmless trend just as teenagers have always explored different subcultures and "tribes"if it wasn't for the presence of adults with an agenda pushing binding, drugs and surgery at young vulnerable children as desirable choices.

And to repeat my earlier point - schools have no business running groups to promote any sexualities. There are strict safeguarding guidelines and clear advice for schools from the DfE about sex and relationships education. The idea that any adults (or often older pupils) run often mixed age groups for children to discuss sex, sexuality, relationships is a safeguarding disaster waiting to happen. Discussing sex with children requires planning, training and specific knowledge and skills along with safeguarding training. Parents really need to challenge these.

That 'club' sounds terrible. A mix of ages? Older boys and young girls getting together to talk about....?? Benji talked about this on the early TMWI episodes. Real safeguarding red flags about this.
A sports club, yes. A history club, yes. A chess club, yes. But not this club.

Some very good suggestions above.

Create a lot of distraction from the internet.

Take up new, inclusive, female-positive sport, together if possible. Hockey, running, women’s cricket, badminton. Something where she can meet and get to know other, different women and girls, alongside you.

Encourage her to take up some sort of ongoing charity activity, again with you. Again, something with good, diverse female role models that you can be involved in too, and that will make her feel good about herself in new ways.

Watch Sex Education and Schitts Creek together on Netflix. Both rude, funny and sad, both have a positive exploration of non-heterosexual relationships.

I agree you have to be very careful about these clubs in schools. The LGBT club at my daughter’s school thought it a great idea to show the full Elliot Page/Oprah interview where Elliot describes Elliot’s double mastectomy as “life saving”. I protested, asking where the balance was (ie show a detransitioner story as well). There would have been vulnerable girls as young as 12 watching and I felt it was an inappropriate message to be giving. Often these clubs are effectively run by students with very light oversight from staff.

What kinds of extra- curricular activities does she do? In my town there’s a mixed-sex LGBT football group. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea but maybe she needs to do physical stuff away from the computer and YouTube etc and mixing with a variety of gay people.

Or any kind of physical sport or activity (horse riding? Biking? Doing the Coast to Coast?) that gets her away from internet rabbit holes and gets her mixing with a whole variety of people, young and old.

it’s a pity there aren’t groups of older lesbians who could mentor and guide young teen girls. Or women/girl only groups where being female is celebrated and enjoyed. Girl Guides used to be that …

Good luck. I’ve found the Genspect podcasts really interesting and helpful for thinking about a young relative of mine.

Basically, what @VerveClique says!

Thanks everyone. She does do some sport - swimming, hockey and volleyball. She's really interested in theatre so she does various drama groups as well. I'm glad in some ways that there is an active LGBT group at school and there's not the same stigma around it all that there used to be - but I don't want her brainwashed into thinking she's trans if she's actually a gay woman, due to peer pressure and being quite lonely.

I'd probably 'disrupt her feed' by finding her some more gc or at least neutral people to follow. The algorithms are not your friend once you start looking at this stuff.

That's a really good idea Leakingroofagain. Thank you.
As we know from the dreadful Molly Russell case, so many children are trapped by the algorithms social media sites have and end up bombarded with dangerous / dubious sources.

We went through this with DD when she was younger and, with her agreement, we spent some time together looking at her phone and the content she was seeing. It helped me understand the messaging she was getting and how the idea of identifying out of your current discomfort is so appealing to young people, especially girls.

We talked a lot about labels being restrictive and limiting. How women over the years have fought not to be labelled and that maybe current trends of defining identity to the nth degree are not progressive after all. If everything you are is tied up with a particular label how do you ever grow and develop? Suggest she thinks about her values and beliefs and what's important to her as part of understanding the person she is becoming.

Our DD is unconventional and quirky and I can totally see how she felt she didn't fit in. We talked about what her strengths are and what people love about her. Also how much easier it is as a female to choose your own path in terms of look and style and still be considered a girl. 'Masculinity' seems to be defined in much more narrow terms.

She was depressed and suffering with social anxiety and desperately trying to find a reason why. It's tempting to believe that the source of your discomfort is something 'external' that you can change or discard.

She cut her hair and wore baggy clothing but we said she couldn't have a binder because of the damage they do. I was sure it was a statement thing for her and she wasn't experiencing any gender dysphoria. It ran its course after 6-9 months.

I think you're walking a careful and sensitive path. Keep talking but it's OK for you to have boundaries too. Make it clear that they come from a place of love and concern. We said 'no' to using a male name and that was just dropped. There did seem to be a lack of conviction in DD's case - it may not be the same for you.

Best wishes. DM me if you want to talk further. It is very frightening when you're in it as we all just want to do the best for our kids.

And yes, definitely disrupt the algorithm on Instagram and delete some stuff so that content isn't pushed her way!

I’m not sure that a lot of LGBT-etc. focused anything is necessarily a good thing.

She doesn’t need her anxieties reinforcing.

She needs to know that she can love who she wants, wear what she wants and do (within reason) what she wants without having to define/label/restrict herself in any way, and especially not at this young age.

She needs to see all types of people in ordinary real life situations… old ones, young ones, different body types, different looks, some who are gay or straight or something else (do we really need to know this for everyone?) some who are alternative in a variety of ways. She needs to start to understand and identify with some of the real-life problems that people can face, and maybe this will help to put agonising over her identity into perspective, or at least reduce headspace for it.

Yes to what @VerveClique has just said. The LGBT stuff is all reinforcing the rabbit-hole she's gone down (mixing my metaphors).
Just because a teenage girl does not have a strong sex drive, this does not mean that she is gay or asexual, this just means that she is normal. Women don't get their maximum sex drive until they are in their 40s. Whereas for men the sex drive peaks around 19 (read those figures ages back, so can't quote source).

It's obvious why we have evolved like this, to maximise the no. of babies.

Women are not the same as men. This needs repeating over and over.

This might be of interest
lilymaynard.com/first-blog-post/

Thank you @LaughingPriest