Your child isn't trans, she's just a tomboy

[Birdsweepsin]

Mary Wakefield in the Spectator

www.spectator.co.uk/article/dont-medicalise-tomboys/#Echobox=1674450150

At no other point in history would the existence of a boyish girl have raised the idea that she might actually be a boy in some metaphysical sense. But because we’ve been marinating, for a decade, in the glutinous language of critical gender theory, it’s become normal to think a boyish girl or a girlish boy needs treatment.

These extreme emotions you describe are either a pathological mental illness (bipolar) and/or adolescent angst that resolves as a young adult if given proper support. Neither require body modification.

crippling body dysphoria and crying for hours

Most preteen and teen girls go through this. The brain rewiring and hormone changes, startling body changes, your body making you a target for frightening men, and feeling under massive pressure to look perfect, make millions of girls hate their bodies and cry for hours. Add in ASD, being gender non-conforming, sexual abuse or other trauma and girls are even more likely to feel overwhelmed and an enemy of their own body or not acceptable as a girl.

Now add in an attractive, tempting ideological movement that praises and elevates kids for "coming out" as "trans", tells them trans is beautiful and cis is boring, and gives them instant kudos, power (as everyone's scared to upset them), and a special "oppressed" group to be part of so they're now cool. Of course a lot of the most vulnerable, suffering, excluded or picked-on kids are going to be drawn in. They're the same kids who previously had to find their way through the misery of puberty and not fitting in, and came out stronger.

Having all these feelings doesn't means you're a boy/man. It means you're being told you can be one when you can't and this this is the answer to all your problems.

And that wouldn't be so bad, if it really was just about "gender" - if being "transgender" was just a pretty sexist way of describing departing from stereotyped expectations. After all many girls, often lesbians, do that anyway.

But no, this special status comes with getting on a pathway to permanently alter and generally harm your body and set yourself up for lifelong health problems, which a good number will regret as they were too young and immature to understand this. That's why it's bad news. You can't change sex, but these kids are being led to believe you can and that it will help them. Why?

"You don't understand me"

"No one understands "

"Only he gets it"

Teenagers have been chanting these since the dawn of time. Brain rewiring iit hard work and iy lasts a few years...

Our gd was at the Tavistock (she identified as binary) had a boyf. and looked
feminine. She was 14 and seemed completely confused regardless of the counselling she was having. . Her mum was accepting (but after our gd's suicide won't call her "they" ) she had had problems with her puberty. I blame online counselling from other people , but I don't know enough about any of it to discuss it with her. Covid meant we couldn't see her.

In my day she would have just been called a tomboy and no one would have made a fuss, maybe she would've been a lesbian or bisexual eventually it was no big deal at that time.

How awful ppeatfruit, I'm so sorry

Yep.

In my 16 year old's school they promote the LGBQ?T whatever, whenever, I want to be a cat thinking. The children going all appear to be on the spectrum.... makes you wonder if this is abuse of children who are not neurotypical

Tomboy isn't fashionable now - children get pushed to move to the other sex or pick a gender. Non binary is currently very fashionable amongst the kids.

This with bells on it:

"a special "oppressed" group to be part of so they're now cool. Of course a lot of the most vulnerable, suffering, excluded or picked-on kids are going to be drawn in."

I’f I’d have been a teen today I dread to think what this lot would say I didn’t want a boyfriend not lesbian either, obsessed with 007 I wanted to bed bond not be him. Today I have 007 tattoo Darth Vader tattoo the Tardis love villains in film Hans Gruber held the crown for 30 years until Brenner too over, so woke trans lot make of that mix if you can. Live in jeans t shirts but love glitter purses neon colours pastel colours. Yes a right mix but that what makes everyone different and special. We are all unique stuff labels I’m me Brenner obsessed and proud. Ooh and straight in case anyone needs a label.

Totally agree with this.

A certain type of man gets a sexual thrill out of wearing clothes he sees as ‘forbidden’.

Parents who only dress their sons in blue/grey/black clothes with shark or football pics are part of the problem.

My son can wear whatever he likes. He is very clear that he’s a man and that no man can ever become a woman 🤣 but when there’s a heatwave on you bet we’ll both laze around in kaftans or sarongs.

What's sarong with that?

<Gets coat>

Parents who only dress their sons in blue/grey/black clothes with shark or football pics are part of the problem.

And when that's all there is in the shops? My boys wanted bright colours, but not necessarily sparkles, frills or cutsey slogans.

Funny how clothes aimed at boys never have Be Kind, or Love, or such slogans on them.

I was a tomboy and would have done anything to ‘be’ a boy. Fast forward to now (40s) or even my 20s and it would have been the biggest mistake of my life to transition. So glad this wasn’t around when I was going through the tomboy phase.

SockGoddess Thank you so much for the flowers (a lot of people are so shocked they won't talk to me).

It has knocked our family sideways

Jelly Peer pressure has a lot to do with how kids dress, there is still a ridiculous nonsense over clothes ( I blame the manufacturers and shops for stocking\ordering all that rubbish. though things are changing with girls playing football etc.

My 13 year daughter doesn't like girly things. Would have been called a tomboy back in the day.

What I have found helps is that she has found other girls who are like her. She loves sport especially cricket and she's pretty good at it. The girls who she plays with on her county team are really well balanced. They don't seem to be so obsessed with the tik tok vision of what a girl should look like.

It is very difficult though because society does tell our girls that they should be a certain way otherwise they might not really be girls. It's insidious.

Have they got a Y chromosome? No? Then they aren't a boy. It's really, really, really simple.

@Echobelly ..

You said that most trans boys will not have surgery and will desist in a few years and that we are all making too much of this.

What number of children are we willing to sacrifice for this to play out? How many unnecessary surgeries, infertile adults, children who end up on anti depressants because they cannot understand why identifying as trans did not bring them the happiness they expected, adults who have spent years searching for Oz only to find they are left with their own body and mind after all?

Do no harm... evidence based medicine... and this includes psychiatry.

Affirmation of transgender and social transition are not neutral events and we do not have good evidence to support these pathways.

The trouble is that crippling gender dysmorphia actually becomes crippling once you have bees fed a narrative that change is possible

Absolutely. My boys were bullied over their clothing choices. It's been lovely to see my eldest rediscovering his love of colour and pattern as an adult.

Do no harm... evidence based medicine... and this includes psychiatry.

Exactly. If you were incorrectly told you had breast cancer and had a double mastectomy, and it turned out to be untrue and furthermore there had never been any evidence for it, no one would go "ah well never mind eh, it's only a few people". You'd have a strong claim for malpractice and compensation.

@ppeatfruit .. I am so sorry that your daughter committed suicide. I cannot imagine how much pain she was in and how much pain your whole family is in.

Sweeping generalisations that parents of tomboys are somehow pushing a trans agenda on their children is not helpful.

As other posters on this thread have pointed out, some of us spend our lives hoping our children will see that life as an unfeminine, possibly gay woman would be far easier and less physically damaging than transitioning. This is something I would not wish to happen to any parent, you question every decision you have ever made. I was one of the parents you all speak of that encouraged my child to play with whatever toys they wanted, get muddy, wear what they wanted etc etc. basically to be who she wanted to be. She still decided she wanted to be a boy. I love my child and will accept them for who they are but this comes with great sadness at the difficult path ahead, I still hold the hope that things will change in the future.

Reading a thread like this makes me feel more alienated than I already do, and worried that this is what people will think of me, that I am pushing my child into medical transition to score parenting points, which is an obscene thought.

It's not parents who are necessarily telling children changing sex is possible

But once that is mainstream it makes it much more likely that's the story children will chose for themselves

I was vulnerable growing up for various reasons, I was also a tomboy (I hate the phrase but the best way to put it), 100 percent I would have pushed to transition. I'd have been immersed in the Internet with promises of how I'd be 'cured' from hating my body and feeling like I don't belong, if this was also affirmed from others in schools etc especially from teachers who I looked up to, it would have become my salvation. Of course in reality in the long run mutilating my body and disrupting puberty wouldn't have solved anything, but for teenage me I just know I would have felt this way and so I absolutely do see how many children and teens end up here.

It's not the answer though is it. Instead of regressing as a society we should be championing the fact that girls and boys can like what they like, present how they wish without regressive gender stereotypes being pushed. That actually cutting off healthy body parts isn't going to cure what is going on in your head, nor is it going to address the underlying issues you face. There are particular demographics who identify as trans in much bigger numbers than others and that's telling.