Transgender is basically about not conforming to sexual stereotypes

[Bouffe]

No, I don't think that — but a book one of my friends' children has taken out from the local library says just that. Apparently 'If your behaviour doesn't conform to what is expected of your gender assigned at birth, you are quite simply gender non-conforming.' So far okay. Then: 'The term is most commonly used for 'transgender' people...who may want to medically and surgically fix that problem.' It goes on to admit there is a difference between sex and gender, sex being more 'sciency' and gender being about personal feelings. But the message is, if you feel lost and confused — even if that's because you're same-sex attracted or autistic or have a very difficult home life — pills and surgery will make you feel 'right'.

I'd quote more but there are legal limits. The author says later on that 'normal people are boring' and gender binaries 'are wrapped up with strict rules about what men and women can't do.' WTF!

I know so many women who've spent their lives in education teaching children and young people that girls can be scientists and plumbers and boys can be nurses and make-up artists and after 60+ years of feminism we have Alexis Caught, an NHS psychotherapist, spouting sexual-stereotyped nonsense and encouraging children down the route of medication and surgery.

My friend encouraged her daughter to take the book out of the library because the daughter thinks she may be same-sex attracted and it's apparently been written for LGB readers as well as the TQNB crowd. But everything she's read so far about being a lesbian is pretty negative. Nothing about the joy of a good lesbian community, rather more doom and gloom and how hard life is for lesbians. The author, apparently, is a gay man...

I forgot to add this

Why should being gender non conforming be a problem that needs fixing?!

[Rhetorical question, I know you don't agree with the quote!]

Also, it makes me rage when they say it's "boring" to be some totally common ordinary thing, like being in a monogamous marriage or whatever.

Absolutely nothing wrong with being ordinary. Not everyone can or should sparkle with glamour and be attention grabbing and fascinating. How exhausting life would be if we were all like that.

The irony is, once everyone is all sparkly, no one stands out. When everyone has pink hair and rainbow tights on, that's just as boring as if no one does.

Hugely sad. There is a right wing senator in the US who is a poster boy for TRAs because his young son was not typically masculine ... who has affirmed his son's early medicalisation and refers to him as a girl. That clearly is more acceptable to the senator than his child being possibly gay, or less macho than he wanted. Of course there is a very small chance that the child is genuinely gender dysphoric but no chance of that child waiting it out with support to find out.

I would use that book as an opportunity to teach her some critical thinking.

This author thinks 'normal people are quite boring'. Let's think of some non-trans people we know or know of who are not boring at all. (Look at woman athletes, musicians, writers, filmmakers, designers, architects etc.

Then ask - who decides what gender conformity should be? Do we know anyone who doesn't conform, but who isn't trans? (List all the female football playing engineers who wild swim and the men who bake and make clothes etc.)

Can you see any problems with the author's viewpoint? Does it seem like he thinks you only have two choices: gender conformity or trans? Can you think of any other options. List as many as you like darling. I will get you fifty more sheets of paper...

"If you do not conform, you are a problem that needs fixing"

Yeah....

Why are we giving this message to children again? And lying to them that it's oh so progressive and exciting and liberating and new, when it's actually rigid conservative thinking the 1970s would have found old fashioned?

It’s a crazy cult that is all about validating sex stereotypes. Keeping women in their place is #1 aim and forcing male privilege to the endangerment of women. All thanks to the biggest success Patriarchy has had in recent years!

Yup. If you are not validating the regressive stereotypes and roles and rules assigned to your sex then you must go and transition by validating the regressive stereotypes and roles and rules assigned to the other sex.

Or you can be free of all of those, but only if you are a very special person who is not binary at all, except your existence, too, is firmly based on all others validating gender stereotypes.

The whole ideology is retrogressive and sexist.