GC Mumsnetters - What do you think about teens identifying as the opposite sex WITHOUT medical transitioning?

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This is a question that I feel isn't asked enough. There is so much content saying that kids should avoid being transgender completely, and content saying that kids should have full bodily autonomy (aka: be allowed hormones immediately on request at 13) that I feel it's impossible to know what poeple think about social transitioning on it's own.

So, GC Mumsnetters - What do you think about teens identifying as the opposite sex without medical transitioning?

What's wrong with allowing teenagers to present themselves as they like, and if necessary calling it gender nonconforming without all the bullshit about 'identifying'?

What do you mean re: "avoid being transgender completely"?

Personally, I don't think lying to yourself is ever healthy, so I also don't think pretending a male can be a female is ever healthy.

I don't think feminine boys or masculine girls should ever be descriminated against.

I don't think stupid gender based uniform/hair/presentation rules should be enforced.

In the cases where single sex spaces are needed, they shouldn't be based on feels, or "kindness" - just sex as we all used to easily understand it.

What do you think about teens identifying as Punks/Goths/EMO without the piercings?

Fine, no big deal.

What do you think about teens identifying as anorexic/bulimic without starving or purging?

Hmm, not so comfortable. Where is this going...?

What do you think about teens experimenting and exploring, without the expectation or demand that the rest of the world validate their experiments or explorations?

The question you'd have to ask, is why they're doing it.

Say girls. Is it because they don't want to be a girl, because of all the objectification, relentless porn? Or they may be a lesbian, and feel that lesbianism isn't cool.

So right there, you've got the reason being sexism or homophobia.

And if it's a boy, is it because he doesn't feel masculine enough? Effeminacy is looked down on? Or is he gay, and doesn't feel he can be outwardly gay?

Or some children want to transition to escape being their sex, because they've experienced sexual trauma.

It's much better to address the reasons why children want to transition. Rather than just ignore it and wave the flag, because it's a 'choice'.

If it's that they just want to wear different clothes, then of course there's nothing wrong with that.

But identifying as the opposite sex has to have a reason

Feminists of the past used to work very hard to get rid of the rigid gender boxes, because they are used to keep women second class citizens (think of the social rules for women and girls in Afghanistan, to get the extreme example of how this works). One wonderful product of that is that it would allow everyone to be free of those most rigid types of boxes, without any need to try to present as the other sex.

For them sex mattered, and not only because it is the basis on which women and girls are subjugated (need to control reproduction and access to female bodies, ultimately), and gender roles, rules, and stereotypes were the way sex-based oppression was partly maintained.

Now we are told that sex doesn't matter, but those rigid gender boxes do matter, and the question now is only if some people can leap from one box into another, while all the rest of us are just told that we are comfortable with that retrogressive view of the world.

So my answer would be that I support gender-nonconformity very much, but it has nothing to do with changing sex which is impossible.

No issue whatsoever with teens being gender nonconforming, it's good to challenge stereotypes and explore your identity, that is really the point of being a teenager. But 'identifying as the opposite sex' means lying to yourself and expecting other people to lie too, and getting stressed if they won't. Trying to convince yourself and others that you are something you can never be is not likely to result in good mental health.

This!

Many young people are being let down by being told all their problems will be solved by transitioning/saying they are the opposite sex.

Strikes me that it's a cheap and lazy way to address many people's problems.

What do you think about teens identifying as the opposite sex without medical transitioning?

I would want to know why they want to do something that is impossible. I would view it in the same way as them identifying as a cat or a praying mantis or Napoleon.

Identifying as the opposite sex is just regressive stereotypes. It's bloody awful. Let's get back to calling it 'personality' instead of gender.

My view

different name - fine
different clothes - fine (within organisational rules)
pronouns - don’t like it because it requires other people to try to work with a disconnect between what they see and what they say
access to opposite sex sport - no, but no reason why mixed sex sport shouldn’t be available in some circumstances
access to opposite sex toilets.changing rooms - absolutely not to protect the safety, privacy and dignity of other kids]

I think all of this should apply to all children without the need to develop a special identity

I also strongly agree with Datun that the adults need to be very much more curious about why a child wants to identify differently, and what they mean by that. I’ve met lots of NB teenagers, not one has been able to articulate what it means, beyond not adhering to stereotypes, with an underlying assumption that everybody else does (should?)

Can't really put it better than this!

Social transition is not a harmless nothing intervention.

Why don't we just try not to give kids the idea that they have to dress or behave a certain way, or choose their activities based on their sex...

Exactly. Mindless affirmation of the ideas without question is letting kids down. :(

Read the bios of adult trans people, in their own words. Transition is so often born of sexism and homophobia - sometimes present in quite abusive levels in their childhoods.

I have a teen currently. I've been focussed on making sure he isn't raised with sexism and homophobia to the greatest possible extent from birth. I would hope I'm not the only parent doing so, although of course our wider culture isn't there yet. If a teen wants to transition, and sexism and homophobia aren't the cause, I'd be looking at unmet needs around neurodiversity and also, sadly, the possibility of sexual abuse.

I would think that living a lie would affect your mental health for the worse.
I've been discussing all this with my neighbour ('in with the in-crowd', in her mid 20s) her friends who are declaring themsleves NB or Trans think that they are "fighting against stereotypes" - she can't understand me when I tell her they are actually conforming.

Any child can be as 'gender-non-conforming' as they like but if they were to specifically say that they were 'identifying as the opposite sex', I think that should flag up the possibility of mental health issues that perhaps should be looked at. In the same way as being extremely thin, or having numerous scars would raise concerns.
And they would still need to abide by sex-based spaces for all the obvious reasons.

Delusional but not actually physically self harming. Yet.

Always useful to look at the psychological harms that happen to teenagers when people indulge in the pretence they're really the opposite sex.

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

This is a massive social experiment on the young, never before in history carried out. It's encouraged by adults who generally are not parents and have zero expertise in child development, child psychology, safeguarding or parenting.

Why on earth responsible adults have stood by and allowed this to happen still astounds me.

This (short, quick read) link has been shared today on another thread and covers most of the issues in a nutshell: https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/responding-to-the-schools-guidance-consultation/

As it says, there are large areas of sex-based rules in schools that are not negotiable because of schools’ statutory responsibilities and duty of care to safeguard all children. As PP says, social transition, as identified by the interim Cass report, is not a neutral act and can lock a child into a decision very difficult for them to then move away from if they start to feel differently. Those children may have unidentified or not sufficiently supported Autism or trauma, or may simply be gay: the statistics show very high numbers of gender questioning children have these additional factors.

It's also very well worth reading the words of detransitioners such as Keira Bell, who explain what it was like to be one of those teens, and to have experienced social transition and its almost inevitable support on to medical transition, only to realise later that it was not the right answer. The distress and permanent medical needs and body changes are going to be a lifetime of very hard to live with, and those adults talk about their sense of betrayal that adults who should have protected them with boundaries, failed to.

By "Identifying as the opposite sex" I am simply referring to transitioning without making permamant changes to the body, I do not mean that the child does not know the difference between sex/gender identity.

If they are 'transitioning' without making changes to their body, what is the purpose of this 'transition'?

Identifying as something you are not seems an odd way to live, and a not very healthy one.

I think anyone should be able to present how they want (with some restrictions such as suitable clothing for work/school), and change their name if they want to, but no child should be identifying as the opposite sex.

Why does any child need to have a 'gender identity'? This is something which relies on gender stereotyping and children should be taught that they don't have to follow gender stereotypes, not pretend to be the opposite sex if they feel the stereotypes don't fit their personality.

I dont really understand what this would involve to be honest.

Im fine with name changes, hobbies, clothing being however people want.

I think safeguarding is important and you cant identify out of safeguards.

I would much rather there was no medical transitioning. Especially of anyone under 30. No reversible procedures at all.

But i don't believe in Gender Stereotypes so i think people should dress, act and do the things they want (usual caveats) without being labelled male or female

I'd assume it was communicating something, and that it wouldn't be communicating 'I am the opposite sex' because that's not possible.

I would first suspect bullying, particularly same sex bullying in some form. Then I'd look at possible neurodiversity. Then how they were doing with eating/body image, and also academics.

The actions I would take would be more focused on what I thought was being communicated, and I'd talk in terms of changes including mind changes being normal and expected in the future; anything to avoid any single action such as future surgery being regarded as something to focus on. Tbh I would go along with the presentation (name, pronouns etc) and clothes changes, as long as there wasn't a self harm/gateway element as there patently is with binders.

Any parent of a trans identifying child will no doubt see that this is theoretical in my case. I note that many parents settle on a gender neutral nickname separate from the chosen new name, which seems sensible as the chosen name appears quite likely to change more than once.

Op, ask yourself what transitioning is for? What is it solving? Or not?

What's the point of it?

It's a psychological experiment on children. Toddlers and young children "pretend" they're dinosaurs, helicopters, dogs, tigers and the rest. That's normal childhood experimentation and we engage with toddlers with fondness, amusement and lots of role play.

There's nothing wrong with adolescents exploring their feelings, appearance, clothing etc. That's what adolescents have always done. However girls stating that they're now a boy (and vice versa) are regressing to that toddler state of magical thinking - I am what I say I am. The process of puberty is painfully reaching that state of mind / body reconciliation - moving from the child to adult and accepting the physical changes as children mature.

We know it's complicated and understand that it takes many years. Yet we've allowed adults with political and other motivations to intervene in these normal developmental processes. To get into schools and anywhere that children gather and gaslight them into believing that this process really means they're born in the wrong body.

An unforgivable safeguarding fail on the part of society.