Update on gender questioning daughter.

[SheSheSheShe]

I've posted a few times under different names.

My daughter has always been a tomboy, youngest with 3 older brothers.
Always worn more boyish clothes and been a little whirlwind.

I was exactly the same as a kid. Were so similar it's crazy.

But when she started high school there were several trans teachers and she got sucked into the ideology.

I found out that her best male friend in school, who she visited a few times outside of school was actually a female. I then found out that several her friends were trans or non binary.

This has been over the last few years but nothing really changed at home, she still wore her brothers clothes and had short hair (same as I did at her age)

She's really struggled the last few years, disclosure of trauma, eating disorder, autism diagnosis.

And then in Dec 2023 I was called into school and was told that she had started to use male pronouns and a male name in school without my consent.

All teachers and pupils were referring to her as 'James' (not actual name) and he and had been doing so for months.

I immediately wrote to the school and told them that I was withdrawing consent for them to do this and the only name they should use is the one that was on her registered birth certificate. And they were only permitted to use female pronouns.

I sat down with my daughter and talked to her about why she was feeling this way. It turns out that she did not thinking that she was a boy but she was just confused about puberty her developing body and she didn't like the way she looked in the mirror.

She was struggling becoming a woman and felt that it would be easier to be a boy and she felt more comfortable with short hair and boy clothes and thought that mean she should be a boy!

I felt this all tied in with her recent diagnosis and the troubles that she'd had previously.

I talk to her about being a woman and what that means and the fact that however hard she tried she could never physically become a male. I told her that she would always be chasing a dream something that is physically impossible and she would never feel good enough.
I showed her photos of women that had had gender reassignment surgeries the scars and the end results.

She also said she was attracted to girls, another marker for gender confusion.

I told her that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a strong masculine gay female just because she was feeling these things didn't mean that she was a boy.

It's been about 3 months since I told school they were not allowed to refer to my daughter as male and in that time she has said that she wants to grow her hair long and dye it blonde, she has started wearing dresses and makeup again and gone out and bought female underwear for the first time in her teenage years, thongs no less 😂

She has bought several feminist publications to read on the meaning of being a woman and growing up as a woman.

She seems 10 times more happier in the last few months than she has been in the four years before and I am going to update school with these changes and tell them how wrong I feel it is for them to do that to a child, to socially transition without a parents knowledge.

My daughter is autistic and always gets obsessions about things, it's now moved on to something else but something much safer and normal.

The trans ideology that she got mixed up with was detrimental to her mental and physical health.

So if there are other parents that are going through this please be aware that there is light at the end of the tunnel, continue to be factual, continue to be supportive, continue to fight your corner and tell your child that there is no such thing as transitioning to a different sex that they are enough as they are.

What a relief.

I think lesbophobia is a big part of this. Gay/bi girls don't see a way forward for themselves that isn't mocked or over-sexualised.

Such a minefield. I understand this is very common in the Autistic community. My son is Autistic and I see the fixations on things which then move onto something else. Because of this I feel ND kids are particularly vulnerable. Yet I feel one absolutely has the right to be whomever they want - this is where it's a minefield. Sounds like you handled it really well to me.

Very, very much so.

In school I was called a 'Dyke' very often.

I imagine becoming a boy is a great way to protect yourself against that.

Are these 'new guidelines' only in England or in Scotland too please?

Seems like Just England.

Happy for you and happy that your DD has been able to start finding her true self. It doesn't bear thinking about how things could have panned out if she had been further sucked into the ideology x

Lovely to read. Well done for being so patient and understanding. I'm sure you and your daughter will have an even stronger bond now.

@SheSheSheShe glad to hear things are easier now , at my child’s ( all girls ) school , in year 8 /9 roughly half her class were identifying as gay or bi plus 1 person who has been living as a boy since primary (who,surprise surprise,is autistic ,as is the other living as “trans” child we know locally) There’s much more open exploration and acceptance of differences in sexuality at secondary nowadays which can only be a good thing and I have had many conversations expressing acceptance with my own child as she thought she was bi….3 years down the line and her preferences have changed ,as have many of her friends. I’ve no doubt that kids need time and space to explore ,discuss and have same sex crushes without anyone pushing them down a particular path of that being down to being the opposite gender.

I feel that being gay/bi or lesbian is completely different to the trans thing though.

I knew from a very young age I was bisexual, as soon as I started having funny feelings in my tummy I didn't understand they were equally aimed at women.

I feel like a child cannot be influenced into being gay in the way they can be influenced into being non binary etc.

Having said that, as someone who has had more lesbian relationships than straight I don't think LGB or Rainbows have any place in schools.

People's sexuality should be private.

In my day we didn't even know for years that a male and female teacher were married!

Teachers didn't share their private lives, never mind their political opinions and things about their 'gender' or sexuality.

It has absolutely no place except perhaps in a PHSE lesson.

this is so good to hear, @SheSheSheShe and thank you for sharing.

The guidelines are only in draft form and the consultation closes tomorrow. It's a big ask, but if you're able to respond to the consultation with your own personal experience that would be incredibly powerful. The main thrust of the new guidance is that social transitioning is harmful, and should never be allowed without parents' involvement. This thread pulls together guidance on how to respond to the consultation from Transgender Trend, Sex Matters, Bayswater Support Group and LGB Alliance all collated here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5009817-schools-guidance-consultation-closes-12-of-march-can-we-collate-ideas-for-responding

@DontBuyANewMumCashmere also might be worth you looking / responding to too.

The teaching unions are currently saying the guidelines are only in draft form / out for consultation and are non-statutory (which is all true, but means none of them will say to follow them).

I will absolutely fill the form in tonight.

@SheSheSheShe this is the problem, everything gets lumped in under "the umbrella" doesn't it? There is a huge difference between teaching children that everyone is different and sexuality (in and of itself) exists to going down this rabbit hole of nonsense.

I was a tomboy, I pretended to be a boy to strangers until I hit puberty and I knew I was attracted to women. I am a lesbian and I hate to think what would have become of me if I had been born a generation later? A lifetime of unhappiness, feeling incomplete, medicalisation etc. It's terrifying. The best thing we can teach children is the importance of being comfortable in one's own body.

And how about putting sexuality back in the realm of the private? Being private about it doesn't mean being ashamed, it means understanding that everyone's boundaries are different and most people don't need to hear about other people's sex lives. Because I'm a lesbian people have in the past assumed they can start waxing lyrical about "pride" and sexuality etc until I remind them that we have just as much right to our privacy as they do.

I wouldn't dream of asking my friends never mind perfect strangers about their sexuality and sex lives, so why have ours become public property? We're back to being the proverbial elephants in the room to be poked and pointed at-it's so regressive.

Does your daughter know you're sharing every detail of her life in the public domain? I really hope so. Appalling if not, I'd be mortified as a teen. Stop forcing her to live how you think a female person should live.

I don't think she's on mumsnet and there's absolutely nothing identifying here.

If mothers can't talk about what's going on with their kids on this forum may as well shut it down because that's what it was created for.

And for the last 5 years she's lived in male clothes and underwear because that's what's she's comfortable in and I've never stopped her because clothes are for everybody.

She, off her own back, has changed her style with absolutely zero input from me.

A natural progression of a shy teenage girl coming into womanhood.

And my point is, there is no way for a female person to live! 😂

Women can have short hair, wear mens clothes, refuse make up, hate pink and still be absolutely wonderfully WOMEN ❤️

A perfect example of the standard bait and switch tactic. Your last sentence has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of your point, but you throw it in there in an attempt to emotionally manipulate the OP.

And I would say that if anything, it was the school trying to force the child into making a decision about her identity and her sexuality before she was ready. Children need time to work through their feelings, to question themselves and their responses to the world around them. I would hate to think what would have become of women like me if we had been forced to make irreversible decisions about our bodies at such a young age.

The irony is that for the last 5 years she's worn nothing but male clothes, which I've supported.

Yet I'm forcing her into female stereotypes 😂

Do people even think about what they're writing??

@SheSheSheShe it's utterly regressive. On any given day I can be wearing a dress with lipstick and cargo pants with a plaid shirt. Guess what? My sex doesn't change. My sexuality doesn't change. My needs don't change. My rights don't change. Clothes are just clothes!

Trans extremists regularly attempt to place a wedge between children and their parents. It's why the new guidance is so important - it reminds schools that they don't have the power to transition children in secret from parents.
Everyone who works in safeguarding knows this, but as until recently, pointing out any flaws / dangers of the trans ideology to children was forbidden , transactivists have had free rein to sell nonsense to schools alongside undermining safeguarding and parental rights.

It's good to hear your story and how you've navigated it.

Similar story here except I was somewhat naive to the whole debacle but my gut instinct was that my child could either spend the next few years going down a path that was fraught with angst, appointments, medicalisation and disappointment or they could focus on their course and then see where they're up to.
Full disclosure is that I might have fallen for the sparkly mermaids sales job years previously but my child had expressed no such gender feels through childhood, so suddenly questioning gender seemed even more preposterous.

I remember saying you do realise the staff have been told to lie to you but Steve down the corner shop won't lie and the success of your whole day is going to hinge on whether people have been prepared to lie or not. I felt it would be unkind if I didn't point this out.

At the same time I did buy some fairly gn things from shops for the opposite sex. We'd always shopped from both boys and girl sections as children anyway and passed clothing down between opposite sex siblings.

Then I started to read and listen and try to understand the wider context. What an eye opener. I'm glad I set the tone immediately for frank discussion and didn't start treading on eggshells.

We're a few years on. I'm not sure how they feel about that period of time but we have a good relationship, they seem happy in their skin (as they always did when growing up) and have developed their own comfortable sense of style. They're generally ploughing on with achieving what they want in life whereas I really feel their life would have stalled had we gone down that rabbit hole.

Yes, I fell for the rainbow glitter years ago too. I quickly wised upto what was happening.

I think alot of parents think they don't have a choice. So much scaremongering about "If you don't affirm you could lose your child' etc.

Kids want to make a lot of bad choices in their teenage years, parenting is about saying 'No, this is not appropriate'

I think it's really scary because taking a watch and wait approach seems to fly in the face of what the 'right' thing to do is. I'm glad the juggernaut is slowing on this. I can understand why parents are scared and in a way I'm glad I went in to this with my eyes not fully open because then I went from instinct.

There are so many messages out there aimed at driving a wedge between parents and children. "If your parents don't understand you, I'm your mother now" was one horror that even well meaning people were sharing a few years back.