"How we handled our child's request to change gender

[impossibletoday]

One sensible father

https://www.thetimes.com/article/0cbd96bd-83af-4c3e-b539-e9d48cad1403?shareToken=285c6175a90ceb39239911e5244bffdd

Thanks OP. Good to see the issue of how parents deal with this being explored in the press.

Thanks for link. And for when the share token expires, here is archive link https://archive.is/87aKG

Compared to threads on FWR the examples used in the article make it seem that transitioning is just a small storm in a teacup and the future will be rosy.

And if you as a parent dont think anyone can change sex how do you perceive and interact with your trans child. Are you always in a lets pretend mode.

Iska was rushing out the door, arms loaded with bags, when her 12-year-old daughter stopped her in the hallway with a momentous declaration.

“Mum,” she announced, “I would like to change sex.”
...

Now, seeing her daughter turned son thrive at college, she has looked back and thought she should have parked her own “ego” to embrace their wishes.

I wonder if Iska's daughter thinks she's actually changed sex? And does Iska think her daughter has actually changed sex?

Iska is an idiot.

No intention of reading the article but does it really imply that the child's change of gender identity will then magically change his/her sex? Binky bonky bonkers.

Didn’t read it all but she wanted to raise a feminist but raised a girl who thinks it would be better to be a man….

Thanks for the link will read later

I mean it’s not a coincidence that the two different reactions resulted in two different results. One now has a child on cross sex hormones that will impact their long term
health even if they stop all treatment, the other has physically unchanged gender-non-conforming adult children. I know which I think is the right outcome.

Thank you for sharing the article. Interesting quote from Iska: “When I started the journey of having children, and I had a boy and a girl, I felt like I had won the lottery,” - makes me wonder whether she was one of those parents throwing pink frills at her daughter, whether she wanted it or not, and the daughter internalising that pink=girls. As in, enforcing gender stereotypes on her kids. I've seen it first hand, my DD's friends not wanting to do engineering class with her as it's what their brothers do, a 'boy' thing etc. I might be wrong here of course, not sure if I'm explaining myself clearly.

Yep, I thought the same thing.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Agree the different outcomes based on the different approaches the parents took speak volumes. Wonder if the puberty blocker trials will explore that type of thing?

There's an interesting few posts by someone in the comments who has a trans-identified daughter and brought her up as part of a gay couple.

He talks about the abuse he suffered as a gay man and draws parallels between this and transphobia today, but all I can wonder is what his daughter absorbed about the difficulty of being same sex attracted growing up and how that influenced her transition into a "straight man" (he mentions that she now lives happily as a transman with her female partner).

Obviously children absorb the reality of homophobia whatever the make-up of their family, but I always wonder about what influences girls to try for a life on easy mode, as living as male may seem.

There are people on this board who have faced this directly and will be able to talk more authoratively.

It is important to remember that for families who faced the situation a few years ago, there was very little good advice about how to manage it.
The "dead child vs alive opposite gender child" trope was alive and well. Teachers and mental health professionals were overwhelmingly affirmative although I think this is actually quite slow to change.

It was really really hard to take any other course than affirm. I know of someone threatened with SS intervention for not buying her child a breastbinder. Person threatening the referral had no idea that breast binding was harmful when the parent pushed back on why she hadn't done it. As an aside this is why I will never again buy anything from Lush as they were supplying binders to children behind their parents backs.

In genral, the lack of evidence for intervention and the lack of concern about that lack of evidence or proof of safety for "treatment" is jawdropping.

I think for parents facing this now there is more information, there is Cass, the Bayswater group are more widely known and the whole social discourse aroudn sex and gender is different. We can now categorically say you don't change sex biologically or legally. Even prior to FWS that was disputed.

Knowing all that I know my first thought on reading the article was that Richard was lucky he didn't end up in a mess with the school referring for emotional neglect because of failure to affirm.

Also it must be hard/ impossible to accept that actions you took with the best intention in mind have harmed your child. We all know the trans-relative phenomenon is one of the drivers for this movement - fox killer, Dr Who, ??PM, half of Hollywood etc.

I agree.

This ⬆️⬆️

I haven't quite decided what I want to share about my own experience and the parents I've met along the way.

I've written about all of it on other threads but this comment jumped out at me as it helps to set the scene for how complicated and confusing it can be as a parent in this situation.

Without a doubt, every parent I have spoken to loved their child very much and it was clear to me that they wrestled with lots of conflicting information regarding what was right.

On this one....

I think it's very normal for parents to say that they are happy with one of each. They know that they'll have different experiences because there is a difference between girls and boys. Literally and right from the word go. For example, on at least one occasion when you're changing your baby's nappy you might get a stealth wee on the changing mat/towel moment.. or a fountain in the face experience. There are also hormone-driven moments to navigate, such as when 4/5 year old boys get a surge in testosterone and turn feral for a bit. Plus period moods to navigate as parents of teenage girls. Obviously not every boy will do the weeface thing or turn suddenly aggressive for a short period... but it's only the boys who could. And not every girl will stealthily wee onto the changing mat without you noticing (until you spot a soggy babygro if it was positioned unluckily) or get emotionally challenging every month as a teenager, but it's only the girls who could follow this pattern.

Further, every child has their own personality but, whether we like it or not, society puts pressure on everyone (expressed as limitations... " girls/boys don't do x"... or expectations... "girls/boys should do y") to embrace or reject sex-based stereotypes.

I was given some gorgeous dresses by another mum who had an older daughter. Lots of designer stuff that was nothing like my own wardrobe. I can't stand shopping and generally wear everything until it has holes in it. My daughters looked adorable in these dresses. Sadly for me, neither of them wanted to wear them because they both preferred clothes from the boys' aisles. One of my daughters loved climbing trees (still does, but prefers rope climbing on walls these days) and the other loved (still does) playing football. Both of them fully rejected shoes from the girls' section as they were impractical for after-school tree climbing in the park and breaktime football games.

I was sad that they didn't like the lovely clothes. But I think that's OK and perfectly normal. I'm not really into "girly" things but I really did think they looked lovely in those dresses. But equally, I fully backed them from the moment they expressed a preference about the types of clothes they prefer. We ditched the dresses and everything came from the boys' section after that.

So in short, I didn't pick up any vibes that Iksa desperately wanted a girly girl. The vibes I picked up were more that perhaps Iksa had been given information from other parents (and possibly professionals in health/education) that led her to think her daughter's preferences were indicative that she may not really "be" a girl.

Edited for clarity.

This article made me feel so sad (and furious with the schools/ social media/ the BBC for normalising this contagion). I also thought it was interesting the dad was able to have a well- reasoned conversation about the social consequences with his son but the mum felt unable to do so with her child. Perhaps it’s because I am on this board a lot but it seems fairly common for women’s rational, well-reasoned arguments on this subject to be dismissed and I wonder if the same applies to mums and kids. Probably a complete generalisation as I know there are many dads who have suffered horribly too… but the fact so many children are raised with the idea it’s ok to dismiss and disparage older women and their views probably doesn’t help mums going through this.

I know every family is different, but I found Iska's rather odd. First she left when her child was trying to talk to her about something major. Then they took the piss out of the child's choice of name and then she seems to switch tack altogether and get a bit preechy about it.
As others have said, I wonder which films she was getting her daughter to watch and how the conversations went about feminism. Mind you, in a different climate her daughter might have turned out to be another Germain Greer instead of trans.
Richard on the other hand seems to have been calmer and more of a realist. It sounds like his extended family are the same.
Very easy to judge other people from a few lines written in an article. Basically its nothing more than a social contagion.

First she left when her child was trying to talk to her about something major.

To be fair, 8 years ago, this sex-changing nonsense wasn't on most people's radar, so a child saying "I want to change sex" might have been considered to be the same sort of trivial nonsensical comment as "I want to live on Mars" or "I want to be a cat". Many parents wouldn't have considered it to be something major.

I think a lot of parents do this, and mothers especially. They have a fixed image of what having a daughter, in particular, will mean. It usually invoves being a " best friend", wearing pretty clothes, having long hair and going shopping together.And for fathers, there can be a tendency to perceive sons in a certain way. A surprisng number of fathers stil have an issue if their son is gay or feminine.

I'm not somebody who is caught up in this but this turned up on t'interweb: