Adult daughter dating trans-identified male, struggling to navigate family concerns

[BlueLegume]

Good morning all. I am normally rooted over on the Elderly parents threads. Just as I thought life couldn’t get more difficult it has. A week ago my adult daughter told us she was in a relationship with someone who identifies as male. This person was born female - daughter troped out the ‘gender assigned at birth’ nonsense. She has utterly ripped the family apart as she clearly has drunk the kool aid and cannot understand our concerns.

She has a great job, we are normal family where she says she has always felt safe and is loved.

Any advice welcome navigating this. Happy to answer questions but I will caveat this post with the following:

I am a sex realist. I hate the term gender critical.
I do not buy gender ideology. I think it is a term being used to expect society to accept trans etc off the back of the hard won rights for lesbians and gay men.

I do not believe anyone can change sex.

The ‘be kind’ mantra is a weaponised term to justify the nonsense.

Advice welcome.

My adult DD is non-binary and says she’s a lesbian (try and get your head around that). Recently been seeing someone with a male name and ‘they’ pronouns. I haven’t even asked their bio sex as I’ll get told it’s not my business, which is fair enough but I am curious. Most recently dated a bio woman with she pronouns (ended badly).

I don’t really get how you can be gay/straight and get with someone of the opposite sex you’re attracted to. I know my DD would not want pv sex (she has done in the past and decided it was a no, but it wasn’t a great experience and I think it put her off men entirely).

I just eye roll internally at it all, I can’t change DD, we have a lot of differing opinions on other issues and some upset me, but if I want the good relationship we have to put them to one side. We agree to disagree on these matters for a harmonious family. My dh feels the same as me - do what you want but we’d be devastated if you had a mastectomy (thankfully she is skint so it won’t happen any time soon).

U ok hun?

Your posts come across as though you feel that you are superior to posters who have different opinions. There are a few where you belittle people who are perhaps not as educated as you.
Just saying, it’s not very nice and rather patronising

@PrettyDamnCosmic thanks you have neatly put my views in your post.

I have zero issues with people’s sexuality so any posters suggesting I do are wrong.

@scientista apologies if you feel I am patronising and superior. What I am is a believer in the reality of sex. Men cannot become women. Women cannot become men.

Being told to accept this can happen under the mantra of ‘be kind’ is the ultimate display of patronising.

Social contagion amongst young girls in particular has always been part of society. In the past we safeguarded them by getting them help for eating disorders, self harm etc. The social contagion of girls thinking they can be boys and vice versa is now being ‘affirmed’.

That is not safeguarding.

As for adults involved in thinking they can opt into a different sex, that requires therapeutic intervention to explore why they believe this. Not radical surgery. That is unethical and any surgeon who complies with these surgeries should be thinking about malpractice. I have said this before. This is a medical scandal.

Fav means favourite.
You've seriously never heard the term "bits" before?
It doesn't mean give the ducks a bit of bread (,not in this context anyway, not sure why you think it would) - it's a well known colloquial term for genitals if you would prefer and understand that term better.

Also every time they post after a different opinion it just seems like another chance for them to say either "social contagion" "mutilation" or "cult" on loop. Which is all they seem to want, sadly think you're wasting your breath.

@SugarPuffSandwiches I am open to different opinions with a view to someone bringing some evidence to me that will persuade me that people can change sex. As yet no one has done this.

NHS operations to remove healthy body parts in order to address a disorder of the mind is unethical. The Tavistock clinic (now closed) staff admitted they were ‘transing away the gay’. That sits up there with conversion therapy which we now sensibly recognise as inappropriate.

The NHS is offering this surgery. https://gendersurgery.chelwest.nhs.uk/#:~:text=Chelsea%20and%20Westminster%20Hospital%20NHS,surgery%2C%20and%20lower%20feminising%20surgery.

What happened to ‘do no harm?’ In order for any surgeon to carry out any of these surgical procedures they have to mutilate before they reconstruct.

They may not be statements you agree with but they are facts.

For the young it's a social contagion just like eating disorders & self-harm which also are more common in adolescent girls. Evidence for this is that before the madness of the last 10-15 years lying to children that they could change sex there were no kids who thought that they were "trans".

Needless body mutilation is a high price to pay to join a cult.

am open to different opinions with a view to someone bringing some evidence to me that will persuade me that people can change sex. As yet no one has done this
That's not what the thread's about though?
Maybe that's why. Thought you just wanted advice about your adult daughter? Although I see we're back to the "mutilation" part of your loop.
Edited to say it's clear you don't want advice at all, just a chance for another cult mutilation social contagion" "debate".

@PrettyDamnCosmic it is really sad to see that people have been taken in by this.

@SugarPuffSandwiches this thread was derailed many pages ago by people telling me I should accept that a person can change sex. They may well not have used that direct language but ‘accept’ has been used many times.

I can tolerate an idea that a person with mental health issues as in believing they have changed sex. When that means my daughter has to go along with a lie that she is dating a man when that man is a woman, that bothers me.

I feel the same about cosmetic surgery and aesthetics. It is tampering with nature and nature is something we should embrace.

As for patronising - it doesn’t get much more patronising than your comment about ‘back to the mutilation part of your loop’.

As ever, I am open to you putting a debate forward explaining how anyone can change their sex.

For those with different opinions to the majority posters on this board, what is it you actually disagree with? We keep asking but none of you answer. If this isn’t the thread for it, you can be the first to answer on the attached thread which is specific to this question.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5402604-5402604-jkr-asking-similar-questions-to-what-i-have-been-asking-for-years-on-here?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Thanks @DialSquare I remember your thread.

Honestly, I am all ears to a discussion if @SugarPuffSandwiches and @scientista can come at me with something.

As for patronising - it doesn’t get much more patronising than your comment about ‘back to the mutilation part of your loop’
Are you confusing me with someone else? I've never used the word patronising. Somebody else did upthread, and said you were - not me though.

@SugarPuffSandwiches correct it was @scientista who called me patronising.

I do stand by the fact you were patronising in stating I was ‘back to the mutilation part of my loop’.

I am genuinely interested in you bringing a strong debate to this part of the thread giving me some facts that people can change sex. Convince me. If you knew me IRL you would know I am open to hearing a good debate. As yet I have not heard anything other than we should go along with how someone ‘feels’.

Needless bodily mutilation to join a cult is (at least) a centuries old custom.

Just a reminder. From the emotional start of the thread to where we now are and thanks to @DialSquare for the reminder of their thread.

My daughter is in a relationship with another woman. No problem.

The issue is the woman she is dating expects my daughter to refer to her as male. She has had a double mastectomy but prefers it to be called top surgery.

Yes I find all of it concerning. I’ve repeatedly asked for evidence anyone can change sex. As yet nothing.

You started a thread about how to navigate this relationship, your posts are mostly attempting to educate people and sharing links to reinforce your beliefs but you don’t seem to be interested in the issue you started with? Which was around your relationship with your daughter.
I actually feel the same way as you about some of this and I don’t need educating.

you are educating people on a board set up for people who are interested in this topic and most of them already know all of this anyway so why do you keep attempting to enlighten people? (In quite a patronising way)
You don’t seem interested in talking about how to make it work with your daughter, just sharing all your knowledge about the trans issues

Ah thanks @scientista I will be sure to get back in my lane and only discuss the original topic.

I am in the process of dealing with my relationship with my daughter. I’ve taken on board many points from the thread.

That does not mean I don’t have the right to engage in further discussion.

I’m not attempting to educate anyone if anything I’m asking for people to educate me on the issue.

Ok

Interesting how little traction this thread got from such an important article and point in time for such an important subject pretty much only showing up in the past 10-15 years.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5355146-gender-clinic-backs-off-after-family-successfully-challenges-direct-contact-with-adult-daughter?page=1

As a fellow sex-realist who would find this situation deeply troubling, I think, as others have suggested that you need to find a way to navigate it for now. We know that there is a high rate of desistence, especially in girls, so perhaps you may be a catalyst for this young woman to reconsider her decision. I wouldn't be focused right now on the fact that there is a degree of mental illness that must dictate such drastic action. I would focus on not playing along with the fiction, while at the same time showing your daughter that you love her. And similarly, you can try to find something to value in the woman she's "in love" with. Perhaps, rather than write her off as mentally ill, feel sorry that whatever personal trauma she has experienced must be so painful that it has led this young woman to remove her breasts and whatever other bodily modification she's undertaken. I don't think this will be an easy journey for you, but it may in some way be able to heal another person.

@BlueLegume here's some evidence about the desistance rate for girls:

Jesus can we stop with all the mentally ill and trauma stuff. My child is autistic, I believe this is why they are trans. Happy childhood and still a happy person. Just autistic and trans.

As Sylvanmoon says, just find common ground with your adult child's partner, like you would hopefully do with anyone they were in a relationship with.
You can hold whatever opinion you like on them privately, just be civil and accepting when you see them otherwise it might push them further together and you further away.