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.

I did miss this post. That sounds sad. I hope your daughter will come back to you.

I admit it does get tricky if the conversation turns to this topic but I don’t engage unless explicitly asked a question by my child. And that doesn’t happen anymore as we have had long discussions on the topic before.

It is discordant to avoid these topics, OP. But then I do this with other family members who have very different opinions to me politically too.

Family and employment are two areas where I find there is a coercive element in these decisions. I can certainly understand making uncomfortable decisions to maintain family and employment.

I hope so too. It has been devastating, but I don’t see any way out of it, other than to hope she will eventually realise I am not the hateful person she’s been told I am.

I’m afraid there’s only one person in this scenario who risks tearing a family apart and it’s not your daughter.
Accept and support her decisions as an adult. You don’t need to have the same views as others but you do need to accept them if you want a relationship. Let people love who they love and identify how they want. Just as you love who you want and identify how you choose.
My daughter could bring home chewbacca as long as it makes her happy 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh I do sympathise @BlueLegume . I have a trans-identified close relative and it's difficult.

I try to run the mantra (to myself) of "Live and let live. If X is happier presenting as Y, then OK. But if X oversteps & treads on my rights, that is a different matter." So I try to separate the person from transactivism.

I'm good at very English conflict avoidance!

Can you treat your DD and her partner simply as a same-sex couple (which they are)?

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.

Is this the central issue really? That your DD has "discovered" this new ideology and is haranguing you all, and criticising you all, at every opportunity?

As if she'd just discovered veganism, or an extreme political stance. And is lecturing and teaching you.

It will fade and pass.

@Leahrosemary ok - my daughter is dating someone who was born female. They now identify as male. Sometimes non binary but always ‘he’ pronoun. They consider themselves male. If I got the title wrong apologies.

That said if she was dating a biological male who now identified as female then the thread would be the same. My posts would be the same set of concerns and opinions.

Perhaps my title should be ‘The trans madness just came knocking on my door uninvited and unwelcome’. Or ‘Daughter is dating a person with a huge amount of mental health baggage, help me navigate’.

This person has already gone down the surgery route with the bilateral mastectomy of healthy breasts and have informed my daughter and made it clear they may go further with body modifications. I have not asked, as it is none of my business if they are on testosterone.

I have tried to be sensible in my posts. On the one hand the situation is directly opposed to my sex real views. On the other hand watching my daughter swallow the lies and expect me to is another. I appreciate some people think the live and let live approach is the one I take, but as a previously close relationship has been touched by what I consider to be a social contagion gone mad I am concerned.

I honestly don’t get why people find it so hard to lie. I refer to males as ‘she’ and ‘her’ all the time at work and nod and smile and agree in our compulsory diversity training despite thinking it’s all utter tripe. It’s easy. Getting along with people whose views and beliefs you hold in contempt is part of being an adult.

I’ve worked closely with a lot of trans, my son is gay. My opinion is that trans is a mental health issue. Saying that you have to let her do her own thing. I think you are being very dramatic by saying it’s ‘ripped’ the family apart. It’s up to your daughter who she dates and it’s your choice to either back her or lose her.

I’m as gender critical as you can get, in that I don’t believe in gender at all, but you are coming across as very dramatic and controlling here.

Your daughter is an adult, she is entitled to her own views and opinions and she is entitled to date who ever she wants. You can’t force her to think the same way you do, the more you insist the more you will push her away. Saying she is ripping the family apart because she’s dating someone who is trans or non-binary is extremely dramatic. If they treat her well and she is happy then that should be the most important thing.

The best thing you can do is be respectful to her partner and their relationship, while using gender neutral pronouns so as to not compromise your own beliefs while also respecting theirs.

If you continue to try to force your views onto her or turn her against her partner it’s going to have the complete opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve.

@ParmaVioletTea really happy with them being in a same sex relationship as long as it is healthy. This is not healthy. Ito might be exciting, different and intoxicating but long term it is a person with a mental health issue who has been let down by everyone who has affirmed her. My daughter has said she calls the person her ‘boyfriend’.

not the same at all!

sounds to me like op's DD is in a relationship with someone with poor mental health which I'd be worried about if she was mine

Also, breasts are not limbs. 🧐

@FernandoSor I do not hold anyone’s views in contempt. I also will not lie about facts. Where does society go if we all put blinkers on and lie about the bleeding obvious.

In a work environment I get it, DEI has permeated work and society all under the ‘be kind’ mantra. I could get more wordy about it but this trans activism is a political agenda which, in my view is looking to make us accept things that we previously saw as mental health issues and fetish. In this scenario I think it is a mental health issue. If my sons were with a man presenting as female I would feel the same concern for the healthiness of the situation.

It’s a cult and it uses the cult playbook. Potential/new converts and sympathisers are encouraged to act in ways that provoke opposition, so they get their feelings hurt and run back to the safe space where everyone feels like they do, where they are reassured and told they are the best of people, so much more righteous and good than those angry family members. Exactly like any other cult.

(See numerous articles on why various religions send people knocking on doors).

@Whatkindoffuckeryisthiss which if you had read the thread you would see I corrected to healthy body parts very soon after my error. But hey nit pick ahead.

@VikingLady well put. I very nearly started the thread like this but am really aware that will immediately see the bigot/transphobe labels.

I could go one step further and explain how the organised crime gangs are based on the McDonalds/Walmart business model. That is how I feel about trans. You put it much better than me. As to where we now are it is precisely because challenging it is seen as transphobic when it is anything but. It is a concern that we have affirmed, performed ‘affirming’ surgery and medicalised people for life all because of ‘feelings’.

I have worked over the years with several men who presented as women and I can say without exception every single one had a massively overvalued belief they were more ‘woman’ than the rest of us. This is a mental health crisis being dressed up as gender identity.

The biggest winners in the madness are big pharmaceutical companies. they are creating customers for life.

I would welcome them into my home but i would not be lying for them. Why should the OP have to bow down to a stranger in her own home ?

Is this partner a nice person? Are they well matched? I think maybe stay out of thinking about what’s in the person’s pants and just consider whether your daughter is happy. Your opinion won’t matter to her, in all likelihood.

This a million times over.

as a previously close relationship has been touched by what I consider to be a social contagion gone mad I am concerned.

Your relationship has been damaged by your attitude. Not her relationship with her new partner. Careful you don't push her totally away.

You risk loosing your relationship with your daughter over this.

She's an adult.

It literally doesnt have to get in the way of her siblings relationship.

Im an adult that cut contact with my parents easily after they failed to support my choices.

Dont let it happen to you.

Ok, to address you risk losing your relationship- I get that. What I struggle with is what that sentence really says which in my opinion is….

’you risk losing your relationship unless you buy into a lie and go along with it.’

She is an adult in a relationship with someone with mental health issues. She isn’t just a Goth or something that she might grow out of she is a person on a medical journey. If my daughter was dating a drug dealer I would be airing my concerns maybe privately but I would still be looking out for my daughter.

The whole acceptance of this trans ideology bases itself on what @VikingLady said. Any debate is shut down with ‘be kind/transphobia’ tropes. It operates like a cult.

I think you have made a whole lot of assumptions about Prion that you simply cannot know.

It may well be, as Prion has said, that her daughter by simply knowing that Prion holds the belief that sex cannot change and that she campaigns for female single sex provisions has rejected her.

In which case, your accusation about it being her 'attitude' is totally baseless unless your intention is to shame women who don't agree that any male person can be female in regards to access female single sex provisions.