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.

The emotional manipulation of demanding that the family must actively show belief that the person has changed sex in any way, rather than allowing a neutral position, has an aspect of coercion that shouldn’t be dismissed.

To what degree that manipulation is allowable to maintain a relationship is a personal boundary.

why should all the compromises ( actually surrenders) come from the OP? Is it because the belief system of the daughter is so fragile that any compromise would render it transparently inaccurate?

Is this actually what is happening though, it's not clear to me from the op's posts that it is.

@BlueLegume Is referring to the girlfriend by their name instead of pronouns an unacceptable compromise - to either of you?

OK, so you don't agree with the relationship and clearly have very strong opinions on the topic, but can you please explain how, aside from you not agreeing with it, what your concerns are for DD?

Is this person abusive in some way?

Or is it just that you don't agree with it?

If that's the case, I think being so strongly anti the relationship is just going to push DD into their arms and alienate DD.

You may need to play this a bit softly, OP.

Mothers not approving of their children's relationship is an important stage of development...for both parties 😁

I thought OP said it when she wrote:

”She insists we say he about the person. That I won’t do and she says that is disrespectful not honouring their chosen pronouns. She is a she not a he”

But maybe OP hasn’t felt that she can clarify her position yet on language to her daughter. I would hope that they can find an acceptable way forward.

You can say you agree, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly even, without actually doing so.

You don't have to of course, you can wear your convictions and beliefs on your sleeve, but if you have people in your life who are equally vociferous in their beliefs, whether they be the exec team at work, or a trans-addled child, then there will be conflict.

Lying is always an option. And of course you can always say "I always thought so but didn't want to hurt your feelings by saying it" when they eventually come to sense if you really want to.

Why has this ripped your family apart?

You may not believe in transitioning but you’re not being asked to transition or to date someone that has. Your daughter is an adult and this is HER relationship. Surely she’s allowed to date who she likes? You may not have chosen this person for her but the relationship will probably run its course eventually so why not just let it be.

To be clear my daughter, biological female is dating another biological female but that person identifies as a man and has under gone a double mastectomy.

I am happy if it is a healthy gay relationship. In fact with the toxic masculinity in the current world I am possibly happy she is with a woman - only she says she is a man.

I haven’t known how to change the title as apparently I have got the wrong term but hope this clears it up at this stage.

I find the whole language around this a riddle. Thanks to the people who have engaged. I have definitely been given some food for thought as to how to navigate this but am not there just yet.

The thought of my daughter losing what was an incredibly close relationship with her brother is heartbreaking. Dramatic maybe but the truth. T

Why is this happening?

Another family member who isn't going along with her demands?

You're probably right in a lot of your assumptions - the internalised homophobia, the 'drinking of the kool aid' leading to the terminology demands etc - BUT I think you'd be doing yourself a favour to remember that these are THEIR issues. Not yours.

Knowing this, i think it's down to family members to decide whether or not this hill is one you are prepared to let her die on alone.

You seem really attached to avoiding going along with any of this, but if you don't do at least some of the bending you could lose DD for a very long time and you will need to accept that part of the blame for that, should it happen, will sit with the family as well as her.

From the outside, it looks like there is a lot of stubbornness involved, on both sides.

I agree with this.

Your daughter is an adult OP. She can have a relationship with whoever she chooses. I wouldn’t be overly happy about it, particularly because of all the complexities around the trans person’s mental health, but I would honestly say as little as possible. My eldest is gay and, due to the way the gay and trans communities have become interconnected, has a number of trans friends. I realise this is different from having a trans partner, but he doesn’t believe for one minute that anyone can change sex, yet he manages to navigate it all very well, keeping the friendships without changing his views. I do think young people find this much easier than us parents.

@Alltheyellowbirds the thread and my comments speak for themselves. I am being asked to buy into a falsehood to affirm someone else’s lie that they are a man when they are a woman. Boundaries are often discussed on MN and my boundary regarding sex is that it there are two sexes and they cannot be changed.

My boundary is also that I think this explosion in gender identity is dangerous and is trying to change societal norms off the back of all the brilliant work done by gay men and lesbians who worked so hard to win well deserved gay rights. My concern is where does the trans movement want things to go. We are treating a mental illness - so an illness of the mind with invasive surgery, drugs, cross sex hormones and life long medication. If my daughter came to me saying she had a dysphoria about her toes I would get her therapeutic help not affirm she had them amputated.

If that makes me old fashioned I will take the label.

I am being asked to buy into a falsehood to affirm someone else’s lie that they are a man when they are a woman.

I don't think you are. All that is needed from you is to be polite and pleasant to this person for your DD's sake. Nothing more. Your beliefs do not change and that is fine.

@JustSawJohnny not stubborn from my end. Realistic. We keep being told to ‘be kind’ when it comes to trans issues yet activists call for TERFs to be killed and similar vitriol.

She has drunk the extreme woke cool aid but that aside she seems to down a rabbit hole of utter fantasy ideology.

If you think I am stubborn because I see the cult of trans as just that - a cult - then so be it. I saw the Karen Carpenter affect see a spike in eating disorders back in my youth. The self harming- this is just an extreme version which involves mutilating healthy body parts when it should be focusing on what is going on inside the mind. I have said this before - this is a medical scandal in the making. An the NHS, schools, institutions are all in bed together colluding with the lie.

Have you met her OP? I think sometimes the idea of a situation can be much worse than the reality. I completely agree with the sex realism/mental illness attitude but I'd be very surprised if she is in any way threatening. The trans young women I've met have just been confused or autistic and trying to find a way that works - I have found them very, very different from the entitled, demanding male equivalent. I appreciate she's taken this to very unhealthy lengths - but your dd sees something in her so maybe it's worth meeting and just seeing if you can see it too?

Why not just meet her (if you haven't already) and take it from there? You'll be in a more informed position one way or another then.

@veggietabless not avoiding your questions just do not want to out myself if that is ok. I understand your points. Genuine question how is she a trans woman? She literally calls herself a man yet is a biological female.

I am honestly finding the language a riddle.

As I understood a trans woman is a biological male. They have dominated the news and media in recent years and all the while a generation of girls and young woman have been brainwashed into believing they can change sex. They may not find womanhood appealing but life isn’t about opting in and out of what we do and don’t like it is about accepting something need dealing with properly not medically mutilating.

"I would privately be worried however that my daughters new partner had mental health problems and I would see it as an inability to accept their own homosexuality. I'd also worry for my daughter for similar reasons"

@bumblingbovine49 I agree, and would be far more worried about this.

Also OP, is there autism in the mix?
There is a high correlation between Autism and Trans identifying. See David Bell , psychiatrist Tavistock clinic...he speaks so much sense, but was ostracised and lambasted v unfairly.... do Google him.

I would do anything, frankly, OP to preserve the relationship between your Dd and you. Just always refer to her partner by name, not gender...I would try to not use words like "rip the family apart",
( tho' if you've got elderly relative commitments, I do understand how emotions can run high, when there is SO much going on).

This may well blow over.
I know a person, whose son was gay, he went to uni, and came home with his 'boyfriend', who was quite obviously female, but who identified as male....could not work that out, and my poor friend could not work it out either. She spent many anguished hours, trying to work out what she'd "said", that had caused so much "trauma"...( she observed pronouns and was honestly at a loss...It turned out, nothing, but her son was really quite cruel to his mother, although apologised about his cruelty to her, about 5 years later.
It blew over and her son is now happily gay. And they have a good relationship.

Hoping for the best outcome, for you.

Lying is not an option for me. As I explained, it damages my self-respect. I tried silence, but that eventually failed.

You are willing to compromise yourself, perhaps because you’ve never experienced coercive control, but I know I’m not alone in not feeling able to do this.

I don't understand this. She's a lesbian but would date someone she sees is a man (even though they're not, but that's by the by if she thinks they are but she's also saying she's a female-attracted-female)?

Do you have to do anything? I would just leave her to get on with it. She knows how you feel. Be the still, calm presence. She can't get you to change your beliefs and you don't have to, but equally there is nothing you can do to change hers. I would just wait it out.

I am a lesbian.

I fully agree with you and thank you for the support.
I am genuinely sorry you're going through this.
I hope you can get through it and that it doesn't last long. I too would be concerned about the MH of this person.

@ziggadee that seems to be the situation my daughter is in. She has gone from being a lesbian - not a shock or surprise at all and dating women to now telling me she thinks she must be bi sexual - which would be fine if she was dating a biological male. But she isn’t she is with a biological female saying she is male. What a bloody riddle. Answers on a post card please.

Thank you for what I consider a really kind post. I am in awe, genuinely, of people who fought for gay rights - and rightly won them.

I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist however I am now going to low a hole in that statement.

This trans explosion is looking like the utter breakdown of societal norms. The ‘long march through the institutions’ might be the wrong or inappropriate phrase but we have let activists loose everywhere under the guise of inclusivity. I am very concerned what the next bit of the TQIA+ we will be exposed to and told to accept it or else.

Listen, I'm not having a go at you. You seem very angry, probably because you are upset BUT you came here to air this and people are going to bring things to you that might not feel comfortable. That's kind of the point, right?

I get your arguments, I DO, BUT, again from the position of an outsider, this comes down to you just not approving and we've heard how this story ends a million times. It ends with DD walking away from the family and that ritf, IMO, is fuelled by stubbornness, for whatever reason.

I guess what I'm saying is, is that reason enough to cause potentially permanent damage to the family?

You are allowed to fundamentally disagree with your child and air your concerns and discomfort but I'd like to think that if in the same position I would be able to compromise and do things I didn't want to do in order to keep a relationship with my child.

You don't hold the cards here OP, sadly.

You don't need to change your beliefs but I'd think long and hard about your actions over the coming months.

Better to swallow pride than live with regrets.

It is incredibly strange to talk about someone else's 'healthy breasts'. He chose to get top surgery, and your daughter chose to date him.

You don't get to control your daughter's life, remember YOU are the one with a problem here. If this tears your family apart that is entirely on your part for refusing to accept that your daughter can date whoever she wants.

Bottom line, it's your daughters life and she leads it the way she wants. You don't get to have a say on her love life unless she is in danger.