Would a fleeting childhood thought about being more attractive as a boy be interpreted differently today?

[Waheymum]

When I was about ten (over twenty years ago), I remember briefly thinking that I'd make a really attractive boy. (I'm a straight, cisgender woman). I don't think I'd heard of transpeople (only drag queens) and certainly didn't mention it to anyone.
I'm just thinking that if I was ten and that thought crossed my mind today, would it be different? Would my train of thought be "I'd make an attractive boy. I must be a boy born in the wrong body"? Would I feel like I should tell an adult? Would the adult then tell me I must be trans?

No, because it was fleeting and not persistent. The same with small children who say they are the opposite sex sometimes. No one is 'transing' kids at the slightest sign of gender non conformity.

Why on earth would it? Ask yourself if this is so prevalent then where are the thousand families who a few years ago were set to take legal action against the gender identity clinics? They haven't materialised despite a huge effort to find them and convince them to sue.

I think there absolutely are parents who encourage a gender non-conforming child to be trans from a very young age - which is appalling child abuse. (See Susie Green sterilising her child). Fortunately 20 years ago anyone's parents would have said 'you can't be a boy' and that would be that. I definitely felt as a girl I'd drawn the short straw and being resentful of that. It wouldn't have occurred to me I could be a boy because there weren't any 'trans kids' at all. Because it's all a stupid, stupid lie.

I disagree.

If you'd been told 'changing your gender' was an actual thing and had access to the internet when you were 10, that fleeting thought & a Google search could send you down a right rabbit hole. Plus the rainbows, flags & badges and coloured hair and special community of quirky non conforming people... God I'd have LOVED to be in on that age 12.

In the late 80's my persistent dissatisfaction that I wasn't a boy had nowhere to go and there were no rainbow sparkle internet groomers to take advantage of my upset, thank fuck. Puberty + realising you don't have to conform to stupid societal expectations to be loved sorted it.

Don't assume the women here have no idea of what it is to feel deeply unhappy with your body and the expectations of their sex and wish it to be different. Been there. Felt that.

But undoubtedly, for some spurious reason, my lived experience won't count.

This 100%

No adult would do that. There is no roaming gang of adults trying to 'trans' kids, they've all got their own stuff going on. Total myth.

It's kids who are teaching older generations about being trans, nb, genderqueer - not the other way round.

The road to coming out as trans is usually very long, often years, and each trans/nb child who does so is deeply apprehensive about the violent consequences. Even those who think their parents may be supportive are fearful. It's not a lightly-made decision or a passing thought. More that they are tired of pretending to be someone else.

Read some coming-out stories, and you'll see variations of 'I couldn't hide who I was anymore, it was harming me' in them all. was

Coming out is the end of pretence, not the start.

We all think about what we could be, about whether we're sure of our sexuality or gender, it's normal. But coming out as trans is rare because it's such a huge step - no child knows what the result will be, or if their parent will reject them. It's terrifying.

And I know that because my child came out to me. He was shaking.

Accept yourself for who you are, enjoy the passing thoughts! No need to police yourself or worry what it means. If you were trans, you would know.

Susie Green's son told his mother when he was 4 that he was a girl and ended up on an operating table having his genitals removed when he was 16. That's child abuse. No child can consent to this. transformingfamilies.org.au/topics/transgender-a-mothers-story-tedtalk/

On Mumsnet a Rainbows leader posts that a parent is asking if their 'transgender' four year old can join Rainbows. It's child abuse. Children believe in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy. Saying you want to be the opposite sex at this age should be met with information that it isn't possible but you don't have to like certain things or behave in a certain way to 'be a girl' or 'be a boy' you just are a girl or a boy because that's your sex.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5364678-transgender-4-year-old-wanting-to-join-girls-only-group?page=1

Gender critical feminists know that wanting to be the opposite sex as a child doesn't mean you're trans because we've been there. Thought how great it would be to be a boy and have muscles and no periods. But we live in reality. Once again, affirming childhood ideas about being the opposite sex is child abuse.

A former gender clinician who worked in adult services with young adults who had been put on puberty blockers as children writes that trans medicine is 'pseudo-medicine' and that young lesbians who didn't like dresses thought that meant they were boys - and that deluded belief was affirmed by doctors and psychologists - putting them on a pathway to medication which actively harmed their bodies. Young people who had been on puberty blockers were mentally, as well as physically childlike and for a very long time this ridiculous fake medicine has been embedded in our health services even though there is no evidence for any of it and plenty of evidence it's actively harmful.
https://genderblog.net/former-gender-clinician-its-pseudo-medicine/

So, for all the trans apologists who haunt these threads. No. Children should never be affirmed as being 'born in the wrong body'. They should never receive body altering medications to affirm a delusion. Puberty is a vital part of human development causing brain and skeletal development as well as the development of secondary sexual characteristics. Stopping this is catastrophic for a child and for the adult they will become.

But no adult would do that...

'no-one's telling children they can change sex'

I wanted to be a boy when I was young because the world seemed easier for them plus I like football, fishing, getting muddy and gaming. In those days jobs and activities were very gendered. We were not allowed to do woodwork or metalwork at school nor allowed to play cricket or football. My stepfather taught me how to play football and also how to box. An absolute tomboy as we were called back then, my platonic soulmate, a girl in my class was the same. I argued to be allowed to wear trousers at school and won.

I remain very much a straight woman as was she till she sadly died in her early fifties.

Would we have been encouraged to change by others these days? Probably.

No. A fleeting thought would be treated the same: without lasting consequence even if you shared it the one time it occurred.

What might see different results from back then is if you persistently shared that thought repeatedly over many weeks/months/years with your parents etc.

I disagree. In previous times there was not a whole framework and ideology in place which young people would atomatically reach for in order to' identify' themselves. Labels seem to be a big thing now, and everyone seems to have to 'identify as' something or other.

Passing moments; feelings that are being explored, or subliminal desires. Many of us have experienced those thoughts and feelings because they are a natural and inevitable part of growing up and negotiating the world and society - and trying to figure out how you fit into all of it.

Before 'trans kids' came along there used to be a social phenomena called the 'Indigo child' - does anyone remember that? Lots of parents decided they had an 'Indigo child'. It was a way to signal specialness or uniqueness and get parents some kudos in their social circle. There absolutely are parents who use their children for their own gratification needs, or to resolve their own issues.

'Trans' is not a meausrable diagnosis or physical state of being - it is a social amd ideological construct onto which people attach their feelings and developing sense of self.

This. 1000%.

I remember as a child telling my mother repeatedly I wished I was boy. I had long curly hair that my mother used to brush into submission every morning. How I envied boys their short hair and clothing ( my mum favoured a very traditional girly style).

If the adult takes it seriously, and pays the child attention saying "maybe you're trans", or if the child is surrounded by influences which say "trans is good", there is a possibility that the fleeting thought may solidify into a persistent questioning.

I believe that my son, as an adult (and with an autism diagnosis), has noticed that he has some characteristics that are generally labelled "feminine" and has started following a path which is full of encouragement to go further and further. I'd like to know where his scepticism has gone, but by the time he told us how he was thinking he was already committed to a worldview which sees scepticism about transgender ideation as "transphobic". A child who feels some gender incongruence, which I think has always been common, these days is often encouraged to think "maybe I'm trans" and that can lead to the conviction that they are trans and that there is a proper way to be trans.

Oddly quite a few people (mainly adults) have tried accept my son as trans even though he isn't and doesn't think he is. He's a middle school aged kid with long hair. He's not the most stereotypically boyish boy, he doesn't play football (or rugby) and his friends are girls. His hobbies aren't particularly gendered (although he is developing an interest in the theatre, and most of the opportunities are for musical theatre, so that's got a camp image).
One of his friends from primary (now at a different mainstream secondary in an autism provision) identified him to be "a pansexual demi-boy". I think it was a little premature. But this child identifies as trans and perhaps just wanted a community.
I suspect that once my son has gone through puberty fully it will settle down as late developing 12 year old boys look fairly androgynous but 14/15 year old boys look like young men. But yeah, people are trying to trans gender non conforming kids. I think they are just trying to be kind and inclusive but actually it's a bit odd to, for example, encourage a long haired boy to use the ladies toilets (happens a suprising amount, although I'm never sure if these people think he's trans or just think he's a girl who can't read toilet doors!)
It's kind of the back to front version of what trans people experience- they get "you must be a girl" (or boy) - he gets "you must be trans" but for very different reasons!!

Nice story, but it doesn't fit what I've observed in my son, so not everyone with a trans identity fits your description in my experience. The other trans people I know might be closer to what you're describing, but they have definitely been influenced by what they have read and listened to, and I recognise the same narrow thinking that I have seen in the more controlling kinds of religious groups (particularly in fringe sects), where doubts, questions and scepticism are strongly discouraged and strict doctrines and behaviours are enforced.

When parents enforce 'gender' onto children they contribute to potential dysphoric feelings.

I overheard two young women, not too long ago, discussing their friend ( a female friend). They were talking about how she'd had her hair cut short - and saying " She's such a boy!"

How on earth did we get to this sort of situation? Short hair on girls has been ' a thing' since the 1960s. I often had short hair as a child, and when I was 12 I got it cut short for my birthday ( along with getting my ears pierced). It was no big deal - even though I've always loved that feeling of having my hair cut. It feels like such a liberation and that I can be who I truly am. It is incredibly rare now to see a young girl with short hair.

I think that 'femininity' like everything else has become a commercial product - to be packaged up and sold. In my mind this started with Thatcher and her relationship with the Reagan and the U.S - and the greater liberalisation of the financial markets. We bought in, wholesale, to American consumer culture. ( which is also from where 'trans identities' stem)