Waiting for approval....just like my daughter.
My daughter is 11 and at the start of school year told us she prefers they/them pronouns, and while away at school camp (her small alternative public school, and a magnet for LGBT students) she chose a male name, on suggestion of her peers. (Her brother told her it was a dog's name...such a sibling thing to say) This camp provided a nonbinary cabin, and my daughter was in this cabin with four kids, all natal females. The school has 90 students.
We are a very progressive family. We attend a welcoming church with LGBT members. I support transgender and gay rights and I do not consider myself "gender critical" as I understand the term. But seeing what is happening with my daughter, who was very female identified until end of 4th grade, I have to wonder if she's part of a social contagion and troubled about her self image, identity and other issues, and finds belonging in this group. This can coexist with true transgender identity people who need and deserve affirmative support.
Right now I'm afraid to talk about this to therapists and progressive friends. I don't know if anyone is neutral and has our daughter's best interests or will be seeking to advance their own narrative about this. I need support to deal with my own stress. It disturbs me greatly that my child cannot accept her body. I am fine with whatever gender role constructs she wants to inhabit. I am fine with whatever sexual orientation. I'm not fine with denying your body. Binding, hormones, surgery, I can't imagine how that solves anything. I don't know where to find help.
Thanks for listening and sharing your stories.
My daughter is 11 and at the start of school year told us she prefers they/them pronouns, and while away at school camp (her small alternative public school, and a magnet for LGBT students) she chose a male name, on suggestion of her peers. (Her brother told her it was a dog's name...such a sibling thing to say) This camp provided a nonbinary cabin, and my daughter was in this cabin with four kids, all natal females. The school has 90 students.
We are a very progressive family. We attend a welcoming church with LGBT members. I support transgender and gay rights and I do not consider myself "gender critical" as I understand the term. But seeing what is happening with my daughter, who was very female identified until end of 4th grade, I have to wonder if she's part of a social contagion and troubled about her self image, identity and other issues, and finds belonging in this group. This can coexist with true transgender identity people who need and deserve affirmative support.
Right now I'm afraid to talk about this to therapists and progressive friends. I don't know if anyone is neutral and has our daughter's best interests or will be seeking to advance their own narrative about this. I need support to deal with my own stress. It disturbs me greatly that my child cannot accept her body. I am fine with whatever gender role constructs she wants to inhabit. I am fine with whatever sexual orientation. I'm not fine with denying your body. Binding, hormones, surgery, I can't imagine how that solves anything. I don't know where to find help.
Thanks for listening and sharing your stories.
(07-Sep-2018, 10:28 PM)Marge Bouvier Simpson Wrote: >"Personally I think some girls are so put off by the porn they are exposed to online, that becoming male seems like their best strategy for avoiding the sick sexual abuse depicted against women in porn."
Even beyond that, I wonder if the #metoo movement isn't scaring some of them. All of the harassment women face, the pervasiveness of it that this movement exposed, it must seem inescapable. I'm not criticizing it, wondering what unintended consequences it may have on young girls coming into puberty, perhaps already experiencing what it's like to be sexualized, and saying no thanks, I don't want to be an attractive female and turned into a sex object.
>It seems some kids are attention-seeking, or perhaps more likely, want control. Kids who are low on the school social status scale come out as trans, and suddenly they get to tell their parents how to act and how to treat them, teachers bend over backwards for them, they get their own bathrooms at school, get to choose their own name, are protected from bullies, maybe even get a big school assembly in their honor or written up in the newspaper for being brave and wonderful.
My daughter has some of these traits. She tends to be very vocal about her low self worth, which gets people to give her compliments and reassurances.
