Confused about all the gender bending

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a trans female child here.

Having seen thread titles like this in the past, I steeled myself before reading because I’m often so disheartened by the comments/replies.

I have to say, I am near tears seeing all the supportive “live and let live” comments here, both with respect to gender and sexuality. Thank you, DCUM peeps.

As a parent of two cis-gender children, I spend a lot of time trying to debunk misinformation on these types of threads because I don’t think it should be left to families of trans kids to bear this burden. But even I get exhausted/depressed by it; I can only imagine what seeing the ignorance and hate on some of these threads must mean for you. I’m so sorry about that but am glad that this thread is proving more thoughtful. Wishing you and your child all the best.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bear with me. I am obviously behind the times but I need some perspective. My daughter (13) who has been very gender typical until recently (crushes on boys, all-girl friend groups, doesn’t stand out otherwise in terms or dress or tastes) now claims to be either pan sexual or omni sexual. She is reading a lot of LGBTQ literature and spending time on gender bending fan fiction sites, and I can’t help but think some of her sexual attitude is acculturation. Neither her dad or I are super gendered (I am not very girly, he is not very macho) but neither of us has ever been confused about our heterosexuality. For a while we didn’t take her seriously but now that’s she's sticking to her line we are trying to be supportive without boxing her in. Ultimately I don’t care how she gets her kicks but I just want to better understand what is going on. Can you please share your experiences if your kids have been through something similar?

This isn’t about gender. Gender and sexuality are very different things. Please educate yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following. I am in a similar situation with my DD. She told us a few years ago she is lesbian (not terribly surprising) but now says she identifies as a demigirl and prefers they/them pronouns. I did some research, and demigirl sounds basically like what I have felt like my entire life but never really thought twice about. I am not conventionally feminine, and my husband is not conventionally macho. Our generation worked so hard to expand the notion of what it means to be female--you can be strong, ambitious, loud, athletic, aggressive, whatever--and now it seems like kids are putting "female" in this small, weak box and identifying anything outside that stereotype as something other. In many ways, it feels like a repudiation of feminism and several steps back. I'm trying to be supportive but just don't get it.

Yep. The whole fluid gender stuff is swinging so far in the other direction that it's now misogynistic AF. As a woman who played a male dominated sport and has painted her nails exactly twice, this crap is making me so mad. Just be who you are and find something else to do besides coming up with a thousand labels to describe you. Nobody cares about you. This navel gazing selfie culture is so gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a trans female child here.

Having seen thread titles like this in the past, I steeled myself before reading because I’m often so disheartened by the comments/replies.

I have to say, I am near tears seeing all the supportive “live and let live” comments here, both with respect to gender and sexuality. Thank you, DCUM peeps.

As a parent of two cis-gender children, I spend a lot of time trying to debunk misinformation on these types of threads because I don’t think it should be left to families of trans kids to bear this burden. But even I get exhausted/depressed by it; I can only imagine what seeing the ignorance and hate on some of these threads must mean for you. I’m so sorry about that but am glad that this thread is proving more thoughtful. Wishing you and your child all the best.

+2

+3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following. I am in a similar situation with my DD. She told us a few years ago she is lesbian (not terribly surprising) but now says she identifies as a demigirl and prefers they/them pronouns. I did some research, and demigirl sounds basically like what I have felt like my entire life but never really thought twice about. I am not conventionally feminine, and my husband is not conventionally macho. Our generation worked so hard to expand the notion of what it means to be female--you can be strong, ambitious, loud, athletic, aggressive, whatever--and now it seems like kids are putting "female" in this small, weak box and identifying anything outside that stereotype as something other. In many ways, it feels like a repudiation of feminism and several steps back. I'm trying to be supportive but just don't get it.

Yep. The whole fluid gender stuff is swinging so far in the other direction that it's now misogynistic AF. As a woman who played a male dominated sport and has painted her nails exactly twice, this crap is making me so mad. Just be who you are and find something else to do besides coming up with a thousand labels to describe you. Nobody cares about you. This navel gazing selfie culture is so gross.

If you don’t believe in gender as a binary, sex-determined characteristic, feminism isn’t really going to work with you either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following. I am in a similar situation with my DD. She told us a few years ago she is lesbian (not terribly surprising) but now says she identifies as a demigirl and prefers they/them pronouns. I did some research, and demigirl sounds basically like what I have felt like my entire life but never really thought twice about. I am not conventionally feminine, and my husband is not conventionally macho. Our generation worked so hard to expand the notion of what it means to be female--you can be strong, ambitious, loud, athletic, aggressive, whatever--and now it seems like kids are putting "female" in this small, weak box and identifying anything outside that stereotype as something other. In many ways, it feels like a repudiation of feminism and several steps back. I'm trying to be supportive but just don't get it.

Yep. The whole fluid gender stuff is swinging so far in the other direction that it's now misogynistic AF. As a woman who played a male dominated sport and has painted her nails exactly twice, this crap is making me so mad. Just be who you are and find something else to do besides coming up with a thousand labels to describe you. Nobody cares about you. This navel gazing selfie culture is so gross.

Nothing fights misogyny quite like telling young women "nobody cares about you."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

There’s a chance that at least some of your kids are cis/het, but trolling you because they know you get so triggered over it. Same way that a big group girls at my prep school dated working class Black guys in HS, but all but one of them married a white guy from their same SES.

My DD is gay and she knows that we don’t care who she loves.

Nope. Not triggered and she knows it. It’s truly happening. Just because you have a gay daughter doesn’t mean you are an expert on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following. I am in a similar situation with my DD. She told us a few years ago she is lesbian (not terribly surprising) but now says she identifies as a demigirl and prefers they/them pronouns. I did some research, and demigirl sounds basically like what I have felt like my entire life but never really thought twice about. I am not conventionally feminine, and my husband is not conventionally macho. Our generation worked so hard to expand the notion of what it means to be female--you can be strong, ambitious, loud, athletic, aggressive, whatever--and now it seems like kids are putting "female" in this small, weak box and identifying anything outside that stereotype as something other. In many ways, it feels like a repudiation of feminism and several steps back. I'm trying to be supportive but just don't get it.

Yep. The whole fluid gender stuff is swinging so far in the other direction that it's now misogynistic AF. As a woman who played a male dominated sport and has painted her nails exactly twice, this crap is making me so mad. Just be who you are and find something else to do besides coming up with a thousand labels to describe you. Nobody cares about you. This navel gazing selfie culture is so gross.

Translation: do it the way I did it because I’m the greatest... your way is wrong, proof... me (aka narcissistic personality disorder)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

There’s a chance that at least some of your kids are cis/het, but trolling you because they know you get so triggered over it. Same way that a big group girls at my prep school dated working class Black guys in HS, but all but one of them married a white guy from their same SES.

My DD is gay and she knows that we don’t care who she loves.

Nope. Not triggered and she knows it. It’s truly happening. Just because you have a gay daughter doesn’t mean you are an expert on this.

You know a few girls that are LGBTQ and that is statistically impossible. You don’t understand statistics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

That’s not how statistics work.

Umm, that's actually exactly how statistics work. A random sample of any group shouldn't result in a near 100% rate of LGBTQ identification.

There's some big theater kid energy around a lot of these younger girls. I'm sure some of them truly have gender dysphoria and this isn't a pose or phase that they'll drop, but for a lot of them it's exactly that and it will be discarded as they get older and be replaced by something else. Declaring yourself pan/poly/trans is only edgy and cool until every single member of your peer group is doing the same thing. In many cases this is how kids think (and I did it myself when I was younger), that this stance/identification is a fast way to establish a unique personality. When I was younger it was about what kind of music you liked. I still listen to some of the same music from my youth with affection but a lot of it has fallen to the wayside as I got older. It happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

There’s a chance that at least some of your kids are cis/het, but trolling you because they know you get so triggered over it. Same way that a big group girls at my prep school dated working class Black guys in HS, but all but one of them married a white guy from their same SES.

My DD is gay and she knows that we don’t care who she loves.

Nope. Not triggered and she knows it. It’s truly happening. Just because you have a gay daughter doesn’t mean you are an expert on this.

You seem pretty triggered and she knows it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following. I am in a similar situation with my DD. She told us a few years ago she is lesbian (not terribly surprising) but now says she identifies as a demigirl and prefers they/them pronouns. I did some research, and demigirl sounds basically like what I have felt like my entire life but never really thought twice about. I am not conventionally feminine, and my husband is not conventionally macho. Our generation worked so hard to expand the notion of what it means to be female--you can be strong, ambitious, loud, athletic, aggressive, whatever--and now it seems like kids are putting "female" in this small, weak box and identifying anything outside that stereotype as something other. In many ways, it feels like a repudiation of feminism and several steps back. I'm trying to be supportive but just don't get it.

Yep. The whole fluid gender stuff is swinging so far in the other direction that it's now misogynistic AF. As a woman who played a male dominated sport and has painted her nails exactly twice, this crap is making me so mad. Just be who you are and find something else to do besides coming up with a thousand labels to describe you. Nobody cares about you. This navel gazing selfie culture is so gross.

Nothing fights misogyny quite like telling young women "nobody cares about you."

Plus telling someone that you know how they feel better than they do is a powerful message of disregard for their experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

That’s not how statistics work.

Umm, that's actually exactly how statistics work. A random sample of any group shouldn't result in a near 100% rate of LGBTQ identification.

There's some big theater kid energy around a lot of these younger girls. I'm sure some of them truly have gender dysphoria and this isn't a pose or phase that they'll drop, but for a lot of them it's exactly that and it will be discarded as they get older and be replaced by something else. Declaring yourself pan/poly/trans is only edgy and cool until every single member of your peer group is doing the same thing. In many cases this is how kids think (and I did it myself when I was younger), that this stance/identification is a fast way to establish a unique personality. When I was younger it was about what kind of music you liked. I still listen to some of the same music from my youth with affection but a lot of it has fallen to the wayside as I got older. It happens.

Right, except as you go on to make clear in the rest of your post, this isn’t a random sample. It’s a group of friends. Sure, maybe some of it is following the crowd for the moment...or maybe it’s that these girls were drawn to each other because they sensed fellow travelers. So you can’t explain it away with “statistics.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

That’s not how statistics work.

Umm, that's actually exactly how statistics work. A random sample of any group shouldn't result in a near 100% rate of LGBTQ identification.

There's some big theater kid energy around a lot of these younger girls. I'm sure some of them truly have gender dysphoria and this isn't a pose or phase that they'll drop, but for a lot of them it's exactly that and it will be discarded as they get older and be replaced by something else. Declaring yourself pan/poly/trans is only edgy and cool until every single member of your peer group is doing the same thing. In many cases this is how kids think (and I did it myself when I was younger), that this stance/identification is a fast way to establish a unique personality. When I was younger it was about what kind of music you liked. I still listen to some of the same music from my youth with affection but a lot of it has fallen to the wayside as I got older. It happens.

Right, except as you go on to make clear in the rest of your post, this isn’t a random sample. It’s a group of friends. Sure, maybe some of it is following the crowd for the moment...or maybe it’s that these girls were drawn to each other because they sensed fellow travelers. So you can’t explain it away with “statistics.”

She is so far up her own azz you are never going to reach her.

Hey my son plays basketball, lax and soccer... none of his friends are LGBTQ, so nobody is. Statistics don't lie. /s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

That’s not how statistics work.

Umm, that's actually exactly how statistics work. A random sample of any group shouldn't result in a near 100% rate of LGBTQ identification.

There's some big theater kid energy around a lot of these younger girls. I'm sure some of them truly have gender dysphoria and this isn't a pose or phase that they'll drop, but for a lot of them it's exactly that and it will be discarded as they get older and be replaced by something else. Declaring yourself pan/poly/trans is only edgy and cool until every single member of your peer group is doing the same thing. In many cases this is how kids think (and I did it myself when I was younger), that this stance/identification is a fast way to establish a unique personality. When I was younger it was about what kind of music you liked. I still listen to some of the same music from my youth with affection but a lot of it has fallen to the wayside as I got older. It happens.

A group of friends is not a random sampling. Wow.