My daughter has decided to identify as “male”. She is 13. She decided this and told me the day after a PSHE day in year 8.
Prior to the PSHE day she had shared no thoughts or ideas about this, and had never talked about gender or gender identity. I was careful as a mother to bring her up with a range of toys, I never gendered her activities, and do not believe in toys for boys or even in clothes for girls. Nevertheless, she preferred to play with dolls, enjoyed fairy wings, wearing crowns and loved dancing classes. She grew her hair long from being short as her own choice and loved beads, hair clips and had her ears pierced at age 12. Her favourite clothes as a small child were what she called “spinny skirts”. She has a diagnosis of Autism and started her periods aged 11.
She is scared of growing up and hates the idea of becoming a “woman”, it terrifies her. Her out of School activities are now swimming, drama and scouts where her chosen identity is reinforced. I believe my daughter is mistaken in thinking she is a boy and will figure this out in her own time, however I don’t trust society or School to give her the space to do this, the current zeitgeist is affirmative without question and without giving children any space. Gender stereotyping has never felt so rigid and oppressive.
My daughter seems to have based her decision on the fact that she “feels like it” and because she enjoyed Thomas the Tank Engine when small and had a toy helicopter. These times are terrifying as a parent. As a child, I was also Autistic and wished many times that I was a boy. I didn’t want breasts, or periods and I didn’t want to be sexualised and have the expectations of being pretty that are so loaded on to women and girls. Had I been railroaded on to a path, I would never have had my daughter, I would be infertile and flat chested, living a very different life and quite possibly deeply conflicted. Growing up and self acceptance, feeling weird in your body, hating your body and learning to accept your body despite its imperfections are normal parts of being a teenager and are heightened for those of us with Autism.
Why are we medicalising and pushing children in to making lifelong decisions? Mermaids have taught and influenced teachers, MP/s GP/s .
It’s a scandal.