My daughter was 12 when she told us she was trans.

I had never heard of ROGD or @LisaLittman1 at that time, but even then I knew that she'd gotten the idea from the Internet.

I'm a geek. I'm internet savvy. I knew exactly what kinds of shit my daughter would find /1

on reddit and DeviantArt and tumblr. And I knew she was surfing those sites. So when she told me she was trans, it wasn't really a surprise. Like a lot of girls, she really hated her period. And she didn't like puberty. And hey, here's a bunch of people online telling her /2

"That means you have gender dysphoria! You're trans!"

And boom, right there, a handy all-purpose explanation for all the awkwardness she was feeling. And it lets her be a Social Justice Hero to boot. What's not to like?

I have never told her she isn't trans. /3

I've never put it in those absolute terms.

But I have told her that there are alternate explanations for what she's experiencing and how she's feeling. That everybody feels awkward and weird when they go through puberty. Especially girls, whose bodies go through a much /4

bigger change than boys. And that what she thinks of as gender dysphoria *might be* just the fact that she can remember years and years of *not* having boobs and a period and now all of the sudden she's got both. And it's kinda weird, right? /5

So when I talk to her about being trans, I don't frame it as "You're not trans". That's adversarial, and I think that's not going to be productive.

Instead, I frame it as "Being trans is ONE explanation for how you feel. And it MAY be the correct one, I dunno." /6

"But it also may not, right? There may be other explanations. And your mom and I think it's important for you to keep that in mind. We're not trying to push you through the 'not Trans' doorway. But you're trying really really hard to close that door, and we /7

just think it would be a good idea to keep it open until you're at least a little older."

As always, we'll see how it goes in 3-6 years.