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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& #39;d gotten the idea from the Internet.
I& #39;m a geek. I& #39;m internet savvy. I knew exactly what kinds of shit my daughter would find /1
I had never heard of ROGD or @LisaLittman1 at that time, but even then I knew that she& #39;d gotten the idea from the Internet.
I& #39;m a geek. I& #39;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& #39;t really a surprise. Like a lot of girls, she really hated her period. And she didn& #39;t like puberty. And hey, here& #39;s a bunch of people online telling her /2
"That means you have gender dysphoria! You& #39;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& #39;s not to like?
I have never told her she isn& #39;t trans. /3
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& #39;s not to like?
I have never told her she isn& #39;t trans. /3
I& #39;ve never put it in those absolute terms.
But I have told her that there are alternate explanations for what she& #39;s experiencing and how she& #39;s feeling. That everybody feels awkward and weird when they go through puberty. Especially girls, whose bodies go through a much /4
But I have told her that there are alternate explanations for what she& #39;s experiencing and how she& #39;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& #39;s got both. And it& #39;s kinda weird, right? /5
So when I talk to her about being trans, I don& #39;t frame it as "You& #39;re not trans". That& #39;s adversarial, and I think that& #39;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
Instead, I frame it as "Being trans is ONE explanation for how you feel. And it MAY be the correct one, I dunno." /6
