I did not want to go along with it, but we were in a dark place then. Instead of procuring the sexy push-up bras, I was buying expensive breast binders from a US company. Only clothing from the boys’ or men’s sections could be worn – the baggier the better. I still cannot explain the move from being sexy to denial of being female at all, expect perhaps as an admission of defeat as an attractive teen girl.
She was still cutting herself and we were desperate for it to stop. At that point, we didn’t care what clothes she wore or what hairstyle she wanted, and would risk the potential back problems and ribcage damage caused by the binders. But the more I looked into the trans issue the more worried I became.
I contacted organisations that profess expertise on the subject. But the trouble is, they nearly all point in one direction. You find Mermaids, the UK trans charity, on the first search. I called them to discuss binders and whether they were safe. That conversation was all about affirming my daughter’s decision and advising that the potential harm of not doing so was much greater than any drawbacks in doing so. They suggested getting on the waiting list for NHS gender services straight away “as there is a long waiting list”.
Inevitably, I started to question myself: had my instincts about my happy girl been completely wrong, and had she somehow buried a desire not to be female for all of those years? I looked back through childhood photographs. There she was smiling, dancing, laughing, trying new outfits, dressing up. Not always happy, of course, but never in the slightest bit a boy. So I did some more research, and the more I looked into it, the less coherent and responsible it seemed.
The school is not much help. In fact, the school is part of the problem. If my daughter is self-harming or tells them she is very low, they will call me and tell me to access the community mental health services or A&E. They pass the buck. They’re not keen to dive any deeper even though, if anything, they have encouraged the trans identification, whether through fear, or well-meaning and sincere belief. Some staff have used the “born in the wrong body” phrase, which in the context of troubled teenagers is rather like playing with matches in a parched field. They had me in for a meeting, two against one, and essentially informed me that the name and pronouns would be changed across the school by edict. It was all very smiley, but my views on whether this was a good idea were not sought.
The school brings in organisations to talk about trans identities in a positive way, but notably offers no differing points of view. I have tried to express concern about the approach but have gained little traction. In reality, the school seems to contain other perspectives, with some staff clearly not on board with the full agenda, although apparently afraid to say so.
Where are we now? I do not use the new name and pronouns myself, but I cannot use the old ones on pain of threats of self-harm or worse. The child herself seems to be happier, adopting a gender non-conforming style of dress – more Artful Dodger than Arnie. She is far from masculine though, spending most of her free time with other girls, on what would widely be considered feminine interests — such as trying new recipes, drawing, and watching or reading teen romances. The earlier attempts at ostentatious belching and man-spreading seem to have subsided. I get asked about outfit choices (this baggy hoody or that one) and what to say to a boy who is a bit too keen to meet up outside school.
What is particularly baffling is why a mental difficulty that suddenly arises in adolescence is treated as a newly revealed truth, rather than a problem to be worked through and overcome. Many of these girls are struggling mentally, and indeed some are diagnosed with autism. If my child had an eating disorder, I do not think I would be encouraged to order diet books and seek gastric surgery. Youth has always found ways to challenge the aged. Is this, perhaps, a young-versus-old frontier, and a new way to challenge sex-based roles and expectations? And yet it has taken on a certain kind of holiness.
Many are building their careers on this issue, both in the medical profession and in the burgeoning diversity industry. But for those of us who are not paying attention, it is time to wake up. For those involved from schools, clinics, support service I ask that, before diving in with affirmation, social transition and medical intervention, you just consider asking parents whether the questioning child has ever in the past shown discomfort with their sex. Ask them if the child was troubled and unhappy beforehand. Ask them if the child has been deep in an online rabbit-hole.
School-leaders, ask yourselves why you have an annual month of excitement about the sex and gender diversity alphabet and precious little else the rest of the year on other issues like physical and mental disability. For those making and implementing policy, ask yourselves whether you are being told the full story by the diversity industry, and why the voices of concerned parents and detransitioners are being widely ignored. For parents with young children, especially girls, do not assume that your child will not be affected.
If all of this turns into generally non-conforming quirky behaviour in adulthood, then I will be highly relieved and move on. But there is the widespread promotion out there of hormonal treatment, mastectomies, sterilisation and “bottom surgery” to gender questioning teens as aspirational next steps. Some parents clearly feel that this is right for their child. But for those of us who don’t, the prospect is a frightening one. Early on in this journey our daughter made some glib statements about top surgery (she is, in fact, horrified by a visit to the dentist). Now, we don’t discuss any of this. I admit that I avoid the whole subject to avoid any more harmful rows. I think I have made clear that I love her, but that I disagree with the analysis and don’t support the solution
I grew up in the Seventies and Eighties. We knew as girls that life was tough but that it was our biology that kept us down, and while we were striving to change that, we knew it would be a long fight. I knew that being raped at 16 was entirely down to my biology as a transiently useful vagina-haver, lacking the strength and confidence to fight back. I knew that the handicapping of my professional career in my 30s was due to my biology as a uterus-haver and chest-feeder. I was aware that the lasting damage to my pelvic floor from a forceps delivery was tied to the biological role of birthing parent. I know that my current invisibility is due to my biology as a woman in menopause.
For now, I am putting one foot in front of the other, avoiding certain teachers, firefighting arguments at home, trying to demonstrate love while clinging on to my own sanity and understanding of the world. But my daughter’s identity struggle has reawakened my interest in feminism, quietly folded away at the end of the 20th century. It seems now that some of those uncompromising voices from the “second wave” still need to be heard. How I would love for my child, and many other young girls and women caught up in the same way, to remember the feminism their mothers and grandmothers fought for and thought that they had won.
***
Names have been changed.