How do you define gender?

[Slache]

I have not read other replies. One side of a two, or multifaceted concept typically reserved for a particular sex, sex being defined by chromosomes. Examples would be pink vs blue and doctor vs nurse.

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, regentrude said:

When we were growing up, there was also no mental heath awareness, depression and anxiety were seen as weaknesses where you should just pull yourself together, therapy was stigmatized, and people were not comfortable being open about mental health. The good old days weren't quite as idyllic.

I didn't say anything at all about idyllic. I agree mental health awareness and treatment are much better now (though still not great at all) and I'm very glad therapy is no longer as stigmatized (especially as we have had to make heavy use of it in our family). However, the dramatic increase in suicide rates among young people and the very high prevalence of psychiatric prescriptions for young people is very real and I don't think it's all a case of mental health awareness being better now (if it's better, we shouldn't be having more suicides). I muse on these things because it affects us, and I'd like to think of how we might make it better, not because I'm pining for the good old days. I do know that serious mental health difficulties just weren't as prevalent when I was a teen as they are now.

[Murphy101]

7 minutes ago, regentrude said:

What is a napro doctor?

Can they make periods/PMS go away without hormones?

Natural pro creative technology. I have many friends who have used them and they may not always be able to solve everything but they do make an effort to do it without hormones. Though the title is pro creative. Most of my friends have used it to deal with all kinds of female issues. Obviously a healthier woman is often also able to be more procreative, but that means she’s probably more regular and more able to understand her body too, which would make NFP to avoid more effective too.

[SKL]

16 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

DD is 11 and started her period a few months ago. It used to seem strange to me why girls wouldn't want to be girls but watching DD deal with her period has been eye opening for me. Of course I went through it too but had long since forgotten it. 

There is a lot of blood and it's completely unpredictable. The pediatrician told me that her periods might be unpredictable for the next 2 or so years. We were at my parents last week and I had to do multiple loads of laundry because of leaks. It got on her clothes and the sheets. 

I've been very matter of fact about it. I don't want her to pick up on the idea that is something shameful or needs to be hidden. Blood getting on the sheets is totally normal and will come out in the laundry. If it's permanently stained, we'll buy new. No big deal. 

But it's still just a big pain. DD is going to camp next month and we have to plan for this and I won't be there to help or do laundry. 

It just seems so unfair. That there is this burden placed on you because you are a girl. 

There's also the cramping. The pediatrician said to expect unpredictable cramps in the first few years. 

This is so hard for a kid and I can totally understand why some kids would see it and say, "nope!" 

 

Don't boys also get uncontrollable, unpredictable leaks?  At least that's what I've heard ....

[Melissa Louise]

5 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

re fact-based population averages...

vs social expectations-driven stereotypes

 

Nine pages in, and I'm truly flummoxed how anyone can argue that BOTH of these are real.  Yes, uterus and menstruation and breastfeeding exist, stemming directly from sex organs; as do population averages re height and shape, within which there are individuals who are very tall compared to the female average or very slight compared to the male.  Some individuals never bear children, whether by choice or circumstance or infertility, and thus never experience the biological experiences of pregnancy or breastfeeding.

Yes, culture-based expectations exist on roles and looks and behavior. Some individuals are fully comfortable within those expectations, other individuals chafe at specific *aspects or limitations* of those expectations-- clothing/makeup/manicures, how women are expected to behave in bed, career, compensation, roles within household/family -- of some of those expectations (FWIW, that's where I land personally). Other individuals really experience a pretty deep revulsion against the entire package.

I feel like that much is directly verifiable, empirically?  There ARE averages that can be measured. There ARE individuals whose testimony about their own personal struggles against social expectations/limitations we have heard right on this thread.

______

 

So nine pages in, I am discerning two issues that are more subjective or exploratory.

1. Whether "gender" is useful language to convey that bucket of cultural/social expectations that do not derive directly from sex organs; and
2. Whether individuals who experience a pretty deep revulsion against that whole package of cultural/social expectations (clothing/makeup/manicures, how women are expected to behave in bed, career, compensation, roles within household/family) are, in this moment, processing that into a determination to reshape their physical bodies rather than try to reshape societal expectations.

 

Nine pages in, I don't think (?) that any of us who've pushed back on the language of "gender" to label ~~clothing/makeup/manicures, how women are expected to behave in bed, career, compensation, roles within household/family~~ deny that such social and cultural expectations do exist.  Only that "gender" as a word isn't useful, or the correct terminology, to describe that bucket of stuff.  

Is that correct?

 

I'm much more interested in the second question. I have been frankly astonished, over the last five years, at *how many* young people experience ~~some version~~ of dysphoria. The sheer numbers. Unless there's some explanation for what is different, in this moment, that is causal to that distress... it suggests that a STAGGERING NUMBER of people must have felt a staggering weight of un-languaged in-actionable distress in all prior generations.

Which perhaps is true.

Correct.

Re the question you find more interesting, adolescent distress is culturally expressed. The exact same peer transition clusters functioned as cutting clusters in earlier cohorts.

We now (not at the time) correctly understand cutting as a symptom of distress. 

Interestingly, for myself, it was pregnancy that alleviated the urge to self harm. Other therapies are available.

~

The suggested solution to adolescent distress, which often focuses on the changing body is currently highly individualistic. Change the body. 

I think it's worth thinking about whether that's an ethical way to go en masse. 

By contrast, the suggested feminist solutions are class based. Go out and fight. Your body isn't wrong; the expectations heaped on your body are the problem. 

When my daughter was going through the throes of post-puberty ROGD (we're allowed to use the term?) what startled me was the hyper-individual nature of her proposed solutions. From a kid who read Engels all the way through. Who wouldn't dream of voting for the other guys. 

To me, it was no different than if she'd proposed to deal with racism by lightening her skin and having facial surgery to change her features to standard Anglo. 

 

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, KSera said:

 I do know that serious mental health difficulties just weren't as prevalent when I was a teen as they are now.

Genuine question,  no snark: How do you know that this was the case, and that they weren't just not diagnosed and acknowledged as such?

I don't know how one would ascertain something like this. There definitely was mental illness. My best friend from school developed anorexia at 16 (she died at 30 from the damage). A friend killed himself when I was 18. In highschool, I had a classmate with mutismus who never spoke, and another with anxiety ( so bad he dropped out of school.) Another friend was disabled because of mental illness in his 20s. All anecdotal, of course... 

[Melissa Louise]

3 hours ago, Catwoman said:

It sounds so charming when Southern people say it. 

When I say it... not so much. 

And when my gravelly voiced NYC-born-and-raised dh says it... oh dear. It’s just not good. It sounds so WRONG. 😜

 

It's cultural appropriation when I say it. 

[Murphy101]

5 minutes ago, SKL said:

Don't boys also get uncontrollable, unpredictable leaks?  At least that's what I've heard ....

Yes they do, though usually only at night. And unpredictable arousal too. Nothing says 7th grade gym shorts like a boy seeing the girls running by and him suddenly needs to hold the basketball a few more minutes in front of himself bc those gym shorts in the 80s  hid absolutely nothing. 

[Melissa Louise]

4 hours ago, Catwoman said:

I can understand that, and I think it’s very common for girls to feel that way. 

My problem is trying to understand how that translates into girls wanting to change their gender to male as a response to that. It’s not like changing their name to Bob and their pronoun to “he” or “they” is going to be like waving a magic wand and take away the physical changes their bodies are going through. 

I find it extremely troubling that so many teen girls are developing gender issues. What are we, as a society, doing wrong that is making this so prevalent? Why are we not letting our girls know that the things they are feeling are normal, and that they will pass in time for almost all of them?

Why would we tell our girls that the way to deal with those feelings is by denying that they are, in fact, girls, and adopting an entirely new persona? It would seem that changing their gender would only end up adding a whole new set of problems and psychological issues for them... and in the meantime, their breasts are still developing and they are still getting their periods. So where is the benefit? 

A girl can be self-conscious about her developing body without going so far as to start living as a boy. She can wear baggy or androgynous clothing and still identify as female. But now, if she does that, are people going to keep asking her if she’s male or asking for her pronoun? That doesn’t seem helpful; it seems distressing and confusing.

I don’t pretend to know the answers to these things. And as I have said before, none of this applies to the kids who are actually transgender. That’s entirely different.

My kids have been 'actually TG', if by that you mean 'had clinically diagnosed GD'. It applies. 

[SKL]

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

[regentrude]

6 minutes ago, SKL said:

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

No, asexual is not the same as abstinent (although it often leads to abstinence). Asexual means a lack of sexual attraction or very low interest in sex.

( Conversely, a person can have high interest in sex but remain abstinent,  i.e. not act on their sexual urge)

ETA: and it would be great if that were normalized and not seen as a deficiency.

2nd ETA: contrary to popular belief,  it doesn't have to mean a person dislikes sex or finds it unpleasant.  They just don't care particularly. 

Edited June 27, 2021 by regentrude

[Melissa Louise]

2 hours ago, Chrysalis Academy said:

This. This so much.

And I'd like to offer the thought that some of the "late" transitioning that many see as inauthentic/based on peer pressure is actually this: an nb child can feel perfectly comfortable in a body that is not that different in form or function from all/other children's bodies (at least not in any way that kids typically see). Once that body changes, dramatically, in an unwelcome manner, they can become deeply uncomfortable with that body - it no longer feels right to them, because it has changed dramatically. They feel like the same person that they always did, but suddenly their body is completely different. This is a real, authentic experience that some people have.

This isn't to say that peer-influenced desire to transition is not real. Just that it isn't the only reason for someone to identify as nb or trans "later" than early childhood.

This is a real, authentic process common to puberty. 

Many teens feel this way. I'd go so far as to describe it as way more common than the mythical teen who wakes up to breasts and periods and exclaims 'Oh, hooray, I'm a woman now!'

It's a major life adjustment. Some people can struggle with adjustments to a painful extent. Does it mean we create an (aesthetic/social/medical) environment in which adjustment to the real is NOT the goal? 

 

 

[Danae]

26 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

DD is 11 and started her period a few months ago. It used to seem strange to me why girls wouldn't want to be girls but watching DD deal with her period has been eye opening for me. Of course I went through it too but had long since forgotten it. 

There is a lot of blood and it's completely unpredictable. The pediatrician told me that her periods might be unpredictable for the next 2 or so years. We were at my parents last week and I had to do multiple loads of laundry because of leaks. It got on her clothes and the sheets. 

I've been very matter of fact about it. I don't want her to pick up on the idea that is something shameful or needs to be hidden. Blood getting on the sheets is totally normal and will come out in the laundry. If it's permanently stained, we'll buy new. No big deal. 

But it's still just a big pain. DD is going to camp next month and we have to plan for this and I won't be there to help or do laundry. 

It just seems so unfair. That there is this burden placed on you because you are a girl. 

There's also the cramping. The pediatrician said to expect unpredictable cramps in the first few years. 

This is so hard for a kid and I can totally understand why some kids would see it and say, "nope!" 

 

If she hasn’t tried period undies, get her some ASAP.  (Not necessarily as a replacement for pads, but as backup.)

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, regentrude said:

No, asexual is not the same as abstinent (although it often leads to abstinence). Asexual means a lack of sexual attraction or very low interest in sex.

ETA: and it would be great if that were normalized and not seen as a deficiency.

2nd ETA: contrary to popular belief,  it doesn't have to mean a person dislikes sex or finds it unpleasant.  They just don't care particularly. 

I think it's very normal for a lot of 9th graders to have not yet experienced sexual attraction.  But obviously that doesn't mean they never will.  But I am wondering what they're telling young people to make them think 14yos are "asexual."

Personally, I was much older than 14 before I had my first real crush.

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

This is a real, authentic process common to puberty. 

Many teens feel this way. I'd go so far as to describe it as way more common than the mythical teen who wakes up to breasts and periods and exclaims 'Oh, hooray, I'm a woman now!'

It's a major life adjustment. Some people can struggle with adjustments to a painful extent. Does it mean we create an (aesthetic/social/medical) environment in which adjustment to the real is NOT the goal?

LOL one of my daughters literally said "yay!" when she got her first period.  My other daughter let out a piercing scream and yelled "noooooo!"  (They were both 11yo.)

[Melissa Louise]

5 minutes ago, regentrude said:

No, asexual is not the same as abstinent (although it often leads to abstinence). Asexual means a lack of sexual attraction or very low interest in sex.

( Conversely, a person can have high interest in sex but remain abstinent,  i.e. not act on their sexual urge)

ETA: and it would be great if that were normalized and not seen as a deficiency.

2nd ETA: contrary to popular belief,  it doesn't have to mean a person dislikes sex or finds it unpleasant.  They just don't care particularly. 

I do wonder, however, whether it's linked to increased anti-depressant use. 

As adults, we notice when a flattened libido is one side effect. I wonder whether kids like mine ( on meds since early or mid teens, pre sexual experiences) know that their asexuality might be medication-related and not an intrinsic part of their person. 

 

[regentrude]

Just now, SKL said:

I think it's very normal for a lot of 9th graders to have not yet experienced sexual attraction.  But obviously that doesn't mean they never will.  But I am wondering what they're telling young people to make them think 14yos are "asexual."

My guess: Media. TV. Internet. All that focus on sexual attraction. Are there any movies with young female protagonists that don't include any of this? Don't the teen girl magazines talk about boyfriends a lot? I am not surprised that a 14 y/o who isn't interested in sex might feel like they're atypical and need a label. The indoctrination is ubiquitous. 

 

[SlowRiver]

1 hour ago, Catwoman said:

I have heard others say that, as well. When the body they have always been able to count on to allow them to live active lives starts slowing down, that’s often not an easy adjustment, and when something like sudden illness or injury causes that change, it’s even harder. 😞 

In her case it wasn't the function she was thinking of. It was how she looked. She said her inner sense of herself was as a young woman, and when she looked in the mirror she saw someone else, and it made her feel disembodied.

And FWIW that's how I felt in my early teens when I started puberty. It was like I was in the wrong body, it didn't correspond to my inner sense of my vision of myself, which was of a pre-pubescent body. Again, like an out of body experience.

[regentrude]

4 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I do wonder, however, whether it's linked to increased anti-depressant use. 

As adults, we notice when a flattened libido is one side effect. I wonder whether kids like mine ( on meds since early or mid teens, pre sexual experiences) know that their asexuality might be medication-related and not an intrinsic part of their person. 

Surely something to consider. 

But I think there's also now finally a term persons who don't have a strong libido can use, instead of considering it a shameful deficiency. Some people just have a low sex drive, without any meds involved ( and medicine has precious little help to offer for women who are like this). And they live in a culture hyperfocused on sex, and it sucks.

Edited June 27, 2021 by regentrude

[Melissa Louise]

Teen Vogue is talking about anal sex for non-prostate owners. We're well beyond 'girls, how to let him know you like him' stage of teen media.

[LucyStoner]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

When we were growing up, there was also no mental heath awareness, depression and anxiety were seen as weaknesses where you should just pull yourself together, therapy was stigmatized, and people were not comfortable being open about mental health. The good old days weren't quite as idyllic.

While I definitely tend to agree with this, having two kids with a range of developmental and mental health issues, I have also wondered that sometimes we may have overcorrected and have a tendency to medicalize and over diagnosis what may well be a normal part of the highs and lows of life.  

Not every distress is clinically significant.  My thinking on this may be partly because I have realized that sometimes for my sons, less is more in helping them through their anxiety and helping them learn to navigate their various challenges.  

We could have done a month long intensive therapeutic day camp for my younger son this summer.  he’s done it in the past and it was an attractive option.  We also were offered something like 7 gazillion hours of special education recovery services for him by the district at no cost to us due to the impact of Covid on sped delivery (and because we seem to be on some sort of do not piss off this family list after we straight up sued them in 2019). We mulled it over and decided he would be better served by a couple of family vacations, fishing with grandpa, a week at sleep away camp and two weeks of highly interesting to him day camps.  >1/2 the summer will be home with no camps.   Not everything can be fixed with maximum hours of interventions or therapeutic services.  Obviously, it goes without saying that our approach is far from telling them to suck it up but sometimes, in some contexts, it does appear that way to others who don’t understand their needs.  

Edited June 27, 2021 by LucyStoner

[Frances]

26 minutes ago, SKL said:

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

My first serious boyfriend had a younger brother who was born with some issue concerning his testicles. I never asked, so I don’t know the particulars. But as an adult, it was understood by family and friends that he was asexual and had no interest in dating or marrying.

[SlowRiver]

32 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

If that is the case, then if kids could wade in a wider/bigger bucket of more fluid/asexual/androgynous range -- rather than fast-track to bodily changes, I mean -- would, I would think, HELP over time. 

 

re assurances from grownups, and how they land to adolescents

This is hard, because (I know from hard-won experience as both a onetime hard-to-parent kid, and also as a parent to a hard-to-parent kid, that...) some kids can't hear that "This Too Shall Pass" message from parents. 

Not "won't."  Can't.

I'm not sure. My gut feeling is that giving options out as if they are just normal things can have the opposite effect that you are suggesting, and actually I think the research supports that inasmuch as it exists. Because in some ways it becomes much easier to accept something that is an inevitability - you will be male or female, and so rather than try and be something else, often with quite limited success, you have to mature and realise that you are yourself, and that the kind of person you are is what a female or male person is. In a way you could say that it forces a kind of transcendence of the categories.

I'm not convinced that telling young people they belong to some specific category of sexual orientation that they have to figure out is terrible helpful either, compared to stressing that sexuality is often emergent through the teen years and even the early twenties and there is really no need to give it a label until then, or ever if you prefer. It really isn't uncommon for girls at 15 to not be all that interested in sex in a real way (some are of course quite the opposite.) That doesn't make them asexual, it just means they aren't that interested in sex at the moment. And that's true whatever age it happens at, or if it stays the same your whole life. For some these things are quite stable, others less so, and you don't really know till you die though most people settle into something of a predictable pattern by adulthood. 

[Chrysalis Academy]

5 hours ago, Catwoman said:

 

I don’t pretend to know the answers to these things. And as I have said before, none of this applies to the kids who are actually transgender. That’s entirely different.

How do you decide which kids are "actually transgender"? What are the criteria?

I mean, it sounds like a lot of folks here don't accept "the kid says they are" as a valid criterion.

[LucyStoner]

18 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

We have period undies too but DD still had some leaking with them. I'm hoping that the period undies will work well for school next year. 

I can’t find period undies that don’t leak for me and at $30ish bucks a pop, I stopped trying.  They do work for two of my nieces.  For one of my nieces, they are a backstop for pads.  

One thing I seriously hope is changing is how young girls with serious menstrual issues are treated.  In 10 years of absolutely horrible periods from age 11-22, no doctor ever paid much mind to my symptoms or tried to offer me any actual information about what I was experiencing.  I’m sure some assumed I was exaggerating.  It was only after I had my older son and my periods shortened and were no longer accompanied with debilitating pain and vomiting (days 1 and 2 of period that lasted 2 weeks) that a doctor, hearing me report that my period has returned but was very different offered up any information on what it probably was and why it lessened when I had a child.  Honestly, until my first few postpartum periods I wasn’t really aware of how far out of the range of normal my periods had been.  I knew they were a bit worse than average.  I was a college educated woman who’d received supposedly comprehensive sex ed in elementary, middle and high school and it just didn’t dawn on me that feeling like I was being torn in 1/2 wasn’t just part of what a period was.  😬 Girls deserve better care and information than that.  
 

Edited June 27, 2021 by LucyStoner

[SlowRiver]

19 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

While I definitely tend to agree with this, having two kids with a range of developmental and mental health issues, I have also wondered that sometimes we may have overcorrected and have a tendency to medicalize and over diagnosis what may well be a normal part of the highs and lows of life.  

Not every distress is clinically significant.  My thinking on this may be partly because I have realized that sometimes for my sons, less is more in helping them through their anxiety and helping them learn to navigate their various challenges.  

 

So something I noticed this past year that disturbed me with my daughter who is struggling with anxiety is that we realised, after a while, that the various symptoms she was manifesting seemed to be tied to either what they were covering in health class, or things she'd heard about on You-tube videos. And while it might just be chance, the whole ramping up of her anxiety seemed to correlate with a large unit they did in school on it. 

And that's not to say it isn't real, because it is, but it seems a lot like somehow it was triggered by this focus on introspection through these classroom materials trying to identify problems. There was some kind of brain loop created that has not been helpful. But whether that's true or not she was getting ideas about what anxious people with problems do from sources that were supposed to be telling her it was ok to deal with these things.

[Melissa Louise]

16 minutes ago, Chrysalis Academy said:

How do you decide which kids are "actually transgender"? What are the criteria?

I mean, it sounds like a lot of folks here don't accept "the kid says they are" as a valid criterion.

I don't think it's at all a helpful designation. 

I think about it like this:

Kids without clinically diagnosed GD 

Kids with c.d. GD 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Melissa Louise

[LucyStoner]

1 hour ago, SlowRiver said:

So something I noticed this past year that disturbed me with my daughter who is struggling with anxiety is that we realised, after a while, that the various symptoms she was manifesting seemed to be tied to either what they were covering in health class, or things she'd heard about on You-tube videos. And while it might just be chance, the whole ramping up of her anxiety seemed to correlate with a large unit they did in school on it. 

And that's not to say it isn't real, because it is, but it seems a lot like somehow it was triggered by this focus on introspection through these classroom materials trying to identify problems. There was some kind of brain loop created that has not been helpful. But whether that's true or not she was getting ideas about what anxious people with problems do from sources that were supposed to be telling her it was ok to deal with these things.

This is a phenomenon that is well established as something many medical students experience.  My uncle and cousin (both doctors) said that you never see more illnesses or think you or your close relatives have more illnesses than in the 1-2 years after you start medical school.  My friend whose husband was a resident said he was constantly diagnosing her with mystery diseases that she didn’t notice herself.  🤣

It is also true that much like putting juvenile delinquents together can cause the members of the group to escalate their criminal behaviors (known as deviancy training), kids with eating disorders and other issues often develop more serious symptoms or new to them disorders that other group members have if they are treated in group settings or become close.  This doesn’t mean that ignored or untreated issues go away or that group therapy/peer support is necessarily dangerous, but that due caution needs to be taken against peer influences for vulnerable kids.  It strikes me as odd how we know this happens for so many conditions but are expected to believe it could absolutely never possibly happen with this one condition called gender dysphoria.  It defies reason.  

Edited June 27, 2021 by LucyStoner

[Melissa Louise]

Yep,when I started my psych degree, we were warned that we would worry we had X condition under discussion, and that was very normal. And to go see a psychologist if the anxiety persisted. And not to do self-diagnosis. 

[Dmmetler]

48 minutes ago, SKL said:

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

I would probably have identified as ace at your kids’ age because I literally had not experienced attraction beyond someone being fun to talk to. In my case, I simply wasn’t biologically there yet, but if being ace had gotten me out of the mocking questions about boyfriends and dates that made me feel inadequate.

 

10 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

So something I noticed this past year that disturbed me with my daughter who is struggling with anxiety is that we realised, after a while, that the various symptoms she was manifesting seemed to be tied to either what they were covering in health class, or things she'd heard about on You-tube videos. And while it might just be chance, the whole ramping up of her anxiety seemed to correlate with a large unit they did in school on it. 

And that's not to say it isn't real, because it is, but it seems a lot like somehow it was triggered by this focus on introspection through these classroom materials trying to identify problems. There was some kind of brain loop created that has not been helpful. But whether that's true or not she was getting ideas about what anxious people with problems do from sources that were supposed to be telling her it was ok to deal with these things.

My abnormal psych prof called that “med student syndrome” and in the first lecture told us that we would see symptoms and conditions in us and our friends and family. Because every single symptom in the DSM is NORMAL. It’s when they become too much and come together and take over that it’s a problem. 
 

 

[Dmmetler]

I’ve spent a lot of time stressing to my 16 yr old that as much will change between age 16 and 26 as it did between 6 and 16, and that while things may seem x now, they will seem very different in a few years. I don’t know if it sinks in at all, though.

[Pam in CT]

re wider/bigger bucket of more fluid/asexual/androgynous range giving kids more room

24 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

I'm not sure. My gut feeling is that giving options out as if they are just normal things can have the opposite effect that you are suggesting, and actually I think the research supports that inasmuch as it exists. Because in some ways it becomes much easier to accept something that is an inevitability - you will be male or female, and so rather than try and be something else, often with quite limited success, you have to mature and realise that you are yourself, and that the kind of person you are is what a female or male person is. In a way you could say that it forces a kind of transcendence of the categories.

I'm not convinced that telling young people they belong to some specific category of sexual orientation that they have to figure out is terrible helpful either, compared to stressing that sexuality is often emergent through the teen years and even the early twenties and there is really no need to give it a label until then, or ever if you prefer. It really isn't uncommon for girls at 15 to not be all that interested in sex in a real way (some are of course quite the opposite.) That doesn't make them asexual, it just means they aren't that interested in sex at the moment. And that's true whatever age it happens at, or if it stays the same your whole life. For some these things are quite stable, others less so, and you don't really know till you die though most people settle into something of a predictable pattern by adulthood. 

I'm not musing about "giving out options" or telling young people they belong to some specific category" so much as dialing back the social/cultural expectations side of things (that I myself think of as "gender expectations/roles," but recognize that others on the thread don't embrace that particular language).

That if there were less calcified expectations about what folks wear, makeup/manicures/hair, career & compensation, expectations about behavior in bed, roles/expectations within household... all the stuff that *doesn't* directly tie to body parts... kids might have more space.

I do think that those expectations have actually hardened, not become more flexible, since the 70s. Maybe it's porn, maybe it's backlash against feminism, I dunno. 

When I was in high school (Dorothy Hamill days), *lots* of girls had short hair. (Today, on the East Coast at least, it is signalling.)  *Lots* of kids wore jeans, chinos, sweaters, Bean boots in bad winter, Converse in good weather. Cut & sized for the female v male body, but the styles were quite similar.  (Today, here, that kind of garb is signalling.) In college *lots* of women opted out of makeup, shaving, tight or restrictive clothing. Not all women, or not every day... but it wasn't a statement one way or another.  Superficial stuff perhaps, compared to pay equity and unreciprocal sex. But visible and apparent in a way that the Longer Term is not.

[SlowRiver]

13 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re wider/bigger bucket of more fluid/asexual/androgynous range giving kids more room

I'm not musing about "giving out options" or telling young people they belong to some specific category" so much as dialing back the social/cultural expectations side of things (that I myself think of as "gender expectations/roles," but recognize that others on the thread don't embrace that particular language).

That if there were less calcified expectations about what folks wear, makeup/manicures/hair, career & compensation, expectations about behavior in bed, roles/expectations within household... all the stuff that *doesn't* directly tie to body parts... kids might have more space.

I do think that those expectations have actually hardened, not become more flexible, since the 70s. Maybe it's porn, maybe it's backlash against feminism, I dunno. 

When I was in high school (Dorothy Hamill days), *lots* of girls had short hair. (Today, on the East Coast at least, it is signalling.)  *Lots* of kids wore jeans, chinos, sweaters, Bean boots in bad winter, Converse in good weather. Cut & sized for the female v male body, but the styles were quite similar.  (Today, here, that kind of garb is signalling.) In college *lots* of women opted out of makeup, shaving, tight or restrictive clothing. Not all women, or not every day... but it wasn't a statement one way or another.  Superficial stuff perhaps, compared to pay equity and unreciprocal sex. But visible and apparent in a way that the Longer Term is not.

Yes, these things have become worse. I've wondered if one reason isn't that it makes it possible to sell more things to people.

There's also some interesting research that suggests that in societies where men and women have more similar lives, they make more differentiation in terms of things like clothing and social signals for sex. So maybe that is a factor.

Unfortunately the gender norms like non-binary identification and such seem to be making all that worse rather than better.

[SlowRiver]

50 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I don't think it's at all a helpful designation. 

I think about it like this:

Kids without clinically diagnosed GD 

Kids with c.d. GD 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, "being trans" is a treatment path, rather than a diagnosis.

[LucyStoner]

The sexism about roles in bed is definitely being fueled by porn.  Some kids do seem to be learning that NOT wanting to be hurt in the context of intimacy is “kink shaming” and that “kink shaming” is as bad as transphobia and racism.  I was skeptical of the role of porn in all this but my son and my oldest niece talk to me *a lot* and it became clear that some of their friends were getting horribly sexist ideas that besides tying back to insular online spaces, do seem to tie back to pornography.  Porn isn’t racy pictures in a box hidden in the garage or under big brother’s bed anymore- it is increasing available for free to any curious child with an internet connection and it is designed to be addictive.  Porn is also often used by abusers to groom CSA victims.  A large number of girls have had a person they know ask them for nudes before they have finished middle school.  A large number of young women report that their partners expect to choke them.  No discussion, no consent.  Just an expected thing they can do.  Criticism of porn is often seen as prudish, reactive or an indicator of some objectionable views.    
 

If I were a young girl seeing what passes for sex in porn I would straight up embrace the label asexual.  Because no thank you.  

Edited June 28, 2021 by LucyStoner

[TravelingChris]

6 hours ago, maize said:

A child's body is in many ways more like an adult male than an adult female body. Children don't have breasts or curvy hips, and neither children nor men menstruate.

Breast development can be physically painful (it was for me), periods are messy and often come with painful cramps, females but not males develop more fat deposits during adolescence, and this in a society where fat is viewed as shameful.

Add in unwanted sexual attention and often sexual harassment triggered by the development of female secondary sex traits and it seems quite reasonable that many females find the adolescent period profoundly uncomfortable.

Actually, one the other perspective- girls who mature later- like I did and both of my daughters, also get teased and feel like there is something wrong with us.

[SKL]

Maybe we need a discussion about how to talk to our daughters about porn ....

I don't know that my kids are seeing porn, but they have internet and silly friends, so it is certainly more than possible.  😕

[TravelingChris]

3 hours ago, SKL said:

Do parents and health teachers not tell pubescent kids that it is normal to go through periods of being uncomfortable with their bodies, including feeling ugly/fat even when they actually aren't ugly/fat?  And that this is temporary?

That's teen hormones.

After I went through that myself & came out the other side, I vowed to tell every related tween all about it before they started experiencing that.

I must make a note to talk to my kids about this again, in case they have lost the message.

Really wish I knew what they were hearing at school.

I did and my mom did not,  But my mom was very depressed since my dad died so I do not blame her.

Edited June 27, 2021 by TravelingChris

[LMD]

1 hour ago, SlowRiver said:

In her case it wasn't the function she was thinking of. It was how she looked. She said her inner sense of herself was as a young woman, and when she looked in the mirror she saw someone else, and it made her feel disembodied.

And FWIW that's how I felt in my early teens when I started puberty. It was like I was in the wrong body, it didn't correspond to my inner sense of my vision of myself, which was of a pre-pubescent body. Again, like an out of body experience.

I asked my mother in law something similar once too. We were looking at her wedding photo - she was married at 16 - and she said that she feels the same. She knows she looks older but she doesn't feel it.

Now I'm a couple of decades older than my wedding photos and I get it. I still feel the same, objectively I know my face is more care-worn and my body is post-4-kids & chubby. The image I have of myself was set as a young adult. It's not a dysphoric experience for me, but I think I'm just naturally less observant than many 😄

I also still 'see' my dh as the boy I fell in love with, even though I can see the lines and less hair, it's like the image merges with the memory mirage and the collective history overlays it to boost the love feeling.

I dunno, all that to say, self image is weird. 

[LMD]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

Teen Vogue is talking about anal sex for non-prostate owners. We're well beyond 'girls, how to let him know you like him' stage of teen media.

Yeah, and leaving the clitoris off diagrams. Way to be sex positive - if by sex positive they mean 'available for use by a male'

[KSera]

2 hours ago, regentrude said:

Genuine question,  no snark: How do you know that this was the case, and that they weren't just not diagnosed and acknowledged as such?

I don't know how one would ascertain something like this. There definitely was mental illness. My best friend from school developed anorexia at 16 (she died at 30 from the damage). A friend killed himself when I was 18. In highschool, I had a classmate with mutismus who never spoke, and another with anxiety ( so bad he dropped out of school.) Another friend was disabled because of mental illness in his 20s. All anecdotal, of course... 

That's a fair question, and I almost didn't write it, because I knew I would be called on it 😉. Suicide rates are definitely much higher. Enough so that it's frequently evident even when you don't look at the statistics (which verify it). In my high school of 1200 kids, there was a suicide the year before I was there, and one my freshman year. That was it for those 5 years at that school. In my local schools now, it is much higher than that, with it not being uncommon for their to be multiple cases in one year. Obviously there were people with mental illness back then, as there always have been, but I know of so many kids debilitated by it now, and didn't then. If the rates were the same then as now, I don't see how it wouldn't have been obvious then as it is now. So, that's not a very scientific answer other than the suicide rates, and I can't prove it's true, but I think a lot of people working with kids will agree with it.

 

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

Other people answered, so I'll just agree with what others said. I agree kids as young as 14 need to be learning that it's normal not to feel sexual attraction and doesn't necessarily mean they never will. I definitely get the idea from my ace kid that they expect that everyone who identifies as hetero or homosexual has a lot of interest in sex, which I don't think is true. For some, being asexual will be lifelong, for some it may change as they get older. At least it seems like a pretty innocuous identity to take on, as it doesn't require any medical treatment, and seems easy to shift if someone decides they want to at some point.

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

I do wonder, however, whether it's linked to increased anti-depressant use. 

As adults, we notice when a flattened libido is one side effect. I wonder whether kids like mine ( on meds since early or mid teens, pre sexual experiences) know that their asexuality might be medication-related and not an intrinsic part of their person. 

 

Interesting thought. I hadn't considered that. I'm trying to recall, but I'm pretty sure it predates medication for my dc. Though, bcp were probably already on board, and those have the same effect. I think it's more deeply ingrained for them, though.

[TravelingChris]

2 hours ago, regentrude said:

Genuine question,  no snark: How do you know that this was the case, and that they weren't just not diagnosed and acknowledged as such?

I don't know how one would ascertain something like this. There definitely was mental illness. My best friend from school developed anorexia at 16 (she died at 30 from the damage). A friend killed himself when I was 18. In highschool, I had a classmate with mutismus who never spoke, and another with anxiety ( so bad he dropped out of school.) Another friend was disabled because of mental illness in his 20s. All anecdotal, of course... 

My sister had some kind of counseling in her teens in the later 70's,  It was awful=-through the counselor she decided that some games or nicknames we had as young kids were what caused all her problems. (those games and nickname weren't cruel or unusual in any way- cops and robbers type stuff)  What that counselor missed was that my sister was bipolar.

[Terabith]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

Can we talk about the "asexual" identity?  My 14yos talk about people being "asexual."  I tell them I think they mean "abstinent," and I'm super glad if they and their friends are "abstinent" now and for the next several years (at least)! 

Is "asexual" the new term for "abstinent"?  Is it viewed as a temporary identity?  If so, then are the other identities also viewed as temporary?

Asexual is not the same as abstinent.  There are all sorts of caveats around it, but it's basically an orientation in which you are never attracted to anyone, never have sexual urges, etc.  It's not really a temporary identity.  It's definitely different from abstinent or celibate.  

I was looking up the term asexual, which I thought I coined, back in the 1990's, well before there was any information out there on it.  

Edited June 27, 2021 by Terabith

[regentrude]

24 minutes ago, KSera said:

That's a fair question, and I almost didn't write it, because I knew I would be called on it 😉. Suicide rates are definitely much higher. Enough so that it's frequently evident even when you don't look at the statistics (which verify it).

Oh I definitely believe you that suicide rates are higher. But I don't think we can take this as proof that there is more mental illness. The increase could also be explained by any of the following: information about suicide methods is easier accessible via the internet; the poorly understood "contagiousness" of it (suicide clusters);  suicide may be more readily perceived as solution (for example because fewer people might be deterred because they view it as mortal sin); historic suicide numbers are not very reliable because of the attached stigma (often the suicide would have been hushed.)
Fewer suicides doesn't necessarily mean people had better mental health - they might have been suffering at the same rate and just not ended their lives as readily.

Edited June 27, 2021 by regentrude

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, LucyStoner said:

I can’t find period undies that don’t leak for me and at $30ish bucks a pop, I stopped trying.  They do work for two of my nieces.  For one of my nieces, they are a backstop for pads.  

One thing I seriously hope is changing is how young girls with serious menstrual issues are treated.  In 10 years of absolutely horrible periods from age 11-22, no doctor ever paid much mind to my symptoms or tried to offer me any actual information about what I was experiencing.  I’m sure some assumed I was exaggerating.  It was only after I had my older son and my periods shortened and were no longer accompanied with debilitating pain and vomiting (days 1 and 2 of period that lasted 2 weeks) that a doctor, hearing me report that my period has returned but was very different offered up any information on what it probably was and why it lessened when I had a child.  Honestly, until my first few postpartum periods I wasn’t really aware of how far out of the range of normal my periods had been.  I knew they were a bit worse than average.  I was a college educated woman who’d received supposedly comprehensive sex ed in elementary, middle and high school and it just didn’t dawn on me that feeling like I was being torn in 1/2 wasn’t just part of what a period was.  😬 Girls deserve better care and information than that.  
 

Yup.  I found labor to be a walk in the park compared to my teen periods.  They were completely incapacitating, with the worst pain I've ever experienced and intractable vomiting.  They got a bit better as I got into my 20's but were MUCH better after I had kids.  

[LucyStoner]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Maybe we need a discussion about how to talk to our daughters about porn ....

I don't know that my kids are seeing porn, but they have internet and silly friends, so it is certainly more than possible.  😕

To the talk to your kids about porn issue, a funny but very relevant video.  
 

 

 

 

[SlowRiver]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Asexual is not the same as abstinent.  There are all sorts of caveats around it, but it's basically an orientation in which you are never attracted to anyone, never have sexual urges, etc.  It's not really a temporary identity.  It's definitely different from abstinent or celibate.  

I was looking up the term asexual, which I thought I coined, back in the 1990's, well before there was any information out there on it.  

People who are really into these kinds of identities, in my experience, are quite happy to say they can be temporary.

They compare them to sexuality like hetero or homosexual but don't seem to really have any sense that the mechanisms are similar, or that it's really the same kind of thing. 

Though maybe they don't think of being straight or gay as something like that either, I've read some things where that seems to be the how it's being discussed, which is fair enough I suppose. But if they are all just words to describe potentially short sexual interests, or lack thereof, it seems kind of silly.

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

People who are really into these kinds of identities, in my experience, are quite happy to say they can be temporary.

 

Well...I think that's not necessarily so. There are certainly a lot of kids trying on identities, and it's not unusual to hear of kids changing around with some frequency, and you'll see it on their social medias as such, and those labels change. But, for other people who feel it deeper and more persistently, it can be a point of frustration and contention when they hear people say that it's temporary, particularly with the ace label, because there can be an undercurrent that they will change their mind if they just have the right person to change it, and people bristle at that. It's similar to the trope that lesbians sometimes have to hear from men who think that they can change a woman from lesbian to straight 🙄.

[pinball]

2 hours ago, LMD said:

Yeah, and leaving the clitoris off diagrams. Way to be sex positive - if by sex positive they mean 'available for use by a male'

Wow...i didn’t know that was done. 

That’s one of my favorite organs!

[SlowRiver]

19 minutes ago, KSera said:

Well...I think that's not necessarily so. There are certainly a lot of kids trying on identities, and it's not unusual to hear of kids changing around with some frequency, and you'll see it on their social medias as such, and those labels change. But, for other people who feel it deeper and more persistently, it can be a point of frustration and contention when they hear people say that it's temporary, particularly with the ace label, because there can be an undercurrent that they will change their mind if they just have the right person to change it, and people bristle at that. It's similar to the trope that lesbians sometimes have to hear from men who think that they can change a woman from lesbian to straight 🙄.

But is there some sort of evidence that not feeling sexual attraction is a similar kind of thing to having a sexual orientation mainly towards male or female? And that it is very commonly a lifelong thing that can't be changed? Because if it's not a similar mechanism, or similarly often persistent over a lifetime, it's not actually the same kind of thing, and it may well be a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

Libido is often something that changes significantly over a lifetime, and unless there is a medical reason to think it won't why would anyone just decide to take it on as some kind of permanent identity label?