State laws that affect transgender adults and how does this play out?

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

I am not sure I understand you still.  Maybe you are saying that we are able to successfully offset the ignorant things our kids see/hear by talking openly with them.

Yes, this is what I am saying. Establishing a foundation of openness and trust, LONG before the teen years, matters.  It always has. It always will. Those of us who’ve been around a long time are likely to know each others’ parenting inclinations and social stressors.

Edited January 31 by Sneezyone

[ScoutTN]

3 hours ago, freesia said:

Yes, this is what I am talking about. It feels like my lived experience is being discounted because it doesn’t fit a certain narrative. When my dd is having her identity constantly questioned over and over again by the same people, it is harassment. When it happens again in another setting (300 miles away), it becomes hard to agree with people who say it’s not the LBTGQ community who does it or it’s not pressure. Kids are kids and conformity is King for them. I get why it’s happening, but it’s not limited to just one group, nor is it experienced as benign by my dd. 

Same.

[prairiewindmomma]

We've lived in a variety of areas, and in a variety of subcultures within areas (ie--in a church that marriage is between a man and a woman and essential for salvation, that gender is an essential and eternal characteristic, that women and men have separate roles, etc.).  I think it's hard to be a teenager anywhere, but we have definitely been places where teens and adults applied more social pressure to conform (to one group or another) and we have lived places where there was more openness to not only be whomever you are, but to change as you explore different aspects of your personality and expression.  Generally, we have enjoyed living in places with less social pressure= it's been much healthier for everyone in society.

We had an experience last summer where we went to visit my parents and my kids were completely shocked that nearly every woman had highlighted blonde hair (even those clearly born a deep brunette) and nearly every guy wore cargo shorts and a ball cap and tennis shoes.  They literally went around counting people in public one afternoon because it was so shocking how uniform everyone was.  They saw almost no people of color.  It's a very deep contrast to where we live here, where literally all of our neighbors have been born outside of the US (asia, southeast asia, south america, eastern Europe, etc.) and where they see and hear a wide variety of people. It's a lot easier to be "different" when you live in a diverse place...because everyone is "different". 

[SanDiegoMom]

1 hour ago, PronghornD said:

And, no, I don't believe adults are going around telling kids they are trans. 

 

Kid is depressed. Kid researches on internet what is wrong with me. Finds trans. Parents put kid in therapy. Therapists are all gender affirming.  Suggest gender clinic and tell parent (and sometimes kid) that their kid is in a marginalized group and has a 41 percent chance of killing themselves.  Then starts the medical journey. Meanwhile the comorbidites range from ADHD, Autism, childhood or teen sexual assault, illness or death in the family, or any other major trauma. This is happening 100%.  

Right now our culture's symptom pool is trans.  Before is was eating disorders. Before that, I don't know... female hysteria? 

[Pam in CT]

re conformity and signalling markers - There is also the very obvious, but since we haven't yet made it explicit, observation that

Quote

when nearly all LGBT folks were IN THE CLOSET (definitely the case when I was in high school)...

• any signals were very-much-subtler, and
• there was no out loud pressure to "conform" coming from the closeted side.

Because that's what closeted MEANS.

Obviously when the stigma associated with being queer was so extreme that it could not even be named, the conformity dynamics operated differently.

 

Similarly if not so extremely, when there was so much stigma around mental health issues (as again was def the case when I was in high school), there was vastly less social pressure even amongst adults, and (again, my case, my high school, whole lotta DV, substance abuse, and suicide that TODAY would elicit suggestions to get treatment, and then did not) none at all coming from young people themselves, to seek out therapy.

 

I would NOT want to return to the Good Old Days when LGBT individuals felt constrained to stay closeted and folks of any orientation or identification were constrained by stigma from seeking mental health resources.

But the significant erosion of both those stigmas definitely have an effect on how Conformity Dynamics function.

(and to come back around to the OP: traditionalist discomfort with the erosion of those stigmas is one, not the only, but one of the factors fueling bathroom bills.)

[PronghornD]

Just now, SanDiegoMom said:

Kid is depressed. Kid researches on internet what is wrong with me. Finds trans. Parents put kid in therapy. Therapists are all gender affirming.  Suggest gender clinic and tell parent (and sometimes kid) that their kid is in a marginalized group and has a 41 percent chance of killing themselves.  Then starts the medical journey. Meanwhile the comorbidites range from ADHD, Autism, childhood or teen sexual assault, illness or death in the family, or any other major trauma. This is happening 100%.  

Right now our culture's symptom pool is trans.  Before is was eating disorders. Before that, I don't know... female hysteria? 

Then those are very bad therapists! Being gender-affirming does not mean you blame everything on gender. My kid has had some counseling from several different (not very good) counselors. Zero of them referred my kid to a gender clinic. And this is a kid who is non-binary.

[PronghornD]

3 hours ago, freesia said:

Yes, this is what I am talking about. It feels like my lived experience is being discounted because it doesn’t fit a certain narrative. When my dd is having her identity constantly questioned over and over again by the same people, it is harassment. When it happens again in another setting (300 miles away), it becomes hard to agree with people who say it’s not the LBTGQ community who does it or it’s not pressure. Kids are kids and conformity is King for them. I get why it’s happening, but it’s not limited to just one group, nor is it experienced as benign by my dd. 

I do not discount that your daughter has this lived experience. However, I do not extrapolate from this experience that these events are typical of what is happening around the country. Of course, there are bullies of every gender. But it does not necessarily follow that people of a particular gender are more likely to be bullies because other people of their gender were.

[Terabith]

5 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

All subcultures tend to dress alike, even the more "counterculture" ones, so I could see trans kids happily embracing someone who dresses like them and then being surprised that they aren't trans, too, because they ARE a minority. But I don't think that's "pressure to be trans" so much as subculture identifiers. I mean, my emo/goth kid found friends in college by looking for people who were dressed similarly and talking to them-and probably would have been very surprised had someone wearing a MCR t-shirt and spiked collar insisted that they weren't emo! 

 

I cannot imagine a PS OR general homeschool setting where trans kids are such a large majority (or seen so positively) that cis kids feel pressured to be trans to fit in. In general, such spaces are ones created by the kids and their families themselves, and if you're there and you see trans as such a negative thing that you'd change how you dress to be NOT seen as such, you're in the wrong place! 

 

I CAN imagine a gender non-conforming teen assumed to be trans would be bullied by cis kids and teachers, though, because that's why basically every trans kid who is homeschooled in my studio currently is homeschooled-which leads back to the original topic of this thread, because the current laws here absolutely enable that bullying-90% of the people in the school may not have any ill intent in using the person's birth certificate name and pronouns to match, but there is a certain percentage that will use it just to get a reaction from the kid. And at least here, the person who is trying to get a rise and actively bullying is often an adult. 

 

 

I think this is where our cultures diverge, because here there definitely is a large enough group of trans/ nonbinary kids that it definitely is a thing and a subculture, and we joke about the nonbinary haircut TM. There definitely is an element of “if you don’t conform to ridiculously strict gender norms, you must be trans” narrative, and my younger kid, who is not a part of that group but not a part of the cis group and is pretty much an outsider in every way and also a bit of an anthropologist, says that it definitely is driving the gender norms in a scary and disturbing way.  I agree it really is a huge problem.  
 

But it doesn’t negate the identity and lived experience people have. 
 

My stance was clothes/ haircut/ name/ pronouns, of course we will respect whatever you choose. But I was very leery about anything medical until after age 18/ it had stuck around awhile.  At which point it really ceased being my decision to make and my job was to be supportive.  And also, my kid hated boobs from the get go.  Way before any other change. And they are SOO much happier and healthier and at ease with themselves now.  The difference is genuinely dramatic and wonderful. 

[SanDiegoMom]

8 minutes ago, PronghornD said:

Then those are very bad therapists! Being gender-affirming does not mean you blame everything on gender. My kid has had some counseling from several different (not very good) counselors. Zero of them referred my kid to a gender clinic. And this is a kid who is non-binary.

That's the problem though - depending on your state therapists feel constrained for fear of losing their license to do anything but affirm and not question.  And sadly there are a huge number of very bad therapists out there.  Some feel out of their depth and so refer straight to a gender clinic. And once you start the process it is very hard to stop it.  Some of the detransitioner stores are pretty shocking. 

[PronghornD]

Just now, SanDiegoMom said:

That's the problem though - depending on your state therapists feel constrained for fear of losing their license to do anything but affirm and not question.  And sadly there are a huge number of very bad therapists out there.  Some feel out of their depth and so refer straight to a gender clinic. And once you start the process it is very hard to stop it.  Some of the detransitioner stores are pretty shocking. 

I am not against upgrading the requirements for therapists. And I don't see why a therapist could not discuss other things going on in addition to gender without being unaffirming.

We really do need better mental health care in our country. Yes, it is easy to just pass the kid on to the gender clinic. Perhaps the problem is really laziness of therapists.

[Terabith]

My youngest does not report PRESSURE on people to be trans, but there very much is an assumption when people have the haircut TM, which isn’t really a pixie cut here.  More of a long buzz cut.  It might just be her circles, but there’s very much a live and let live; none of it really matters.  My sense is a lot of pressure does come from online.  But it’s also possible that youngest, as someone who has always been completely outside of any high school groups, is simply immune to the pressure and thus doesn’t recognize it.  We’ve discussed it with oldest, who claims there isn’t, but I kinda struggle believing them, given what I see. But I could be completely wrong.  

[maize]

10 minutes ago, PronghornD said:

Then those are very bad therapists! Being gender-affirming does not mean you blame everything on gender. My kid has had some counseling from several different (not very good) counselors. Zero of them referred my kid to a gender clinic. And this is a kid who is non-binary.

Unfortunately there are lots of incompetent therapists in the world. 

A friend experienced two separate therapists pushing her to identify as trans. Friend is very open minded and leans heavily progressive, but she's not a teenager--she has enough maturity and self-awareness to judge for herself and determine that her mental health struggles have nothing to do with being a female in a male body.  

These things ARE happening--not to everyone,  not every therapist, not everywhere--but they are real experiences.

[Terabith]

We had a terrible time with therapy. I really wanted them to explore if fear of growing up was a contributing factor, before my oldest had top surgery, because they voiced explicitly that they were afraid of growing up and that they wanted the body they had before puberty.  The therapists (two) absolutely would not do that and accepted my oldest’s declaration that all their problems would be solved by top surgery. But, honestly to my complete and total shock, it kinda did. I mean, it didn’t solve their sleep problems or their issues with executive functioning and sensory issues, but they solved the underlying depression and also many things I didn’t think were related. 

[SanDiegoMom]

40 minutes ago, Terabith said:

. I really wanted them to explore if fear of growing up was a contributing factor, before my oldest had top surgery, because they voiced explicitly that they were afraid of growing up and that they wanted the body they had before puberty.

I've heard it described as the Peter Pan generation.  Many more kids who have had a much more sheltered, protected and protracted childhood trying to stave off adulthood.  The book Generations by Jean Twenge uses a ton of data to show all the differences between our generations regarding pace of life and milestones as well as mental health issues.  

**(don't quote) My daughter who wasn't affected by gender issues absolutely wanted to stay a kid and was traumatized by her period, going so far as to go on the birth control pill that has no breaks so as to never get her period.  She is a dancer so that definitely complicated things, but I felt like her resiliency to deal with issues like that was much lower than was expected for our generation.  It's like, trying to fix the problems we had growing up just moved the bar lower for what new problems emerged. 

 

[ktgrok]

2 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

We've lived in a variety of areas, and in a variety of subcultures within areas (ie--in a church that marriage is between a man and a woman and essential for salvation, that gender is an essential and eternal characteristic, that women and men have separate roles, etc.).  I think it's hard to be a teenager anywhere, but we have definitely been places where teens and adults applied more social pressure to conform (to one group or another) and we have lived places where there was more openness to not only be whomever you are, but to change as you explore different aspects of your personality and expression.  Generally, we have enjoyed living in places with less social pressure= it's been much healthier for everyone in society.

We had an experience last summer where we went to visit my parents and my kids were completely shocked that nearly every woman had highlighted blonde hair (even those clearly born a deep brunette) and nearly every guy wore cargo shorts and a ball cap and tennis shoes.  They literally went around counting people in public one afternoon because it was so shocking how uniform everyone was.  They saw almost no people of color.  It's a very deep contrast to where we live here, where literally all of our neighbors have been born outside of the US (asia, southeast asia, south america, eastern Europe, etc.) and where they see and hear a wide variety of people. It's a lot easier to be "different" when you live in a diverse place...because everyone is "different". 

I'm somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, when we went to South Dakota we were shocked that we only saw "white people" the whole time, and never once heard another language being spoken. I hadn't realized how normal it was to hear multiple languages when out and about until we went on that trip and suddenly we didn't. We saw ONE African American the whole time - and that was at the conference my DH was working, and he was from out of town. That was a HUGE HUGE difference for us. And never saw anyone obviously Hispanic, Asian, etc. So in that way, my area is pretty diverse. 

BUT, within the subculture of suburban teens yes, they all have the exact same hairstyle, makeup, clothes, etc. It's...unnerving. Like being in a weird Twilight Zone sketch. It's a big reason my DD doesn't want to go to public school - she knows she wouldn't fit in. There is a bit more diversity in style in the homeschool world, thankfully. But truly, the teens are basically clones of each other. AND their mom's have the same style too!

[busymama7]

I'm treading into this thread lightly because I do not have personal experiences but I did want to share the experience of a close family member who is a senior and  attends public school in a very conservative area.  She is made fun of and mocked for not being gay or trans.   It comes up often where teens are asking what each other are and when she says she's happy as a female and not gay she's been told things like that's so sad and that it is "so pathetic". She is even called out in some circles for it.  She's fine and secure in who she is but *her experience * is that some kids absolutely identify as other things in an attempt to fit in.   Take that for whatever you want but I do believe there is peer pressure that didn't exist previously that is causing an increase in children /teens identifying as trans or non binary etc.   This family member is the one I've discussed it with most but I have heard rumors of it from my teens friends/classmates at extracurriculars (as they are homeschooled) and kids at church etc. I am in a different, more liberal, state than the aforementioned family member. 

[ktgrok]

50 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I've heard it described as the Peter Pan generation.  Many more kids who have had a much more sheltered, protected and protracted childhood trying to stave off adulthood.  The book Generations by Jean Twenge uses a ton of data to show all the differences between our generations regarding pace of life and milestones as well as mental health issues.  

**(don't quote) My daughter who wasn't affected by gender issues absolutely wanted to stay a kid and was traumatized by her period, going so far as to go on the birth control pill that has no breaks so as to never get her period.  She is a dancer so that definitely complicated things, but I felt like her resiliency to deal with issues like that was much lower than was expected for our generation.  It's like, trying to fix the problems we had growing up just moved the bar lower for what new problems emerged. 

 

My 6 yr old once started crying that she never wants to grow up, and she's always refused to be a "big kid". It's...odd. 

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

My 6 yr old once started crying that she never wants to grow up, and she's always refused to be a "big kid". It's...odd. 

Oh, I vividly remember not wanting to grow up, and being uneasy about every milestone along the way.  I had reasonable, age appropriate experiences coping with life, and a few unreasonable experiences (agreeing to babysit for a new family but upon showing up and the parents leaving, realizing I was stuck in a completely empty house on a very busy street with no food other than a bottle of milk for the baby and eight hours to entertain these kids with absolutely nothing but my babysitting pack that I'd brought and no phone), but coping with those did give me a confidence boost.  

But, I am wired for anxiety.  My kids are wired for anxiety.  And once I DID grow up, I was so relieved!

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

I'm somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, when we went to South Dakota we were shocked that we only saw "white people" the whole time, and never once heard another language being spoken. I hadn't realized how normal it was to hear multiple languages when out and about until we went on that trip and suddenly we didn't. We saw ONE African American the whole time - and that was at the conference my DH was working, and he was from out of town. That was a HUGE HUGE difference for us. And never saw anyone obviously Hispanic, Asian, etc. So in that way, my area is pretty diverse. 

BUT, within the subculture of suburban teens yes, they all have the exact same hairstyle, makeup, clothes, etc. It's...unnerving. Like being in a weird Twilight Zone sketch. It's a big reason my DD doesn't want to go to public school - she knows she wouldn't fit in. There is a bit more diversity in style in the homeschool world, thankfully. But truly, the teens are basically clones of each other. AND their mom's have the same style too!

I moved from Tennessee to South Dakota when I was 16.  It was weird, going from a majority African American school to one where I had classmates who had literally never seen a black person.  But what was even more unnerving was the American lit class where, when discussing Native American poetry, one girl raised her hand and said that the restaurant where she worked wouldn't serve Native Americans, and then person after person revealing that they too worked at establishments, including pharmacies, that had explicit rules against serving THAT kind of diversity.  (It was so deeply ironic because they absolutely worshipped hip hop and wanted to know everything about the African American experience when they found out my TN best friend was black.) But when I was like, "But....you can't DO that!  That's illegal under federal law," I was grabbed after class, shoved down a staircase, told that they would not put up with people like me disturbing the public order, and then person after person threw eggs at our house, my car, and tried to run me off the road repeatedly.  I wasn't even trying to make a social statement, though I would have been glad to.  I was just genuinely shocked that in 1993, there were so many restaurants and pharmacies and stores that wouldn't serve Native Americans.  (Lakota in that area.). 

The life expectancy at that point was higher in Bangladesh than on a Lakota reservation.  

[ktgrok]

7 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I moved from Tennessee to South Dakota when I was 16.  It was weird, going from a majority African American school to one where I had classmates who had literally never seen a black person.  But what was even more unnerving was the American lit class where, when discussing Native American poetry, one girl raised her hand and said that the restaurant where she worked wouldn't serve Native Americans, and then person after person revealing that they too worked at establishments, including pharmacies, that had explicit rules against serving THAT kind of diversity.  (It was so deeply ironic because they absolutely worshipped hip hop and wanted to know everything about the African American experience when they found out my TN best friend was black.) But when I was like, "But....you can't DO that!  That's illegal under federal law," I was grabbed after class, shoved down a staircase, told that they would not put up with people like me disturbing the public order, and then person after person threw eggs at our house, my car, and tried to run me off the road repeatedly.  I wasn't even trying to make a social statement, though I would have been glad to.  I was just genuinely shocked that in 1993, there were so many restaurants and pharmacies and stores that wouldn't serve Native Americans.  (Lakota in that area.). 

The life expectancy at that point was higher in Bangladesh than on a Lakota reservation.  

WOW. Yeah, that's crazy!~!!!

I think people think of the south as so very racist, but at least we are in a community where there are people that don't look like us that we interact with every day. Growing up I had the added benefit of having a LOT of diversity - in any given class there would be first or second generation immigrants from Cuba, Guatamala, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, India, etc. Plus religiously we had lots of Catholic, Jewish, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, and a significant number of Jehovah's Witnesses. It's harder to feel ostracized when there are so many different religions, skin colors, etc. 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

WOW. Yeah, that's crazy!~!!!

I think people think of the south as so very racist, but at least we are in a community where there are people that don't look like us that we interact with every day. Growing up I had the added benefit of having a LOT of diversity - in any given class there would be first or second generation immigrants from Cuba, Guatamala, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, India, etc. Plus religiously we had lots of Catholic, Jewish, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, and a significant number of Jehovah's Witnesses. It's harder to feel ostracized when there are so many different religions, skin colors, etc. 

I mean, Jackson, TN didn't have anything like that level of diversity.  At all.  I don't think we had any immigrants my entire childhood.  But I was very used to being the only white person in a room.  

There was a ton of racism.  But there was also a lot of, what I called exceptions, where people would say things about other races but then be like, "Oh, but not Sally or Bob or Jack or Kim or..."

[freesia]

5 hours ago, PronghornD said:

I do not discount that your daughter has this lived experience. However, I do not extrapolate from this experience that these events are typical of what is happening around the country. Of course, there are bullies of every gender. But it does not necessarily follow that people of a particular gender are more likely to be bullies because other people of their gender were.

I never said anything about certain groups being more likely to bully. I’m only disagreeing with the PPs who were saying that this kind of talk (insisting someone is non-binary bc of how they are dressed) was not coming from within the LBGTQ community. I was trying to say that it is coming from there as well as from outside.  With regard to your extrapolation comment— the non-binary kids doing this to my dd were in suburban NY and from Virginia. I believe SKL is in Minnesota. 

[PronghornD]

28 minutes ago, freesia said:

I never said anything about certain groups being more likely to bully. I’m only disagreeing with the PPs who were saying that this kind of talk (insisting someone is non-binary bc of how they are dressed) was not coming from within the LBGTQ community. I was trying to say that it is coming from there as well as from outside.  With regard to your extrapolation comment— the non-binary kids doing this to my dd were in suburban NY and from Virginia. I believe SKL is in Minnesota. 

My extrapolation comment was not meant to say it doesn't happen but more to question how prevalent it is. It can happen in different parts of the country without being highly prevalent.

I also didn't explain the bullies thing right. I don't mean that you were saying that trans people were more likely to be bullies than non-trans people. I was basically saying that being bullied by a group of trans people does not say much about how another group of trans people might behave.

Edited February 1 by PronghornD

[Dmmetler]

I asked M (17, was in PS until health issues got in the way, trans masc) and C (14, was in PS for middle school, cis) and they said that they have seen it here, but it's usually one of two things. 

 

1) someone has multiple friends who are LGBT and is involved in things like the GSA or in groups that have a lot of LGBT members, and will "come out" as bi or pan-but still keep dating the opposite sex. Or in some cases, a kid will "come out" as NB-particularly gender fluid, accepts all pronouns in a way that makes it pretty clear they're trying to be an ally-an "I'll go to the bathroom with you" sort of thing. And I could easily see this being a kid who feels they HAVE to do that to fit in. 

 

And, honestly, no one under 18 is allowed to medicalize here, there are no pediatric gender clinics for many hours away, and most therapists here aren't blanket affirmation first, discussion later, so the only ones who are likely to get to the point of medicalizing are those who have been persistent for several years at that point and who are adults. Which might be a really good thing, 

 

2) M also says that they know people (and did so themselves) who use "people think I'm gay (or trans)" during the questioning phase, before they even admit it to themselves. And, if your parent reacts with "that's awful, how dare they say that!", you know that it's not safe to come out to that parent. If the response is "well, you know you best, but there's nothing wrong with being gay", you know that parent is probably going to be supportive.  Not everyone does this (and given the above, not everyone who is perceived as gay or trans,or even who identifies as such in some situations) really is-but in some cases, it's a suspiciously specific denial. 

 

 

So I'm going to flat out say-I was wrong. I'd just never asked the teens in my life that question before. 

 

[Ting Tang]

On 1/26/2024 at 5:54 PM, KSera said:

Given this part of the proposed legislation: 

“The legislation also requires schools to create “privacy plans” for trans students and others that may not be comfortable using group bathrooms, for instance by allowing them to use a faculty bathroom — something opponents say may “out” transgender children.”

An effective grass roots response could be for all students to ask for a privacy plan. That would out no one, if students decide to do so en masse, and it may force better bathroom solutions since obviously this idea isn’t currently workable at large scale.

I found that bizarre as well. Bottom surgery is particularly not great and is often not wanted by trans men, so to make laws that require it is kind of awful and makes no sense. 

I hated sharing a locker room in middle and high school. It’s a huge source of anxiety for many. I truly wish everyone could be granted privacy, considering PE is required in school. I still feel the whole thing is archaic. There are solutions that could make it better for everyone.