• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Let me be clear in saying I think the school did the moral and sensible thing. And yes, the parents are fucking monsters. But the age range of the child got me thinking.

    When I was young, had I been exposed to homosexuality or the idea of transsexuality, there were times I might have identified as such. Played girl stuff with girls, hated sports, had far fewer boy than girlfriends, stuff like that.

    There was a time when I thought maybe it would have been better to have been born a girl instead, felt more “right”. I could relate to girls my age far more so than the guys. LOL, figured I must have been a woman in a past life.

    Late teens, I even had a few gay fantasies, though I wouldn’t have been turned on by another guy IRL. Never experimented, though I’ve always been a horn dog.

    In the end, I turned out strongly heterosexual and more than happy with my masculinity. So is it possible some young people are merely trying out options? Lord knows we all tried different ideas growing up. Some people swapped them like clothes.

    But here’s the crux of the matter; Who gives a shit? Biology and brains are going to work out one way or another. No one chooses attraction or gender, it just is. Leave them alone and they’ll work it out eventually.

    If either of my small kids told me they might be gay or trans, I’d say, “Cool. What makes you think that?” Have a talk, maybe share some of my experiences above. In any case just them know that we grow and change, maybe you’re gay or trans, you’ll work it out and those sorts of things aren’t “bad” or harmful.

    Transsexuality is one thing I have zero experience with. Not even any friends. I’d want to identify it for certain so my child could get hormone treatments ASAP. But what does that look like IRL? Again, there were times when I felt like I would be more comfortable in a woman’s body, but for me, that was just youthful confusion. Love to hear from actual trans people, not merely allies like myself.

    • RedSeries@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Hey! Actual trans person. I want to start by saying please use Transgender, not transexual. It’s a dysphoria around gender and the outdated transexual term ties it to sexuality. In reality, those are very different, even if they may be closely associated in general thought.

      Some of what you are describing you did when you were younger was exploring your gender. I personally think that’s great, and I think everyone should at least ask themselves how they feel about their identity and try things out if they find themselves curious. Like you, they might not find that they are trans and that’s ok! That actually happens a lot, though most cis folks don’t tend to question or think about their gender much.

      As for me, when I was a kid, I just felt wrong whenever I was strongly gendered as male. I felt how you feel about your masculinity when I could get away with feminine choices. The Internet was an escape where I could be anonymous and I clung to it since it let me be more myself. If you’d like to learn more or learn signs that you or others might be experiencing gender dysphoria, I highly recommend https://genderdysphoria.fyi.