Difficulty accepting being a girl

[Sammysnake]

My daughter is nearly 10 and about a year ago was telling me she didn't want to be a girl and asked me to call her a boy and call her by a boy's name. We talked about it a lot and I found she was concerned about her body developing into that of a woman and she didn't want to get married, wear a dress or have a baby. I explained that boys bodies go through embarrassing changes at puberty too and as a girl/woman she will always have choices over her life, whether she gets married and has kids or not and what she wears etc. I explained that although there are interests that are traditionally attributed to either males or females there is nothing actually stopping her from doing whatever she wants to irrespective of her gender.

 

Since then she's been less concerned about it and I managed to get her to join Girl's Brigade which is an all girls group at a local church and she is loving that. However, she still feels life would be better as a male and keeps pointing out that most of the fictional action heroes are male and certainly most of the lead characters in her school books. We looked on the internet and found a great YouTube video with a montage of female action heroes and we looked at a few strong females in history too. I think all of that is helping.

 

The reason it's come to a head is her class are off on a school trip to a tudor house which involves them dressing up so Beth will have to wear a dress. I've had a chat with her teacher and we've agreed we want to try to help Beth be part of what's going on without being singled out as the only one wearing something different but we both want her to be relaxed too. We're both showing Beth lots of pictures of the clothes beforehand and will arrange that she gets a choice of what to wear from what's there. I've talked to Beth about how everyone will be wearing something they will feel a little silly in and it's all acting and that men often dress up as women in theatre too (she really clung on to that thought). However, I don't want her to go through life thinking she needs to be male. I really don't think this is a genuine case of being born into the wrong body or anything, she is just painfully aware that throughout history men have treated women as second class.

 

Does anybody have experience of this and have any suggestions for other ways I could help Beth with this?

 

Forgot to say I have offered to let her 'dress up' in some of my long skirts in the privacy of her room beforehand so she can get a feel for the idea.

Edited April 25, 2010 by Sammysnake

[justine1]

Hi

I was like this at around the same age 8/9.I had two older brothers who were always all over the place I didnt want to learn to cook with my mum or knit,sew I also wanted to slide down the hills on cardboard boxes,make swings from tyres and go carting.

 

I remember at 10 I had alot of ambition I wanted to be rich but I didnt want a mans money I wanted my money,I didnt want a smelley baby either I wanted a red porshe.

 

I was the first girl in the family in years,first grand daughter on both sides,so of course everyone wanted me to be girlie.My fathers side were quite old fashioned so I was made to wear frilly dresses and tights when I visited and my aunty used to take me shoe shopping get me five pairs of shoes,I remember how bored I was and how much I would have preferred a water pistol!

 

I think I grew out of it age 15,well I started playing basketball age 13 so I got into contact with more boys and we were friends,then at 14 1/2 started to develop more of an interest so started dressing more feminine(a denim skirt with basketball vest was a first step.)Also took more interest on cooking and make up.Even now I am not that girlie,I was blessed with four boys so dont think I can wear lovely dresses cause it ends up dirty in 5min

[Mumble]

It sounds to me like you're doing all the right things. I wish I had a Mum like you when I was your daughter's age. She's had a lot to come to term with recently; thinking of herself as different, going through dx, getting the dx, telling others, so it seems normal that she's going to find some other stuff a bit difficult.

 

I think with the trip, you're right to assume that she will do the same as everyone else. I organised a similar trip when I was teaching - the fact that the teachers also had to dress up gave enough hilarity to the pupils so they didn't think about their own costumes!! An aside here, but I don't know what your daughter's like with attention being focused on her - if she's not good, it'd be worth her teacher making the people on the trip (the actor types who dress up and reenact Tudor life) aware as they tend to pick on pupils for various things and it would be just her luck to be picked... I'd make sure she has something comfortable to wear underneath - how about leggings or similar? (very tudorish!!! )

 

More generally on the boy thing, I remember feeing the same. I was a Tomboy to the extreme and resisted anything girly (I even cut off my plaits one day in protest - oooh, I really got into trouble for that (and my school photo a few days later is 'interesting' ). Even now I won't wear skirts - I even failed one job interview for not wearing a skirt, but then I wouldn't want to work for an organisation that was so petty minded anyway so I'm glad I found out at that stage. Me wanting to do boys' things was a real source of tension between my Mum and I - the more I resisted the more she pushed. I'm glad your daughter is enjoying Girl's Brigade. Would she be interested in Scouts - it was all boy's when I was that age but I would have loved to join.

 

As for getting older and 'changes' I think you just have to keep talking to her and helping her be her own person. This was a really hard time for me as I was so aware of how different I was and some changes and things I wasn't aware of made me appear more weird. With the dx, you can help her to understand why she feels as she does about particular things and what she wants to do to either address them or make her own way.

 

[Sammysnake]

Thanks Justine. I've got no problem with her being a tomboy (just as I was at her age) but there's a lot more going on here. She's been saying she actually needs to be male and thinks being female is getting the bad end of the deal. I understand she feels she has more shared interests with lads at the moment (she's into reptiles, science, history and to a lesser extent now - Pokemon) but I want her to understand she doesn't have to be genetically male for that to be acceptable. It was a real breakthrough getting her to spend time with girls at Girl's Brigade as she had violently shied away from anything she perceived as being 'female' prior to this.

 

Oh, hi Mumble, just posted and then read your post after! Really good point about the ensuring she doesn't get picked on bit - that really WOULD be just her luck!! Fortunately her class teacher is the most amazingly wonderful and understanding teacher in the world and I know she will look out for that sort of thing. As for scouting - Beth was in Beavers and is now a Cub and she absolutely loves it. She was the only girl in Cubs for some time, a fact she was very proud of. Another girl has now joined but Beth is happy about that - she doesn't feel it's stealing her thunder at all!

 

Beth can usually handle things as long as I can help her think about them a different way. Our school midsummer festival always involves the classes dancing and usually the girls do one thing and the boys another. They did Indiana Jones one year and she was upset she had to twirl and dance and swoon rather than running around pretending to use a gun and a whip. I got her to show me her moves then showed her the Tomb Raider games and we decided the leaping dance could be Lara Croft leaping across a chasm or twirling round to kick an enemy etc. She was OK then. Only she and I knew what her moves really meant!

 

Thanks for the encouragement both!

Edited April 25, 2010 by Sammysnake

[NobbyNobbs]

i think this sounds like an AS girl thing. i was (and still am to a certain extent) the same. puberty is a hell of a lot to deal with for AS kids and although boys do go through changes too its not on the same epic scale of embarassment. the only publicly visible signs for them come a lot older so they're better equipt to deal with them. on top of this is asscosiated pressure for girls. between hair, clothes, makeup and liking/dating boys there are a lot of pressures that often don't come naturally to AS girls on top of the actual physical changes. i was always adamant i wouldn't get married or have children etc. because i couldn't properly understand the social situations surrounding those things and used refusal as a defense for the fact that i knew i wasn't growing up at the same speed as everyone else. a fair few years on and i now regret that someone didn't push me to learn now to do these things, even if it was in a different way as i missed out on a lot purely through fear and confusion.

 

perhaps work on helping her to learn analytical tools to study what the other girls are doing so that if at any time she does want/need to join in with them she can do so. explain that because of the AS she might not have the istinct parts that tell her how/when to do things but that they can be learned in different ways. create a safe environment where she can come to you and you can teach her how to do all those things that girls in general seem to instinctively know what to do (how on earth do girls just 'know' how to put on makeup when they reach the age of 12?!), it might be embarassing at first but if you can openly discuss things like that (and obviously in time the dating issues etc) she might be a bit happier as a girl

 

also you can always remind her that it might be harder to be a girl growing up, but women have a lot of skills that men dont. there are advantages to it beyond looking good to attract men

[Mumble]

how on earth do girls just 'know' how to put on makeup when they reach the age of 12?!

:lol: You know what, I always did, and still am, wondering that! I always thought that I never learnt that one as my Mum never wore make-up so I was never taught, but then my younger (NT) sister growing up in the same environment a few years behind me just 'knew'. I have to admit, I still don't know how to put on makeup - thankfully I'm allergic to an awful lot of it so I have an 'acceptable' excuse, but it still intrigues me where people learn things like that from. All I can say is thank goodness for the Internet as I can find out things for myself now that I should have learnt (apparently instinctively) many years ago.

 

[Kathryn]

Psst - I don't know how to put on makeup either - no one ever taught me. I'm 40 something but I still don't know what the ###### I'm doing in front of the mirror when I'm about to go out for an evening. I don't think the knowledge comes automatically with the XX chromosome.

 

K x

Edited April 25, 2010 by Kathryn

[NobbyNobbs]

my mom doesn't really wear makeup, but my older sister seemed to have no trouble learning all about it. i dont wear it because it irritates my skin. i had a hell of a time when i was about 13 and undx'd explaining that i could feel the mascara on my eyelashes all the time. perhaps some of it is also down to confidence in your instincts. with AS comes that subconscious knowledge that something isn't quite working at full capacity but until you get diagnosed you dont know what it is. personally i thought i was destined to become a serial killer because i didn't seem to have the same 'human' nature as other people

 

the only other thing i can think of with the 'it would be easier to be a boy' thing is the possibility that she's questioning her sexuality. i know its a pretty common response to wish that things were the 'right way round' but since who you like seems unchangeable... is easier to wish your body fitted how you feel/who you like. worth keeping at the back of your mind even if it is a low probability.

Edited April 25, 2010 by NobbyNobbs

[Sammysnake]

Thanks NobbyNobbs, you've reinforced what I was already thinking and trying to do anyway.

the only other thing i can think of with the 'it would be easier to be a boy' thing is the possibility that she's questioning her sexuality. i know its a pretty common response to wish that things were the 'right way round' but since who you like seems unchangeable... is easier to wish your body fitted how you feel/who you like. worth keeping at the back of your mind even if it is a low probability.

This is what I was trying to get at in my posts - I definitely think there's more going on than simply being a tomboy. She said to me a while ago that she wants to be a lesbian when she grows up but I really don't think she means it, the context sounded like she thought this would simply mean she had no pressure to have a husband. Besides, if she really did want to be a lesbian she'd have to start spending more time getting to know other girls!

 

I'll just keep plodding on trying all I can to reinforce how great it can be to be female and I'm going to start reading up on puberty and getting her ready for the concept before it kicks in. Although I'm a girl I didn't go through the traditional teenage girl stuff. I never wore makeup, wasn't into fashion and didn't fancy any lads so a lot of it is still a mystery to me! I got through it OK though and am happily married and Beth and I are extremely close and talk about anything and everything - no need for embarrassment - so I'm sure we'll get through it together. I worry way too much and want to protect her from every struggle but I know that I can't and it's also not healthy for her if I try to. I just need to get my head around what's to come so I can be calm and supportive and rational enough to help her when it all kicks in .

[NobbyNobbs]

sounds like you're in a great position to help her. my mother never talked to me... i got the puberty talk the day after i got my first period, that was dead helpful!

 

also bear in mind kids are going into puberty incredibly early these days (9 was waay too early in my day, now it seems far more normal) so even if she's not there yet there will be girls in her class who are and may be making a lot of noise about it.

 

with reference to the 'i want to be a lesbian' announcement... she might've been testing the ground to see how you react, saying it without actually meaning it. then if you screamed and said 'then you'll be thrown out of the house!' she'd know it wasn't a good subject to talk about again irrespective of truth. or she might just feel theres a lot of pressure associated with marriage and babies and like you said she thinks being gay gets you out of that. i'd counter it with informing her that actually, lesbians can and do get married and have kids! i could share some jokes about lesbians and u-hauls but i wont incase someone misunderstands.

[Mumble]

sounds like you're in a great position to help her. my mother never talked to me... i got the puberty talk the day after i got my first period, that was dead helpful!

Same here. I never got the talk and was withdrawn from classes in school and I only started reading up about it in the library after the 'event'. To all parents here, please don't let your daughters get to 'that' stage without an awareness of what's about to happen. I truly had no idea (yes, I was that naive) and thought I was bleeding to death.

 

[Jannih]

I can relate to the girl who felt that there were no female role models in history.

 

I was born in 1953 and feminism was unknown, as far as I was concerned. As a child, I could not help but notice the lack of women featured in history books of the time. There were quite a few but we didn't hear much about them. So here is a list for your daughter :

 

 

Queen Boudicca ( Boadicea)

Cleopatra

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Queen Elizabeth 1

Joan of Arc

Catherine the Great

Queen Victoria

Marie Antoinette

 

Aphra Behn

Jane Austen

The Bronte Sisters, Emily Carlotte and Anne.

George Elliot

Christine De Pizan

Mary Shelley

 

Emmeline Pankhurst

Florence Nightingale

Elizabeth Fry

Josephine Butler

Mary Woolstencraft

Simone De Beauvoir

 

Marie Curie

 

Eva Peron

Golda Meir

Indira Gandhi

Margaret Thatcher

 

St. Hilda of Whitby

Hildegarde of Bingen

Julian of Norwich

Mother Theresa

 

Just a few women who have made an impact, for better or worse !

 

 

 

 

[NobbyNobbs]

wow, i wasn't withdrawn from classes... i got going before the classes started (2nd day of year 6 if i remember, the classes weren't until the last term of yr 6). another thing to consider if they do being early is to ensure appropriate provisions are made (bins etc) i can remember doing the walk of shame to the disabled toilet which was the only one with a bin. to get there i had to go out the banned door in class, across the playground, through the hall which was also banned dodging any teachers demanding to know what i was doing walking through the hall. talk about humiliating

[Jannih]

This is what I was trying to get at in my posts - I definitely think there's more going on than simply being a tomboy. She said to me a while ago that she wants to be a lesbian when she grows up but I really don't think she means it, the context sounded like she thought this would simply mean she had no pressure to have a husband. Besides, if she really did want to be a lesbian she'd have to start spending more time getting to know other girls!

 

She is only 10 years old and I think young girls of that age, probably find the idea of sex, to be pretty awful and repugnant. There is so much presure on kids to grow up before their time and maybe being a Lesbian sounds more acceptable to her.

 

Give her a few more years and she might become quite "boy mad." Then you will have something to worry about !

 

 

 

[Sammysnake]

Thanks for that list of women of note Jannih. We'd already looked briefly at a couple of them but I'll work my way down the rest of the list. NobbyNobbs I'm so sorry to hear of the terrible time you had at school - how incredibly humiliating and stupid too - it would have been so easy for someone to have make a couple of practical changes to make this better for you and other girls in your position .

 

I've been reading the book 'Aspergers and Girls' which has some excellent tips for preparing a girl for puberty such as encouraging them to choose their own deodorant, bra and pads before they actually need them so they can find materials/scents etc they are comfortable with and feel happy wearing. Another was to use red food dye on a pad to prepare them for the sight of blood. I like practical tips like that.

 

Thanks for all the replies, it seems the general consensus is this is normal and just keep talking to her and informing her. My problem is I have a tendancy to read too much information and can sometimes start seeing issues where there are none or looking for 'symptoms'. I need to relax - even though I was 90% sure Beth had AS, having it confirmed/diagnosed so recently still needs a bit of processing. I need to work out a balance of supporting and encouraging but not seeing AS everywhere and not expecting difficulties which may not affect her. Thanks for your understanding .

Edited April 26, 2010 by Sammysnake

[Tally]

Maybe it would help if you could talk about the changes boys go through as well. I'm sure they are no less scary and embarrassing than what girls go through. It might help her feel that she has not got a raw deal by being a girl after all. Just an idea anyway.

[Sammysnake]

Thanks Tally. We've done a bit of that already, just as an unplanned chat but I think I'll start doing more targetted teaching with her and make sure I fully explain the boys bit as well as the girls as you suggested. I really do think that will help her to not feel singled out but instead to feel fully part of what's going on with everyone else. It will help her not to feel scared when she sees physical and emotional changes in her peers too and will actually put her ahead of the game 'cos I bet she'll have a lot more accurate information and understanding than a lot of the kids will have when the time comes .

[Sally44]

My daughter is nearly 10 and about a year ago was telling me she didn't want to be a girl and asked me to call her a boy and call her by a boy's name. We talked about it a lot and I found she was concerned about her body developing into that of a woman and she didn't want to get married, wear a dress or have a baby. I explained that boys bodies go through embarrassing changes at puberty too and as a girl/woman she will always have choices over her life, whether she gets married and has kids or not and what she wears etc. I explained that although there are interests that are traditionally attributed to either males or females there is nothing actually stopping her from doing whatever she wants to irrespective of her gender.

 

Since then she's been less concerned about it and I managed to get her to join Girl's Brigade which is an all girls group at a local church and she is loving that. However, she still feels life would be better as a male and keeps pointing out that most of the fictional action heroes are male and certainly most of the lead characters in her school books. We looked on the internet and found a great YouTube video with a montage of female action heroes and we looked at a few strong females in history too. I think all of that is helping.

 

The reason it's come to a head is her class are off on a school trip to a tudor house which involves them dressing up so Beth will have to wear a dress. I've had a chat with her teacher and we've agreed we want to try to help Beth be part of what's going on without being singled out as the only one wearing something different but we both want her to be relaxed too. We're both showing Beth lots of pictures of the clothes beforehand and will arrange that she gets a choice of what to wear from what's there. I've talked to Beth about how everyone will be wearing something they will feel a little silly in and it's all acting and that men often dress up as women in theatre too (she really clung on to that thought). However, I don't want her to go through life thinking she needs to be male. I really don't think this is a genuine case of being born into the wrong body or anything, she is just painfully aware that throughout history men have treated women as second class.

 

Does anybody have experience of this and have any suggestions for other ways I could help Beth with this?

 

Forgot to say I have offered to let her 'dress up' in some of my long skirts in the privacy of her room beforehand so she can get a feel for the idea.

 

 

Hence Emily Pankhurst etc. She has managed to identify what it took generations to conclude that "white, middle class male" is the best place to be!! Well done her!! Am I right in thinking she has quite an accute sense of fairness and justice?? I think you are right in the tack you are taking. I think it is okay to openly discuss and agree with her findings that in some instances or situations, being male is better than being female (take equal pay - still not equal even after the equal pay act!). And you could discuss with her about the clothing of that time. It is true to say that it was not female friendly, causing body deformities and woman fainting because they could not breath or eat - take the size zero models of today etc. She is bright to be noticing and understanding these things. But as you say that does not mean that being a girl/woman is something to run away from. She is master of her own destiny. However she will come across people with all kinds of views and prejudices. In the 1990's I remember being interviewed for a job and still being asked about whether I was 'married' or 'wanted children'. It was illegal to even ask those questions, but I also knew that if I affirmed my rights not be asked such questions, then I would not have got the job anyway!! Catch 22.

 

Maybe she could do a small project about the clothing in those days and see how it affected men and woman and present it to the class?? Or just present it to the teacher for an on the wall display or something.

 

And if she is doing well at girls brigade, you could consider something like Scouts as well because it is both genders and tends not to be so girly as some other groups with lots of practical activities and out door stuff.

[Sammysnake]

Am I right in thinking she has quite an accute sense of fairness and justice??

Oh, BIG time! 'That's not fair' is her most quoted saying, whether it be commenting on the Victorian judicial system on on her computer game (which apparently cheats!)

She is master of her own destiny. However she will come across people with all kinds of views and prejudices.

That's what I was telling her the other day. It is great to be a women and we ARE every bit as good as men but there are some people who still need to learn that lesson. If she embraces being female and becomes the best that she can be at whatever she decides to do with her life it might just help to change a bit of the world (she's really keen on wanting to make a big difference in the world and wants to know what she's going to end up doing).

 

Maybe she could do a small project about the clothing in those days and see how it affected men and woman and present it to the class?? Or just present it to the teacher for an on the wall display or something.

Hmm, now that's a thought.....

 

And if she is doing well at girls brigade, you could consider something like Scouts as well because it is both genders and tends not to be so girly as some other groups with lots of practical activities and out door stuff.

She's been in Beavers and then Cubs for several years now and loves it. She always wants to do things that are not traditionally girly. I wanted to encourage her to go to Girl's Brigade too for the opposite reason - so she could spend some time with girls and see that they are OK, not some alien creature that she has nothing in common with!

 

[Sally44]

I think you're doing everything right. Can't make any other suggestions!! You could also look at the traditional role of men/women in other cultures. I found the series "Last Woman Standing" very interesting. Our UK take on what being a woman involves is totally different in other cultures. I would give her enough information to widen her area of knowledge as long as it isn't going to confuse her further. Another series that I find very interesting is "who do you think you are". It never ceases to amaze me how family and personal circumstances can change dramatically from generation to generation, and the living conditions that people endured.

And the fact that schools were set up initially so that the children were educated to go into work at the local factories. So it was education to fit the employers needs, not the interests or desires of the individual. Some would argue we've now gone too far in the opposite direction and you can get qualifications in subjects that are practically useless in the real world. Anyway, I digress.

 

But for a child that is so concrete about fairness and justice, I think it is wise to give examples of where this does not happen. Many fortunes are based on just luck. I remember seeing a TV programme recently were a young child had been taught that getting a good education means you get a good job. He was visually distressed to then come across an example where that had not happened ie. a woman with a law degree who could not get any work with a barrister. And sometimes it is who you know and not what you know that gets you in the door.

[Sammysnake]

Well, what a difference a couple of months can make! When I initially posted this thread, Beth's issues with being female had been building up over several years but suddenly, everything seems to have changed. We've been talking positively about puberty which turned out to be just in time as the body changes are now obvious and guess what - she's really excited and positive about becoming a woman! She's been noticing more positive female role models on TV and in literature and even made the hero of a story she's writing at school into a female! She went on the school trip on Monday and WORE A SKIRT!!!!! She had a great time! Her teacher spent time in the weeks before the trip showing her photos of period dress, both male and female and discussing it with her and she decided the stuff the boys had to wear looked far sillier and more uncomfortable that what the girls had. She even tried one of my long skirts on the day before just to see what it felt like (I wasn't allowed to see though).

 

Next big thing will be bra buying over the summer. We've talked about it and looked at different types in shops. I suggested if she chooses something at the beginning of the summer then she can get used to wearing it privately before she has to wear it to school in front of other kids. She doesn't really need it yet but it seemed best to give her plenty of time to get used to the idea before it's a necessity.

 

Thanks everyone for all your ideas. We've had massive breakthrough!!!

[justine1]

Well, what a difference a couple of months can make! When I initially posted this thread, Beth's issues with being female had been building up over several years but suddenly, everything seems to have changed. We've been talking positively about puberty which turned out to be just in time as the body changes are now obvious and guess what - she's really excited and positive about becoming a woman! She's been noticing more positive female role models on TV and in literature and even made the hero of a story she's writing at school into a female! She went on the school trip on Monday and WORE A SKIRT!!!!! She had a great time! Her teacher spent time in the weeks before the trip showing her photos of period dress, both male and female and discussing it with her and she decided the stuff the boys had to wear looked far sillier and more uncomfortable that what the girls had. She even tried one of my long skirts on the day before just to see what it felt like (I wasn't allowed to see though).

 

Next big thing will be bra buying over the summer. We've talked about it and looked at different types in shops. I suggested if she chooses something at the beginning of the summer then she can get used to wearing it privately before she has to wear it to school in front of other kids. She doesn't really need it yet but it seemed best to give her plenty of time to get used to the idea before it's a necessity.

 

Thanks everyone for all your ideas. We've had massive breakthrough!!!

Thats brilliant <'>