My carrot son and Rosie daughter

I don't recall my children having any fancies/fantasies but I shall never forget my brother being a bus when he was about 5 or 6. Walks with him were stop start affairs as he stopped at imaginary bus stops and we all had to wait behind him until he rang the bell to move off again...

I'm still a bit mystified as to how you raise a child as a girl... does she really mean 'indoctrinate it into behaviours the media and advertisers think are feminine'?

I think Charlize Theron is allowing her child to be his/her self, there is no sense of indoctrination. There’s a difference between being a tomboy and genuinely believing you are the opposite from your birth sex, or dressing up as a princess and believing you are really female. Gender is not that clear cut, and surely what she is doing is nurturing her child and allowing them to be what they want to be. If we had a child or grandchild in the same situation, wouldn’t we all act in the same way?

Dora I think it depends on how you interpret ‘raising as a girl’.
As Ms Theron ‘introduced the child as a boy’ when she first adopted them, I think we can safely assume the child has a penis.

It’s one thing to allow a small boy to play with toys that have traditionally been thought of as girls’ toys, or wear dresses from time to time, and generally humour their imagination.
But it’s quite another to allow a male child to continue to believe that in fact, rather than imagination, that he is female.

Children of 3 cannot possibly appreciate the social aspects of gender, and the difference between sex and gender, and it is ridiculous to pretend that they can. If the child was 13, it might be a different matter.

I can’t help suspecting that Charlize Theron is using this child to signal to the world her own views on the transgender debate.

DD has always clearly identified as a girl and loved her dolls, but she was the one that wanted to be an engine driver, had the electric train set and has always been interested in science and engineering and is just completing an OU degree in Science and technology and works in an engineering research centre. He brother has always been a gentle and caring person, thoughtful and concerned about others, with no interest in sports, cars, DIY and other 'manly' pursuits

So what is this about gender sterotyping?

However DD did not want to be 6. She wanted to stay at being 5 forever and forever - and to a certain extent she has.

MOnica I think gender stereotyping is actually far worse now than it was when we were bringing up our children.
My children and my friends’ children were allowed to play with whatever toys they liked and wear what they liked.
I think that the increase in gender stereotyping is actually encouraging more children to think they are transgender, because they don’t see themselves fitting into those stereotypes.

I confess that the subject causing most confusion in my family at the present is how DGC have turned out to be totally naturally gender stereotypes, given that they come from a family and social group where that type of upbringing is completely alien and they, and their friends most certainly have not been brought up with gender stereotypes or mixed much with children that have.

We have searched the family tree on all sides for several generations to find a football or even sports mad boy, without success. To be fair, neither child is conformist, each is confidently themselves and I cannot see DGD ever feeling she has to give way to, or not compete with a boy in any field. She confidently holds her place in the top maths group at secondary school as she did at primary school.

I might add that through out my childhood I wished I was a boy. I found my interests and activities fitted in far better with boys than it did with girls who generally considered me 'odd'. Even at university a close friend (female) criticised me for acting and thinking like a man.

However I am very glad I was never in a position to know about being transgender, because I am not. I am throughly and completely physically female, but just seem instinctively to think differently from many women. High on rational reactions, low on emotional reactions.

I absolutely agree with you that gender stereotyping is driving the transgender movement. Why can we not accept that a female mind can be found in a male body and vice versa and treat this as perfectly normal and let each individual express it as they will.

Interesting thread.
One DS asked to be called Michael when he was about 5 or 6 because his real name was a bit unusual then and he wanted to conform. It lasted for a whole weekend.
Our DC have all conformed but plenty of their friends are either gay or trans. I say plenty- I know a handful. Each time they came out I felt a bit sad which is very un pc of me but it's true. My close friends' youngest became a he and her/his parents found it hard at first and now there's talk of surgery.

gillybob thats hilarious bless you.. my son would only say "caw caw" like a bird for months then we moved on to "mow mow" as in short version of miaow. He had a friend called Paco and Paco was his thumb tucked under his fingers to make a mouth shape that would talk for him....ah children

Why can we not accept that a female mind can be found in a male body and vice versa and treat this as perfectly normal and let each individual express it as they will

MOnica quite so. I once did an online quiz which concluded my brain was 70% male. I never wanted to be a boy, though Jo March in Little Women was my literary heroine and I tried to emulate her.

Another thing which is driving transgenderism is pressure on lesbians from some in the LBGTQ community to accept that ‘some women (ie trans women) have penises’ & lesbians should want to have sex with trans women.

If they only want to have sex with biological women, the way round it is to become a transgender man.
www.feministcurrent.com/2017/07/08/lesbianism-attack-though-not-usual-suspects/

I was a tomboy - climbed trees and only ever wanted to play boys games with them at school. I had forts and soldiers, desperately wanted to be a cowboy at one stage.

I still prefer the company of men and feel entirely different in male company than I do with females. Far more comfortable in fact.

But I have never, ever felt like a boy, or aspired to be a man.
I regard myself as entirely heterosexual - and feminine is how I feel.

Perhaps I was male in another life ?

If only we could accept that people are people, some like one thing some like another. Stop putting people into boxes, just accept them as they as they are. Maybe some would feel less pressured to jump to one side of the fence or the other, why do we have to be so bloody rigid? I worry that people are feeling they're misgendered simply because they don't fit some artificial stereotype.