Ugh, Jenny. Really?! What a virtue signaler she was. I'm glad you can have a small sense of humor during all of this. I love your dad's Speedo story. Thanks for helping me smile today. And thankful your daughter is heading towards the other side of this. I think this is huge, how do you walk this back? We're moving next spring to shake t…
Ugh, Jenny. Really?! What a virtue signaler she was. I'm glad you can have a small sense of humor during all of this. I love your dad's Speedo story. Thanks for helping me smile today. And thankful your daughter is heading towards the other side of this. I think this is huge, how do you walk this back? We're moving next spring to shake things up and be some place where there are places to go and things to do!
Who knows where these kids are in the path back. I thought our kid was no longer interested in T but she just came to us the other day and told us she wants to try 'micro-dosing' it now. Huh? We gave it a hard no and so far, no more comment.
I'm not a psychologist, but so long as your daughter is off the testoterone, what is wrong with her calling herself Hercules? To me, one thought is that she might be trying to call to a higher power. Hercules was a Roman god known for his strength and for adventure. There is, in fact, at least one real women who lived the life of Hercules. Her name is Bouboulina. There's a famous painting of her.
It could be that "Hercules" is just a persona of your daughter that she is trying to integrate into her identity as a developing young woman. Yes, I agree that it is problematic that people around her don't get this possibility and are instead assuming she is "trans".
I'm not suggesting you social transition your daughter. I'm suggesting that she may be reaching out for an adventurous identity. Not finding this easily in female identities, she has somehow opted for Hercules.
What I am saying is that I don't think it is uncommon for teenage girls to have male mythical figures as their heros. Children's literature and films are full of male protagonists. Female protagonists are fewer and more sexually stereotyped. I suspect that many girls are not comfortable with the hypersexualized female protagonists often portrayed in film and therefore gravitate toward male protagonists.
"In the present research, we examined the effect of protagonist gender on reader evaluations of excerpts from novels. Extant analyses of the role of gender in reading suggest that there should be a gender-match effect in which, for example, women prefer stories with female protagonists. To test this prediction, we created different versions of the excerpts in which a male protagonist was changed to a female protagonist and vice versa. Readers rated the texts on four evaluation items spanning both personal and intersubjective reactions to both the discourse and the story world. Two samples of readers were used: one in Canada and one in Germany. The results indicated that both men and women rated texts higher on the story-world items when they had a male protagonist, inconsistent with the gender-match prediction. There was no difference in this pattern between Canadian and German readers, suggesting that it is common across these cultures. We provide an alternative account based on the fundamental attribution error."
Yes, I suspect your daughter’s “Hercules” persona is like your childhood wild west persona. (I haven’t been to Brewster, but my family used to spend their summers on Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. It's about 50 miles north of Brewster, in the same valley. It is beautiful country.)
You might consider capturing your comments here and writing them into a larger reflective piece. They are beautifully written. Love the comments about sleeping under the stars, horses, catching the Northern lights, rattlesnakes and grabbing a cold Tab. Sometimes, it is good for teens to live an unstructured life. Yes, there really are still rattlesnakes in this country.
You sound like a wonderful and imaginative mother. All the best to you.
Ugh, Jenny. Really?! What a virtue signaler she was. I'm glad you can have a small sense of humor during all of this. I love your dad's Speedo story. Thanks for helping me smile today. And thankful your daughter is heading towards the other side of this. I think this is huge, how do you walk this back? We're moving next spring to shake things up and be some place where there are places to go and things to do!
Who knows where these kids are in the path back. I thought our kid was no longer interested in T but she just came to us the other day and told us she wants to try 'micro-dosing' it now. Huh? We gave it a hard no and so far, no more comment.
Indeed. This is exactly it. I hear you on the frustration that no one else in the family will be honest. They need this.
I'm not a psychologist, but so long as your daughter is off the testoterone, what is wrong with her calling herself Hercules? To me, one thought is that she might be trying to call to a higher power. Hercules was a Roman god known for his strength and for adventure. There is, in fact, at least one real women who lived the life of Hercules. Her name is Bouboulina. There's a famous painting of her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laskarina_Bouboulina
Some other women who lived a similar life: Boudica:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica
Also Joan of Arc and Elizabeth I.
It could be that "Hercules" is just a persona of your daughter that she is trying to integrate into her identity as a developing young woman. Yes, I agree that it is problematic that people around her don't get this possibility and are instead assuming she is "trans".
I'm not suggesting you social transition your daughter. I'm suggesting that she may be reaching out for an adventurous identity. Not finding this easily in female identities, she has somehow opted for Hercules.
What I am saying is that I don't think it is uncommon for teenage girls to have male mythical figures as their heros. Children's literature and films are full of male protagonists. Female protagonists are fewer and more sexually stereotyped. I suspect that many girls are not comfortable with the hypersexualized female protagonists often portrayed in film and therefore gravitate toward male protagonists.
Gender and Reading
Bartolussi, Dixon and Sopcak
2010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304422X10000239
Abstract
"In the present research, we examined the effect of protagonist gender on reader evaluations of excerpts from novels. Extant analyses of the role of gender in reading suggest that there should be a gender-match effect in which, for example, women prefer stories with female protagonists. To test this prediction, we created different versions of the excerpts in which a male protagonist was changed to a female protagonist and vice versa. Readers rated the texts on four evaluation items spanning both personal and intersubjective reactions to both the discourse and the story world. Two samples of readers were used: one in Canada and one in Germany. The results indicated that both men and women rated texts higher on the story-world items when they had a male protagonist, inconsistent with the gender-match prediction. There was no difference in this pattern between Canadian and German readers, suggesting that it is common across these cultures. We provide an alternative account based on the fundamental attribution error."
Yes, I suspect your daughter’s “Hercules” persona is like your childhood wild west persona. (I haven’t been to Brewster, but my family used to spend their summers on Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. It's about 50 miles north of Brewster, in the same valley. It is beautiful country.)
You might consider capturing your comments here and writing them into a larger reflective piece. They are beautifully written. Love the comments about sleeping under the stars, horses, catching the Northern lights, rattlesnakes and grabbing a cold Tab. Sometimes, it is good for teens to live an unstructured life. Yes, there really are still rattlesnakes in this country.
You sound like a wonderful and imaginative mother. All the best to you.