Families when someone is wanting to change genders

‘Plenty of teenage girls wear short skirts and shoulder bearing tops around the home without being accused of participating in a fetish culture.’

No, that’s because they are girls, and no one, not even a TRA, could accuse a girl of ‘participating in a fetish culture ‘ by wearing a skirt. Short skirts and ‘shoulder bearing’ ( I presume you mean ‘baring’ , not some sort of milk pail carrying device) tops are standard wear for girls. That’s why blokes who are experimenting with this sort of stuff are wearing them rather than a baggy top and joggers.

Sometimes the efforts of the apologists are truly remarkable, - and counter productive. 🤦🏻‍♀️

And you know that something is amiss here. Trust your mother's instincts. Yiu know what your son is talking about isnt healthy. People cant change sex. Men that pretend to be women or adopt surgical characteristics are massively reducing their dating pool. Neither gay men nor straight women nor lesbians are interested in this fetishisitic presentation. That just leaves him other people suffering similar delusions. He's young, get him help to see that he can be a happy gay or straight man.

I don’t believe anyone has suggested that your son is a monster. At all.

And why do you think that having a fetish only means “knocking one off in any room”.

Nor, as I and others say, does it mean that he, himself, is actively accessing porn all the time on the internet. All it might take is for him to be fixated on this image as one that is desirable by others.

You came to Mumsnet because you wanted a parent’s perspective. You have parents, aunts and others giving you advice from similar experiences but you seem to be dismissing their posts because you don’t think they accurately and exactly fit your son’s experience.

Yet you have also said he doesn’t talk to you about a wide range of topics. Surely there would be some useful things to think about from the shared experiences.

At least some place to start to think about this. Because there is some significant disconnected thinking in your son’s experience. Such as wanting surgically enhanced breasts but not wanting to be a ‘woman.’

I’m not surprised you’re being defensive of your son OP, that’s what us mums do.

But please understand that male sexual behaviour is unfathomable to most women.

Have you wondered why he wants breasts but wants to keep his penis? Genuine question that I encourage you to ponder.

Plenty of women are pretty flat chested or have had mastectomies but none have a penis.

I’d urge you to go to the places that you don’t want to go on this - ie to consider the possibility that he is accessing porn and/or being groomed online.

With any safeguarding issue, we sadly all need to think “it could happen to my child/be my child”. Uncomfortable though that is.

OP you've had a hard time here and it's difficult to process but I totally see where pp's are coming from. He's got the idea from somewhere and it does sound like anime from your description

It's hopelessly naive to think your 19 year old son is not masturbating - do you think this has never happened? It's a completely natural thing.

I think it's quite worrying that you think a nineteen year old isn't masturbating. It's a completely normal thing to do.

I agree that you are naïve to think you are completely across what he is looking at on the internet just because you have a small house.

Oh gosh, that's really difficult.

I wouldn't want him cross dressing in front of his younger siblings.

He really needs a decent therapist to unpack the feelings he's having, but the problem is it's very difficult to find one who won't just affirm the person's stated gender identity.

Mini skirts & off the shoulder tops are not necessarily hypersexualised or fetish wear

No, men often wear these as casual wear, picking up the kids on the school run, doing the laundry.

As I said, you are hopelessly naive. You genuinely think your 19 yr old son never watches porn and doesn’t masturbate? Or that a young man wanting breasts and wearing mini skirts, off the shoulder tops and knee socks is not sexual? Really? You have no idea what the Wild West of the Internet and anime/trans culture is like. Where do you think he has got these ideas from? None of this makes him a monster btw. Having strong sexual feelings is NORMAL for 19 yr old men, but his outlets are not in real life relationships but are instead influenced by the fetishy side of the internet. Has he got access to money? If so he will very likely be considering ordering hormones online.This stuff is terrifyingly common.

Well he’s accessing it somewhere op. If it’s not at home it’s at college. I think you’ve come to exactly the right place for advice.

Its not remotely normal or non sexual for a 19y old boy to want breasts. The only possible motivation is a sexual one. Get your head out of the sand, dont listen to the trans actuvists that are showing up on this thread and get your son some help before he's too far down the path of wrong sex hormon damage or even surgical mutilation and castration.

OP, please get your son to a neutral counsellor and do everything you can to discourage hormones and surgery.

My cousin's child (female) went through this. She's autistic and lesbian (so classic profile for thinking she was 'trans'). She took hormones for more than a year. Thought about surgery but thankfully didn't do it.

Then she decided she wasn't trans, that she had simply struggled with her sexuality and her perceptions of what it was to be female. She now has considerable health issues from the hormones she took.

There are lots of very confused young people being led down this path. Please try to protect your son from doing anything he might later regret.

@Pleasesendhelp8 as you are finding out, many on mumsnet have very strong views about transgenderism and some people will make assumptions about your son and your home that may be wide of the mark.

Mini skirts & off the shoulder tops are not necessarily hypersexualised or fetish wear. Plenty of teenage girls wear short skirts and shoulder bearing tops around the home without being accused of participating in a fetish culture. As long as your son isn't flashing his genitals then wearing skirts isn't a problem.

He also sounds considerate of you and his siblings in modifying his dress to meet your standards and sounds like a credit to you.

While remaining supportive of him, I would try to understand a bit more about why he wants top surgery. Has he said he doesn't want to be a woman, just wants breasts or is this a conclusion you have come to?

I'm not asking merely to challenge you but because if he says he is transgender then unless he is legally deemed not to have capacity it doesn't matter what you think the reality of the situation is.

If there is another reason why he wants top surgery then understanding what this is means you can give him the support and guidance he needs. Surgery always carries risks.

However, people who are neurodivergent and have disabilities can be transgender too, it's not something that only legitimately affects neurotypical people of robust mental health and without learning disabilities.

You sound like a great mum who is finding a reasonable balance between respecting his freedom to express himself while being mindful of your younger children and your eldest comes across as equally considerate.

It will be difficult to find balanced views on this website, the most vocal posters don't believe in transgenderism at all. Read widely.

Yes, gaming is a huge way into this stuff. Jamie Lee Curtis’s adopted heterosexual son who was big into gaming is now identifying as a woman called Ruby and had a frankly gross female anime avatar with gigantic breasts. The contrast between the avatar and his true appearance in his anime outfits is so tragic it would be cruel to post the pictures.

yes. And this ‘aesthetic’ is reflected in some of the emo trends.

It IS sexual and it comes from porn.

However, the OP’s son may not be the one watching endless porn but may be taking in the imagery from other sources (group chats, forums, from content producers, gaming just to name a few) who are influencing the OP’s son. And yes, it is hard to get a 19 year old to seek counselling and to control their internet, but there is potentially ways to do this depending on the individual situation.

This is a very mild anime image. It’s not uncommon for young autistic men to have avatars like this. It’s a fantasy they retreat into but it’s also sexual.

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This! A 19 year old male - especially one with a porn habit and very poor boundaries as to appropriate sexual behaviour (cross dressing like this IS a fetish) in the home - should not be sharing a bedroom with a nine year old. It’s difficult because your oldest is disabled and asking him to live elsewhere may well feel cruel. It may also cause his behaviour to escalate. This shit is everywhere and it is ripping families apart.

You’ve never seen any pictures of anime p*rn have you? It’s literally that aesthetic. Very Emo.

Point aside, he needs a good therapist, and you have to get your 9 year old out of that room. You can’t have a 9 year old in the same room as a 19 year old who is exploring sexuality preferences like this.

I absolutely agree with this, the more I think about it (this post has been on my mind most of the morning!) the more uncomfortable I feel for OPs younger children.
Life can be confusing enough for young children without their older brother living out his sexual fantasies in your home.
Does he go out of the house dressed 'as a woman' (porn star)? What happens when the 9 Yr olds friends find out?
I think the 19 Yr old has pulled a blinder and taken mum's attention firmly off the younger children and straight back to him. No gay man wants breasts, gay men like male bodies so that makes no sense at all. Do the younger children know he wants surgery?
I strongly feel that either he stops dressing in 'women's' clothes and talking about ridiculous surgery or he needs to live elsewhere.

No advice OP, just sympathy and a similar story to share. My DS is the same age as yours, no autism diagnosis but some very strong traits. In the last year could only maintain a conversation on 1 or 2 topics.
Went off to uni a cheerful, positive young chap. After less than a year he became withdrawn, unstable and declared himself trans. We tried to be supportive, non judgmental and encourage questioning. All offers of support (therapy etc) were turned down. No overt cross dressing in the home but he left his women's clothes lying around his room and they ended up in the washing cycle. He went through a stage of buying female hormones online from abroad. He is now living at uni and has not spoken to us for 3 months. I have no idea what he is doing wrt to dressing, therapy, online content or hormones.
Those posters saying 'you must control his internet use' or 'get him to see a therapist' are not being realistic. At 19 he's legally an adult and the bloody mindedness and online influence that goes with this condition means that they feel justified in doing what they want, and they are unable to process the impact on other people, even young ones.
How you safeguard younger siblings is tricky. Ours have been left very upset by events, and are now destabilised by the complete disappearance of their beloved brother from their lives.
I'm sharing my story here as I'm stunned at the numbers of late adolescent boys this phenomenon is affecting and how similar the stories are.

Are there any family stresses/ trauma/ significant changes going on? When young autistic people are going through emotional difficulties, coming out as trans is often an expression of their distress. I know a family where the father was diagnosed with a terminal illness and his autistic son then announced he was a girl.

Your son almost certainly has private, encrypted emails (proton mail etc), texting and browser access you know nothing about. How do you ‘monitor’ his internet access? You ‘see’ everything he’s looking at on his phone at 2am while your younger child is in the same room? That seems highly unlikely to me. Believe me, he’s looking at stuff that would freak you out. Loads of confused, vulnerable, autistic young men who are full of testosterone but have with no real life romantic or sexual partners of either sex are getting online sexual gratification from (deludedly) imagining themselves as these pornified child-like anime characters God knows what you do about it as your son is legally if not emotionally an adult. It’s tragic. You can love your son while telling him you will not tolerate him dressing in a fetishistic way at home, and say no to hormones bought over the internet and no to plastic surgery while in your home. You might also give him some straight talk about what real gay men want from a partner - which is not a set of silicone enhanced moobs.