Help me deal with a transgender teen from a feminist perspective please

"I don’t know anyone transgender on real life. "

You do not know anyone openly or visibly transgender. There is a difference :)

"The issue I have is I don’t want this for my child."

No parent would - including those who have themselves transitioned. That's a perfectly natural and reasonable position. My guess is that your child would also prefer not to have this complication.

You also need to make sure that your child realises that there are alternatives to transition. MNers bash 'transvestites' but for some people dressing occasionally can be a way to avoid or delay a full transition.

But, for some people, there really is no alternative to transition if they are to be happy.

It is really tough for everyone involved and the only way to get through it safely is to keep an open mind, support each other and take baby steps before big steps. Over time you will work out which of a range of long term outcomes is best but right now nobody knows.

And try to reach out to other parents in similar positions. The mums I know who have been through it find being able to talk to other parents very helpful. I don't know which group is presently best, but Mermaids has been around a long time and might be an OK place to look for support for yourself.

I'm not surprised you are worried. We are all about penis and scrotal surgery in a conversation about a boy doing GCSEs. One side will make it seem like a very easy ride. However, you're his mum. No one will fight for him in the way you do. No one will care about him more than you do.

Mummy 2017 what a good idea
Agree with Tammy re puberty blockers

"I know this may sound silly... but....
Take your son away to somewhere no one knows you for a weeks holiday and let him wear skirts make up the works... that he wants to wear to the new school...
Tell him it is a trial run so he can see how people will react to him..
Explain about people may not be willing to accept this and how going slowly may cause less disruption inhis educational needs for a few years"

It isn't silly. It is a very sensible suggestion IMO.

I hosted a party with a lot of trans friends present. Even knowing that, my cis friends identified less than half of the trans people present.

But equally, especially for those changing to a female presentation, it can be very tough at the start without support from the changes hormones can make to the face. Even if - and that isn't a given - it is right for your child, it might not be right now as transition requires a lot of strength, and often a certain desperation. Finding out as soon as possible whether your child can cope with the pressures is sensible - so long as s/he feels no pressure to do it. I suggest you should facilitate but remain as neutral as possible.

"who has insufficient genital material to facilitate SRS"

With a good surgeon there is nobody with insufficient donor material. Generally a scrotal graft rather than a penile graft is all that is needed, but there are other alternatives.

You have done right starting this thread.

I don't think transitioning at home first is necessarily a good idea. Transition in a new sixth form is uncomplicated because their is little history so few preconceptions to battle. Transition at home is difficult because there is a lot of history and preconceptions to be overcome.

An entirely gendered sixth form is, however, not ideal. If your child finds living as a girl / woman is not right, then you want to make returning to a male role easy. It is called the Real Life Experience or Real Life Test for a reason - it is a way of finding out.

If you spend any time on MN you will have seen how badly many members treat trans women. Is that something that you would want for your child to live with? It need not be like that. With help, and a medical transition in late teens, you could have a daughter who could do everything without anyone ever guessing her past, treated entirely as a woman because nobody will ever no otherwise. But, if you delay her then you will make her life harder. If you make her fight you, you risk her becoming a TRA rather than an ordinary woman. There is also a risk that if you push hard against transition, your child might go too far to prove you wrong.

It isn't easy but the more you can relax and support whatever your child decides, the better it will be. If right now that is going to school next year as a girl, personally I would allow it. Take the attitude that the two of you will have open minds an explore it together.

And remember children are far more open-minded than many of the adults on here from earlier generations, although some will have conditioned their children into their prejudices. A few years ago I had the privilege of talking to a 9 year old girl whose classmate had just transitioned. She said that the children were all fine with it but that they kept having to explain to the teachers that their classmate was a girl now.

Forget much of what you read online. It tends to be reactionary from both sides. Talk to real people but remember that it is very hard to find the people who have transitioned without being prominently trans. They are generally not in trans groups.

I really wish people would stop using the term “puberty blockers”, makes them sound so harmless. I wonder if any of these people have ever been on these drugs, because I have. Two years, when I was already an adult. These drugs fuck up your pituitary gland and then other problems follow. Ten years on and I’m still having issues as a result - to be fair issues is putting it mildly. I cannot actually believe anyone would give this to their child unless there was a medical situation that made it absolutely crucial. My son is currently being investigated for a genetic condition that can cause precocious puberty and I would really struggle to agree them them if it came to it. A teen who’s suicidal is one thing, someone who’s suicidal because their lifelong health has been destroyed by something that was never actually necessary (it’s not as if transitioning requires it), or who has insufficient genital material to facilitate SRS, who has no sex drive whatsoever, who suffers from debilitating fatigue, osteoporosis, growth issues, thyroid issues etc. And that’s not even getting into the fact that screwing around with a developing brain is extremely unwise.

How to Really Help Trans Children - includes the lady that set up Transgender Trend, from the UK, who maybe able to help you too.

people who dress in nonconforming ways, eg boys and men who wear make up, are already well aware of the risk that some people may be rude or unkind to them.

I know this may sound silly... but....
Take your son away to somewhere no one knows you for a weeks holiday and let him wear skirts make up the works... that he wants to wear to the new school...

Tell him it is a trial run so he can see how people will react to him..

Explain about people may not be willing to accept this and how going slowly may cause less disruption inhis educational needs for a few years

Rapid onset gender dysphoria is discussed here...there are other clips in the series that are worth watching too. Further links are in the notes of the clips.

With respect to the education options, you say that both sixth forms are mixed sex. And presumably at both boys can wear “girls’” clothes, and vice versa.

Unless the school with more girls has way worse results, ilmight be best just to go along with it. You say there are issues with more restricted A level choices there, but how restricted? Choice of subject seems of secondary importance to the other things going on, eg socially and healthwise. Presumably at their preferred school DS could do A levels in standard, “facilitating” subjects for university.

hi starfish, it sounds like you're dealing with a complex and difficult teen issue right now. And you sound caring and concerned, as I would be if the same thing was happening to my DC right now.

I'm not an expert and don't have lots of advice, but you mentioned the 'internet influences' in your first post.

The one thing I'd recommend all parents to do, if you're not already, is to wander around the social media that our teens are also in, as it starts to give you a good perspective on the messages, discourse and atmosphere that they're experiencing too.

Tumblr particularly.

It's incredibly useful to 'live' it through their eyes, to see the influencers, the pernicious messages being driven, the shut down and bullying of gender critical posters (and who is doing the shut down and bullying).

Bizarrely, the social media of our times allows us as parents to view the teen world and dialogue much more than when many of us were teens ourselves, when much of our teen world was hidden to our parents. (A phone attached to the wall, and conversations not documented on social media was much more exclusive!)

it doesn't necessarily solve the issue you're facing, but entering the internet world your teen is immersed in may help in discussing the issues with language and perspective that resonates with them.

Apologies if you have done so already, and this is just grandmother telling you to suck eggs!

It's called bridging hormones.

I disagree with the glacial slow process when private doctors and mermaids, which is usually the first hit for parental support, subverts the watchful waiting and tells parents would you rather have a dead son or an alive daughter. Here lies the melodrama that we parents are being met with instantly. Also 16 is very close to adult services. I might be wrong but post 17 can qualify. The op does not have a lot of time. Let's not forget the trans sites that tell our kids how to order hrt online. Once this is in place in an under 18, the gp then will have a duty of care to provide treatment. This is a way round it. The kids know this.
To the op, assume your child is telling you half the story and research am I trans and read the responses. It is quite an eye opener. They will say you are abusive, you don't mean anything, you are the evil one etc. A few days browsing all these forums gives a good insight into how kids are being reeled into this ideology.
If you are happy with your child's announcement then mermaids is your best place to help you and your child as the parents are all affirming. If not sure try gender critical support as another poster mentioned. It's a very difficult time for you right now. My advice is to research all perspectives and then stay 10 steps ahead because there is a pattern to what our kids request. Ask if what they are saying is their own thoughts or thoughts put there by others. It is a difficult road either way. Not affirming does not mean you don't love or support your child despite what the trans agenda says.

Just to add, OP doesn't mention anything about physical transition. Overloading them with a lot of misinformation about irreversible changes and online grooming is alarmist and unhelpful.

The reality is that in the UK at least access to any form of medical transition on the NHS is a glacially slow process.

@starfishsunrise, your story isn't surprising. Lots of parents are not aware when their child comes out, it may seem a shock to you but they may have been living this for much longer than you imagine. You are however in the wrong place for advice on parenting a (possibly) trans child, but you probably already know that.

Your child sounds like they know their mind. They are brave to consider transitioning at 6th form and will likely need all the love and support from you they can get.

There are lots of organisations that could help you and your child, I'd advise starting with your local LGBT centre.

I wonder if this site could help

A community of parents & others concerned about the medicalization of gender-atypical youth and rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)

4thwavenow.com/

as for "changing sex", it's important to understand that all human sexual characteristics exist on a spectrum between masculine and feminine extremes, and we are all a mixture

I've read so many variations on this theme from trans people who seem absolutely desperate to get people to believe this. It is clearly something that they have to convince themselves of for their own peace of mind. I wish they could live and let live.

Also very important, as Natluc' s post, to make clear that you will be perfectly happy with your ds being gay, straight, bi or a-sexual. If you've ever suggested you hope for grandchildren or a DIL you may need to do some unravelling of those ideas. Again, my dd receives lots of strong messages from us about lifestyle choices and how all of the above are great. We have no hopes she needs to fulfill other than she accepts herself, nurtures herself and is kind to others

If you think, even a little, that your son may be autistic you should follow that up. Most of us who post here believe strongly that gender is a social construct and my experience with an autistic dd who presents as masculine very much confirms this. She experiences gendered expectations as external, coercive, oppressive (which they are but most of us don't see it so clearly until we have been educated to see it). I wasn't gender critical before so it wasn't something I taught her about. I have found that colluding with my dd in her rejection of ALL stereotypes and teaching her that male and female brains are pretty much identical at birth has helped a lot. Children who are autistic are disproportionately likely to be gender non conforming and in today's era, trans. If he is autistic he will have a feeling that he thinks differently from others and he will know that he doesn't fit other people's gendered expectations.

starfishsunrise it's incredibly difficult what you're going through and I think you're approaching it the right way - watchful waiting is far less harmful than instant affirmation and hormones.

(I'm experiencing this in my own family though not with my own child thankfully and it's fraught with far too many opportunities to get it wrong.)

What WAKAME posted are the opinions of individual practitioners btw - internationally the consensus is that there is no consensus as to whether instant affirmation & early hormones are less harmful than the tried and tested wait and see approach. What is missing from those quoted studies is the control group of transgender youths whose parents accepted them for what they are but who adopted a much more cautious approach.

Of course, one could say that we actually do know from over 40 years of GD practice that transgender children who are accepted by their parents but wait before socially and then medically transitioning did very well indeed.

As for what you can do, I have a child the same age and have - for different reasons - had to curb their internet usage. I would absolutely recommend cutting your son off from chat groups/forums/messageboards for at least a month and encourage interaction with people in real life. We agree contracts with our kids when we do massive interventions like this with rewards and consequences as this makes it easier to stick to for all involved (plus if it's in writing there's no "I never agreed to this" or "that's not what you said" etc). But you'll know much better what works with your child and what doesn't.

If cutting him off doesn't work for whatever reason, I would consciously, intently, deliberately and constantly counteract the misinformation kids get on those websites (transgendertrend has a lot of parents who have shared their experiences at having to do this because the information their kid got from those websites was so damaging).

Being trans is currently considered cool amongst a seemingly quite specific subset of the teen population (and I often wonder how the truly dysphoric children feel about that), so social contagion is now being discussed even by the docs from the Tavistock clinic.

What I do know is that the kids coach each other online about exactly what to say to parents and doctors to achieve the desired result (word for word is not rare, neither are complete scripts they've successfully used).

In your position I'd also go the home first - then socially outside school - then school/college/work route. I'd be concerned too that your DC has not shown any interest in taking you up on your offer of clothes. From what I've seen with children with severe gender dysphoria, they don't tend to reject such an opportunity, but maybe he's embarrassed?

NatLuc thank you for your openness and honesty. It's very interesting to read about your individual journey and I am glad that transitioning has brought you peace.

as for "changing sex", it's important to understand that all human sexual characteristics exist on a spectrum between masculine and feminine extremes, and we are all a mixture

This is what I mean. Your son may read this and think he can change sex. He can't. What this means is that hormones could make breasts or a beard grow, and some men have lower voices than other men, and that some women can have babies and some can't. None of which has any bearing on whether a person changes sex.

If your son is reading that sort of thing then he probably believes he can change sex. He can't.

starfishsunrise I think watchful waiting and taking about how your son can express himself however makes him happy, perhaps at home first as suggested, is the way to go.

I just wanted to address something that WAKAME said:

"if you take a trans girl who has been given puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, she will have a female skeletal structure, female musculature, female stature, female shoe size, voice pitch, hair patterns, fat distribution, lactating breasts etc etc. Pound for pound, she is vastly more female than male. So the idea that you can't "change sex" both misunderstand human sexual dimorphism and also greatly underestimates how malleable humans sexual characteristics can be."

It seems clear that secondary sexual characteristics can be affected by cross sex hormones, and altered to have the appearance of the opposite sex. I seriously doubt the statement that boys who transition before puberty could lactate. That seems a claim too far. What a person in this position will end up with is a feminised male body. They have not changed sex and they are no more female than before transition.