How do you support other siblings when a teen decides they are trans

I think you will learn what he sees, vs what you see, what others see.

What does this mean?

I wouldn't dream of 'helping' my teenage children (1 girl, 1 boy) with their looks. I think it's bizarre and intrusive for a parent to do this with any child above the age of 11 unless asked. I don't know why you keep telling the op to do this when her son is a young adult who hasn't asked her advice and whose suddenly announced 'trans' identity causes her deep concern.

Thank you... I feel bad now that I didn't try and find someone new and better. It was just so hard to find information and we were very short of money.

The truth is that that first therapist pressed my buttons very expertly, and having been kind of neutral at the outset (i.e. upset about it all but open to whatever would make my DC happy) I ended up being rabidly hostile to the utter nonsense of gender ideology.

One of the problems with agenda-laden practitioners is that just as many trans-identifying children are autistic, so are many of their parents (including me) and it took time for me to see the machinery of manipulation in action. By the time I realised what was happening, we had both been wound up like coiled springs by her (him??) and couldn't talk to each other at all.

It all started with such good intentions but ultimately did more harm than good.

But I agree with the pp that guilt comes all too naturally to parents in this situation. You have to keep reminding yourself that you did and are doing your best, and if it isn't enough then that's unlikely to be your fault and is most likely out of your control.

I don't think you are remotely behind the curve.

The Conversion Therapy Bill is having a massive impact on the approach therapists are prepared to take - and indeed whether they will touch the subject with a barge pole.

Unless the current Labour Government have the guts to recognise the scale of the problem with their attempts to legislate then they have a massive problem and it will have significant implications.

Even if they do push problematic stuff through then it's still a minefield because the Gays Mens Network and the likes of Dennis Noel Kavanagh WILL challenge it in terms of discrimination and harm to gay men and it being a form of conversation.

So the whole background of this sector is currently hugely overshadowed by EDI training and the fear of liability of getting this wrong and then being sued for trying to convert or being discriminatory.

Meanwhile there's a bunch of people who are stuck in the middle of these arguments who need help and support. Quite frankly I don't want to trust ANY therapist because I have no idea of knowing their political agenda before you start to deal with very sensitive issues. The risk of encountering someone who has their own agenda that's not in your interests is currently too high. The way ERCC has played out only serves to demonstrate to me that the 'help' sector is so dominated by well meaning who aren't just their to help but also because they have wider beliefs about the concept of 'helping' or 'being kind' purely because it's a certain type of person drawn to jobs in that area.

I really like what SisterofMCW says about 'The dilemma of the Paradox of Tolerance' as it sums up the problem well. (Think I might steal that concept).

Please help him with his look, same as you would DD.
I think you will learn what he sees, vs what you see, what others see.

Much like other teens who get it totally wrong, or copy another with totally different body type and could use advice to tone it down.

No. It's you who is completely tone deaf and not even remotely listening to people telling you how their sibling transitioning harmed them psychologically.

I find it damn arrogant for posters like you to double down and tell the OP that they are wrong thinking or at risk of wrong thinking by even considering the impact on other family members.

It's appalling that on a thread where others have been silenced, have made a point about this continued trend to crush these conversations and are talking about the stigma of the subject, you try and shut down those ideas by telling the OP to step away from the thread and think about away from the influence of us!

Our lived experience and our honesty over some thing sensitive and difficult means fuck all to you and you have tampled all others trying to express this.

@Autumnleavesareslippery and@AreTheyOrArentThey Your family situations might have caused your children some doubts and uncertainties about their place in the family and in the world - but then which of us doesn't have any of those uncertainties growing up? The idea that transition is a solution to these doubts - no you didn't implant that. He found it elsewhere and it seems good to him.

I know I've questioned what I did with DC as a result of this. Every parenting mistake I've made over the years has crossed my mind! And in fact DH and I felt that we'd let DC drift away from us after graduation and we made a very conscious decision to re-connect.

But sometimes it's good to remember that we mums (parents) are not the be-all and end-all of who our children are, who they become, and we cannot protect them from all the crazy risks they take and mistakes they make along the way.

@SophiaCohle we had the same experience with our son's first therapist, I had to extricate ourselves from that nightmare. We then found an excellent gender specialist therapist who had left the Tavistock a few years ago but DS was going through serious MH struggles and after 3 months just stopped talking to her. I wonder if it was because he was in the throes of his affirming friends saying he ought to be able to choose his therapist so he rejected the clearly non-affirming one we'd chosen. A few months later he asked to go back to therapy and we gave him some agency in choosing one. I don't know how much they discussed gender but from what the therapist said when DS ended the sessions they focused more on dealing with extreme feelings, fight and flight etc which was the reason he went.

I would love for him to go back to the GC therapist but you can lead a horse to water.....

I may be behind the times - I hope I am - but I have to say that when this first happened to us, nearly a decade ago now, it was completely impossible to find therapy or counselling that wasn't purely affirmative. I think I'm right in saying that that was directed by law, or at least by the codes of practice of BACP and similar. No therapist would have dared go against that, so any kind of therapy that enabled the gender dysphoric child to explore their feelings and decide whether it really was gender dysphoria they were experiencing, or perhaps BDD or perhaps the burden of being ND, or perhaps just teenage angst or whatever, was a complete non-starter.

I went to huge personal lengths to arrange specialist therapy for DS and - at his request - attended sessions with him, only to find that the therapist, who claimed she would talk through all his issues with him (e.g. he was on the cusp of an ASD diagnosis) instead spent several months doing a complete hatchet job on me, and deliberately provoking hostility between us when there had been none before. She was also one appointment away from transferring him to the Tavistock, despite clearly stating at the outset the criteria he would need to meet, and the fact that - having been in every session - I knew he came nowhere close. (This was the point where I pulled the plug.)

There was just nowhere to find the kind of impartial, exploratory support we had wanted for him. I think this was also before the days of Bayswater etc, or we had never heard of them anyway, and even here on MN the advice was to be affirmative and respectful. I know that things are changing, and I have a lovely therapist (for myself) now who is firmly GC and therefore able to support me totally, but I suspect at high street level - uni counsellors and the like - the refusal to voice any reservations about affirmative care is still there.

I guess what I'm saying is to tread really carefully with therapy, and don't necessarily believe it when you're told that the full smorgasbord of outcomes is up for discussion. There is a lot of ignorance and this is also an area where many practitioners operate with an agenda.

@CautiousLurker are you me?! I could have written your post word for word (and probably why it doesn't read like mud to me, but I too run wild with my words!)

My feminism is exactly like yours, and believes in men having access to "women's things" (like being allowed to cry, talk about your feelings, have lots of close friends, stay home with your children, nice candles and flowers etc) as well as women having access to "men's things" (equal pay, the right to vote, job opportunities, beer and motorbikes etc) obviously I'm being a bit facetious before anyone jumps on me and to that point I've really tried to articulate that more and more over the years, even got into a conversation with one of DS's male friends who said "I'm not a feminist at a party" and got jumped on by his female friends but I tried to extricate what he meant and clearly he felt excluded by feminism so I just explained what feminism meant to me personally and that actually we al have the opportunity to decide that for ourselves. I think that conversation needs to happen more with young men - feminism was always about equality.

I do think some of the rhetoric of GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING and BOYS ARE EVIL RAPISTS has had an effect on some young men and controversially I agree that the rise of the backlash of feminism of some men in the form of Incels etc have made some girls feel like a safer place to be is as a boy. God these poor kids.

@ExtremelyPrivate thankyou for your compassionate post. For me my TI child is the quiet, acquiescent one so I do also think some of this is (consciously or not) attention seeking

@Autumnleavesareslippery Apologies if this has been mentioned and I missed it, but as he is autistic the likelihood that he also suffers from anxiety and depression are quite high. At the ripe old age of 43 I’m now on medication which has helped me tremendously. I’m not sure if he is on medication but I thought I would mention it. Wish I had started a long time ago.

thereitgoes
It was like a lightning bolt when I read your post -- I am now ashamed to admit that I have generally used his brother's preferred (female) pronouns when discussing his brother now (although not when discussing their childhood etc. - e.g. "shall we invite her"). I suppose I was swaying too much there being no harm in respecting how someone wants to currently identify even if I privately don't believe them to be a woman. But now I just think what an idiot I've been - why on earth would I care so much about 'respecting someone' who isn't there and demonstrating how tolerant and balanced I am in this context. And how this action just shows how profoundly I don't get it and makes me complicit in the harm siblings tend to suffer. Thank you.

I am glad if my experience has helped, but I it's likely not everyone will react the same way to the pronouns used or even to retaining their own version of the past. Your friend may have no objection but he still may appreciate you having the conversation with him.

You haven't "been an idiot", you have been tricked. We have all been told we have to be very very kind to this special group, and indeed we do want to be kind and tolerant to a point. Is this the dilemma of the Paradox of Tolerance-- deciding when being “very kind” might actually be unkind to another, larger group?

Sorry OP this sounds like a tough and sensitive situation.
I am going to be quite controversial here... he needs therapy. Kids take this new trans route willy nilly and it's not always something they actually really want, it's a trend. He wants to be different. He wants attention and to create shock. He probably has a group of friends who are the same and they're all encouraging each other. This too shall pass. But it needs to be handled before he takes it too far. Have a really deep heart to heart with him and see if you can identify any underlying issues he has and understand why he's made the decision. Good luck xx

I'm worried, @Autumnleavesareslippery and @AreTheyOrArentThey about the self-blaming thoughts you have in relation to how wider societal issues like perceptions of feminism and of 'toxic masculinity' play out in your own household and parenting. There is such an intensely strong tendency among mothers to try and find ways of blaming ourselves and I want to say very emphatically that the humanity and care in your parenting is evident and it just wouldn't be fair to focus on any real or imagined failings.
All of us, of course, to some extent internalise and perform various malign societal influences such as misogyny and resentment of certain male behaviours; all children find themselves by working though these currents in their parents and in their family.
What matters most is not for parents to be somehow immune from all the current that shape everyone's personality and behaviour, but that children can develop and respond to all these currents in an emotionally supporting environment in which we are all open to monitoring ourselves, apologising when we get things wrong, inviting our children to express any hurts that they feel and so on.

I also want to say that our own attitudes as mothers in relation to feminism, masculinity and so forth might be quite a minor influence in comparison with other aspects of sibling dynamics. Position within the family (older, younger, middle) is also extremely important. I know that in my own childhood my extreme 'tomboy' persona (which may have been twisted into a trans identity if I was a child now) was as much influenced by my status as a middle child as it was by my father's manifest preference for doing boy stuff with his only boy (my younger brother).
Another massive influence is being the sibling of a child who has severe problems, whatever those problems are - gender/mental health or physical illness. I think that at least one other parent on this thread has spoken of how gentle, compassionate, kind their non-trans-identified child is, and how they feel guilty that this gentle persona has contributed to a kind of reduced parental focus.
But I do think that the siblings of children with problems can sometimes develop into incredibly compassionate and self-sufficient adults, partly as a result of their early experiences. Of course we have to keep on reminding them that THEY ARE ALLOWED TO BE NEEDY AND NOISY TOO. But we can also accept, with gratitude and pride, any signs that their self-sufficiency and compassion might be genuine. My son's sibling (another boy, I haven't said that before out of obsessive anxiety about privacy, but it is material I think, since I think it would have been much harder for him in various ways if he was a girl) is astonishingly grounded, kind, functional. I can't believe it. But it is real. Some consequences of family trauma can be ok.
Anyway: TL;DR -- be kind to yourselves. You are going through a lot.

DeanElderberry (and as it happens I) may have misunderstood you, but I am certain it wasn't deliberate misunderstanding.

You are deliberately misunderstanding me and twisting my words. I meant take a break from this site whilst she thought about all the comments.

This is a really moving and important thread. @Autumnleavesareslippery , I'm afraid I don't have any meaningful advice - but I wanted to say that you seem like a great parent who is focused on supporting all of your children and taking the time to grapple with these complex issues. You've had some great advice here and I hope it helps as you navigate all this. Sending love.

There have been so many great posts on this thread but thank you to @SisterofMCW in particular. Someone close to me is in a similar situation to you - sibling transitioning from male to female. I have been trying to support him and would describe myself as gender-critical, although with the luxury of not having to think too hard about these issues so a good dose of 'be kind' can creep in.

It was like a lightning bolt when I read your post -- I am now ashamed to admit that I have generally used his brother's preferred (female) pronouns when discussing his brother now (although not when discussing their childhood etc. - e.g. "shall we invite her"). I suppose I was swaying too much there being no harm in respecting how someone wants to currently identify even if I privately don't believe them to be a woman. But now I just think what an idiot I've been - why on earth would I care so much about 'respecting someone' who isn't there and demonstrating how tolerant and balanced I am in this context. And how this action just shows how profoundly I don't get it and makes me complicit in the harm siblings tend to suffer. Thank you.

I grew up a very misogynistic household. I routinely countered it (fell on deaf ears). It fired in me a deep sense of injustice, but I never wished to be a boy, I wished for equality (I’m autistic for reference). I don’t believe that you caused him to be this way. Yes upbringing has an effect on us but I believe this is an extreme thing for him to do and I would be more likely to find the fault lies with outside influences.

@AreTheyOrArentThey this sounds so complicated - I do wonder whether toxic masculinity/the rise in popularity of the Tates etc is connected to many boys’ desire to transition. I’m not rejecting the influence of porn and am wary of saying that sometimes feminism can be perceived as anti-male - my DH is an educated professional with decades of board level interactions with both sexes in positions of authority, and a champion for women in the workplace. However when I recently mentioned that I am in the WRN and would describe myself as feminist (my PhD is in feminist perspectives of crime fiction, focusing on the demonisation of the ‘mother’, so hardly a surprise, I thought), he was almost offended. His knee jerk response was that ‘feminism’ is anti-men, that it ascribes all society’s ill to men, that men are regarded homogeneously as a malign demographic. I was stunned, but I think men - young and old apparently - feel targeted by an anti-male narrative.

I think it’s fair to consider that if girls are opting out of womanhood because of misogynistic social trends (#MeToo, the Tates, the rise of extreme islam where women are utterly oppressed, a police force that contains sexual predators and thinks nothing of joking about raping partners and wives in its social whatsapps) then young men may be picking up on this narrative of toxic masculinity and trying to reject it. I can see how autistic men might feel that this emerging strongly negative masculine narrative does not fit them and the ‘if not A> then B’ cognitive process kicks in.

As a society we have sorely let our young people down. The focus on trans/LGB rights in the last decade has displaced work that could have been done on teaching YP/children that they are not defined by their biological sex, even if there are some physical/hormonal/developmental differences that need managing in different ways. When I was a Guider the brief was ‘Girls Can’ - ie girls can do anything that boys can [kayaking, shooting, archery] and provided a safe space in which they could explore these activities and build self esteem away from the male gaze. It wasn’t that ‘Girls are Best’ or that ‘Boys Stink’ 🤣. Boys and Girls need space to explore who they are, with respect to their biological sex, but also opportunities to understand how that does not limit them or need to negatively shape their behaviours.

Sorry, I am not sure I am conveying what I actually mean properly, but what I mean is that my form of ‘feminism’ is about equality - of opportunity and accountability - it is not about making men feel small or feel guilty but I think sometimes the message men hear within a ‘feminist’ discussion is precisely that. As feminists - as mums of sons, sisters and parters/wives - I feel we need to advocate for women without making men feel ‘less than’. I worry that some forms of feminism undermine our cause because we cast men as the enemy, rather than seek their willing and respectful collaboration.

Sorry, clear as mud as I am thinking this through as I type.

We’re about to start the ASD process for my son too.

we’d not talked about gender for ages, I was just relieved his mental health was better but I asked him yesterday and one of the first things he said was being excited to change his voice when he goes to sixth form. I’m back to the knot of anxiety permanently in my stomach

@PrettyPickle Yesterday 21:04 I think you need to take a break, think about it more once you have calmed down.

Take a break from being the mother of a son who has started to behave in ways that are devastating to her, her other children, and the rest of her family?

Sympathy and respect to all of you who are in this situation - it is also pretty devastating for people who lose a sister / niece whatever to this thing and it is obviously long past time that you had a place on MN to discuss it and all its horrors. Compulsory affirmation is an awful policy, as is the deliberate destruction of family trust.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this link to siblings and about my own part in potentially creating this trans identity/confusion in my son. He has been brought up in a strongly feminist household and has a younger sister who has always taken up a lot of space. He has always been the sweet, compliant older brother and she is loud and opinionated and not acquiescent. We have definitely tried over the years to make sure he has his space and to teach him to say what HE needs and what HE wants but I know we have also often followed the easy route because his sister makes such a fuss when things don’t go her way. I can see how, as described by others, he may well have grown up thinking it’s better to be a girl….god this makes me feel so guilty. We have over the years - especially in the last 5 years or so when the rhetorical backlash against “straight white men” happened and it was starting to be used as an insult, to talk about all the amazing straight white men who are empathetic and do good things and how he should be proud to be one (he believe he fancies girls not boys) but I worry it’s too little too late. They say your ideas about yourself and the world solidify by the age of 7….

i did ask him yesterday, for the first time in a long time, why he wants to be a girl and what is it about being a boy he rejects. But as ever he doesn’t talk or respond. I feel like we have a ticking time bomb as he goes to 6th form next year and I think he’s sitting on his hands planning a huge change in how he presents himself.

his sister being so affirming is probably absolutely validating his idea that it’s better to be a girl and she is making it clear she accepts him as one