Teen declared they were trans and now says they can't be in contact with us

offer to take him shopping for new clothes and offer help with makeup etc.

And again with this 🙄

What next - a girly spa day and a lovely pillow-fight while wearing shortie nighties? Women are not a bingo-card of reductive stereotypes. Give me strength.

Thank you - this reflects how I feel. We’ve told him we love him, continued to accept him, told him he can be whoever he wants. We’ve continued including him in everything. Even my parents who are in their 80s, really really confused by it and worried sick haven’t said anything questionable or critical.

We continue to send chatty messages, dog photos and include him.

I have spent considerable money financing his choices to go to this university in an expensive part of the country.

We do all of this because we love him and see it as our responsibility as parents (the money part).

I also do not believe we have done anything wrong. In any other situation if a child acted like this in response to how we’ve behaved no one would question whether we’d done enough.

Yes he’s an adult but right now it feels like he’s being cruel. He won’t speak to anyone including my mother who is unwell and may not be with us that much longer. It feels like manipulation and punishment. Our door will always be open but as an adult who can make choices he also needs to realise that these have consequences for others. I need to protect all our mental health too.

Thank you - this reflects how I feel. We’ve told him we love him, continued to accept him, told him he can be whoever he wants. We’ve continued including him in everything. Even my parents who are in their 80s, really really confused by it and worried sick haven’t said anything questionable or critical.

We continue to send chatty messages, dog photos and include him.

I have spent considerable money financing his choices to go to this university in an expensive part of the country.

We do all of this because we love him and see it as our responsibility as parents (the money part).

I also do not believe we have done anything wrong. In any other situation if a child acted like this in response to how we’ve behaved no one would question whether we’d done enough.

Yes he’s an adult but right now it feels like he’s being cruel. He won’t speak to anyone including my mother who is unwell and may not be with us that much longer. It feels like manipulation and punishment. Our door will always be open but as an adult who can make choices he also needs to realise that these have consequences for others. I need to protect all our mental health too.

Thank you - this reflects how I feel. We’ve told him we love him, continued to accept him, told him he can be whoever he wants. We’ve continued including him in everything. Even my parents who are in their 80s, really really confused by it and worried sick haven’t said anything questionable or critical.

We continue to send chatty messages, dog photos and include him.

I have spent considerable money financing his choices to go to this university in an expensive part of the country.

We do all of this because we love him and see it as our responsibility as parents (the money part).

I also do not believe we have done anything wrong. In any other situation if a child acted like this in response to how we’ve behaved no one would question whether we’d done enough.

Yes he’s an adult but right now it feels like he’s being cruel. He won’t speak to anyone including my mother who is unwell and may not be with us that much longer. It feels like manipulation and punishment. Our door will always be open but as an adult who can make choices he also needs to realise that these have consequences for others. I need to protect all our mental health too.

Utter nonsense from start to finish (well, maybe I could find a grain of truth somewhere in it).

Sorry I don’t have time now to RTFT, but wanted to respond quickly to this bit of your OP -

Or wanting the drama of no one supporting him.

IME there is a great deal of this surrounding any trans narrative. My late teens DD announced she was non-binary a couple of years ago but is now veering towards male presentation and I think we’ll be in the same situation as you after she leaves for uni (not the no contact, hopefully, but certainly the “I’m now a man” announcement).

Teenagers are obviously prone to drama for drama’s sake (the nonsense and ghosting and beef and gossip feels neverending), but there’s a particular outpouring of RL and online support for those who can boast a traumatic or high octane ‘coming out’ story. It’s very easy to whip up a deluge of attention and vicarious outrage for those who have ‘unsupportive’ families.

I’ve been totally baffled by my DD’s representations of conversations we’ve had, and there’s a lot of therapy speak and terms like ‘journey’ thrown around - it’s almost like she’s actively trying to give anything we say or do a negative spin in order to have a better story to tell. She’s definitely egged on in this by some of her social circle, but it’s not representative of our relationship at all.

A good friend of mine has a gay son of a similar age. His sexuality was honestly fairly obvious for some years, but following his coming out I was astonished to hear through a third party the tales he’d been telling at school about how terrible his family’s reactions were, how he felt ostracised and alone, when I know for sure he’s had nothing but support and acceptance.

We live in an attention economy. These kids have known nothing else, and SM has only worsened and heightened normal teenage drama, rebelliousness and indignation - especially amongst emotionally immature teens.

I hope your situation resolves happily for all of you, and I’d hold out hope that the whole no contact thing is just a knee jerk bit of attention-seeking. I wouldn’t cut him off financially straight away, but I’d make it clear that you’re considering that option (ask why he thinks you should support an adult who no longer wishes to have a relationship with you) and encourage him to have a proper conversation with you about what he thinks the future will look like for you as a family.

Either way, you have my sympathy - grappling with this stuff is utterly exhausting, endlessly worrying and just … shit.

He issued the boundaries, but I don’t think he understands the meaning of the word.

I listened briefly to a YouTube video, and a mother who is going through the same thing with her adult son. It was interesting and worth a listen. Your son knows you and your husband doesn't fully accept what he's doing. He gave you boundaries and told you this is who I am and I have a new name. You call him sweetie and lovely, so you can avoid calling him his new name, and your husband still calls him his birth name. Your son knows your feelings and you're embarrassed to communicate properly with your son. How do you really feel?

What if this isn't a fad and it's who he is. You have to work out as his parents what kind of relationship you want with him. You need to get to know who your child is now. You don't know your child and you need to get to know him/her. Whatever fantasy you had in your head about the future park it.

The demand for us to die really is the cherry on the top of the icing isn't it?

Be kind or die.

It's not exactly very nice is it? It's pretty demanding and manipulative.

Imagine where your head is at to type that? It's into pure brainwashed extremist terrority. It's not normal and it's not healthy communication.

Why they think anyone here is going to listen to a word of what they have said when they end their post like that is beyond me.

"Honestly, I'd play along to keep him close while he is exploring this new aspect of his identity. Send him a big cake and say that you love him exactly as he is and he has a right to his own identity - he is an adult. That you hope he will not cut you off to the extent of refusing your financial support as you want to be sure he is well provided for and if and when he feels ready to get back in touch, you welcome him with open arms. Use his new name and pronouns throughout. Just keep the communication open for now."

@SereneCapybara so basically pander to him? Terrible advice. If he wants to start making adult decisions then he needs to deal with adult consequences.

You know precisely nothing.

I know my mum did everything as dictated.

Still wasn't enough. The problem is precisely the point that you can change sex and your family represent the past you are trying to run away from.

I find it quite remarkable reading through these threads which have become much more common in the last couple of years as parents and siblings start to come out of the shadows and tell their side of the alienation and of how they did everything they could but were met with threats, demands and otherwise coercive patterns of behaviour.

These threads have such common features too. If this was a spontaneous naturally occurring phenomenon why would so many people who come out as trans have EXACTLY the same interests??? The most common by far is anime and gaming who have very particular unique cultures of their own. This is not consistent with a spontaneous occurrence - you'd have lots of trans people who had a very broad set of interests, perhaps some things more common than others, but a much wider base than is demonstrated. There's something happening in those cultural bubbles that's not happening outside of them.

I have picked my way through this over the years by not looking at identity but by looking at behaviour. If I was subject to behaviour that I would not tolerate in other circumstances than I should not tolerate it due to the identity of the person doing it. Being trans isn't an excuse for some of the common behaviours that seem to go hand in hand with the movement. Demands, threats and unreasonable expectations definitely fall into this category. That includes coercive behaviour around the subject of suicide.

If a male says they are female, then if I am to treat people without prejudice then I don't go round pandering to stereotypes. I don't go applauding them for their 'courage'. I just say 'and?'. If there is an expectation of more than that says more about the need for validation and their insecurities than it does about my values or judgement.

The whole 'but you are not doing it right' thing is problematic. There is no right way or wrong way to handle things. Families are much more complex and dynamic than that. There's years of previous history with the nature of multiple relationships with them. Stuff that might seem irrelevant but actually is. The sister who has suffered from significant sexual harassment isn't going to necessarily be cheering on a brother who dresses in a way that verges on anime porn now are they? For various valid reasons. Neither is the mother who gave birth to her son, had years of gynaecological problems as a result, breast feed their son and then is told 'sex is old fashioned and irrelevant and if you don't stop saying it I'll cut you off and kill myself you bigot'. There's a massive level of disrespect in there which, quite rightly should be confronted and dealt with.

I'm sorry, but healthy relationship are two way and there is a desire to understand the position of the other party too. Respect can not be one directional.

Especially if we are also told there isn't a mental health element to this and we just have to accept it no matter what else is accompanying the identity.

Trans is not a license to shit on everyone else. It has become that because we have been taught that when someone comes out, we are not permitted to ask questions and we certainly are not allowed to challenge poor behaviour.

And that's why I take issue with the 'well you should just do what they say' crowd.

It's not ok. We should not be handing out a free pass for this. We should be concerned about the deliberate alienation culture. We should be questioning the motives of people around people telling vulnerable adults their family are all bigots. We should be making the point that the accusations from trans people are not matching with the experiences of their family. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

This one sided storytelling is just more fantasy to shield from reality and it's got to stop. It's hurting so many people - families and trans people alike.

OP if you took just one step back and started putting the pieces together you could repair, by tomorrow, your evidently broken relationship with your adult child.
Taking the route suggested by the typical posters of this forum will only worsen the dysfunction caused by whatever has gone unnoticed.
You cannot control this person and if you wish to have a relationship with them it must be with their consent, anything else and they will just push you further away in the long term regardless of whether you think they're making a mistake or not, please do the responsible and adult thing.

OP if you took just one step back and started putting the pieces together you could repair, by tomorrow, your evidently broken relationship with your adult child.
Taking the route suggested by the typical posters of this forum will only worsen the dysfunction caused by whatever has gone unnoticed.
You cannot control this person and if you wish to have a relationship with them it must be with their consent, anything else and they will just push you further away in the long term regardless of whether you think they're making a mistake or not, please do the responsible and adult thing.