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

I agree...It has been incredibly difficult and i've felt totally unsupported; but my husband feels torn, and doesn't want to isolate our son even more than he has already isolated himself. (Both are on the autistic spectrum).

I've rationalised things in such a way that I feel I can absorb more stress and deal with his hostility, than he is able to himself ( my son). I didn't want to provoke his mental health crisis even further. Him being away has provided a big respite. I hope he'll eventually 'recover'....and will make a succes of his new life and his course.

When you see him wearing high heels and a skirt tell her to get back behind the kitchen sink.

Come on, he wants to we a woman - get him to do the housework, offer to tell him what the laundry labels mean so he can do the washing, then plan the meals for the week for the whole family on a small budget, shop and cook it. And if he tries to explain something to you - dismiss it then say the exact thing back to him as if you had just come up with it.
This is exactly right.
I have an acquaintance who says he is gender fluid and says when you see him in male clothes he is a he but when he is in female clothes we have to refer to him as her/ she.
I have noticed he will never wear female style clothes and high heels clothes late at night in our city or when he is making a presentation at work or going for interviews.
The cynic in me may think he cherry picks the ' nicer' parts of being a woman and stays in his male persona when it is to his best advantage

@Shortshriftandlethal I’m not sure that I could tolerate that behavior from a 32-year old tbh. How dare he be so rude to you in your own home. I’m not sure that my DH would allow him in the house if he couldn’t be polite to me. IMO, your DH really should be standing up for you

Wow that’s a big turnaround. Did he ever take the hormones? I’m glad he is ok now

The life of a woman

The cynic in me would say that he will be in touch when he wants some money

@BonfireLady that was such a helpful post to read about call and response. Thankyou. ----

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

Come on, he wants to we a woman - get him to do the housework, offer to tell him what the laundry labels mean so he can do the washing, then plan the meals for the week for the whole family on a small budget, shop and cook it. And if he tries to explain something to you - dismiss it then say the exact thing back to him as if you had just come up with it.

I wouldn't cut off the financial support immediately or even threaten to, but I would ask questions like

• but if you don't want anything to do with us, how will manage for money?
• if you don't want anything to do with us, where will you stay at Easter and summer break?

Basically get him to think things through to their logical end.

By the way, I know of two autistic boys who announced their transition to female when they were settling into university. Both also chose very old fashioned female names that very few actual young women their age would have. It's a thing, and I feel for you.

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.

Feel free to DM. Have you contacted Bayswater yet?

@Kalalily

"it may just be that we fall into this category but it seems to me that what was a big problem amongst 15 year-old girls with autism in secondary schools now seems to be affecting 19 year-old boys with autism at university".

Recently, there was an episode of the Gender: a wider lens podcast devoted to the phenomenon you've mentioned above. The guest on the podcast went through this with her son, and after discovering that there were many more parents experiencing the same thing, she set up a websitento.offer advice and support. She is American, but it might be worth you having a look. The episode on YouTube was called ROGD Boys exist.

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.

I need to RTFT but I wanted to jump in on this specific point. I've read the OP (💐💪) and some really good advice but have missed lots of what's been said.

It's a call and response. It's important for emotional security.

That's the term I know from IT, not sure if it's universal. E.g. when you're taken through security checks on a bank system the person instigating the phone call gives some details and the person receiving the phone call gives the other information that matches it (and the IT system manages what can be shared and processed until this completes). I take my bank through this if they phone me and tell me I need to go through their security check... I say "OK. You phoned me so you need to give me mine" e.g. I give my bank half by postcode and you do the rest". Emotional security is just as important when it comes to establishing what feels right.

I remember my daughter doing it when she was a toddler at a basic level. We would be walking along the street, with her in the pushchair (facing forwards) and she would say "mum" and I would reply with "yes"... and she would repeat this cycle multiple times. We didn't know she was autistic until she was about 7 but I'm sure that type of toddler behaviour is relatively universal regardless of neurodiversity. Where it changed was her later versions of it - she is hyperfocused on safety, so when I talked to her (and her younger, NT sister) about not putting button batteries from toys in their mouths because they can cause harm (I didn't say anything scary, just not to do it), she internalised this and for years, her call and response was "have I swallowed a button battery?", "is there a button battery in my hair/curtains/etc?". My job was to patiently and calmly say "no, there's not" without validating or dismissing the fear. My job was to provide the basic security check that told her she was safe.

My circumstances are very different but my (previously 🤞) gender questioning, now 15 year old daughter also communicates most effectively with us about her emotions when we centre a) a call and response and b) the conversation around our cat. Talking about our cat not only provides a shared emotional attachment, but she understands her own emotions far better if she maps them to how our cat might feel and what that might look like to others e.g. mild annoyance/anxiety is conveyed through the eyes and a small curl of the tail, right through to fully anxious/angry/scared with arched back, fur standing up and shrieking.

Talking about the family dog provides so many essential connections: the call and response that you and the dog are there in a way that provides the emotional security that everything is as it should be at the most basic level (no matter what else is going on), a shared interest which includes the emotional pull of how you both feel about your dog, something to talk about (even if it's just one way updates from you) etc.

The value of emotional stability is huge. During covid, many of us worked from home. Newsreaders on the TV could easily have done that too via the technology that we have available (some did) but they went into the studios. Other shows did working from home e.g. Have I Got News for You. But the news is different, it's our connection to what's happening right now in the world. We need to see and feel that some things are constant, no matter what other shit might be happening in our lives - a turning point in the film Sean of the Dead was when the news station was compromised and fell off the air. Suddenly it felt more scary, more real.

I appreciate I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here but the relevance for me is that paying the tuition fees is part of that constant. Yes, our children are "adults" at 18 and yes, it's selfish of them to cut ties and expect this. But absorbing this as part of being the "job description" sometimes. Obviously not always and it will depend on other circumstances too - there might come a cut-off where the emotional retreat that's coming from a child is too much. But IMO, while there's enough of a connection there, even a tenuous one, even with very little feedback it's worth showing that there is a constant and that a child is loved.

I hope I haven't spoken out of turn for anyone reading this whose child may have fully pulled away from them. This gender identity stuff is pulling children in and away from their parents in such upsetting ways. Once that pathway/pipeline has been established enough, parents can't win. There presumably sometimes has to come a point of acceptance and grief - and a pragmatic view on how much "constant" can still feasibly be provided 😔

Edited for typos and autocorrect/autofill errors.

I would carry on sending him messages like you were before op, especially about the dog. Even if he doesn't reply it's evidence you're still there for him, remind him you love him and want to support him. Is it worth asking him how he'd like you to support him?

I think I'd be trying to get to the bottom of why he thinks you're embarrassed by him? Even if you think he won't be able to have a conversation about things, is it worth asking what you did / said (or didn't say or do that perhaps he expected or wanted you to)? That would be a good starting point if he can communicate this info to you. He may surprise you and give you an answer, it's worth a try and could be a starting point to moving forward?

I would try and keep things as calm as possible and not mention money at this point, he isn't thinking things through like that, and I'd be walking on eggshells at the moment so he doesn't have any more ammunition to reject you further.

I'm assuming phone conversations or visits are a no go to try and sort things out?

There is no chance I would continue paying for his phone. I would continue covering the Hall costs for about six months but there would be a limit on that and I would give him advance warning that this money was going to come to a stop too. He is 18, old enough to learn that cutting contact with your family when they have done nothing wrong will have repercussions.

@InnCognito may I please DM you? We are in a similar situation but no sign of desisting. Announcement came out of nowhere and was quickly followed by gender dysphoria and a request to start hormones Diagnosed with autism and trauma last year and more recently with gender incongruence. Also at uni and reduced contact. At my wits end. Trying to keep a neutral but supportive, without affirming, stance. Obviously that doesn’t cut it as the only support they want is to be affirmed.

It’s really doesn’t help that the diagnosis for gender dysphoria is self report and the treatment for this condition which is not considered a mental health condition is medical transitioning i.e. hormones. There is so much wrong with this that I just don’t know where to start and there doesn’t seem to be enough of us in this situation for us to be able to make a difference. And obviously we have to be careful not to alienate our children.

Anyone I have spoken to about this in real life considers it to be evil.
it may just be that we fall into this category but it seems to me that what was a big problem amongst 15 year-old girls with autism in secondary schools now seems to be affecting 19 year-old boys with autism at university.

That's brilliant @InnCognito

Very much this. I've written before about my experience. 23 year old son, living at home when I found blockers and female hormones in his room (prescribed by the Gender GP ghouls). Zero signs before. My attitude was to give him the space to change his mind, while also making my feelings clear. He knew my GC views, so there would have been little point pretending they didn't exist. My focus was his health and wellbeing. The inability of your son to communicate is very familiar - my son has since had a diagnosis of ADHD & is on the path to an ASD diagnosis (initial assessment indicating he is autistic). I used messenger a lot which he found easier to deal with that talking.

He has desisted. Now working in a very male job, going to the gym & has even cut his hair (which I was not bothered by, but apparently it catches in his hard hat). I'm aware these are very different circumstances as he was at home, but just to reinforce that it's vital that they have someone/somewhere that won't say 'told you so'.

And that creates a perfect storm. A lot of the script being followed appears tailored towards autistic boys (whether intentional or has just collectively ended up like this).

The OP is putting nothing negative in writing (so the other parties can't use that against them), this is good.

Something like this (which could become serious if medical intervention becomes a thing), will need verbal communication somehow.

In the other stories about uni boys going transgender, they snap out of it when some of their peers give them negative reactions. But it can't come from the parents as the people who are pushing this are seeking isolation from the family.

Unfortunately, as I said before, it's the perfect storm as autistic people are going to shy away from socialising, so a limited peer group means that he won't experience a full range of opinions and views, and he's being shielded from quite a lot of reality.

I have a lot of sympathy with your situation. I have a 32 year old autistic son, who has been living at home and has only just left to go to university as a mature student - in another part of the country. For a few years before he left he had been conducting a campaign of hostility and hatred towards me......which made life pretty awful at home. It seemed to come out of nowhere..... though he did find Covid and the lockdown very difficult and started to develop mental health issues as a result.

He keeps in touch with my husband ( also autistic) via what's app, and with my daughter via the same, and with my other son, but he won't contact me or give me any news of how it is all going, He has got himself stuck in a very rigid and black and white way of perceiving everything, and it seems that as long as he keeps me as 'the baddie', then he can get on with his life and keep everything in its place. I've tried emailing to enquire how it is all going, and have sent recent photos of our city ( I take lots of urban photos) etc. To no response.

He did come back home for Xmas this year and managed to be civilised - even if he did not engage me in direct conversation - which was an improvement. Judging by what my husband and two other children say he found the first term incredibly difficult: the demands, the schedule of work, the need to socialise, living in a shared house. He has, apparently, taken against his landlady now, ( he has always had to have a female figure to rebel against - in his various employments) and the university had laid on a individualised study plan in order to help him cope.

I'd keep doing what you are doing.....occasionally contacting him in your usual ways even if he does not respond. It does sound as if he's been influenced by those around him, maybe in his desire to fit in and make friends ( university campuses are often highly politicised - i know my local university campus is)

That's all you can do is tell him the truth. The reason why the discussion got heated is because he knows he's wrong. The majority of the population don't share his view. You could have lied and gone along with him but if anything happens who will he blame?

Body Dysmorphophia is a mental health condition. He could be gay and people are telling him he's trans. They are convincing him that he was born in the wrong body. He will be back and hopefully with everything figured out.

The problem is that autistic males, in particular, can prefer indirect communication and will avoid face to face conversations if possible.