On the certainty of the trans identifying teen - guidance for parents

Thanks @DrBlackbirdyou’re right about how hard it would be for her to step back from. Maybe as they all enter the world of work things may shift. 🤷‍♀️ Thanks for your suggestions. I’ll have a ponder.

The difficulty for your child now is that to step away from being trans is to lose everything, identity, friendship groups, a structure and narrative to navigate life. Stay close and be honest but as non judgemental as possible.

It’s a shame that even gender clinics don’t fully appraise their clients of the side effects. But it is worth asking if she wants to freeze her eggs, just in case, and using that opening to being matter of fact about how testosterone will result in premature menopause and vaginal atrophy. The fact that she said ‘low dose’ hopefully suggests she is not wholly sold on cross sex hormone impacts.

Also, will she do anything just with you? Any chance of going away on a trip together? A long trip to somewhere interesting. Is she interested in sports or the outdoors? Would she go away to volunteer in Africa? It might help for her to be connected to nature or anything to get herself out of her own head, away from the reinforcing friendship circle, and connect back to the material reality.

Sending hugs Really so incredibly dreadful this gender ideology with the damage being done to vulnerable children.

Thank you @MrsOvertonsWindowI appreciate your advice and kindness. Thanks @Bluebootsgreenbootsand sorry for what you’re going through. I really hope we can both get our kids through this unscathed.

@Z0rr0 I don’t have any advice I’m afraid, we’re just trying to navigate our way through the situation. I think this article just helped me understand why it wasn’t possible to have a rational conversation about the issue.
We are now in contact with our young adult child, and we just have to pretend that nothing is happening. It’s very awkward.

You know you haven't deliberately hurt her. Sadly she's framing your understandable concern as you being uncaring, phobic and all the rest of the narrative that she's learnt (We just want to exist etc).
I've not had to face this with my children - but have had a lifetime of working with children and teenagers. I suspect she daren't acknowledge any vulnerability as it's all so fragile - as is she. There are thankfully now numerous organisations offering informed support to parents - you're no longer alone and don't have to be frightened by anyone who tells you that unquestioning affirmation is the only solution.

What I would suggest is where possible focusing on anything but identity. Looking for opportunities to share time / a coffee / a trip out. Maybe involving family members if appropriate that remind her of her role in the world / family and getting her to talk about her work and anything she's doing that's not self absorbed. That "watchful waiting". She's a young adult but very vulnerable and gently holding her close where she allows it so that she knows when things go wrong, you're always there.

https://sex-matters.org/support-for-parents/

Thank you so much @MrsOvertonsWindowI will have a look at Bayswater. I just feel physically sick and so sad at the thought I’ve hurt her but also that she can’t accept herself.

They aren't, though - the context of this is describing the trans-affirmative viewpoint (hence biological sex being mutable). It's the requirement for children to believe that the boy they see is really a girl because of feelings rather than a boy because of reality.

I'm so sorry to read this. There are a lot of parents struggling to support their older children through this, recognising that their influence is minimised because of their child's age while knowing that the path they're on is not sustainable in terms of leading a physically and emotionally healthy adult life.

It's great that she's now told you and that in itself makes you a safe space for her. There's lots of advice about how to listen, support and offer careful information / resources for her, but as you say, if she's immersed in this via her polycule / friendship group she has no other points of reference. And alienation from parents / families runsd through transactivism like a stick of rock

Many families find help from other parents with specific experience of supporting their their children - see link to Bayswater below. Managing that balance of letting her know she's loved and supported while trying to ensure that she's aware of the hazards is so tricky.

My general approach to parenting young adult children is to listen as much as possible, to ensure that she knows you're always on her side even if you don't always agree with her and to decide on what (if any) reservations you want to share with her. It might be future fertility? It might be getting support for her mental health? It might be concerns about her physical health? Or you might decide not to raise any worries with her. Only you can know what is likely to work.
Wishing you well - there's a lot of support on here from parents in the same situation.

www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/

Exactly this.
While the debate may rage on as to whether 'being trans' is of itself a form of mental illness, it undoubtedly points to there being pre-existing and co-morbid mental illnesses, some of which may arise from being neurodivergent in a harsh world, and some of which are sexual fetishes.

It is clear. They are describing a transboy - a child who presents as a boy but who is in reality a girl.

Thanks for posting this. I found it hugely helpful today after my daughter (21) confessed to me that she is taking cross sex hormones. She’s gone from age 16 being bisexual, pan sexual, non binary and now trans. I had wondered if she was because of slightly darker hair on her lip. She told me she is doing it ‘because it makes me happy’. She wanted a deeper voice. The conversation we had went exactly as described in the article. I don’t know what to do now. I am very sad about her taking the hormones (though she says it’s a low dose) but I don’t want to lose her or hurt her because she doesn’t feel accepted. I’ve been hoping that she would gradually grow out of it but she is fully immersed in a trans bubble. All her friends are trans and she is in a polycule with most of them. It’s fucked up but it’s who she believes she is. Interestingly the main time she got upset in our conversation was when she was repeating the trans narrative. We just want to exist. We just want healthcare and places to go. We want to have a say in our futures and not have other people decide it for us.
So now I need to find a way to not challenge the identity but create a safe space for her to unpick the underlying stuff that makes her feel safe in her identity. But the article doesn’t really talk about how to do that. @Bluebootsgreenbootsdo you have any insight on how to navigate this? I’m so sad that my daughter doesn’t feel like I’m someone she can trust with stuff about her life and I need to find a way to be that safe space for her again I think if there’s any hope of easing her out of this madness.

An insightful article - thanks for sharing

It is not the tentative, exploratory uncertainty that characterises most adolescent identity questions. It is categorical, resistant to examination, and often experienced by the young person as an existential matter. To question it feels to them like a denial of their existence. To suggest alternative explanations feels like an attack. The adults around them, trying to engage carefully and honestly, frequently find that careful and honest engagement is precisely what the young person cannot tolerate.'

I haven't read the article yet but this really resonated with me.

As a teenager there were some things, like the fashion/music subculture I was part of, my favourite school subjects and my hobbies, that I felt strongly were the defining parts of who I was as a person, or more precisely of the person I wanted to be me.

I would react very strongly to any challenge or piss-taking or the suggestion these things might be a fashion or a phase or something I would grow out of, exactly because at some level I was aware they were choices I was consciously making, an aspirational person/personality I was constructing for myself.

It's a form of gaslighting and I experience it as a deliberate mindfuck. Don't others?

I usually think of it as an form of Cartesian dualism, which many people seem to believe, e.g., that there is a soul distinct from the body. I don't believe in dualism but I can accept that others do.

Thanks - suppose now I should go and read up on them.

I know you are right, but I was interested in other articles etc., they may have published.

But as you say to even list or mention them would identify them.

I just wanted to read more ....

@IwantToRetire, I can answer the Piaget bit - he was one of the earliest (and still considered one of the foremost) researchers on child development.

They appear to be anonymous so they won’t get sacked - again.

I don’t think anyone can or should answer your question.

Really interesting articles. Thanks @BettyBooper for posting. Helps explain why so many parents might get caught out by the rapidity and intensity of the child’s new trans identity. The unbearable state being rescued from also points to underlying co-morbidities ie autism or ADHD, anxiety, feeling different etc.

Thanks for the links.

Does anyone know who "prof_curiosity1" is or aware of other articles not on X but somewhere accessible to all! Quote:

"Silenced, but still fighting. Anon, 'cos I need to eat. Gender affirmative care is gender conversion therapy. Not a 'transchild' but a TRANSED child."

"Hello all You may know me from a previous account which I had to put into abeyance for fear of losing my job again. I was investigated twice by my regulator for arguing for the safeguarding of children and women's sex based rights. I was silenced but am still here fighting."

And who or what is "Piaget"?

From https://x.com/prof_curiosity1

Many thanks to @BettyBooper for this thread and to @TwoLoonsAndASprout for the archives!

The author got themselves confused in this bit:

"a framework that treats biological sex as mutable, that requires children to accept that a peer who presents as a boy may be correctly described as a girl"

What they 'present as' is irrelvant, and a child who 'presents as' a boy may indeed be correctly described as a girl - if that is what they are. The problem is describing children who are boys as girls.