I’m a feminist with a trans son AMA

[Fraida]

I’m a long-standing member of MN (since 2006 when my eldest child was born) but have named changed more recently!

So I have a 14 year old who is FTM trans person and two other younger children. My son came out officially as trans earlier this year but has been exploring his gender identity since he was about eight. This has been an interesting journey for us all as DH and I have always prided ourselves on allowing all of our children to be individuals and trying to help them not get sucked into cultural norms from a gender perspective I.e. a saying in our house is there is no such thing as boys things and girls things just things Like what you like and don’t get bogged down by what society might expect of you. For a while my middle child - a boy - had the longest hair in the house and loves horse riding both things typically associated with girls, for example.

With DS1 coming out as male I have had to rethink and relearn many of my own beliefs about gender and the whole transitioning process as Ill gladly admit I did have preconceived ideas and concerns about, for example, any gender specialists going down the route of affirmation rather than assessment as well as concerns about medication being offered too quickly. However in our experience so far this hasn’t been the case and there seems to be many more barriers and much more in the way of caution than I anticipated.

I will say however that the overwhelming negative impact on his mental health has been devastating for us all to watch with a number of suicide attempts (not uncommon) and chronic anxiety, to say the least. I do feel that whatever your views are on gender health care for children it cannot be right that psychological support and help is not more widespread and readily available.

Anyways I’m being brave because I fundamentally believe that dialogue is important and active listening in order to truly hear what opposing views are is really important in such a sensitive area. So here I am, happy to debate and answer questions but please don’t insult me as I am a sensitive human at the end of the computer

Is anyone else in the "solid group of friends" also gender questioning?

[quote Fraida]@DeaconBoo Stonewall have the exact figures here: Almost half (48 per cent) of trans people in Britain have attempted suicide at least once; 84 per cent have thought about it. More than half (55 per cent) have been diagnosed with depression at some point.

Those figures to me are shocking and deeply upsetting [/quote]
For some reason, Stonewall try to scare people by suggesting that children with gender dysphoria are likely to become suicidal. GIDS say the opposite: "Young people who are well supported by their family and receiving ongoing psychological support, seem to cope well with their gender incongruence (de Vries et al, 2015). Similarly, suicide is extremely rare." gids.nhs.uk/evidence-base

Obviously if your child is feeling suicidal this must be very worrying for you and I'm sorry you're finding it so difficult to get mental health support for your child, since it seems this is what is needed.

This article by Transgender Trend about suicide and trans-identified children also examines the Stonewall suicide claims.

www.transgendertrend.com/suicide-by-trans-identified-children-in-england-and-wales/

As a woman with autism it worries me that a lot of young girls, either diagnosed or not, seem to be trans. I can well understand it. I was convinced I was a boy from a young age, I didn't fit in, puberty was horrible, it changed my body in ways I did not want. (I still don't like my body, I avoid mirrors etc) If I'd have been told there was a way to get rid of my breasts (either by binding or mastectomy) I would have jumped at the chance. Stopping periods? Great! Who at that age thinks of their future sex life etc? I didn't fit in with the other girls but desperately wanted friends. Who knows if this would have been a way to find my "tribe" as a child/teen.

I think far more research needs to be done in this area. I am glad your child is waiting, though I think 16 is still too young to decide on this sort of thing. Tbh, I think 18 is too, but I'm aware there's not much you can do to stop adults.

Hi OP
I'm particularly interested in the link between ASD and gender dysmorphia. My dd8 has recently started insisting we use call her by a more male sounding, shortened version of her name and telling us she wants to be a boy. We are in the initial stages of getting an assessment for ASD and I've noticed from reading various threads on MN that there seems to be a correlation with this. We're minimising our response to this at the moment and will just see how it progresses but I wonder how much of this is about not feeling she fits in with the world rather that it being about wanting to be a boy. What are your thoughts?
The whole thing feels pretty scary to be honest. I just want to do what's right for her ☹️

@PotholeParadies

Yes, extrapolating causation from correlation could, by the same standard, lead us to say that gender dysphoria causes ASD!

The distress is obviously real and we should be concerned about that as a society but we need to make sense of things and think carefully about how best to actually help.

The number of ASD girls who have a disconnect with their gender and go on to transition is worrying- maybe it's because of a feeling that they don't fit in with other females, and so must be other- other is male, so must be male. It worries me this linear thinking may be responsible in the future for many young girls making permanent decisions they come to regret.

@AIMD

Hello op. Thank you for being open and answering questions. Sorry to hear your child has had a difficult time to the extent they have attempted suicide. That’s devastation for them and you as a family.

Can I ask what your child’s experience has been at school and with peers. Do they know other young people who have transitioned? Do they experience bullying or have they found a friendship group that accepts them?

Seems to be fairly common now in secondary schools to have pupils that are exploring identity both sexual and gender. To that end he does know of a couple of girls that are non binary but no one that is in the process of transitioning. His friendship group are pretty awesome and have accepted him as he is which I am very relieved about.

@Campervan69

Isn't counselling only allowed to be affirmative nowadays due to the Memorandum of Understanding? In which case, how useful do you think it can be?

Excellent point.

Hi Fraida

How is it that you or they know that feeling disconnected from your biological body is "gender" dysphoria?

Many, many women when growing up recieve such negative ideas about the female body, not just looks, size etc., but also its bodily functions. Some of us never really learn to like it, but learn to live with it.

I am asking this not just because I had quite strong feelings about this when young, but other mumsnetters have posted their experience of a daughter responding to these feelings as thinking they must be trans (because there is so much in the public domain now) where at another point in time they might just, other time learn to accept it. And have in late teens early twenties accepted their biological body.

But also concerned because long hair and liking horses have nothing to do with the sex you are born, but are portrayed in cliched contemporary culture as implying it is somehow female. A few centuries ago young boys with long hair and an interest in horses would not have been thought to be unusual. So why did you say or think that?

So just asking, because it made me wonder what mesage has your trans child been getting / growing up with? Even if you say your children had a gender neutral environment to grow up, it seems some of the old stereotypes may have been in the air.

This isn't meant to be aggressive questioning, but genuinely interested, as in some ways we can never measure how much society around us influences how we "understand" the world.

Thanks

Going off topic, but wrt suicide and trans people.

Why is there not an immediate end to homelessness and urgent mass council housing building? Many many homeless people commit suicide (unsurprisingly).

@Anselve

I am interested in ASD and gender dysphoria. I have a DD with ASD and the fixedness of her thinking makes her life very difficult. She feels other because the world works along different lines to the way she does. If she decided that it was her identity that was wrong then there would be nothing I could do to dissuade her from following that path. I can see it in other ways that are not as polarising as this issue. I’m not in your shoes, but they almost fit, and I would think ASD was the major influence on my DDs thinking. Do you?

Most definitely and initially we wondered if he had very fixed beliefs about what is means to be a man or woman and if he didn’t feel he fitted neatly into the ‘woman box’ then he must be a man. Also gets on better with men and boys because he likes the banter and the more direct communication style. So for a long time we spent time challenging gender stereotypes and trying to explore whether having binary views was the issue. We still do have many many conversations about gender expression which is very different to gender identity!

This was one of the Cambridge papers I referred to.

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/freedom-to-think-the-need-for-thorough-assessment-and-treatment-of-gender-dysphoric-children/F4B7F5CAFC0D0BE9FF3C7886BA6E904B

@DeaconBoo the Stonewall stats for you - www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/trans_stats.pdf

Also gets on better with men and boys because he likes the banter and the more direct communication style.

This seems a very gendered thing to say? By this estimation, I am a male! How did you come to believe this was an expression of gender?

Thank you for doing this thread @Fraida, it's really interesting - and it must be very emotionally tough for you to answer some of these questions!

You said in an earlier post that your son would say he doesn’t feel male he knows he is male thus thee is a disconnect between what he knows to be true in his head and what his physical body is.

Are you worried that transition won't fix this? Hormones and surgeries can provide the appearance of a male body, but they won't actually create a body that is completely, totally male.

Would you say that your son understands this distinction well? Is he comfortable with that, or could the 'imperfections' after transition end up reinforcing his dysphoria?

Also, how does your son hope that transitioning will improve his everyday life? Are there things that he feels he can't do now that he could if he had a boy's body?

But also concerned because long hair and liking horses have nothing to do with the sex

I see nothing about these two things that are related to being either boy or girl. And I have know some long haired rodeo riders too.

Mind you, when I read your version stumbled I immediately thought of Fabio on a horse. Then I thought of the Old Spice Man. (I am on a horse!).

@JoodyBlue

OP thank you for sharing your story. I wish you and your family well. I do think *@DappledOliveGroves* last point is interesting though. Outside the pressures of our strongly gendered society would our kids be able to come to terms with and live within a healthy body? So much of life is seen as medically fixable now. It is perhaps only one way of looking at a problem.

Possibly but there are examples of trans people living in more remote and less developed settings, admittedly not having medical interventions so this isn’t necessarily a first world problem for want of a better expression.

"He presents as male and has a solid group of friends who have been very supportive. He has been badly bullied previously though."

So you don't see any correlations between your child's want to transition and the fact that the bullying stopped when they started presenting as male?

@Lightsontbut

Also gets on better with men and boys because he likes the banter and the more direct communication style.

This seems a very gendered thing to say? By this estimation, I am a male! How did you come to believe this was an expression of gender?

Yes, I don’t do banter but as a child, I did, it you get my drift. I’m a very direct communicator. I don’t see this as being related to what my sex is.

And I have know some long haired rodeo riders too should be

And I have know some long haired rodeo riders too, of both sexes

OP, I don't like armchair diagnosis, but a female child who prefers male friends because they're easier to communicate with could equally be a sign of being on the autistic spectrum!

@SheepandCow

Going off topic, but wrt suicide and trans people.

Why is there not an immediate end to homelessness and urgent mass council housing building? Many many homeless people commit suicide (unsurprisingly).

Because that doesn't benefit pharmaceutical companies.

OP, the link to the studies on the Stonewall PDF you posted doesn't link to anything - do you have the link to the actual studies? Academics are usually in the habit of citing the actual source, so presumably you have this somewhere?

Despite what you said in your op, you seem to buy into gender stereotypes about males communicating both 'more directly' and by 'banter' but clearly this is quite an outdated generalisation. Is this an example of an attitude you used to have that's now changed?

Well, I was a teenager who preferred male friends for the banter and because they were easier to communicate with. I had very little in common with girls my age. I'm an NT female.

www.transgendertrend.com/a-scientist-reviews-transgender-suicide-stats/

Please don't continue posting Stonewall's dubious stats about suicide . It is alarmist.