Can't cope with DS being transgender

[YellowBrickWall]

This is so hard. I feel like I'm in a very weird place. I am absolutely gutted and just want it to not be happening. He is 23 and lives with us. I thought we had escaped this trend but he's got caught up in it. I don't know what to do.

It's hard to describe but I simply cannot go along with it. It's not true, he's not a woman, he never will be. I hate the gaslighting, it's so distressing. This is upsetting me so much but I don't know what to do.

He's an adult and can do what he wants but unfortunately this particular thing requires my involvement and I can't. I am totally against it. There seems to be no middle ground, I either go against everything I know and believe or I won't be involved in his life. It feels like blackmail. It feels shit. I hate it.

And you can say 'oh but nobody asked parents to change their language' it doesn't matter, they received the same rejection and shame

@HMSSophia

You're really saying all these are equally damaging:

1. Joining a far right party
2. Committing rape
3. Committing murder
4. Killing kittens
5. Asking to be referred to as a different gender.

Complete insanity!

Headspin10. Exactly, this woman needs a reality check.

"He will be wanting me to... erase my past, tell people I gave birth to a girl, reinvent myself to fit around his fiction."

This is the part that was a difficult when a family member transitioned. Everyone mostly used the new name and bumbled around trying to get the pronouns right. (Except the mum, who was older and had enough trouble remembering the names of all her kids). But the change of history/role was where it didn't come together.

The way it played out, was sort of like "you can choose to stop being my son/brother. But that doesn't re-create you as my daughter/sister, with all the shared history and relationship that already exist with my daughters/sisters." (Nobody actually said that, but that was how it felt) The person who transitioned essentially started again as a new person. Everyone was speaking carefully, conscious of trying not to say anything to offend, and family gatherings were more awkward like there was a stranger in the group.

Over the past several years, family gatherings have been fewer and further between and the whole family talks to each other less. Nobody disowned anyone but the whole dynamic did change.

[quote headspin10]@HMSSophia

You're really saying all these are equally damaging:

1. Joining a far right party
2. Committing rape
3. Committing murder
4. Killing kittens
5. Asking to be referred to as a different gender.

Complete insanity! [/quote]
No if course I'm not, you're being obtuse. I'm pointing out that "love and support your child above all things" is a facile argument

@Tuaca

Headspin10. Exactly, this woman needs a reality check.

How do you know I'm a woman??

@Noisyneighneigh

"Perhaps you're shocked because you haven't thought very deeply about the situation. It is in no way close to same sex attraction. All the family needs to do is accept homosexuality and meet a same sex partner.
If you choose to go along with trans ideology, you must modify your language and pretend to yourself and everyone else that you see a woman when your eyes are screaming man. It's like forcing yourself to say black is white. Sex recognition is innate.

How can you say it's only about the trans identified person when their identity relies on external validation from other people."

Maybe I haven't thought deeply enough about it, but you just said as a gay persons family only need to "accept homosexuality and meet a same sex partner" surely this is** them relying on external validation?

I just don't understand why people have such a problem with it. No one is asking us to become a man? It's their life.

@user842

You say that is is men who are the threat, not transgender people, but every argument you make makes it clear that you think trans women are just men appropriating womanhood, so who do you consider to be genuinely transgender?

No-one can ever change their sex. Transexual people I know have gone through enormous emotional and physical turmoil to get to where they need to be able to live their lives, and are respected and protected as such. But they haven’t actually changed sex.

@HMSSophia

Well I'm saying in this situation it's really important to support your child? You seem to strongly disagree, but why?

@ancientgran I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘supportive’.
I have and will always be my children’s biggest cheerleader, I think they’re all great. (Of course!)

But what I mean by being supportive is that I always told him I loved him, no matter what, but I also made him aware of what being ‘transgender’ actually means. I (gently) told him that whatever surgery and medication he had, he would always be fighting biology. He could never just ‘be’. Transitioning doesn’t mean pressing a button and becoming the opposite sex. It means a lifetime of hard work ‘pretending’, for want of a better word, to be something he can never be.

What breaks my heart is all these people cheerleading for confused kids, making them believe that it’s all sunshine and rainbows, all ‘yaaaas queen’ when it is a life of hardship, and should only be followed after serious consideration. If lockdown had not happened my son would now be nearly 3 years into transition and all the stress and heartache that causes. Instead he is living his best male life at university, dating males and females, finally happy with who he is.

And his hair is his crowning glory, it’s beautiful and the envy of many people! He takes more care of it than anyone I’ve ever known!

I think you are really brave even posting your opinion op. It must be so stressful for you.

Interesting point by 2know. People underestimate the complexity of it. Practically introducing a new person, with no history? Pretending that the last 13+ years never existed, that mum didn't give birth to a girl, take her swimming, first day of school, etc. Bumbling along trying to get the pronouns right, isn't even the half of it.

[quote headspin10]@HMSSophia

Well I'm saying in this situation it's really important to support your child? You seem to strongly disagree, but why?[/quote]
If you’re comprehension needs assistance, I read it as radical thoughts and actions in a young person should be met with examination and boundaries. HTH

I never really talk about this on here because the opposition is painful and I'm not particularly articulate or even interested in getting involved in a situation where people are saying 'but what about x/y/z'. I have a transgender child MtF which I have come to realise is the 'hated' one. The other way round and it's all 'poor girls' but if it's a boy he is obviously the devil and just doing it to access woman and terrorise them. Anyway, I struggled massively with this but I wasn't willing to risk losing my child (and I don't mean NC, I mean actually losing them) that was a bigger worry to me than anything else. I support and love my child and she is now an adult at university navigating her way through the world. That for me was the ultimate factor. That she lived.

Err, 23 years old is not a child. Maybe someone needs to move out and conduct this journey of self-discovery on their own, like other young people. Seeking validation from mum isn't living your own life.

@DoubleTweenQueen

"Your response is the most shocking.

You have zero knowledge of this individual, probably zero knowledge of psychology or mental health issues and how to support them.
You should do some research before you chastise strangers for lack of immediate affirmation, you dangerous idiot."

Dangerous idiot
What I'm suggesting is supporting her child. So I guess you are suggesting she shouldn't be supporting them?

@grapewines

My son is a privileged male appropriating womanhood. He will never face the oppression that those women and girls around the globe do. I'm not going to have him telling me what a woman is or how it feels to be a woman because he has no idea.

This is how I (would) feel as well.

This exactly.

@user842

You say that is is men who are the threat, not transgender people, but every argument you make makes it clear that you think trans women are just men appropriating womanhood, so who do you consider to be genuinely transgender?

I'm not making arguments. I'm just explaining how it's not so simple to just accept someone saying they are the opposite sex. It has impact.

The current attack on women's rights needs to be robustly defended. The one thing to ask yourself is 'Do we need safeguarding at all?' Start from there and then work out where we need it. If you can think of anywhere we don't then we can make it unisex.

So anything to do with children - schools, girl guides, etc. Do we still need safeguarding? Then get on to prisons, hospitals and refuges. Do we still need safeguarding?

This is not about transgender people, this is just about protections that women and children need from male predators. 99% of sex offences are committed by men. Do we still need safeguarding or not?

Because the consequences of self ID mean that ALL men can access those previously single sex places. All men. As I said, they don't have to put on a dress, they don't have to say they are female, they can just walk on in. And they do. Of course they do. Because it's an open invitation to male predators.

And now I'm being asked to stop caring about all that, stop campaigning to prevent harm to women and girls because it's transphobic.

@DoubleTweenQueen

"We see you"

I hope you do, even more so I hope you're listening! What is it about this particular situation that means you feel you shouldn't support your child?

All of the people saying, 'I know what being a woman feels like' actually only know what being themselves feels like. It's monumentally egotistical to assume that your experience is 'the' experience.

That aside, this is obviously a situation where there are no easy answers but I personally remain firmly in the camp that puts the child's sense of identification over any upset caused to anybody else. It isn't something that can be 'fixed ' however many irate women on Mumsnet seem to wish it could be.

[quote headspin10]@DoubleTweenQueen

"Your response is the most shocking.

You have zero knowledge of this individual, probably zero knowledge of psychology or mental health issues and how to support them.
You should do some research before you chastise strangers for lack of immediate affirmation, you dangerous idiot."

Dangerous idiot
What I'm suggesting is supporting her child. So I guess you are suggesting she shouldn't be supporting them?
[/quote]
It depends on the type and depth of support, doesn’t it.

And it’s funny you try to frame it that I’m saying this parent should not support her son. That makes me the bad guy, right? The TERF, the bigot?
Perhaps my sort of support is deeper, more holistic, relevant, and long-term, and therefore doesn’t fit with your ‘thoughts’.

@coodawoodashooda

I think you are really brave even posting your opinion op. It must be so stressful for you.

On mumsnet? Hardly brave, choosing somewhere where she will be validated.

Sometimes our children do have different beliefs that require us to act differently though. What if he converted to Judaism, chose a different name and started to keep kosher. Would you insist on serving him pork and took a Saturday job because you believe differently.

There is a lot of ground between believing the same as other people and accepting their beliefs. You are choosing to make this solely about your ideology vs his ideology when actually you could chose a middle course. Good luck to you, I expect the pair of you will get exactly what you deserve.

[quote headspin10]@DoubleTweenQueen

"We see you"

I hope you do, even more so I hope you're listening! What is it about this particular situation that means you feel you shouldn't support your child?

[/quote]
I absolutely do. Clear as a crystal bell.

@DrSbaitso

If they joined a Far right party? If they raped and murdered? If they tortured kittens?

This is a million miles away from being trans! You can't be serious.

It’s the ideology that something that’s a scientific impossibility is a truth.

Believing that gender stereotypes can be broken is great.
Believing those stereotypes are what make us make and female are not. Sex based makes and females don’t have anywhere near parity.