Can't cope with DS being transgender

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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.

mudgetastic
I am grateful you post on these boards. Your personal experience is very illuminating.

@mudgetastic thank you for your post which makes a lot of sense. What would you suggest in terms of parenting a child with gender dysphasia who is also has fragile MH?

Hopefully that doesn't sound goady- it isn't my intention at all. In RL I see a lot of this amongst my son's friends. Those whose parents accepted it, offered no judgement and not made a big deal of it seemed to have faired better than those whose parents tried to talk them out of it and refused to use their newly chosen name. Anecdotal of course....

I think it's not easy for me to say what is best as I'm my day we didn't have social media which does twist the landscape

I think trying to talk me out of things would not have helped as you say

But acceptance also would not have helped.

My parents effectively followed a middle line. Truthful and honest. Which to be fair suits my analytical mind

Acceptance of me, who I was without needing to change anything . Giving me love, saying how great I was , encouraging and supporting the things I wanted to do. Finding out role models. Helping me reject stereotypes. Helping me see stereotypes. Pointing out that people who mistreated me were often just jealous of me was quite illuminating. Giving me the confidence to realise that I didn't have to be accepted by everyone, but there would always be enough people in my life who did accept abs love me. Just being there for me.

@DoubleTweenQueen That's simply not evidenced by research. Anorexia can be triggered by an entirely non mental event in a genetically vulnerable individual (ie anything causing an accidental caloric deficit).

'can be' - likely a range of complex root causes.
Mental health and external pressures very much involved in setting up the vicious cycle leading to anorexia.
'can be triggered by an entirely non-mental event in a genetically vulnerable individual' - not all sufferers possess a genetic vulnerability?
That's the trouble with studies, stats, and clinical approach to look at links and causes - just pieces of the puzzle, some of greater significance than others, but overall more complex aetiology.

@DoubleTweenQueen Many of the older assumptions about anorexia are rooted in psychoanalysis and don't have much evidentiary support. I mean assumptions like "it's a need to control something in one's life when other things are uncontrollable". Part of what makes AN so difficult is that sufferers do not have insight and form attributions and theories concerning their symptoms even when these symptoms are actually just the result of physical starvation.

Yes, I agree with that, hence the Maudsley approach to treatment. (Apologies if I've remembered that name incorrectly)
I'm thinking about the elements that have led to the starvation event, which can be quite complex, but strike me as having similarities with gender dysphoria, or perhaps a variation of that classical term, responsible for the ROGD population currently.

[quote Peachy7]@Phobiaphobic that's not even a comparison, anorexia is an illness, there is nothing to have a belief about there![/quote]
@Peachy Can you explain to me how anorexia as a mental illness is different to gender dysphoria as a mental illness? Both are types of body dysmorphia .

[quote Peachy7]@Phobiaphobic that's not even a comparison, anorexia is an illness, there is nothing to have a belief about there![/quote]
Why do you think illness and beliefs are mutually exclusive?

If I believe I’m Jesus, I’m likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness. It’s a belief. I might want you to call me Jesus and collude with my delusion that I am Jesus. Should you do that?

An anorexic believes she is fat. She want you to support her in starving herself. She wants you to believe she should eat barely anything. Should you? It’s her belief and she wants you to believe it too.

Bob thinks he is a woman. To alleviate his distress, he can ‘transition’ to present as if he were a woman. He wants you to agree with him that he is a woman. But he isn’t. He is a transwoman. It’s healthy for transwomen to know and believe they are transwomen. It’s not healthy for them to believe they are actual women. Because obviously they are not and cannot be women. Should you collude in his delusion that he is a woman just because he wants you to?

If so, why would that be a good thing with a transwoman but not a good thing with a schizophrenic or an anorexic? What is the difference between the them?

@Annette32123 Anorexia obviously has a belief component, but the more salient aspects are the behavioural ones. It doesn't ultimately matter much if people with a history of AN (or with ongoing subclinical issues) have somewhat dysregulated beliefs about body image, healthy eating, etc, as long as they maintain a healthy weight and don't use dangerous behaviours. It's extremely difficult to change the beliefs; much more so than modifying behaviour.

[quote Innocenta]@Annette32123 Anorexia obviously has a belief component, but the more salient aspects are the behavioural ones. It doesn't ultimately matter much if people with a history of AN (or with ongoing subclinical issues) have somewhat dysregulated beliefs about body image, healthy eating, etc, as long as they maintain a healthy weight and don't use dangerous behaviours. It's extremely difficult to change the beliefs; much more so than modifying behaviour. [/quote]
And lots of people - particularly teenagers - teeter on an unhealthy relationship with eating and their parents worry about anorexia or bulaemia developing, and in most cases they grow out of it.

Just as the Ops son and many others teeter on transgenderism and most grow out of it.

There are similarities. Both are disordered belief systems.

In both cases it isn’t ok to compel others to collude with that belief.

@Annette32123 No, eating disorders are not fundamentally disordered belief systems. It's true that people can engage in milder subclinical disordered eating that never progresses to anything 'diagnosable', but you are really missing the core elements of what clinical EDs are by formulating them like this.

I'm not referring to 'colluding' with any belief system. I am only commenting on eating disorders since multiple people are using them as a comparison point.

[quote Innocenta]@Annette32123 No, eating disorders are not fundamentally disordered belief systems. It's true that people can engage in milder subclinical disordered eating that never progresses to anything 'diagnosable', but you are really missing the core elements of what clinical EDs are by formulating them like this.

I'm not referring to 'colluding' with any belief system. I am only commenting on eating disorders since multiple people are using them as a comparison point. [/quote]
Whereas I am only referring to colluding with the belief and saying that is unhealthy. The underlying pathology isn’t understood for any of these disorders. It’s not clear why people feel instant affirmation of being trans is healthy and compelled speech desirable when we would not do that to others suffering from such delusions.

@Annette32123 I haven't suggested that I'm in favour of blanket affirmation. But it does nothing for your argument or anyone else's to make points about eating disorders which are grounded on not understanding them.

[quote Innocenta]@Annette32123 I haven't suggested that I'm in favour of blanket affirmation. But it does nothing for your argument or anyone else's to make points about eating disorders which are grounded on not understanding them. [/quote]
Nobody understands eating disorders. If you think do, you should write it up!

@SockFluffintheBath or maybe his mental health issues need to be addressed without the need to say "yes you're a woman now, congrats" whish is what needs to be done with other trans people rather than just agreeing that they can go through massive hormone and physical changes. It's not normal to want to be another sex, but everyone is too scared to say it. They need help with their mental health not hormonal changes etc.

So yes he needs help, but I don't think his mum has to start saying she for him ...

@Annette32123 Nobody knows everything about them, but it's possible to discuss them in a reasonably evidence based way without making egregiously wrong assumptions. You are failing to do this.

Also, intentionally continuing to misrepresent a very serious mental illness like anorexia when you've been informed that that's what you're doing is just bizarre.

@Innocenta

Also, intentionally continuing to misrepresent a very serious mental illness like anorexia when you've been informed that that's what you're doing is just bizarre.

I’m not suggesting anorexia isn’t a serious mental illness. Quite the opposite.

I can appreciate how difficult this must be for you. My youngest son is 32 this year and has just bought a house with his partner. They live in London so I guess I do not know some of the norms for them. I can remember some of the thoughts I had 15 years ago when he was coming out. I can remember thinking oh I hope he does not want to transition etc But mostly I was sad that he would not be a father as he has a lot of good qualities for the role. As it happens they do not want to have kids and I can live with that. Might have felt differently if he were my only son. So I relate your dilemma back to myself. What would I feel? What would I do? Oh I would not like it but I would have to do what I thought would help him most. And that would be to try to get an understanding of his feelings, hopes and wishes. As against thus I would try to talk openly and gently about how I did not want to lose the man he was etc I would tell him that I would try to understand the reasons. I would try to support him to be his best, most happy self. I would likely make mistakes but hey a sense of humour carries you through this world quite a long way. Good luck.

People accept that men want to become woman. But why do they not want to be a man. Why does no one wonder this. Are men so despised?/disliked? that changing is seen as understandable.
I know some women want to be men but it seems to be fewer of them.

If they had to live with menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth I doubt it would seem such a desirable thing. And no doubt will avoid somehow taking the responisibility for running the home, bringing up the children and working which many women seem to be landed with.

It always seemed to me men had the better deal.

Polyanthus2
I agree. Men may want to be women, but they will never know what it is like to be a woman. The best they can do is emulate a skewed gender construct they have in their heads, and that may be different for every man.
I could change my hair and darken my skin, but I will never be a black person.
Because being black is a big thing, it carries societal, community, historical meaning that I as a white person will never fully understand.
Just as a man can never be a woman.

@lovesT

Can you clarify what you do believe to be 'normal' since you seem to have appointed yourself as the decider on such things?

[quote RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]@lovesT

Can you clarify what you do believe to be 'normal' since you seem to have appointed yourself as the decider on such things?[/quote]
Yes, I don't think wanting to be a different sex to what you were born is normal. Is it normal to also think you're a cat? Or a different race? I'm obviously not the only one who thinks this so I'm not implying that I decide everything. I just think that these people need mental health support, not everyone to rush around and make huge changes which are often regretted later in life.

Mental health support? Absolutely.
Somebody to decree they are abnormal or normal? Absolutely not.