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.

But the parent's right to control their child's life ends with the onset of adulthood.

And does the adult child have the right to expect his mother to believe whatever they do and to performatively confirm this whenever required?

No, and I never said they did.

I'm not sure we have any basis on which to assume that's the case here? OP hasn't stated what her DS is actually asking of her other than using his preferred name/pronouns. I don't think we can assume he is demanding all that 'trans ideology' might expect.

Given op has said she would use his name etc and has still been told that's not enough for the wedding ...

The only thing that would prevent me from accepting my DC would be serious violent or sexual crime. There would never need to be any capitulation for anything else, because I would respect them enough to let them live their lives. I am certain I will not agree with them on many things as they get older, some may feel more important than others. But if my child came to me and asked me to call them 'they/he/she/Fred/Wilma/Jesus/whatever' I would do it. Absolutely nothing would stop me from accepting and loving them.

So the OP's child feels they need more acceptance from their mother @midgetastic - sounds absolutely reasonable to me that they would seriously limit contact if the parent refused. This isn't a person harming other people. They're just asking to live in the way that feels most right and honest to them right now. In ten years they might want to identify completely differently, they probably won't.

If this is the hill the OP has chosen to die upon then it's absolutely tragic, for all involved.

No they are asking for more

You can't "accept " someone as something they are not . It's silly

Although you may call me princess midge if you like

A serious violent or sexual crime? Compared with what other kind of violent or sexual crime?

To take your example of ‘call me Jesus’ though, I guess I would say that’s maybe a difference of opinion. To me it’s more like if my child came to me and said ‘I’m the messiah, reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Call me Jesus now that im the chosen one.’ I wouldn’t ‘respect their wishes’ because I’d know they were suffering a break from reality and we’re believing the impossible. The last thing I’d do would be make a stained glass portrait and open a church of the new messiah.

Trans men and women are not clinically insane. What a ridiculous analogy.

Whose said anything about anyone being insane apart from the last poster ?

But that is what is happening here 🤷🏼‍♀️

No, and I never said they did.

That was in response to this.

I was responding to you saying you should just blindly accept anything your child says for fear of ‘ruining the relationship.’ You said it’s akin to your child saying ‘call me Jesus.’ I was responding that if my child said they were the messiah and I had to call them Jesus the last thing I’d do was confirm that belief no matter how deeply I loved my child.

you are either in or you're out

Ironically he almost certainly feels the same.

@YellowBrickWall I've just read a lot of this thread and wanted to say my heart goes out to you. You've been thrown into a terribly difficult situation, but have handled it with grace and dignity, while holding true to the principles and reality you (and I, and many others) support. Thank you.

Some people are wilfully ramping up the OP’s response. She hasn’t disowned, cut him off, rejected or fallen out with him. It’s actually the opposite.

He has broken with her because she won’t capitulate to performing a delusion she doesn’t share.

As for the argument of ‘I would say and do anything to keep the relationship’ well lots of families put up with all sorts of crap behind closed doors and it doesn’t make people happy - secrets, passive aggression, coercion, lies, delusions, and suppressed resentment are all the things people put up with to keep the peace but it’s not a healthy or authentic way to live. And live with integrity.

Many posters have said it's just a name and pronouns. The name I'm not so bothered about but the pronouns are those that belong to females. DS says that as he is female, we must use those pronouns. So it's much more than just using the 'acceptable' words. It's the first step to validating him as a woman. And I can't do that because he is not a woman and he never will be.

I know lots of people think it's harmless but perhaps they haven't followed the process to it's 'logical' conclusion i.e. if he is a woman, as he says he is, there is no word to classify women of the female sex (as differentiated to women of the male sex) and therefore no way to protect them in law and in society. Many, many people have not thought about this at all but I have, and I am firmly on the side of women's rights so I cannot agree that he is a woman just because he says he is. He has never experienced a single thing that women have experienced because of their sex and he never will.

We have to accept that DS doesn't want us in his life because we do not affirm that he is a woman. It's not our choice, we did not instigate this, we have not changed, we are the same loving parents we have always been and all we can do is hope that one day he realises this.

DH and I talked about this a bit more this evening. He said that he has been trying to block it from his mind and not think about it as it's so upsetting. Then he cried. We've been together for over 30 years and I have only seen him cry once, which was when his dad died.

This ideology harms so many people. It breaks up friendship and families. And for what? A person who can only be happy with those who affirm their fantasy? What kind of life is that.

I wish the people promoting this had gone about it in a totally different way. I wish they had acknowledged that there is a difference between women and transwomen. I wish they had expanded the bandwidth of men to includes males who are feminine. I wish that men could wear whatever clothes they like without making it a parody of a woman. I wish women were listened to in society. I wish men were not so arrogant in telling women what a woman is. I wish women who support this ideology (like my DD) would open their eyes and see that they have got so used to having rights, they are taking them for granted and throwing them away.

But most of all I wish this had not come into my own home and broken up my family.

I know lots of posters won't get it and will still go on about pronouns. All I can say is, it's not about transpeople, it's about men. Males pushing through laws that remove safeguarding. They are doing it under the cover of LGB and telling people to be kind. My answer now is, you first.

This sounds really tough for both of you OP. Hope it can be resolved

I know you’re going through a difficult time, but your DC didn’t “choose” to be transgender either.

if he is a woman, as he says he is, there is no word to classify women of the female sex (as differentiated to women of the male sex) and therefore no way to protect them in law and in society.

Why would there be no way? Why do we need to differentiate? 0.6%-1% of the population is transgender, or which 33% are nonbinary. So thats 0.4% to 0.66% of the population are TW or TM. 80% of these are TW (male sex).

So 0.32% to 0.53% of the population are TW, say an average for simplicity of 0.425%. This is teeny tiny.

Any law that says “women” have a right or a protection, will still provide that protection to all women, with 99.15% being of the female sex and 0.85% being of the male sex. Those protections will still exist. The existence of transwomen isn’t going to skew the data so much that all protections will cease to exist or cannot be tracked and monitored.

To see that in terms of population of the UK
Population: 68,690,184
Women (female): 34,345,092
Transwomen (male): 291,933

He has never experienced a single thing that women have experienced because of their sex and he never will.
True, but so what? Our oppression is due to the biology of our sex. Not because we inhabit the gender role of “woman.”

I wish women who support this ideology (like my DD) would open their eyes and see that they have got so used to having rights, they are taking them for granted and throwing them away.

How exactly does supporting transgender people and affirming their existence mean we are throwing away the right to vote? to hold public office? to own property? to sign contracts? to earn our own money and hold accounts solely in our name? to a university degree? to pursue a profession? to access an abortion? to contraception? to parental rights? to drive? to join the armed forces? to a pension in our own name? to travel unaccompanied? to dress as we like? to publish works of literature? to join Royal Societies for the Arts or Sciences? to sit on a jury?

Any law that says “women” have a right or a protection, will still provide that protection to all women, with 99.15% being of the female sex and 0.85% being of the male sex. Those protections will still exist. The existence of transwomen isn’t going to skew the data so much that all protections will cease to exist or cannot be tracked and monitored

Protections do NOT exist for actual women right now. If they did then we would have no TW in women's changing rooms, prisons, rape crisis centres, toilets or on all-women short lists. If they did we would not have the trans rights activists changing language such that people with a cervix need a cervical smear - this leaves many people vulnerable to not getting the medical help they need and deserve. Your assumptions here are demonstrably naive.

The number of trans people is growing every year. What do you think is going to happen as more women both realise and reject the idea that they 'identify as women'? when they refuse to allow others to misgender them? The stats will of course change. I used to consider myself to be a woman but I can't now because of the dominant assumption that I am describing my identity rather my biology. TW might 'feel like a woman' but that feeling has nothing to do with the female sex. That leaves no home and no protections for actual women.

The ideology is dangerous and non-sensical. What exactly are TW identifying with if there are no more biological women identifying as a woman than biological men doing the same?

He has never experienced a single thing that women have experienced because of their sex and he never will.
True, but so what? Our oppression is due to the biology of our sex. Not because we inhabit the gender role of “woman.”

How can you recognise that women experience oppression due to their biology of their sex and then offer the protections which are necessary because of that oppression to people who have nothing more in common with me than every other male? How do you consider that to be a logical position?

@Discovereads as someone who has lived as a majority ruled by a minority for most of my childhood, your naivety and gullibility are astounding.

Because women, because of our sex, having children, will not hold these roles. Men will. Just like they always have. I will not be able to ask for a woman to do my smear because a woman could mean anything. Our rights based on our sex, ie maternity leave will be replaced by rights based on gender. Who identifies as what.

Your last paragraph is so relevant. It's abuse. Being forced to pander to this or risk being cut off is abusive. Treading on eggshells, in case you slip up and use the wrong words. Basic coercive control.

Basically he is using his 'special status' to insist you pander to him, he's attempting to isolate you from your daughter for non compliance. He's punishing you for non compliance by excluding you from his wedding.

Anyone who thinks this is ok needs to read the transwidows threads.

OP you are so dignified. I wish you and your family peace. I think your son will return to you but I think it will be a long process, probably very long. My heart goes out to you.

Oh, only your childhood then? Generations of my family have been ruled as a minority for centuries. Perhaps that’s why I’m not panicking.