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.

Life is short - is it worth falling out with and losing your son over?

Honestly just let people be who they want to be it’s kind of nothing to do with you and I don’t even know how it affects your life

@Partyatnumber10

I don't mind what he wears or calls himself, I just don't want to be made to join in. Why are his feelings more important than mine. I agree with the poster who said I will lose him, that's why I said it feels like blackmail and is so distressing.

I'm guessing that this runs in the family. In this thread you haven't shown an ounce of concern over how he's feeling or the turmoil he must be in (pretty severe if his mental health caused him to give up his independent life and move home) all you're focussed on is what you do and don't want, so turn that on it's head. Why do your feeling matter more than his?

Have you tried actually talking to him, listening to him and trying to understand where he's coming from instead of judging him, wallowing in self pity and posting on a forum where you know many people will jump in to tell you how right you are.

This thread makes me so sad.

@Partyatnumber10 OP has spoken about her sons depression and how he is feeling better now- considering she has given him a roof over his head when he gave up his flat etc I would imagine she has contributed lots to him feeling better. She doesn’t need to call him a different name, pronoun etc in order to be a good mum and considerate of his feelings. If she asked her son to call her… I dunno…Fanny Tree Sock or whatever and use the pronoun Zog…and he didn’t agree and didn’t call her these names would be a shit son?!

@Tuaca

It is though. With regards to disowning children because they aren't who you want them to be.

I'm not going to disown him.

According to these figures, there was one trans person murdered in the UK in that time, and a total of nine trans people were murdered in the UK between 2008 and 2017. That’s an average rate of one victim per year

They also weren't murdered because they were trans, and in that same time period there were more trans murderers than victims. They had one thing in common. Their sex.

@SomePosters

Love your child as they are or be prepared to lose them over your rejection

It’s your choice. They don’t have to alter themselves to suit your beliefs

She is loving her child as they are. She loves her SON, as HE is.

He's not altering himself to be what his mum wants, he's attempting to alter himself to try to be something he's not (and will never be) because society is telling him it'll solve all his problems

OP has spoken about her sons depression and how he is feeling better now- considering she has given him a roof over his head when he gave up his flat etc I would imagine she has contributed lots to him feeling better. She doesn’t need to call him a different name, pronoun etc in order to be a good mum and considerate of his feelings. If she asked her son to call her… I dunno…Fanny Tree Sock or whatever and use the pronoun Zog…and he didn’t agree and didn’t call her these names would be a shit son?!

Clearly he feels differently though,
I have no idea whether he'd agree to calling her fanny tree sock or not (although it has a nice ring to it)
What I do know is that if any member of my family summoned up the courage to tell me they'd had name and pronoun change. I'd sit and talk to them and try to understand and find common ground.

Op will be well aware of the strident voices on here regarding trans and she has deliberately started a thread appealing to this to justify her own prejudice rather than listening and trying to understand.

That's what makes me sad.

I don't understand why people keep saying you 'have' to do x, y or z or you will lose him. It doesn't sound like he has said that has he?

He has said that it will damage our relationship. Most of the things he says are the things that are parroted all the time, like he's read about it been coached in what to say. He's never heard things from my viewpoint, I think he was expecting complete acceptance because I am genuinely a liberal and accepting person. I want him to live his life and do what he wants, I just can't cope with me having to collude with a man who wants to self ID. If it was my husband I could end my marriage and people would understand.

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

Ultimately 'woman' to you means only biology so in your world he can never be a woman. 'Woman' to him means something else and when someone can tell us what it means then a conversation can be had. Perhaps he will be the person to actually try and define 'woman' in a non-biological, non stereotypical sense

Words have a universal meaning for a reason.

Woman has a meaning and a man cannot choose to be a woman anymore than he can choose to be a horse. He can start eating grass and neighing, but it doesn't make him a horse!

I don't get the people pandering to this movement of emotional blackmail and saying OP will lose her son if she doesn't pander to his every whim. She can let him know that she loves and accepts him unconditionally and that she still wants a positive relationship with him without compromising her own grasp of reality. It works both ways and this is where it comes back to not feeding the egocentricism. If he's allowed his beliefs then so is she. If he decides to disown his mum for this then he's a grown-ass adult and this is his decision. Why is the responsibility so heavily on the rest of society to indoctrinate their behaviour and their beliefs?

Our children can have opposite thoughts to us about political things like Brexit or Trump, or religious things like Catholicism or Druidism, or Veganism and Earth Liberation.

But what if that required you to participate in their beliefs, to agree that Trump is an excellent world leader, to become a vegan or pray to a diety you don't believe in. Wouldn't that cause you great distress? What if it was something closer to your heart like your own rights as a woman being trampled over by men who say they are women? Would you capitulate at the feet of the almighty male?

Haven't RTFT but has anyone recommended the Gender through a Wider Lens podcast? They're up to episode 68 and all sorts of useful info there. I listen on Spotify but you can get it wherever you listen to podcasts.

People who identify as trans are mentally ill too

Extraordinary. Flipping heck.

OP can I ask what your reaction would be if this was your daughter wanting to identify as a man?

@Tuaca

I'd rather have a transgender child than a

Racist bully
Abusive to their partner
Selfish disrespectful
Sex offender
Etc

What the hell harm has he done?

You seem really mean OP, don't lose him over something so trivial just because you've spent too much time on mumsnet

trivial

Your son deciding he's a woman is most categorically NOT trivial.

Why is the responsibility so heavily on the rest of society to indoctrinate their behaviour and their beliefs?

This is what I said to him. If you have a condition that can only be alleviated by external validation, you have to question whether that is the path to happiness. How can your happiness solely depend on other people affirming you. That does not sound healthy to me.

@Noisyneighneigh

There is nothing sensible in forcing yourself to call a he a she. Good grief. It's utterly bonkers. You wouldn't validate someone's psychotic delusions or anorexia. People who identify as trans are mentally ill too and seem to never get the help they actually need, whether it's deep depression, childhood abuse, coming to terms with homosexuality or porn addiction.

What the actual fuck did I just read?

@MuggleMadness Words don't have a "universal" meaning. That just isn't how language works. There are lots of valid points of critique in how language is being used around sex and gender, but arguing for universal meaning will get you nowhere.

I think unfortunately it’s going to come down to whether your son is committed to being trans or whether this really is a phase, you seem unwilling to back down or compromise in anyway, so if this isn’t a phase I don’t see how your relationship won’t suffer hugely if you refuse to ever accept their new name and pronouns etc.

If it were me I would make my feelings clear, I.e. men can’t become women, trans women are not the same as biological women, but my love is unconditional and I will always be there for them and just want them to be happy. I think there’s definitely compromises that can appease you both if you’re willing to make them, but it seems right now that your beliefs are more important to you than your relationship with your child and as such there is no compromise you’re willing to make.

@Tuaca As one of "the gays", as you so charmingly put it... no, it isn't. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not the same thing.

@Natfemale Not my pantheon; I'm not a rigid adherent to the purist gender ideology side. I think that attitude is often simplistic and unexamined. There are many issues which the strict gender ideology take on things cannot account for adequately.

All I'm saying in that comment is that that literally is not how language (English particularly) functions in practice. It doesn't mean any word means anything instantaneously. But meaning isn't fixed forever either. That's the historical nature of our language.

@Tuaca As one of "the gays", as you so charmingly put it... no, it isn't. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not the same thing.

I'm gay too, it is the same as far as parents chucking their kids out because they don't like who they are.