What happened to my son

[MySon]

My son has told me that he is transgender. This means that, at the age of 23 he sees himself as a woman.

My son says that the name we gave him is his 'dead' name.

My question is - what happened to my son. Did he die?

I feel like I am grieving but not allowed to show or process my grief. What happened to my son, is he dead?

I pick up a guitar and say I'm a guitarist, all you're arguing about is whether I'm as good as the other guitarists you know. I'm still a guitarist.

That argument can't extend to a lot of cases though. You couldn't become a policeman or French simply by claiming to be. And although you can go through a process of changing job or nationality, there are some biological realities you just can't change.

For 23 years you had a child. You called him son, because he looked like a boy. The agony you feel now is what your son has felt, because while you called him son, he felt like daughter. You will feel better when you make the effort to get to know the new daughter you have. You will never forget the little boy, but he has grown up now, and has become his own person. And that person is not what you expected. You don't have a son, you have a daughter. None of that is important, what is important is that you have a child who needs you to accept her and love her, no matter what.

Yesterday my daughter told me she was Fluttershy.

Your son is still there, OP, but with a feminine presentation. It's like a change of name. Sex is immutable.

Did you have a son? Yes you raised a male child

Do I have a son? Now your son is saying he is a female so now you have a trans daughter.

Is my son dead? No the history remains but the gender presentation has changed for your child. For them part of transition is rewriting their past but they cannot rewrite your memories.

When he was born, I would not have cared what sex he was. But I know I had a baby boy. This is my life, my experience, my history. I just need to know if that is all gone.

This is very hard for you OP, that is without question. If your child is transgender and now wishes to be known by a different name and adopt a different gender identity to the one you have known all their life, of course you are going to feel bereft, loss, shock, grief, and so on. I suggest therapy. I would also suggest that you find a therapist who will listen to you and help you to handle your grief, not berate you for not instantly, rapturously and joyously accept your child's change.

I do feel that one thing that we have been missing in recent times is how people around the transgender person are treated, and how to take their feelings etc into account. That will come with time i suspect.

But. Your life and your experiences are not gone. I gave birth to two children who are now grown up with their own lives. They are not transgender and are alive, but i sometimes ask myself where my babies are. But my past, our shared past is still there (and i am lucky because i can talk about it with them). The difference for you is that your child won't want to speak about that shared past. It doesn't mean it has gone.

You both need to be kind to each other and learn how to navigate your future together.

Whatever you're going through is not going to be as tough as what your child is going through.

They need support, not you on the internet claiming they're dead, which is extremely disrespectful to those who've actually lost a child.

And as for the repetition of 'do I have a son?', it seems to me you're not satisfied with anybody's response.

I think your best bet from here is to get off MN, research transgender voices, and get professional help to grieve your old life- supporting your child along the way. Because they need support more than you right now.

You are absolutely right to grieve the loss of your son

i feel enormously for you

Did the news come out of the blue?
or did you have an idea for many years that this was on the cards?

I can’t imagine how difficult this is, but it might help to frame it very differently in your mind. You had a baby, that baby didn’t die he just changed into a Toddler, your toddler didn’t die he changed into a boy, the boy didn’t die he changed into a young man etc etc, try to see it as an evolution and see that your 23 year year old son didn’t die he changed into a she.

and that could change again.

im really sorry this is so hard, I would be struggling too x

Of course you are allowed to grieve for the son you had. It must be hard. Many parents say this when their child transitions. But really we all lose our children a little as adults as they change and become different people. Try think of it that way. This is just a new stage and soon you will adapt and be happy because they are. That's all that matters in the end. Xxxxxxx

Yes. You have a son. Who - at a completely adult age - is choosing to now live his life as a woman. That’s it.

As his mother, it is more important to ask if you have a happy son. The answer is clearly no, and therefore I think you should be doing whatever it takes to help your very much still living child to navigate through this evident unhappiness without adding to their mental turmoil with your own emotions.

That son, whom you have given birth to, nurtured and raised, is asking you for help. Give it. Or you really could lose him, in every way.

I will admit I've read the first two pages of this thread before I've felt compelled to comment instead of reading the rest of it, so apologies if this has already been said.

The repeated asking of the question "do I have a son" and expecting people on Mumsnet to be able to answer, is a massive simplification of what both you and your child are experiencing. Seek counselling, there are support groups for parents of people in the LGBTQ+ community where you can meet people who had/have all the same questions you do.

Whatever you're going through is not going to be as tough as what your child is going through.

I don't think you can assume that. I knew a young man - older than the OP's son - who announced he was trans. He loved all the attention, people telling him he was brave. The sense of solidarity with other trans people on social media. The dressing up in super-feminine or little girl clothes, experimenting with perfume and make-up. He saw a bright future in playing out the female gender role.

Within two years, he suddenly stopped. From what I could tell, the 'euphoria' wore off. So there is hope - for some, especially younger people, it's a phase.

We really do live in the Autocracy of the Child.

You seem an annoying drip to be honest OP. You know your child isn't dead. People have said that is insensitive yet you continue to say it.

I am just fascinated that this seems to have been a complete curve ball to you OP?

did you not have any idea? By 23, as his parent, surely you had a very very clear idea that this was on the cards?

Some do

but others, like me, my children are my children and I am the parent. Rather than “mates”

I’m sorry you are feeling so distressed. The views of a bunch of randoms on the internet is not really going to solve this for you. Obviously people will say different things depending on where they stand on the issue. So you are asking too much from this thread, yes. But your question seems almost rhetorical in nature.

This is between you and your child and you may need to get some real life support with that as pp have suggested.

If someone completely denies their previous existence there has got to be some deep level of trauma or distress behind it whatever the cause of that may be. This is what you should be focusing on and how best to support you child as an individual. I hope you can find a resolution.

Of course you still have a son. Your son can identify as a woman, say he feels like a woman, but humans can't change sex, so he is still your son.

Has he felt like this for a while? Is he gay?

Just be there for him. But you can also point out that this is a huge shock for you: you're used to having a son and will need time to get used to how he identifies.

He may remain trans, he may not. Just be there for him, support him. Charities such as Transgender Trend May have support for parents of trans kids.

@MySon

Yes you still have a son.

blimey OP

i say this kindly but you need to chill out.

don’t sweat what you can’t control

pour yourself a glass of wine and relax

He does still exist. You do still have a son. He just doesn’t see himself that way. But his and your history hasn’t changed. And he is the same person. He is just viewing and describing himself differently. This may change again.
it must be a massive shock to you. Sending love.

I think maybe a bottle or 2 was involved in OPs theads. Of course your child isn't dead! That's a very insensitive way to look at it when other do have children who passed.

Maybe just stop focusing on the son/daughter aspect of it and just think of them as your child, which they are. They are your child who needs your support and love as you have given them all their life.
Get some counselling/support for yourself too as the drunk, repetitive blubbering on here was a bit ridiculous really.

Would you be so kind as to tell me whether or not I have a son?
This is all I want to know. Please tell me this truth.

I can't help feeling that there are folk out there just salivating at the idea that someone writes that and MN collectively says "sure you have, it's all gender woo". OP, while your feelings of loss and grief are valid i think pp up there got the question right: Is my child happy? That is the most important question as a parent. I hope you both find a way to keep your relationship

He's not a caterpillar, no, but he's not dead either. So stop with that.
Your son cannot change sex, as much as he may wish he could. He wants to be and believes he's now a woman. He's still your son. His wishes around what he is known as doesn't change his childhood or your history.

If your son now feels like a woman, he may want everyone to rewrite history and pretend that he's always been a girl, but you are allowed to say no, that he's a boy and that you and your h and his family all knew him as a boy. He can't change history or take your memories away.

You might want to step away from the Internet, ring a counsellor, see a friend today.

Think about your shared history with your child. His conception, where his sex was determined. All those cells multiplying within you, the mundane magic of growth that happened inside you. The anxiety that it would go wrong, that something would go wrong in this insanely complicated process, the joy and relief when it didn't. That everything grew correctly, everything formed, including his reproductive organs. For a while, you were part male part female. He shed cells when he was inside you, they will still be inside you.
When he was born he came out naked. A naked baby boy. You took it all in with your eyes, you held him close, you smelt him, saw him for the first time, made him promises, maybe shared your milk, you skin flora.
You were caretaker of that body, you got to know it so well over the coming years. Cleaned it, wiped it, held it, smelt it, kissed it better, caught it, carried it, dressed it, strapped it in safely, grabbed a hand before it could run into a road.
The total access to his body, the complete unselfconsciousness, changed over time. And you passed on your knowledge and care to him. All those things you did for him, you taught him to do himself. You taught him to care for that body you grew.
Then he took those skills and ran with it. His own mind whirring and maturing. He made independent decisions, choices, preferences. Behaviour that came out of nowhere. His future more real to him now, his self still a bit of a mystery.
The baby that you grew became a man. Always your son, with you as a Mum, and all those years of shared history are in the past now, where nothing can touch them. They happened, they're real, and no one can change the past. You get to keep them. You get to keep all those memories and all those experiences. They will be written in your body as well as your heart and mind
Because you took such good care, that naked baby that has grown. It's the same body you birthed, the fact you are his Mum is written in his DNA. Nothing happened to it, no tragedy has befallen it, no catastrophic injury or life changing event. Your son is here today, with a body he can uses as he sees fit, to carry him through the world, because of tender care from you and the randomness of chance we all contend with.
Whatever words come out his mouth, however he clothes that body, none of the past changes. None of his sex changes. None of his cells, his history, his DNA, his genetics ticking away inside him. If you want to find your son, the baby you conceived and grew and birthed and raised, just walk straight to his door. He's there. You can touch him, hear his voice, feel his warmth. This is a true gift not every parent has.
Calling him by a different name is hurtful. So hurtful. But this is part of the deal when we raise children, they grow away from us and choose what to reject and what to keep of the things we gave them.
You get to choose what to keep too. You can keep his name inside your head and heart.
We bend ourselves to fit around our children, we play games, we allow decisions we would disagree with, we sometimes let them learn the hard way, they baffle us, they don't accept our experience as worth anything. We let them explore because no one stays a baby forever.
My advice would be to do what you've always done. Care for and protect his body. Prevent him changing it in any way you reasonably can. No hormones or surgery. This isn't for you but a continuation of the same gift you have always been giving him, a healthy body use throughout his life.
However he is baffling you right now, however he is rejecting the things you gave him, stay calm and present for him. Support him by staying connected. Support him by staying you, his loving Mum.
No, you don't have a daughter. You have a son who wants to be referred to as a daughter for reasons you can't understand.
Yes, you had a son, and he is still here. You get to keep all the things that belong to you.
He gets to reject some of the things that belong to him.
The pain in him doing that can be bourne, and overcome.
He came out a naked baby boy. Underneath anything else it's the same body. Still here, the same heart beating in his chest as beat inside you. The same hands and feet that pushed your womb from the inside.
You'll always be his Mum, he'll always be your son.