14 year old taking testosterone behind my back

[ChosenIdeal]

Sorry if this is all over the place, I'm exhausted and rush posting, was going to post in LGBT children but unsure how much traffic it gets

I'm a single mum to 2 DC, boy/girl twins. They're 14 and turning 15 in a couple days. Growing up DD was very much a tomboy, liked all the traditional boy things and DS would be more sensitive and feminine. They’d often wear each others clothes day to day and i embraced it and let them wear and play with whatever they wanted.

When DD was 10, she started saying she hated being a girl, she was a boy and wanted to be called Jacob. She was insistent for 2 years she was a boy not a girl, then she came out officially as trans and demanded me call her that name and he/him, wanted DS to call her his brother which he does. Since then her behaviours changed completely, she's rude and snappy, said she hates me and I'm transphobic. I've tried to compromise with a nickname as she hates her birth name but nope. She's been self harming and restricting her eating because that stops periods. She started refusing to go to school so I've been HE her as there was no other options. She's told me she's suicidal, ive allowed her to wear whatever and have her hair however she wants. Hangs around with older boys (16) that live nearby that are trouble. I've tried getting CAMHS involved but nothing

Around the time she came out as trans, DS came out as gay and of course I was supportive but she now says I prefer him over her, I accept him but not her etc

Their dad was abusive towards me and doesn't have much of a relationship with them as in he doesn't see them, he over compensates with money and presents and undermining me, he lives 5 hours away (he moved).

I've taken them away for the week for their birthdays, a small break at the seaside. dd has been stroppy and angry the whole trip saying she didn't want to come she hates me, she can't wait to be 18. I found out earlier she's been taking testosterone gel she bought online, her dad gave her the money although I don't think she said what it was for, he does give them quite a bit each month allowance way more than I could afford. She's apparently been on it a month and so far her voice has changed slightly but not enough I've noticed.

I've taken it and she hit me, said she wants to live with her dad or anywhere but me. I don't want to ruin the trip for DS or his birthday so I'm thinking of giving it back to her til were home but I don't know

argh!

She's 14 - it's far too late for blockers, which, are not reversible - once the window has passed, you can't expect puberty to resume back at the beginning, it will resume at the point you stopped. If that's from 14 to 16 that you're taking these drugs, then you'll resume at 16 having missed 2 years of growth and development, but having likely lowered your IQ a couple of points, dramatically reduced your bone density, and caused many other permanent side-effects.

Sorry, my edited post didn’t appear.

The testosterone is the self harm - a new expression of the issue.

No, ESTROGEN is the self harm

Rubbish, we know children are being transed - it's on TV "My name is Jazz".
Hundreds of girls have had their breasts removed on the NHS.
Mermaids is evil.

You're claiming that teenagers going through natural puberty are self harming? What?

Oestrogen is naturally produced by her body it is the baseline. Living normally is not the self harm.

Starving, cutting, taking drugs from the internet is obviously harm.

Large amounts of exogenous testosterone causes so much harm to a female body - especially one that hasn't even completed its own puberty, before she is even an adult.

I meant for transmen

OP, even if you don’t have the money - you need to find it to get your child the mental health support they need - even if it means they need to be sectioned for suicidal thoughts and actions.
And if calling them by their new name will prevent suicide - just do it! This is not a matter of battle of the wills anymore, this is life and death.

Yes I get that but how are you possibly claiming that natural puberty is self harm?!

I have reported this post. How dare you post this proven lie to a concerned parent? You disgust me. Anyone who encourages parental alienation is a walking red flag.

I know transmen who did go through puberty say that it fucked them up mentally.

I have reported this post as well. Trans suicide ideation is an abusive, manipulative lie.

Welcome to the real world

The real world where TRAs lie about teen suicide to emotionally and abusively manipulate parents who are the ones standing between them and their kids? Who encourage parental alienation, like all the best cults do?

Oh, I’ve been in this world for a long time.

@SpryOpalShark where is your proof that they are reversible? Because they are not. Your views on this thread are quite radical and you haven't backed anything up.

‘If I say a word out of place, my child will not talk to me’.

’She says the eating disorder and self harm is due to gender dysphoria’.

These quotations (from different posters) really struck me. I work with ASD children and the one ‘symptom’ that I see time and again in all of these children is all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking.

The only ‘solution’ to help a child who is so entrenched in their views (and to possibly avert a disastrous path of lifelong poor mental health and looking for ‘magic bullet’ solutions such as gender-affirming surgery) is counselling. DBT helps autistic children who struggle to know how they feel, and usually has positive outcomes. In OP’s case, her daughter would be less likely to catastrophise and issue ultimatums, and would get help with processing her feelings around her body and her sensory issues.

In short, OP, your best bet is to find a DBT therapist who will help your DD in this way. School or GP might be able to advise you.

Hi OP.

I imagine that if she is saying she is trans she'll be in some echo chambers like on reddit.

Reddit is a really dangerous place because there are also detailed instructions on how to access the darknet on there and you can buy pretty much anything. I think I first got onto it around 14 years old and the things I saw horrified me.

However, at around 16 I also started taking testosterone, not because I was trans but because I was competitively into powerlifting, and there were a lot of websites that you didn't even need the darknet to access to buy these things from.

When my mum started getting wise, I used to just go to my local gym supplement shop and the dude who owned it would sell us gear under the table. I had no digital footprint for this, I just needed literal cash.

Whenever one of us was out, we'd say "Oh I'm going to so and sos does anyone need owt?" and then we'd just collect it when we all met up from whichever person had been to the shop.

There are so many places to access it, gels, injectables, pills, and loads of online unregulated forums that tell you exactly how to dose.

I stopped when I was 18 when I developed a pulmonary embolism, and also had a small heart related event, never officially diagnosed as a heart attack but spent 2 weeks flipping between the acute medical unit and cardiology.

Looking back, I feel so stupid, but I'm disgusted how easy it was to acquire this stuff. I nearly died.

DB's partner is also a trans man, much younger than I am, now 18 so going through proper channels, but before 18 she was also just acquiring testosterone through similar unregulated channels.

The problem is with people spouting "better a trans kid than a dead kid", is that the whole medical transitioning process is experimental at best, and forums online are full of misinformation that is equally as likely to cause significant bodily harm if not, like almost my case, death.

I really deeply believe that for some trans people, like your daughter, it is an all consuming mental illness, that we're not allowed to mention. Like the emperors new clothes. Naming it just gives them more fuel for their fire, and so it's incredibly difficult to get them to see the bigger picture. It is delusions that they insist you play an active role in otherwise you're transphobic, and as soon as they utter that word all trust is gone and it's nigh on impossible to win them over.

If you remove the sachets, to you and the rest of us, it's because you'd be trying to keep her safe, but to her it would be because you're transphobic.

I think you need some proper medical advice from a medical professional to focus on harm reduction. I don't want anyone to go through what I went through. It was ignorance and arrogance on my part and I didn't want to believe it could happen to me.

How it works is that when they find out really young they can be put on puberty blockers. If they wish to proceed, they can take hormones later it is up to them. If they don't want to proceed, they can just stop the blockers.

You can't restart puberty at a later time.

Puberty blockers should only be used where it is medically indicated that they're entirely necessary.

Puberty has to happen when puberty has to happen, if you stop it, then it stops proper bone formation, can lead to reduced or complete infertility and depression.

google is free

Yes, it is, so use it.

My mum was a teacher for 40 years and she never had a trans pupil. Not a single one.

I wonder how many of her pupils ended up unaliving themselves… must have been HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS mustn’t it, given the stats today of children identifying as trans. The numbers of young people unaliving themselves over the last decade must have absolutely plummeted! All those lives saved! Hurrah!