DS is transgender - or is he?

[LemonadeApex]

I’ve NCd for this as it's not just my confidentiality at stake, but I’m a regular. I’m posting in AIBU because it’s where I normally hang out and also for traffic as I feel pretty desperate for support.

My teenage DS has just come out to me and DH as transgender. He says he wants to pursue gender reassignment via hormone treatment and possibly eventually surgery. He says he’s ‘wondered’ about this for a while but only seriously been considering it for about a week. He says he is about 70% sure it’s what he wants. He wants to get started with hormone therapy asap. He seems to have done a great deal of reading on the web and has a clear, if intellectualised, grasp of what lies ahead medically, but he doesn’t seem to have given much thought to what comes next in daily life, eg who/when to tell, when/what he wants his younger siblings to know, the implications for his sexuality (he has zero sexual experience with either sex). He finds it very difficult to express what he feels, what’s actually going on in his head or why he wants this. He’s not great with words at the best of times though.

Obviously my foremost concern is to support him absolutely 100% in what he wants and needs. He’s a lovely kid, clever, funny, kind, responsible, and I just want him to be happy. I’m painfully aware of the statistics correlating gender transition and depression/suicide and don’t want to make a difficult path even harder for him by being anything other than accepting of his choices. At the same time, I’m feeling alarmed and upset, and so, so sad. I love him just as he is. Why can’t he feel the same way? If he goes ahead with this and ends up living as a woman, changing his name etc, the person he is now will be gone forever. He may not want us to mention his birth name or have photos of him as a boy, and of course we'd need to respect that. But it will be like he died. I can’t even type it without crying.

I’m also scared he's making a horrible mistake. Don’t most gender dysmorphic kids know they’re in the ‘wrong’ body from an early age? Aren’t they desperately distressed by the time they get to puberty? This isn't how I'd describe him on either count. He’s at an age where it’s normal to be consumed with angst about who and what you are. I think he’s also anxious about making the transition from boyhood to manhood. Is it possible that he’s conflating that confusion with things he’s reading on the web about other people’s gender dysmorphic experiences? I assume this is not a path many people go down in error, but we’re quite a liberal household and I think he'd be less afraid of experimenting with other identities than most kids his age. I want to support him if this is what he truly wants, but I’m also scared of supporting him so well with my knee-jerk liberalism that we all end up on a conveyor belt that ruins his life.

I’m very scared of getting this wrong for him and could really use some support and advice. If anyone can help with their insights and experiences, I would be so grateful. In particular, if anyone here is, or is related to, a young person who has been through this and has decided it was not the right path for them, I would be very grateful to hear your story – in absence of any anecdotal evidence to the contrary, I think I have to assume that he knows instinctively what is best for him. We are in the UK and he is under 18, if that helps anyone advise me on what to expect next. Apologies if I've given any offence with my attitudes or terminology btw. I'm in uncharted waters here. I am also distraught, so please be kind.

ohbehave I read it as a mum in shock who desperately wants to support her son.

Of course those things enter her head. It's a huge thing, not many people could blindly accept it without having any concerns/worries/fears. Either rational or irrational.

It's a huge shock.

Booyaka. I never said that she should railroad him in to anything - transitioning or not. I just think it sounds a bit sad that the op seems concerned about her own feelings. It's her sons that matter not hers I'm afraid.

Also ohbehave this is the place where she should feel free to express those conflicted feelings that she wouldn't say to him or even out loud. Let it out anonymously

Enjolrass if any of my children decide that they are gay, transgender, or want to be an alien from the planet zog I will support them and make sure they get the right support to work out what they want and get them there.

Loraline - it is also the place where I should be able to say I think that it is sad the op thinks that way.

Ohbehave I think a great many supportive parents would naturally go through a phase of mourning for the child they thought they had. In this example the op gave birth to a son, gave him a name, raised him and now they face the possibility of needing to say goodbye to that 'son' and welcome their 'daughter' instead. Even though the child is still the same child, the identity they associated with for so long has been altered. It is not that the op won't love her child, of course she will, just as fiercly as ever, it is just that to make sense of the change, her mind needs to adjust and part of that is letting go of the old which will of course bring about a whole range of emotions, one of which is sorrow. It is the same with any big change in life. If you get a new job, you can be excited about your new role, your new colleagues etc whilst also feeling sorrow that your old life has come to an end.
Be gentle on her, no matter how open minded you are as an individual, learning something of this magnitude will bring about worries, if nothing else because you love your child and don't want them to go through any struggle. Like it or not the road ahead for transgender individuals can be a tough one with lots of prejudice, who wants that struggle for their child?

Yep. Everything 3littlebadgers said. You can be supportive and totally prioritise your child's feelings but it doesn't mean you're not entitled to feel any of your own, even negative ones.

first thing to acknowledge is that your child is still the child you have always known, and all the familiar things you love remain true.

Next, there is no rush, so though it's lots to take in, there's no need to get worried on your child's behalf. You sound loving and accepting, which is a great start. Maybe do some research on good counselling and start there. A friend's son trans-ed (not sure of the verb here) to female at a young age. At the time, I was deeply concerned that it was too young to make the decision but my friend supported it and they do seem happy in the choice.

The other thing to discuss with him is gender fluidity. It's quite a new thing that teens seem to be opening up about. I know a couple where the boy identifies as gay but is going out with a girl who identifies as a trans boy. So they look like a hetero couple. I don't pretend to understand it but they are happy together and, most important of all, comfortable being open about how they feel, not repressed or ashamed. Your son, if only 70% sure may feel more comfortable looking into gender fluidity and seeing whether he lies somewhere on the spectrum, rather than feeling he must convince medics he psychologically needs a sex change.

Well said Mrsmoleswortg

"if any of my children decide that they are gay, transgender, or want to be an alien from the planet zog I will support them and make sure they get the right support to work out what they want and get them there."

Really? I would really like to see you provide your child the 'right support' to make him an alien from Planet Zog.

Of course OP's feelings matter.

If my DC came to me with something like this, of course I would want to support them, but I would also want to make sure they have considered everything, find people who can help them do that as I wouldn't feel qualified (eg Mermaids etc). As someone mentioned up thread a high proportion of people who experience these kind of feelings about gender end up deciding that they don't want to transition. And 70% isn't very certain, i would want to support my DC on what I would expect to be a good few months of thinking and counselling until they come to a decision.

I think OP is doing just that.

OP I don't know whether this in unfounded or not but I have seen it reported that young people can often be encouraged move very quickly towards transition by friends online, and I would want to start an open dialogue with him about any online influence. That's maybe a good reason to take him to the GP straight away, so it demonstrates you are taking it seriously and he can hear about medical treatments, their risks and benefits, from a hopefully unbiased source.

But Cheby wanting to make sure the get the support they need has nothing to do with the parents feelings. I can't understand how any negativity is acceptable. Making sure it is what they really want by getting the correct professional help is totally right, but to make them feel guilty because they feel they are upsetting you is totally unacceptable. And that is what saying you will be losing a son is doing.

And cotedazur - you know perfectly well what I meant.

OP - You sound lovely and a great parent. As others said, he will not get hormone therapy on "I'm 70% sure this is what I want". Counselling is probably the way forward. In your place, I would seek out a regular psychologist and not a gender therapist at this stage, as the latter can be biased towards assuming anyone who says they are trans must be trans.

Delaying puberty has consequences and is not a decision taken lightly, on purely physiological grounds. Also, many pre-puberty self-identified transgender people go on to feel comfortable with their biology after hormones do their thing during teenage years. Many boys who thought they might be trans end up realising that they are in fact gay men.

Just a few things for you to think about.

Don't be ridiculous ohbehave. When our older son was diagnosed with a lifelong condition that's totally manageable by diet, I went through a phase of grieving for the 'default' child I'd lost, and the person he would never be.

Obviously I didn't share that with him. And obviously I got over it, PDQ. But thank fuck I was able to express my feelings to people who cared, and didn't judge, and supported me while I worked out how to support him.

Now multiply that by about a billion and five...

Ohbehave I don't think there was any suggestion that the OP would allow her DS to become aware of her worries. She hasn't said to him she feels like she might be losing a son.

Its perfectly normal to have feelings like that, I think the OP articulates them really well. Of course she should be able to talk about it with her support network. In fact not bottling it up is more likely to enable her to support her DS, surely?

Counselling definitely sounds good. I'm glad you are accepting him and I don't think you've done anything wrong to express your distress here, in a safe space, away from him. Being distressed doesn't mean you are anti transgender. And questioning gender ideology does not mean you can't support your son, or automatically don't love somebody who is questioning their gender.

As you said you were interested in stories from people who had experienced this and then gone back, I wanted to share this which was something I read recently and found incredibly moving.

4thwavenow.com/2015/09/29/reblog-the-end-of-transition-and-learning-to-love-oneself/

Also op you need to allow yourself to process all of your emotions, not just the possitive ones, so that you can be in the best of places to fully support you child, and that is what it sounds like you are trying to do.

Thank you, thank you so much to all who have taken the time to post and also for the PMs I've received. I will get to them. So much to think about I think my head may explode. God knows how he feels, poor thing.

I am really touched also by the kind comments. I adore my DS. He is wonderful and I am so proud of him already, in so many ways, although he is still only young. I guess that's why I'm also sad - I was enjoying the way his life was unfolding and opening up, and excited about that process for him. Now it feels as though he's stalled, maybe never to move on, although I do realise that a better way of looking at it is to feel he just has to move the points and change track before he can continue on his way. And yes, I do realise that it's not all about me. But I have feelings too, as does DH, as will his siblings and the wider family in due course.

By weird coincidence, I was reading the thread about Jack Monroe when he came downstairs and asked to talk to us, so I'm very clear, if I wasn't before, that wider society won't be as accepting as we are trying to be and there'll be times this is hard for all of us. Sorry if I have come across as self-interested. It will obviously be hardest of all for him, though ultimately the way to happiness too perhaps.

I really recommend reading the original blog post (linked) but the additional comment to begin that one was, I felt, also useful.

This is just the blog post itself if you'd prefer it totally unbiased:

dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.de/2012/11/the-end-of-transition-learning-to-live.html

No I don't quite know what you meant. Is there no misguided wish of your child regarding his own self-image that you would NOT back and do your damnedest to make happen?

He is 16 btw for those that asked, so too late to suppress puberty. In a way I'm glad, as it means there's no mad rush to exercise an option that may or may not be the right thing to do, which is a pressure I imagine we/he would have felt if he was younger.

Lots of good ideas and signposting, so thank you. It seems like counselling is definitely the first thing to sort out. I will talk to him about a GP appointment for a CAMHS referral but probably we should try to find something private sooner than that. Hopefully we can find someone who specialises and undertands the issues. I feel so ignorant.

Cotedazur - how can you say any of these things are misguided. If a person is transgender they are transgender. If they are gay they are gay. If they need support to realise the person they really are then I would support them.

You name me something that is truly misguided and I may agree - but when it comes to who they really are that's up to them.

A child and my kids school is transitioning she is nine and came back after the holidays as the other gender. The children were all told about it in a special assembly, it's something that has apparently always been obvious to her parents. She wanted to always dress as a girl not a boy, wanted girls toys not boys, has girl friends etc, has wanted to be called a girls name and was distressed as a boy. Dressing as a girl outside of school has been happening for over a year now and there's been counselling involved. Nothing will happen with hormones or ops until much older and counselling will continue.

I think your best bet is to get your son on a transgender forum if possible. Go to docs and ask for counselling etc. Start to talk about it regularly and openly and see how he feels.

What age is he? I think you sound like a great mum beware you will possibly get some criticism but block it out and listen to the constructive advice.