My ASD DS went through a phase of saying he wanted to be a girl. He has dolls, a kitchen and loves to cook. He hates football. But he was also obsessed with cars, lego and computer games.
He kept saying he felt like a girl, thought he should be a girl etc. But I saw no evidence of him disliking his male body, he didn't want to wear girls clothes or grow out his hair.
I scoured the Internet for info. I found the criteria any NHS Gender Identity Clinic would use for him. Top of the list was that they weren't wanting to transition for a 'perceived benefit'.
I went back to DS and asked him why he wanted to be a girl. He started the usual "I don't like football". I told him it was irrelevant - neither his Dad or Granddad like football and they are men. Eventually after asking open questions in different ways we got to it:
"Girls are good and boys are naughty. The girls at school never get told off."
Like I said, DS has ASD. At the time his behaviour in school wasn't great - he struggled with noise, lights, demands etc. School kept punishing him and telling new that ASD was irrelevant - he was naughty and needed to 'learn to behave'. He thought being a girl would fix that - perceived benefit.
Add to that his love of more feminine activities, his black and white thinking meant he thought being a girl was the most logical solution.
We had a long talk about gender stereotypes and gender equality. He now has no doubt that he is a boy. A boy who likes what he likes and that's cool. Just like there's girls in his class who love football. He wants to be a chef and now knows that manly men are chefs even when cooking is supposedly girly.
He needed to understand all this before being transitioned. The look of relief on his face when he realised he wasn't weird and that I had his back was incredible.
I sincerely hope the parents, indeed any parents, look at these things objectively before jumping to help their kids transition. I wore my hair cropped and lived in jeans and blue tops from the age of 6. Today I'm in a pink dress. Kids need to know that it's OK to like whatever the hell they want.
If DS saw this video today he'd be the first to talk about gender equality. If he'd seen it 5 years ago at your DS' age I would have had even more to contend with in helping him realise he was fine the way he was.
Sorry for length!