Aibu to not let him dress like a girl?

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Lo is 11 and has ASD (not sure if that's relevant). He's told me he is trans, wants me to buy him dresses, make up, hair extensions etc. This is the first time he has come out and said it although he has made comments about girls clothing being better etc over the past year so I had a feeling this was coming. Not sure how to approach this. My worry is if I do allow him to dress like a girl he will get picked on, he already struggles socially and has been bullied in the past. Also if this is just a phase and he changes his mind, people will not forget and he will have to live with that. Also he will be starting secondary school in September which will be a really tough transition for him. With his ASD he tends to become fixated/obsessed with a topic for months but then it's forgotten about and hes onto the next thing so wondering is this just the latest obsession. Just wondering what others would do if their 11 year old told them they where trans or if anyone else has been in this situation? Aibu to not let him dress as a girl?

To be very clear no research supports this at all, just things like Reddit forums.

How come no one ever talks about the pain and suicides of transpeople who have the surgery and realise they hate their new bodies and are condemned to a lifetime of physical pain, sterility and medication?

Oh yeah, they’re not fashionable.

My step son has asd and wanted to dress as a women a couple of years ago, luckily he didn't go to school or out with friends that way as he's not wanting to be a women now so it was just another obsession of his.....it started after his school kept talking to them in class about being trans.....

Maybe he is gay but struggling with how that feels, and how to express it. My ASD daughter is now an adult and a lesbian, but as a teenager went through a period of wanting to be a boy. I was happy for her to wear whatever she liked while she figured it out. She is very girly now.

It's part of what is taught regularly at schools now, trans is often taught and spoken about in classes, and our son with asd became obsessed with being trans from it all. He's not anymore, so clearly he isn't trans at all, but for a while, he was incredibly confused. Both of ours said they are encouraging trans and gay behaviors at school.

I suspect they are a sign of anxiety amongst some young men, in that transition to adulthood. Unsurprising, really, these days. Some grow out of it, others not. Only my theory, though.

Kids grown in and out of phases. Let him dress as a girl... hopefully he will grow out of it.

My brother was a dog for two weeks... he's not a dog anymore.

He's a boy

He could have tresses and dresses because that's nothing to do with being a boy

He needs to be aware of what some people will think - clearly sone people will think he's not a proper boy and sone will think he trans

You might find this interesting: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism/autism-and-gender-identity

The autism society are absolutely biased on this and completely captured. Thus in my view contributing to sterilisation of autistic children.

@Lexblip you can't be serious, he never mentioned transitioning he said wants to wear girls clothings, why on earth would I encourage him to use puberty blocking hormones or even point out that they exist, insane advice

The thing I'm struggling to get my head around the most is that he thinks women's lives are easier!
How's he worked that out?

The example about cooking makes me laugh, let him meal plan, shop, cook, wash up for a week and see if he still like them apples! And how cooking is often the women's role in the home (unpaid) whereas the sexy well-paid exciting cooking (TV/expensive restaurants) are dominated by men.

There's so many damaging messages out there, I've got a very young DC and the sexism even in hard-board toddler books is bonkers.

The problem with 'gender' is that it divides the world into 2 camps/stereotypes whereas most of us don't fit in our gender stereotypes we work/contribute to running a home/have sports-hobbies/care-love/pets/education etc that crossover.

You need to really open his eyes to this, trans stuff aside, we need to teach children the realities of the world not just the TOWIE version.

Thank you everyone for your advice I have read the replies but there's just too many to reply to everyone individually. He already sees a therapist so I think I will have a chat with them and the asd team to see if they can offer any support.

Therapists have been encouraged to 'get ahead of the law' by stonewall. Have a friend who is one, and he is aghast at how affirming is given as the only option and no one is allowed to speak out.

You'd be lucky to have a therapist that didn't set your child on a path to pronouns and surgery. If it were me I'd choose my therapist very carefully baring this in mind, going private if I needed to.

@trippily
"No doubt everyone will be here in a minute to tell you all trans people are evil calculating rapists (whilst simultaneously reminding you there's no transphobia on mumsnet ofc). "

You do of course report all these posts for deletion, don't you?

The thing I'm struggling to get my head around the most is that he thinks women's lives are easier!

He thinks girls’ lives are easier. Research shows that girls have an easier time in school than boys.

it has been found that teachers see boys as more demanding and difficult to teach than girls (Skelton & Francis, Citation2003). Teachers also often have lower expectations of boys than girls and enlist girls in the battle to ‘police, teach, control and civilise boys’ (Epstein et al., Citation1998).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02643944.2021.1977986

This. But I wouldn’t forbid “girl’s clothing”.

would he be happy with some “stereotypically” girly shirts and or blouses? That seems easy enough.

You win the award for the worst advice ever. Seriously.

And girls tend to be more developmentally advanced, which tends to be an advantage in a school environment.

when one factors in his ASD (and the potential developmental impact) it isn’t difficult to believe that the gap between many NT girls and OP’s son might be even wider. Which he may have picked up on and interpreted this as “girls have it easier”. Which might explain his perspective.

but he can’t change that by identifying as a girl. (If that’s what’s consciously or subconsciously going on here…)

What diagnostic disorders?

There are clothes that are traditionally associated with women, but they are not ‘women’s clothing’ (unless of course they were stolen from a woman). Clothes are bits of cloth which keep people warm, dry and cover up whatever bits of bodies the culture feels are private. Any definition beyond that is purely invented and then projected onto the clothes and the person wearing them.

Autistic children have more difficulty navigating this because the definitions attached to gender- clothing, activity’s, hair, who they are attracted to etc make no intrinsic sense.

Boys don’t wear dresses? Why? I like dresses? Dresses look nice, are comfortable or whatever they think, but boys don’t like dresses?. It isn’t logical, so combined with an autistic brain that by definition struggles to understand unwritten ‘rules’, and has a tendency towards black and white thinking, of course a disproportionate number of them get misled, and confused.

If you stick to sex based distinction (man/women’s toilets, women give birth, men have penisis etc) it is a lot clearer and causes far less difficulty for autistic (and all) children.

The thing I'm struggling to get my head around the most is that he thinks women's lives are easier!

It's not difficult. He's 11. 11 year olds have little to no concept of the lives of adult women. Why would they?

I agree with a pp about him maybe thinking girls have a better time of it. The school system massively favours girls imo and typical female traits and behaviour are seen as the gold standard

It sounds as if he fears 'male' things.
Like that's coming across that he wants a gentler life.

What's his Dad like? What is his view on this?

how is getting girls to do adult work to control boys them having an easier time? that sounds like boys having an easier time. Both sexes do school work and girls also do this.

The thing I'm struggling to get my head around the most is that he thinks women's lives are easier!
He's a child. He's probably not actually given the matter a lot of critical thought. But if he is currently having a hard time at school, feels like he doesn't fit in with most of the boys etc it's not surprising that he might feel that the grass is greener on the other side.

That won’t work when he goes outside and sees all the girls his age in makeup.

By all means ban makeup under 12 or 14 or whatever you like, but own that it’s your decision as a parent, don’t pretend that ‘girls his age don’t wear makeup outside the house’ when it is blatantly untrue.

It’s nonsense like this that confuses so many autistic children.