DS is transgender (ftm)16 and happy

[crazyhat]

He is ftm (female to male) and 16, he has been on Testosterone for 7 months and is getting top surgery (breast removal) at 17, over summer. I want to help people understand transgenderism, as I see a lot of casual transphobia on here. Feel free to ask any questions about transitioning, anything is okay to ask, I just want you to understand.

If you have a DC in a similar situation I can help.

OP “ it's just that he didn't want to imagine a future as a girl, he genuinely couldn't see that future.”

I’d be really interested to hear more about this.

I’m in lifelong treatment for depression and anxiety, I honestly think I was ill with it from when I was about 8. I wonder if testosterone might have helped me. In fact, I still wonder if it might.

I'd rather a happy son than a dead daughter

You do know that, biologically speaking, you do still have a daughter, don't you? Just one that's had her breasts cut off and is chemically inducing a beard, muscles and a lower voice.

Is this a medical decision, though? Having healthy body parts removed is not a medical need.

@autumnrose1 testosterone will not help you unless you are transgender. It only helped him because his depression was cause by GD

i don't understand how wishing it wasn't real sits with your stated belief that your child has "never been female".

Just because one have surgery and take meds to make oneself look like a man, doesn,t make one a man. (Males are not made, their born.)

To Runaway and Gert. I want to apologise to you and anyone my choice of words may have hurt. I did not intend to do that. I don't doubt anyone's love for their child, OP included and it must be incredibly hard for parents in this situation.

That aside I have felt deeply uncomfortable with some of what OP has described as I believe some of it to be cruel. Really cruel. The part where she said if her child ever had regrets it's all their own fault? How else could you sum that up.

I know you want to be supportive but teens do change their mind, only 2 out of the 4 young people I personally know have stayed trans, the others have reverted to their birth gender

You're right! Surgery and hormones doesn't make one a man, he was a man before, just one that strongly disliked himself, that's not how I wanted my DS to live

Hear I googled and found conflicting information. So I asked the op

18 years old
For patients who are younger than 18 years old, parental consent must be provided in order to undergo FTM top surgery. The WPATH also recommends a time period in which an adolescent can adjust to a masculine gender role prior to undergoing the procedure.

Is this a medical decision, though? Having healthy body parts removed is not a medical need.

It's a medical procedure though. Taking contraception isn't a medical need but teenagers can still consent to it.

testosterone will not help you unless you are transgender

which study did this gem come from?

You haven’t answered it at all.

You’ve said your child couldn’t imagine life as a girl. But what does “life as a girl” actually mean? Because your child will always be biologically female, and can choose to do whatever they want to do, present how they want to present, life their life how they want.

What things does your child believe they can’t do unless they have healthy body parts surgically removed?

@marsha that's not conflicting information, because I am giving parental consent to a 17 and a half year old for this procedure. You have to have been socially male for at least 2 years and on Testosterone for at least 6 months. Trust me, we've got the surgeon and the date, there isn't an issue

OP, testosterone is widely recognised as being important for women too.

MarshaBradyo

Where is that from? I find it hard to believe that the right to confidentiality and the right to consent to medical treatment isn't applied across the board.

So you did give consent, as I quoted from the search. There were a few other listings but I only read a couple.

@autumnrose1 obviously women have testosterone, I am not a unintelligent. Clearly I mean higher amounts of Testosterone, like a man. Don't be pedantic, that's just childish.

Taking contraception isn't a medical need but teenagers can still consent to it.

Although using a contraceptive pill, for example, is often for medical reasons such as heavy periods.

Personally I’m surprised that a child can consent to having healthy body parts chopped off. I’m shocked actually, and find it hard to believe.

What does “socially male” mean?

This is a serious question - when did the UK remove the right for 16 year olds to consent to medical treatment?

Is it just these procedures where under 18s have to get parental consent? What about abortion? Does a 16 year old have to get parental consent to have a termination?

The posters who say they had feelings when they were young and then grew out of them (as I did too) do need to realise you clearly did not have the SAME true feelings as a trans person then, otherwise you would have been so overwhelmingly desperate to change you would have done it!

The old familiar “no true trans person” argument. Of course people have done it. There are detransitioners aplenty. When I was a kid there was no real knowledge of transition amongst children. I knew one trans person (mtf) and had a vague idea he'd had his penis removed but I knew he wasn’t a woman. He was a man who performed a feminine gender role and he was much more feminine than any of the women I knew insomuch as he always wore heels and dresses and makeup and my mum and all the other female neighbours would do that sometimes but also wear trousers and change their own spark plugs. I didn’t know about trans men, only butch women and I wanted more than that, but what could I “do” as a kid in the ‘80s? Get in the delorean and go to when tumblr was invented? I did what I could, cut my hair, wore boys clothes, wear the boys uniform at school, get everyone to call me Karl. Then I grew up.

Trans people have existed for thousands of years

Bollocks

all changed your name and lived as the opposite sex and told all your family and friends for a number of years and genuinely lived as the other sex , no you didn't go through it and grow out of it

Well, I did change my name for about 3 years with anyone who would indulge it but wtf does “live as the opposite sex” mean? There isn’t a sex-based way to live beyond specific things to do with our bodies such as mensturation, pregnancy and sex specific cancers. It’s all stereotypes. It’s all bollocks.

Although using a contraceptive pill, for example, is often for medical reasons such as heavy periods

But not always. Usually it's taken as contraception and having sex isn't a medical need is it?

crazyhat
I think that every parent on here faced with a desperately unhappy / depressed/suicidal child would at some point think about every possibility of treatment, including surgery for an extreme dysphoria.

BUT, that doesn't equate to believing that people can have the 'wrong' body or change sex or even that there can be a mismatch between "gender" (which I don't believe in full stop) and sex.

And people's concerns are about the apparently increasing ease with which this is happening. Given the fact there are detransitioners who can testify to the dangers of believing diagnosis is an exact science.

And if "informed consent" was so failsafe, people would be able to get sterilised much more readily.

@runawaywithusthissummer

I'm sorry to have upset you, my question to the OP was genuine, and sparked by one of her comments.

I can't begin to imagine how difficult your situation is, I too would be devastated.