Trans child possibly questioning transition

[VallarMorghulis]

Hello all. My son (born female) came out as trans about 4 years ago.

After a long wait he was referred to the Tavistock where he was seen regularly for a couple of years. He was never prescribed blockers because he was well through female puberty and it would have been pointless. He has fully socially transitioned though, and binds every day.

Near his 17th birthday he was referred to the adult services and discharged from the Tavistock. He was sent forms to fill and return, the usual stuff, and has sat on these for nearly two years now.

Recently he has expressed the wish to explore his dysphoria and the possible causes of it (trauma) in a way that he feels wasn't done at the Tavistock and fear wouldn't be done either in the adult GIDS.

He has asked me to help find him a therapist that would help him with this, perhaps someone who is gender critical but understands gender dysphoria, so I turn to you, wise Mumsnetters.

Do you know anyone like that? Where would I find such a person?

We live in the Southeast.

Thanks in advance

Bump

Despite what others will tell you it is completely fine to explore who you truly are. Your ds is in the height of adolescence and is probably finding everything a bit confusing mixed with lockdown

You are clearly a loving and caring mother to adkbowledge is pronouns and allow him to bind.

Sounds like a very sensible child wanting to discuss possible disphoria that they didn't feel was explored previously. No idea where you can seek this out unfortunately but good luck to them

You are right to encourage your DC to pursue therapy. Unfortunately I have no recommendations but I'm bumping the thread so hopefully someone can help you soon.

If it was me I think I would go to the BACP website and look for a psychodynamic psychotherapist with an interest in childhood trauma. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is all about how your actions are influenced by your subconscious and earlier influences. I would also ring around and talk to the therapists first, making it clear you’re looking for someone who would be comfortable talking to someone who might be on the verge of detransitioning. If you smell a whiff of them assuming this is you rather than your son, move on to the next phone number...

Maybe repost this in the feminist section OP. As I understand it, gender critical therapists are hard to find due to the extremely narrow range of opinions currently allowed on this subject, but if anyone knows where to find one then I think the women on FWR are your best bet. Good luck.

There are knowledgeable mumsnetters who will be along to help shortly OP.

These are difficult conversations to have. Was the trauma that underpinned the body dysphoria sexual assault ?

Good luck finding someone and good luck with your child finding a way forward.

XXXX

IF you PM me I can make a couple of suggestions...... who may possibly be able to help. (I'm not really sure if they specialise in this field)
BTW If I don't reply for a few days it's because I'm away.

I agree with finding a psychodynamic psychotherapist with a trauma interest, it’s likely to be expensive but with your sons previous history with GIDS I don’t think you could trust NHS services to be able to explore this with him impartially. I fear they’re not actually allowed to lest it be called conversion therapy. Good luck to you both.

Could you post on the detrans forum on reddit? Users there might have some recommendations of therapists who helped them to unpack things. They often post with anger about the ones who just waved it all along.

@Oxyiz

Could you post on the detrans forum on reddit? Users there might have some recommendations of therapists who helped them to unpack things. They often post with anger about the ones who just waved it all along.

I believe the detrans forum on reddit has been removed thread here

No it was reinstated for some reason. I think the clock is probably ticking for it but it and the resources are there for now!

Is Charlie Evans and the detransitioner advocacy network based in the UK? If so then she'd probably be able to point you in the right direction.

What would probably be good is one of the 35 therapists and psychologists who resigned from the Tavi at the end of last year due to their concerns over ethics. Thing is that their names are hard to find, for obvious reasons.

There was also a psychologist who resigned from the Tavi in Leeds (not sure where you're based) due to this and she wrote an open letter about how earlier possible abuses were not being investigated or treated. I can't remember her name.

Aha. Here. medium.com/@kirstyentwistle/an-open-letter-to-dr-polly-carmichael-from-a-former-gids-clinician-53c541276b8d
Kirsty Entwistle.

If you can find out how to get in touch with her, she might be able to help or point you in the right direction.

There's an article about detransitioners in the Sunday times today with first person accounts. Might be a useful read

Lots of threads in the feminism section about youth choosing to detransition during lockdown, once the performative and social expectation aspects are removed. Have a read over there. There are a few mums who have children in similar positions that you could pm.
Consider also looking up 4thwavenow that has a detransitioning page as well as support for parents of transitioners.
4thwavenow.com/

OP, I agree with others that the way to access therapy for this would be through the trauma lens.

I think in order to be able to deal with this without a therapist being scared of being struck off for transphobia, you'd almost have to set the trans thing aside completely and only address the trauma, as opposed to approaching the therapy as a way of exploring why they gravitated towards the trans explanation in the first place. My advice would be to separate the two issues (despite the links you or DC might see) and focus solely on the trauma.

As an aside, it's so sad that children have to think like this to get the mental health help they actually need.

There’s a great article in the Sunday Times about women who’ve detransitioned - unfortunately I don’t seem to get share tokens any more...

Thank you all for your replies. Just for clarification my son is 19 so not really a child anymore, although he's still my baby of course!

He is also not talking about detransitioning, but realises that his dysphoria probably has root in trauma, which was never really addressed by either CAMHS or the Tavi. The trauma is due to his father physically assaulting him when he was 12 (not sexually).

I was thinking of posting in FWR if I didn't get any replies here.

The suggestion to focus on trauma rather than the dysphoria is a good one, as is the one about seeking one of the therapists who resigned from the Tavi, although I'm not sure how I'd go about that.

Thanks again, I'll read your replies again and explore all the leads.

I definitely don't want to go through NHS mental health services after our experience with CAMHS. I don't think you can get the kind of therapy that's needed here on the NHS anyway.

I know it's likely to be expensive, but that's the least of my worries. We'll find a way.

Not keen to post on reddit to be honest, with what's happening there at the moment...

@Howlat thanks for this tip, I'll try to get in touch with her