trans daughter / gender dysporia - how to support without affirming?

[whoshouldItalkto]

For the last year my 13-year-old daughter has been saying she is trans and has gender dysphoria. She says she does not feel her body and voice belong to her, and she should have a male physique.

I want to take a watchful waiting approach and do not want an affirmative approach or for her to socially or medically transition at this stage. However, her distress is real, and she needs support. There seems to be a real gap for this. I have read helpful advice from the Bayswater group and Transgender Trend, but there seem very few professionals that will work with a child without affirming - I was recommended one but they were £200 / hour and made it clear it was a long term commitment! She spoke to a non-specialist counsellor for a while but did not find it useful.

I keep the lines of communication open, talk to her, discuss things, try to build her confidence etc. but really feel she needs more. She's not particularly unhappy a lot of the time (has good friends, we have a good relationship, doing well at school etc.) but the gender dysphoria is definitely bubbling under and can cause her acute distress.

Has anyone got any other ideas of how I can support her, or could suggest a more affordable counselling option that would be suitable? Does anyone acknowledge and support gender dysphoria without the assumption that the treatment is transitioning?

Gosh Eoo why on earth were you, as a new poster, specifically searching for old threads about trans children?

Ah so you're a trans rights activist coming along to tell parents what they're doing wrong, despite having no knowledge of the specific child and family at all yes?

If you need intimate knowledge of the family and child in order to give advice then why would this website even exist?

You weren't offering advice though. You were attempting to scare OP into affirming her child by saying they'd commit suicide (no properly researched evidence for this) if she didn't. Big difference. And you specifically searched for a thread (an old one, many things will have moved on) to preach on.

I gave evidence

Very, very nasty.

I said properly researched evidence. That means academic peer reviewed stuff.

Are there other parenting topics you'll be actively searching for and offering your valued advice? Advise always welcome on education matters, behavioural concerns, potty training for instance?

It's academic, It's peer reviewed, I gave sources.

Just in case anyone does want to read the latest advice from the NHS on this, there's more info here: www.transgendertrend.com/new-nhs-service-specification-consultation/

In summary, the NHS is recommending a watchful waiting approach, rather than blind affirmation. This is because many (most) cases of gender distressed children resolve themselves without the child wanting to actually transition.

Medical transition turns you into a lifelong patient and comes with massive risks.

Disagree. Are you a parent? If you are, you will know very well how many times you have supported your child, whilst not agreeing with everything they think or do, and how, knowing your child inside out would lead you to make choices around how to support them as an individual with the integrity of a responsible parent. Parents will know, in the main, if their child is growing up trans, gay, lesbian, neurodiverse, whatever, we can see it right in front of us. Parenting is complicated and simple at the same time. Loving our children is challenging and they push boundaries and make us question all sorts of things all the time. If we blindly agree to everything they say without reflecting on what we know of them, their personality, interests, history, experiences, we are not being good parents.

The issues here are that so many of our teenagers make a sudden switch at about the age of 12 or 13, after a PSHE lesson and often influenced directly by peers or friends. So much of this is based on rigid gender stereotyping, it's bizarre how a movement supposedly meant to be inclusive and open to freedom of expression has caused the opposite.

No one doubts the difficulties and complexities here, but we must not assume that our children have the capacity to make permanent decisions about their lives as teenagers.

Using myself as an example, I made huge mistakes in my choices as a teenager, thought taking drugs and not eating anything was cool and would have loved the choice of identifying as a man. I'm really glad I realised the first two were not so great, that my mum stood by me and loved me whilst disagreeing with my choices, and that society at the time didn't instantly push me in to a corner from which I could then not retreat.

Bumping this as it's really good

This: "The 45-year-old said: “I sometimes feel as though we have abdicated our responsibility as grown-ups because I know what it was like to be young.
“I thought I knew everything. Now, I look back, I’m like, I knew nothing. I was wrong in many of my sort of fierce positions.
“And, I was fortunate that when I was young, there were adults who were willing to tell me, you’re actually really not right about that. Here’s what you should think about differently. That’s not happening now.” from archive.ph/rSvHX

Well said Chimamanda. It's worth reading the whole post. She makes excellent points imo.

If you aren't qualified to critically appraise research then please stop.