Really struggling with adult child being trans

[Strugglingmmumm]

So my adult child 21 came home from Uni for Xmas. Went back yesterday. On the last evening they told me they are going to take hormones and want to have surgery etc. I have known for about a year that they identify as non binary and use the pronouns they/them. I am sorry if this offends anyone who is trans or has trans kids etc but I am feeling absolutely devastated. I can’t stop crying and it feels like one of the worst things that has ever happened in my life. They know that I am not happy about it because of things I have said in the past before they said anything. I have tried to reassure them that I will support them but I just wish so much that they wouldn’t do it. I honestly don’t even know if I can really support them. I feel beyond heartbroken. It will be so hard for me to see the changes I feel like I will be heartbroken for ever, like I will never be able to be OK with this. I really don’t know what to do or how to deal with this.

Gosh, didn't take long for 'bigots' to be thrown about. It's so ironic that those who support gender ideology are so inherently hateful.

There's a wealth of links to information of many different forms through MN, OP. You will no doubt have to enter a world you don't fully understand yet in order to form your opinions and beliefs that will best enable you to choose how to respond.

I think avoiding discussing those who have regretted surgery is simply continuing with an affirmation approach, as detransition stories simply highlight the pre existing psychological challenges that remained post transition. This is the risk. So it's important her mental wellbeing is fully explored first, and surgery or hormones are a very very last resort.

@Strugglingmmumm I am in the same situation as you, you have my sympathies. My child told us at the age of 18 that she identifies as transgender, gave us a couple of weeks to get used to the idea before asking us to change our usage of the English language and deny reality by playing along with her beliefs that she has a gender that she was going to change.

We have succumbed because we dare not upset her and don't want her to cut us off (although, given that she needs our support - emotional and financial - whilst at university, I'm almost tempted to rebel against the demands that I fall in line with gender theory).

You are in an incredibly upsetting and conflicting space, you love your child and want the best for them, you want them to be happy. The problem is that between parent and child, the way to happiness/ contentment is radically different. And we parents obviously think we know best, our kids think they know best and there's no viable compromise with this issue.

Certainly with my own child, he is incapable and unwilling to discuss gender ideology because he knows that we do not agree in theory. So he understands any possible discussion to be an attack on him, therefore #nodebate. There's no news or politics talk in our household any more.

My child started hormones a while ago and although I see no discernable changes yet, he feels different and happier in himself. He saved up money from a part time job, student loan, our contribution towards his living costs to get himself a private consult with one of those online gender "specialists". They gave him the initial prescription and his ever so woke supportive university GP practice has continued to give him his prescription via the NHS. So don't be lulled into thinking you have/ your child has years to think about things before medication is available. I also know of a teen who has been buying illegal hormones online for several years :(

I struggle to reconcile myself with my child's actions, because I think he's doing damage to himself. But I'm powerless to change his mind. I don't find it easy. Am I comforted that my child is currently happier and more at ease with themself? Not very, because I think my child is deluded and I fear he will come to even greater upset and disappointment eventually.

I too would recommend Bayswater Support group, there are lots of parents going through what we are going through (many with university aged kids like ours, not just minor children).

@Piggywaspushed thank you for your insight. What you've described is your sibling transitioning as an adult? In their 40s? If I've read that correctly. A very different circumstance from a young adult, in a period of their life between being a child at home and living as an adult away at university, still supported by their parents, not independent in many ways. A very different situation from that of the OP and their child.

Can I recommend the website Genspect and/or the podcast Gender: A Wider Lens.

These are headed up by two therapists who are resolutely person-centred and don't try to push any specific approach, apart from watchful waiting. As your DD is over 18, her choices as to transforming her body to make it present more like a masculine body are her own to make. But Genspect & the podcast mentioned have a lot of support & resources for parents in your situation.

Good luck - it is heart-breaking, I know from experience ...

Yes, I agree it's different as sibling was in their 20s in a different era. However, in this particular set of circumstances, they would have been so much better off had all this been accepted many many years before. I know 'born in the wrong body' is not an accepted idea for many but in this case, it's so obviously true.

This doesn't make any of it easy or fun for anyone.

@Piggywaspushed Yes, I agree it's different as sibling was in their 20s in a different era.

We might be misunderstanding each other's posts. I'm not talking about "a different era", I'm reading that your sibling sibling transitioned as a 40something adult. Compared with the OP (and my) 20something child wanting to transition. An established adult vs a young adult, not yet fully developed and dependent on their parents.

Your sibling is happier for having transitioned, it would have been better if transitioning had happened earlier. That's the benefit of hindsight, yes? OP and I have no hindsight yet to convince us that this path our children are taking is right for them.

I won't be digressing into this sideline discussion any more.

Yes, that's correct but was 21 in the 1990s. Not dependent on parents at that age as it goes but that is a whole other thread!

Oh, behave yourself?

Your feelings are valid. Find a good support group and keep strong for your child, you still love them, they still love you.

The person's chosen pronoun is 'they' and , in all honestly, it is not for you to decide their sexuality I disagree, ‘they’ is not sexuality, ‘they’ is about biology. It is saying I am not my biological sex, and have no biological sex.

Yiu have edited my sentence there.

My comment, to be clear, was in relation to a PP declaring that the DC in question was 'probably gay'.

Everything written here is normal for basically any woman

Which remains statistically valid.

@moofolk This sounds similar to my child’s experiences. I’d love to hear more about your experiences. Would you be ok with chatting by pm?

Yes

@CathyBoardman Hi, just a bit confused as I was asking moofolk if I could pm and you replied ‘yes’. Are you ‘moofolk’ or is it just a misunderstanding? Thanks

Sending a handhold op.
my dd is going down a similar route except that she has run off to live with ftm ‘ boyfriend’ and ‘his’ mum. The mum paid for their daughter to have hormones and become ‘him’ at 15. We are terrified because we feel dd is being coerced into taking hormones. I’m also terrified after looking up online gender clinics as a pp mentioned. I didn’t know they existed!
im really scared for dd now.
sending hugs.

Modern conversion therapy. A lesbian couple being told to pretend that they are anything but lesbians.

The latest generation of lesbians have it so hard.

I'm sorry you feel so torn up about it. It's natural that a parent is attached to their child and your view of who they are supposed to be. But you also have to recognise that at the age of 21 they are beginning to make choices for themselves and become their own person. And this may mean accepting that they are not the person you expected them to be.

If you think it is a mistake on their part, that is fine. That's life, the best thing you can do is accept what they are doing and talk to them, try to understand what they are feeling and where they are coming from. People do not decide to transition on a whim, but usually after experiencing a large amount of distress and pain that you are probably unaware of.

It's not about who you expect them to be

It's when who you can see they are is at odds with who they want to be /say they are

It's when you are worried that they are being pedalled attractive lies

When you worry for their mental and physical safety

People do not decide to transition on a whim, but usually after experiencing a large amount of distress and pain that you are probably unaware of

And that pain, which is sometimes (often?) caused by trauma, or internalised homophobia, or extreme social anxiety stemming from ASD, or (largely in males) is a sexually compulsive behaviour related to fetishistic cross dressing is unlikely to be permanently, adequately resolved by body part amputation.

OPs child has another four years or so of brain development to go - why on earth would you assume it’s not a ‘whim’ when impulse control, future planning and problem solving is the final stage of brain maturation, and that’s the bit her adult child hasn’t done yet?

I wouldn’t personally use ‘whim’ to describe it, as I accept the distress around gender is genuine, but there is absolutely no evidence that someone in their early 20s is making a properly evidenced and rational decision when deciding to physically emulate the opposite sex via medication and surgery.

OP knows her own child far better than anyone else on this thread.

People who decide to transition are in part enabled by the relative ease of transition today

Today there is a huge amount of support out there for those who want to take it

Many more women would have transitioned in the past but were not given the opportunity and as a result managed to resolve their problems without physical harm

These are the voices that are being ignored
These are the voices that know from personal experience that feelings of severe gender dysmorphia are actually not permanent

Transition, like bottom and top surgery are very childish euphemisms to describe medical interventions that should better be described with accurate language like mastectomy or removal of testicles. It's not surprising that young people have an infantile belief about what they actually entail. It's okay to be transgender if you simply want to have a new name and wear different clothes, but if you believe you will actually become the opposite sex via a transition process, it's not going to happen.

At most, they can have cosmetic surgeries that mimic superficial secondary sex characteristics or create surgical changes that alter genitals to make them look less like they did originally or to remove them entirely. In all cases, theses changes destroy sexual functioning to various extents. They also risk urinary functioning along with fistulas and other issues. When males's breasts grow larger from hormones, this doesn't make them female in shape or function. Nor do hormones make change the shape of their chest the size of their lungs and heart. While some males get rib removal, no female can get rib cage enlargement.

There is no surgery or medication that can put a working clitoris, uterus, ovary, testicle, penis or female breast on the opposite sex.

It's a fantasy to suggest otherwise.

Yes people decide to transition for many reasons, often I would say it doesn't come down to one thing, since anxiety, depression, sexuality, gender incongruence are all things linked together like a web. OPs child has another 4 years of brain development to go, as well as another 4 years of masculinisation from testosterone which is irreversible. Whichever one you think takes priority depends on your personal bias. OP does know her son I'm sure, but her son isn't a child and also knows himself best of all and that shouldn't be discounted.

You have to consider how tricky this situation is. I read messages from people every day who are filled with regret because they didn't transition when they were 18 or 20 and waiting another 5-10 years and feel that they are too masculine to feel comfortable with themselves anymore and this makes them feel suicidal.

So which one would you rather risk? The reality is having these kind of issues is just a tragic outcome for anyone no matter if they decide to transition or not. I hope that OPs child will find the way that works for them. But the only way to do that is to empower them and give them the resources they need to make that decision for themself, there's not much more you can do except trust in them to know who they are and what would make them happy.

The reality is having these kind of issues is just a tragic outcome for anyone no matter if they decide to transition or not.

Giving a child puberty blockers and later testosterone is pretty much untested medicine. I know i would not allow my child to be experimented on especially because none of this existed a mere 15-20 years ago.