Trans DS jus refuses to talk to us

[AreTheyOrArentThey]

I posted just over a year ago because I discovered my DS thought himself to be a trans girl. We found him an arts based therapist as he really struggles to talk about his feelings and all seemed to be going well until she and I had a weird email exchange and she nearly dumped him overnight so then I lost all trust in her and gently extricated ourselves.

in the meantime, she did provide an opportunity for him to “tell” me himself even though she actually did all the speaking and he just nodded or agreed. We encouraged him to talk to his dad which he via a PowerPoint presentation. Both of us subscribe to watchful waiting and DH in particularly hasn’t engaged with DS since.

I really struggle though, and want him to have my support while he’s going through this crisis, I want to make sure he has a different viewpoint, but he just can’t talk to me at all. So it’s just been limbo really.

it was his birthday party yesterday and he puts on a long black skirt and suddenly his friends show up calling him a female name and using female pronouns.

I need him to open up to us - he has never asked us to use different pronouns or a different name. I am really worried about him going down a social then eventually medical transition route with no input or support. I’ve found a psychotherapy group recommended by Dr Hakeem because I really want him to have actual adult support navigating this that isn’t going to be immediately affirming. If he turns out to be trans we will support him but he’s just 15, has gone through a HUGE geographical move in the last 18 months which we think could be pushing an underlying identity crisis of sorts and frankly this kind of thing you need to be 100% sure about.

I just love him so much and I want to help and I’m struggling so much with not be allowed to. Just wanted to know if anyone had similar experiences and advice - you read just to let it be and it will play out, you read definitely go in and say what you think and mean otherwise they just get affirmed and possibly lead to having to detransition later. I just worry for him in every single aspect and of course I don’t want him to be trans - it will be very hard for him as he’s 6’3.5” and will never pass, and I am towards the GC side of it anyway - but I mainly don’t want him to be unhappy.

why is parenting so hard? I want my lovely little 4 yr old back…..

I've got no direct experience of this myself but just want to tell you that I send you so much love. This must be incredibly hard for you on every level.

Thank you, and I do appreciate this post comes across all about me rather than him which I need to deal with but I really do want to try to help and support him, I just know form experience how fucking hard it is being a teenager and I’m a total hypocrite because I never spoke to my mum either and she had to suddenly find out how hard I was finding everything when I took an overdose and she discovered I was self harming so I know I’m prob projecting as well.

I just don’t know what to do. He is restricted with tech (nothing in his room, we have access to everything, no access before 7am and no access after 8:30pm) but he is on messages with friends constantly. He doesn’t have social media (as far as I know of course). He and I have tried to come up with ways to communicate that work for him - we’ve tried texts and emails, specifies dog walks, car journeys etc and I get a blank face and brick wall and body language curled up so far from my it breaks my heart

Some of your sentences jumped out at me. Your son is clearly receiving a message that you don’t approve of his choices and are disappointed. So he has disengaged from you both. You need to decide if your principles are worth more to you than a relationship with your son.

‘she and I had a weird email exchange. I lost all trust in her and gently extricated ourselves’.
-you (not your son) being in contact with his therapist - surely this is a confidential therapist-patient relationship, and then deciding to end this support. Did your son have any say in this?

’DH in particularly hasn’t engaged with DS since’.
-well, this says a lot. He comes out and your DH responds by pretty much ending contact. The message is DH is ashamed of him.

’I want to make sure he has a different viewpoint, but he just can’t talk to me at all. So it’s just been limbo really’.
-you also don’t approve and pressure him to change his mind. He doesn’t and so there is a standoff.

All I can suggest is to keep communicating about non trans things. So cook together or go on walks and talk about whatever sport or tv show etc your child is interested in. Any communication is good. Don't try to force a big conversation. Just talk about anything.

This must be so hard for you. My son’s longtime best friend spent a year where he believed he was trans. So we all called him by the girl name he had chosen, referred to him as her and even had to make up the spare room for sleepovers instead of chucking the z bed down in son’s room. His mum found it very hard, particularly as the girls name he chose was one she hated and would never have picked as it had bad memories from her own school days. Dad withdrew completely (parents are divorced) stepdad tried to be helpful but really couldn’t get his head round it.
After a year he announced that those feelings had gone and he wanted to go back to his boy identity. Now I have to make sure I use his birth name as I’d got into the habit of using his girl name.
This reply is a bit rambling but just wanted to share an experience with you. Trans issues are very ‘in’ at the moment - I’m not saying that there are not people who genuinely are transgender but at this stage I would just be supportive and hope that it’s just a passing phase.

I hear what you’re saying @IheartNiles and will take your points onboard.

DH gave him a huge hug when he saw the presentation and said he loves him and never had a defined outcome for what he wanted his life to be. They haven’t talked about it since because DS doesn’t talk.

it was DS’s therapist that ended the support - I just managed to convince her to make it gradual rather than immediate. It was during an exchange where we were discussing bringing me into the room because DS wanted to officially come out to me in therapy. It worries me hugely that she suddenly wanted to end his therapy with no warning to him hence me losing trust in her that my son’s needs were not her priority.

Having said that you are right - the hill I want to die on is the love I have for my son, not my belief system around gender identity. It’s so hard to know what to do when you read some parents being very clear about what they believe and I can see how that can seem a rejection to the teenager. I definitely struggle to understand how to balance the line.

if you have any advice for how to move forward I would gratefully listen though

@parietal thankyou. We do otherwise talk a lot, as do DS and DH, and in every other way I would say we have a good relationship, very loving and tactile and fun. But over this he is in turmoil and it breaks my heart I can’t soothe that.

Thanks @EmptyYoghurtPot the thing is I do want him to be happy and content in himself but also (again could well be projecting) show me a teenager who is?! I think it worries me because being a teenager is about trying on all sorts of identities and hats but the ideology makes me concerned he will go down a route be then feels he can’t extricate from. And like your friend I hate the name he has chosen.

BUT I do think a lot of the issues stem from me struggling with not being able to solve things for him like when he was little. Maybe I’m the one that needs a therapist?!

You still have your child but yes it must be so hard and must feel like a different person in a way. Hope ye all get through it together whatever way it goes. Huge huge hugs x

My ds didn't talk to me at this age and it worried me so much (dh died when he was 14). However he did talk to his girlfriend i think, and I also got cats at his request which meant he gave and received lots of tactile love. I'm certain that helped.

The fact that he has clearly come out in some form to his friends is good. Maybe don't force him to talk about this with you or even with a therapist - I would aim to be the unpressured familiar space where he can think about these things in one way and keep his boy being, while trying out a trans identity with friends?

I know more than one set of parents who have used an interim gender neutral nickname for their teenager (usually a version of something from early childhood) so neither the new name they are using at school nor the very gender specific name they were known at home. That seems to have worked quite well.

And if you have a pet or would consider getting one, talk about that. I can think of lengthy periods when that's all ds and I talked about...

I need him to open up to us

BUT I do think a lot of the issues stem from me struggling with not being able to solve things for him like when he was little. Maybe I’m the one that needs a therapist?!

I think this may be a good idea. You can't force him to open up, so learning to accept he may not is a good idea. The more accepting you are of his right not to talk, the more likely you'll be to create the circumstances that he may start to talk.

she and I had a weird email exchange and she nearly dumped him overnight so then I lost all trust in her and gently extricated ourselves Can you elaborate here - was the email exchange why she 'nearly dumped him', what was the email exchange, what does 'gently extricate ourselves' mean?

You sound caring and loving OP and I really feel for you. I'm sure that this situation is so complex and difficult for parents, and it's completely normal to focus on your own feelings and situation a bit- like the pp who mentioned a mother who wouldn't have chosen the new name because she had history with it, or when you say you want your 4-year old boy back. Those feelings are normal- but truthfully, if my parents reacted to a life decision I'd made by wishing the current me away and my younger self back, I'd be very hurt. (I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have said this to your DC though!)

They have obviously sensed some opposition or judgement from your side, and can't see it as concern for their wellbeing. I would concentrate fully on supporting them, and telling them that you unequivocally love them and support them, no matter what. This is what they need right now, as hard as it is for you. I'd even try and have the conversation about pronouns and names, and maybe discuss clothes etc with them. And you can do it lightly, no need for it all to be heavy and difficult.

I know that this is easier said than done, because you've birthed and raised and loved a boy. But you're in danger of them becoming isolated now and feeling like that love and support is gone, and that is the immediate danger here. I'm sure I'll get jumped on by some on here, but whether you believe that they are a girl born to a boy's body, or that they have major mh problems and are swept up in the trend of transitioning, at the end of the day, it's a lonely place to be.

I think you need to detach from the need to micromanage his life. Really try to rein this in.

You and DH can offer support without being controlling. Try and think of your son as you would a friend, where you offer support without judgement and being sensitive to his responses. Just instigate normal conversations, offer to spend time together, do some fun things. Start by just saying you are sorry for your responses and acknowledge how disappointing that might have been for him. That you love him and want to be in his life. It then doesn’t all have to be angst, trans and therapy conversations. He may decide in the end not to even pursue transitioning and hopefully he will remember that in the end you supported him.

Hi, @AreTheyOrArentThey. Just wanted to say that even if you were 'making it all about you', it is absolutely fine to do that on a parenting forum that exists to supprt mums!. It sounds like you are doing what you can irl to ask for and provide support for you son, and you need support too. It is a very hard thing to be going through.
You say that you have found a psychotherapy group for your son. If he does manage to attend that, perhaps that will take off some of the family pressure (on all of you, including him) to try and talk through it at home? Perhaps it would be better to focus your support on just being there in general as a parent, dealing with other teen things, chatting about a wider range of issues, lessening the intensity on this particular issue?
Teen sons aren't the best in the world at talking to their parents about anything personal, and it may be that talk is't what he needs from you right now.

Is he actually initiating any 'formal' input that may eventually lead to medical appointments etc? If not, then perhaps it would be possible to try not to get ahead of yourself by worrying about an eventual transition. Perhaps it is all much more fluid for him that that particular pathway suggests.

Just a gentle suggestion of something to think about. We were of the watchful waiting approach with dss in relation to his sexuality. In the end he came out because I mentioned it (we all knew and he knew we knew and it had been like this for a few years). A good friend of ours who is gay said that she really wished someone had asked her earlier. Not waited for her to say it.

If I had my time again I’d have initiated the conversation.

@AreTheyOrArentThey

so otherwise you have a good relationship and he talks to you about other stuff?

is that right?

if so I think you are doing fine. He doesn’t HAVE to talk to you about his current feelings of a trans identity.

and you are entitled to your view about it. Imagine he was really into a sport or music that you didn’t like.

You can accept his interest while holding space for your own feelings that the ideology is flawed.

don’t worry about things that aren’t happening.

And yes go to therapy yourself. Good advice for all parents of teens.

the teen years are about transformation from child to adult. Sometimes that means hard times parents can’t fix.

can you explore in therapy why you are finding that so hard to accept?

Thankyou so much everyone replying - you’re talking me down off the edge of the precipice which is where I feel I am and actually it’s really helpful that it feels you’re all saying the same thing - it becomes so confusing what is the right thing to do.

FWIW I never say any of my GC stuff to him, I’ve talked to him about clothes especially because he’s outgrowing some so I said maybe it’s an opportunity for him to look at something other than what I’ve always bought him (as he’s never been bothered about choosing for himself).

I FOR SURE need to let go a lot more and I know this but it’s hard. He’s sensitive and sweet and my baby and I am really really struggling with this aspect of teendom. He’s also my eldest so I’m going through it for the first time and it’s hard!!! Even without the gender identity stuff.

ok so I’ll try to basically go back to basics, just reiterate I love him and leave the floor open? Of course then I’m just worried we go back to him not talking but ultimately maybe I need to accept that’s his choice?

RE the therapist he had said he wanted to discuss the trans issues with me in the room so she and I were working that out and I can’t remember what set her off but she suddenly said she’d spoken to her supervisor and felt I’d lost trust in her so the next session would be the last session (the next day). I freaked out a bit because I felt DS had no warning and would worry he had done something wrong for it to be suddenly ended, so I convinced her to keep going and then over the summer it just fizzled out and she hasn’t been in touch. I didn’t feel like that pattern of behaviour showed care for my child, and it turned out that that week a previous client of hers had committed suicide so I think that was what set her off, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that might have been but it felt like she’d taken out her feelings on my child.

@Fernsfernsferns yes that’s right. We have a lovely relationship

I think I need to step back and figure out why I’m such a crazy controlling arsehole. I do think a lot of it stems from the fact that I attempted suicide as a teen and self harmed and didn’t speak to a soul, maybe I’m trying to “save”
myself through my son.

But I also just want him to be able to go through the world with nothing touching or hurting him and transitioning makes me afraid for him.

but as many of you have pointed out, I’m probably getting way ahead of myself

I really feel for you. Not a trans issue here but my teen daughter is self harming, seems depressed, and won’t open up to us at all. It’s really upsetting as a parent.

I think you need to step right back, at 15 she isn’t a young teen and is on the cusp of becoming an adult. Does she even want to go to therapy? Whose decision was that? I have echoes of my own Mum pushing me into therapy for all sorts of things and I absolutely hated her for it. I think you really need to be led by your teen here.

The whole tech restriction stuff sounds heavy handed too. At 15 of course they want some social media and the ability to be online past 8.30 (😳😳)! I know it’s difficult but I think you really need to let go a bit. Fair enough maybe ask they leave their phone downstairs to charge at 11pm on a school night etc (that’s what we did with dd now aged 20 and at university) but 8.30pm blackout for social media / messaging - if that’s what you mean? - is extreme really.

My God your last post nearly encompasses everything I fear about parenting older children - you are not alone!! It's terrifying that they are going to hurt the way we hurt, that they are going to go through everything we went through and we can't help.

But ultimately you need to find acceptance and take the pressure off - both yourself and your child.

Agree with PP about just being Mum rather than councillor and try to find something; anything to talk about. TV / gaming / music / cooking...

My friend who has older kids who still talk to her swears by a summer when they signed up to a daily sports club that was an hour away. And they spent 2 hours in the car just talking about anything and everything.

Is there a regular activity he would be interested in both to help take him out of the angst around identity and also to give you the time to chat on the way / back?

Saying this very gently OP, but all of the ‘trans identifying young people’ I know are autistic, a mixture of diagnosed and undiagnosed. It sounds like you have also struggled with your MH, could this also be a possibility for you?

This is potentially part of figuring himself out, could you explore this avenue with an autism-aware therapist?

@Pigeonqueen the tech and social media has actually come from family decisions in which he was a big part. He doesn’t have social media because he has chosen not to (he’s not really the kind of person who would be bothered by it anyway), the time limit is a family time limit - we all put our devices in to charge an hour before bed to see if the studies about improving sleep are true.

DH works in tech hence the no tech in their rooms rule. He sees and understand the destructive nature so these are rules that will naturally change as they get older but right now they are there to stay - we do involve both DC in those conversations though and actually it means we’re all generally still in the same space and nobody is locked in their room in an internet void for hours like some teens. We play video games together or they put headphones and play with friends online. When I say we have access we know their passwords but we have a (current - these things are fluid because we discuss them with them) agreement that we check sporadically but with them in front of us. We don’t check messages with friends, we do check some group messages and internet history etc and they trust us not to look when they aren’t there.

They’re very Independant in other ways but tech safety and learning how to be safe using tech is very important in our home and this works for all of us

@AreTheyOrArentThey

‘ok so I’ll try to basically go back to basics, just reiterate I love him and leave the floor open? Of course then I’m just worried we go back to him not talking but ultimately maybe I need to accept that’s his choice? ‘

yes this. Offer acceptance and support when he seeks it.

Don’t try to force him to talk to you about this or ‘fix’ it for him.

maybe consider where he can have more independence (eg a clothing allowance? Instead of you buying clothes for him? ) talk over THOSE things with him.

he’s unlikely to ask you to by girls / women’s clothes for him is he?

but he could buy his own. If he does accept that with good grace.

and yes go to therapy yourself.

it’s good modelling for him and will help you ‘be the storm wall that he can break his waves on’

he’ll be sensing your distress and worry whether you talk to him about it or not. So address that directly rather than trying to fix him to fix yourself.

that’s a terrible burden for him.

it’s normal to be a bit miserable for some of your teens, trans or not.

remember the good evidence shows most teens trans feelings resolve as they reach adulthood with acceptance and support (though you might want to consider be open to the possibility that he could be gay)

I’m trying to reply to questions, please know I really appreciate all your thoughts.

@FusionChefGeoff yeha don’t let them grow up 😂 the absolute vast majority of the time it’s brilliant and we really have it very easy. Re activities hes overloaded already by his own choice so we get car time, he also likes coming on dog walks with me and we chat, he and his dad just climbed Scafell Pike last week and apparently didn’t stop talking for 4+ hours!

@TheOutlaws weve considered it and his last therapist was also used to working with autistic children but at the moment she and we have come to the conclusion he probably wouldn’t pass an assessment. We did a big geographical move 18months ago though so I do sometimes wonder if this is all part of a wider identity crisis (cue more mum guilt)

@Fernsfernsferns Thankyou - that’s all really good advice.

Re clothes @Fernsfernsferns i gave him all those options - he already did a shopping trip with a friend and I paid the money back into his account but he was weird about that. I’ve basically said you need some new clothes, feel free to go with your friend again or I can come with you or you can look online but currently they’re wearing out and it’s an opportunity for you to choose/experiment what might suit you and if you want I can also just buy some replacement tracksuit bottoms and T-shirts in the meantime