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…..

But op said he had enough freedom to look up puberty blockers then they cracked down more.

This is exactly my point.

@Pigeonqueen please don’t derail the thread. We have a robust and well thought out approach to tech. You don’t even know what restrictions we place - we actually don’t restrict his access to anything but we have taught him, over many many years, how to keep himself safe and how to understand that strangers are exactly that, strangers who do not know you or have your best interests at heart. He doesn’t have social media through his own choice. He gets plenty of tech time but I’m not going to spend hours laying out exactly what we do and don’t allow and as I’ve said on multiple occasions he and his sister are involved in the ongoing conversations and most of the “rules” have been decided upon as a family because we do actually talk to our children - again as I’ve said multiple times we have a very lovely, communicative relationship except in this one very specific area of his gender identity (we talk about gender identity and expression otherwise a lot as a family)

you do you but I’m sure if someone came and told you that your attitude to tech was wrong but you were assured in what was right for your family I’m sure you’d say the same as me. And I have repeatedly taken on all other feedback in this thread. FWIW I think allowing children unfiltered access online behind closed doors is an absolute recipe for disaster but there we go. I would argue you’re the blinkered one.

@Boomboom22 we specifically cracked down on them having tech in their rooms. During covid we lived abroad where they closed the schools for 18months and they did zoom school and fell into the habit of disappearing into their rooms on their iPads as a consequence.

we discussed this as a family, both children brought instances of families where the teenagers were always locked away in their rooms and they didn’t want that for our family. Our theory is if you access tech in a public (communal) space you’re already being aware yourself of going over boundaries that maybe you shouldn’t as in theory you could get “caught” at any point.

neither of our kids have any tech in their rooms behind closed doors and this works for us and for them

im an adult now but i had similar conflicts with my mom in the past about trans issues and i will just stick to commenting about that. you have to further your understanding of how being transgender works if u want to be able to communicate to him. based on the way youre describing it now it I would assume he thinks you dont know the first thing about it. i could tell my mom never did proper unbiased research and to me if she couldnt make the effort to understand why should i stick around. even if hes not transgender he will remember that you didnt give him the benefit of the doubt and show him u could one day accept that he was. also you said he shouldn't have puberty blockers and now you say he will never pass, theres a chance he resents you for not considering the option more heavily. if he does stay the trans course you will eventually have to reckon with how seriously you took his potential condition now, he might think that you are happy hes so tall because it will discourage medicalization and to him that would mean you couldn't understand sex dysphoria less. my advice is to ask him how he feels about what puberty is doing to him and if he says it's causing him distress dont try to help him accept it and instead acknowledge that you understand the suffering and own the fact that you could have limited the damage but didn't otherwise i dont think theres anyway to show u understand.

Thanks for your input @TimothyTibs i will say that I’ve not talked to him about puberty blockers or said anything like I don’t think he would pass - maybe he suspects this is what I think, but I think to say the latter would be so cruel because regardless of how this turns out, this is very real to him right now and I wouldn’t intentionally hurt him. We’ve never spoken about puberty blockers at all.

I have done a fair amount of research and tried to research from many angles (and there are SO many aren’t there?!) but if you have any suggestions of places of unbiased research you think might be useful please do feel free to suggest them in case I haven’t come across them before. I have also looked at videos my son has suggested to me and found them all very helpful

Thankyou for everyone’s help and advice. DH and I spoke to DS on a short dog walk this weekend, as I said going back to basics, acknowledging I’m finding it a hard transition to mum of totally dependant child to mum of increasingly Independant teenager and I’m therefore pulling back from the pressure of him having to discuss his gender identity with him, that my job is to support him and to apologise if I’ve been overbearing in any way - that it comes from a place of care, worry, protection and certainly and element of trying to “Save” teenage me through him. His response was really positive and he said it was all good to hear.

he has agreed to try another therapist in the meantime and we discussed that if he’s going to be “out” or trying out names and pronouns what that means for the cobweb of our lives (which friends know what and what they’ve told their parents so that we just know who knows what, but if he wants his sister to know does he also want his grandparents to know and what are the implications of asking others to keep secrets etc) we made it clear he didn’t need to have answers or responses immediately but to have a think about it so we can support his choices.

it was the first time in a while we all felt connected on this subject and open and like no one was hiding anything, and I think it was important for us to do it together because it feels like the 3 of us are all a team together.

we know this is for the long haul and god knows behind closed doors it’s still a big struggle for us but our ultimate aim of making him feel safe and supported I think was achieved. Whatever the outcome ends up being he knows we love him and have his back

Just thinking of you, OP.

How are you? How are things?

You sound like such a lovely mum. We are going through a very similar situation ourselves. I hope all is well with your family since these posts. I just wondered - a year on - whether you have any specific advice for a mum in almost exactly the same situation? Thank you x

Hi there

well we had a really shitty December - May to be honest with a huge dip in DS’s mental health. Severe emotional shut downs, self harming etc. we’d found a gender specialist therapist but he stopped talking to her and he texted saying he wanted us to use a girls name and pronouns. We started with gender nuetral then went to his request as a show that he could trust us. Lots of intervention from school, GP and CAHMS (who immediately affirmed so we back tracked from them)

anyway he has been much better since June, got dumped by his friendship group which actually I think has been very good for him as he’d been lying to them about having an eating disorder and I think had got himself into a place where he thought he had to be tortured in one way or another to get validation and since then he’s been back to himself, sunny and confident and open and not self harming etc

except he still claims to be trans. We still call him by the girls name in his company but we avoid pronouns at all and I’ve had tried to have a few conversations saying he owes it to himself to really explore if this is the right path, as the Consequences if it isn’t could be very detrimental, and if he is then it will hold up to scrutiny and he will know for sure, I think he’s just decided it’s an easy explanation for why he sometimes feels awkward and different - he couldn’t tell me what he wanted from being a girl or what he rejected from being a boy.

our relationship is still very close and very strong and he goes by his proper name at school but has applied to sixth form under his new name. I am full on anxiety all the time about it and considering asking him to go back to a gender specialist so someone else can ask him these tough questions that he’s not going to ask himself

Going back to your earlier posts, a power point presentation is an unusual way to communicate. Does he have other ND traits? Or a diagnosis?

The shut downs scream autism. Autism is the common factor in at least 70-80% of trans people in my experience.

sometimes ND people can feel different and find fitting in complex.

Does he have quite black and white thinking about gender roles? It might be worth you all spending time with females with stereotypical male interests/outfits and males with stereotypical female interests/outfits.

Also can you build new interests (potentially new obsessions). His world is very limited to his peers and family right now. What about you and DS learning to climb? Historic visits? Take a class together - something creative maybe? Teens are by nature very self obsessed so do what you can to expand his experience of life.

We are already going through ASD diagnosis

I think your tech restrictions are incredibly sensible OP, I work in a school too and if only all parents were so careful. SM is an absolute scourge on our young people and complete freedom on the internet is just downright dangerous - 14/15 is the worst age for it IMO. This goes double if not treble if there's any chance of them being ND.

I don't think a therapist should be telling you he wouldn't pass an ASD assessment. I've seen the gradual falling apart through secondary school until the wheel's come off completely at GCSE's for kids with undiagnosed ASD. This is a kid who found it easiest to communicate his gender issues through a power point presentation FGS. He's made up an eating disorder to try to fit it - that's really extreme behaviour OP. If you can afford it and he agrees I'd be looking to get him privately assessed.

And yes we have expanded on all his other obsessions, bought into them all and encouraged them all. He has lots of after school activities he loves and works as a referee on the weekends, presents entirely male except for his long hair, works hard at school (because he wants to and he enjoys the challenges) so we’re doing all the other things. The trans issue just simmers underneath and he doesn’t talk about it at all - I think he’s sitting on his hands until 6th form in a new place when he’ll start it all up again, hence me trying to use this year to make him properly question it all. That makes it sound like we’re forcing a conversation regularly but genuinely he and I discuss trans stuff maybe every 3-4months and otherwise it’s an elephant in the room

Thankyou, I appreciate this as the thread did start going OT and I stand by our tech rules.

yes the behaviour was extreme and tied into a lot of attention seeking behaviour he was doing, we think because he fell into a group of teenagers who had a few big personalities and he just didn’t know how to be in that group (again an ASD trait). The relief now that he isn’t engaging in any of that behaviour, is definitely eating normally, not self harming, is generally happy and contended but also open with me when he isn’t feeling 100% shows how far he’s come. Doesn’t stop me being incredibly anxious about the trans issues though

we have found several private clinics so we’re just waiting for my latest round of work to be paid for and we have him booked in for his first ASD assessment. But it’s taken a lot of talking to convince him it’s worth looking at

Feel free to PM if you like. It’s very very hard and I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself as a human and as a parent. I’ve had to show that I can be trusted and be open and I’ve basically prioritised our relationship above all else. Engaged in the things he’s interested in, found things that we can enjoy one on one, booster time together as a family, not backed down on our tech rules. It’s especially hard when your child is very different to how you were as a teenager!

Thank you ever so much lovely, that's so kind - I will take you up on that 💕