DS went to GP to ask for gender referral without parental consent

[PerchedOnEdge]

NC for this.

DS(just turned 15) went to GP surgery to ask for gender clinic referral without parental consent. GP surgery of course turned him away. Now DS is trying to involve me as result.

Is this completely out if the blue? No.

Lately he has been testing waters by wearing skirt and tights in his school. His school did phone us about it a few days after the fact. DS has been insisting it was just for fun. Denial more like.

And now he is coming out with all "I have been thinking about it every day for the last 4 years. I am a girl"

To us there is nothing "girly" about him. He was a stereotypical boy toddler who say everything stick shaped as gun, lego, no hint of effeminateness about him. All his friends are boys and they are gaming with each other.

I also admit I have seen a lot of the negative trans material and really don't want him to be one of those trans people. I know one MtF IRL and that person is everything I don't want DS to be, but then I am closer to trans widow. I would have been happy if DS just came out as gay!

On the other hand, it really took long for DS to open up fully and I don't want to lose that open line of communication.

I know we are hardly unique in this situation and I know I should be reading more stories here but I am scared it all ends in tears and losing each other...if I don't take completely affirmative approach. Can gender dysphoria go away completely?

Can you afford counselling for him and maybe for you and your DH too, to explore with a third party what your DS's feelings are about himself and his identity? Be careful in selecting a therapist who is not automatically affirming, but does allow for genuine exploration. It may very well be that he is trans, it may be that he's gay, he may be neither and just sees a group that he would like to be part of. You and he need to have open discussions that allow for all of those possibilities.

There are lots of resources for parents on the website below.

www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/talking-therapy-no-therapy-vs-bad-therapy/

His words, not mine :)

I know. Getting him to consider is another thing...I have seen one detransitioner interview where they said they simply didn't care about the risks. They wanted wanted it and there was nothing parents could do about it.

Those were chilling words.

Would he agree to look for a therapist with you, don’t pose the question of going to therapy. Ask him his therapist will be. Involving him with choosing. I would select five and then give him the choice. He is unwell and needs help. You only have to listen to de-transition adults to hear how gruelling the process is.
Also openly talk about rape, miscarriage and increased levels of domestic violence involved with being a woman.

Absolutely this. I know you said his reply was 'you won't understand' but I would be asking a teenager why they feel like this and really listen. It might be they don't fit in with their current group, because they feel more themselves in a group of girls, because they've suddenly found an interest in stereotypically girl pursuits.

I'm GC and I would be upset if any of my kids came home and said they were trans, because I believe in biological fact. I believe that social media is running unchecked into our children's lives with the effect of those who have felt disengaged from their peers are finding a sympathetic ear in a stranger who has been 'persecuted for who they are' and offer this as maybe a reason why.

I believe neurodivergence being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed forces your people into thinking they are in the wrong body rather than understanding that their brain thinks differently and accepting who they are in the face of adversity.

It might be he's been chatting unmonitored on the likes of discord, Reddit etc and found a group of people who claim to be listening, to understand and who offer suggestions that he's now listening to without any critical thinking skills being used.

Speak to his school, ask them for a mental health referral to make sure he is being appropriately signposted for support rather than transition straight away. I would go with him to the GP after you've had the above conversation about understanding where he is coming from. Not necessarily to support access to hormones etc but to ensure he is pointed towards all the information and understands all the risks if he should go ahead with this in time.

Tell him there's a big difference between identifying with feminine stuff and being female. That you understand he feels really uncomfortable with men's gender role and you don't blame him, but the problem is the stereotypes not him. To please not fall into the trap of thinking this is the answer because it is not likely to be. That you will love him whatever he does, no matter how he presents himself, and that won't change just because you don't agree on every issue

A bit harsh. Trans and gay are completely different. When your child tells you they want to change their body with possible surgery and hormones it’s a bit more worrying than them being gay.

OP, my dd says she’s a man, I ask her “why she feels she’s a man?” and I get a similar reply to your DS’s. My dd has never been boyish, nor has she been really girly. My dd is now old enough that I don’t get any say and it’s very worrying to think she can get hormones or surgery.

What about saying to him that this is massive, it's a huge life altering process and to be really sure, we need to research all the good and the bad. Let him show you the good and why he wants it and you show him why you're against it and what detransitioners are saying.
Remind him it's because you love him that you don't want him to have regrets because you can't undo the damage.
It's fine for him to wear what he wants.

PermanentTemporary · Today 20:19

What is he asking you to do right here and now?
**
Keep talking. I would go with him to his GP because I would rather be in the NHS than have him self medicating off the Internet or some private clinic.”

Absolutely this. Be there with/for him.

Send him to the kiwi farms "SRS and GRS horrors" thread if he thinks there are no negative effects of hormones or transitioning.

It's choc full of archived posts by trans people showing what kind of things have gone wrong and saying they've ruined their lives/wish they could go back in time. Including young people stuck with catheters, zero sexual function, surgeries that did not go to plan and need correcting multiple times.

There are also some horrible accounts of what it like to have gone through all the surgery, which has a high failure rate leaving the patient with ongoing health issues, including chronic pain

I'd tell him if he wants any chance of me being involved in what he is asking, then he does actually have to talk to me about it, for a start.

I'd ask him what he means by he 'feels like a girl'. I'd want a proper answer, not just some ineffable sense of pink brain or whatever.

I'd personally be pointing out I, as a biological woman, do not 'feel like a girl/woman', and that I do not feel like I have a 'pink brain', that the only effect being a woman has on my life is the biological. Menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, typically less strong / shorter / slower etc than biological males. Smear tests. Sex based discrimination. None of those things would go away if I started identifying as a man, because what makes a woman is not in your head.

I'd ask him what he thinks would be different, what could he do 'as a girl' that he can't do now? If he says it would let him use the female loo and changing rooms I would be pointing out that they are sex segregated for safety and dignity reasons, and there is no way to distinguish between him (who you know is a lovely person, but other people would not) and some creep using a female identity for the purposes of accessing women who are vulnerable. Which is why gender should not give him or any other male access to female spaces.

I wouldn't bother with explaining that women will self exclude from fear, embarrassment, trauma or religious observance because I'd expect him to argue that they are wrong, and possibly terfs and bigots, which would be a counterproductive discussion to have at this stage.

I would also caution you very strongly against only taking advice from 'trans voices'. Most likely what you'll find in that direction is 100% affirmation and encouragement for him to keep secrets and possibly even cut you off.

Surely he realises it is too late for puberty blocking drugs?
The GP was also wrong to just send him away. He can consent to medical treatment without your agreement or even knowledge.

I would be pointing out that it is too late for puberty blocking drugs, so what is he wanting a referral for? If he wants surgery I would be saying to him it is a very big decision. They will not do it until he is an adult anyway. So lets just leave this for us to talk about until you are at an age where they might do surgery.

Keira Bell was prescribed puberty blockers at 16. Puberty is a long process.

Excellent post.

Are counsellors allowed to explore or will they be accused of conversion therapy?

Manage his internet use - this is how kids get groomed. I would make him think a bit more about what it actually means to be a girl - it is not just skirts, tights and make up. That are just based on stereotypical images men have of females. Maybe try and educate him more of what he thinks 'being a girl' is - the vast majority of males have this completely wrong.

Make sure he understands completely the difference between biological sex and gender. Yes there can be a grey areas in gender (think David Bowie etc) without impacting the biology he has been born with.

And once again - subtly investigate his internet usage.

Op, my son came out as trans at 15 despite being very much a boys boy. We had the lot, suicude watch , declarations of being certain, I didn't understand, Fast forward five years and the police came through our door and raided my house. Turns out my son had a pornography addiction and has been accessing illegal hentai images. He has now got a criminal record but after a lot of therapy admits he is a gay man .

I urge you to check your child internet usage. Porn is a literally destroying our young people from their very own pocket held devices. This is going to be an epidemic in the very near future. It sounds like your son has found sissification and so the idea of being a women, of colonising womanhood, has become a sexual fetish.

Any my son was 100% groomed online by adults, he was told he was trans and he believed it and they fed him these images and linked him to sites and the police didn't give a shit despite it happening from the age of 12-13 .

@soupfiend they are allowed to explore, there was recent outrage on Twitter when UKCP published a statement saying that exploratory therapy for gender issues was valid

Fwiw, when my eldest DS got interested in this stuff around that age, I showed him kiwifarms. I was like look, when feminists say there are some seriously creepy men in this, this is why. He had not got as far as saying he was trans, but he's been a firm terf ever since.

@greasypolemonkeyman - I am sorry you went through this with your son and thank you for sharing. I suspect it probably isn't a rare isolated case. How is he now?

@FlabMonsterIsDietingAgain - James Esses is a bloody hero.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I will just encourage him to wait a bit and do more of spending time together, chatting (he spends all the time holed up in his room, antisocial unlike my other kids). Not sure what to do about skirt in school, will let him express himself but no pronouns/name changes with school authorities but I suspect he is doing it with his peers already and couple of girls have been helping him to get a skirt. Think I have asked him before to cut down on wearing skirt - and he has obliged.

OK he needs to express why he feels he is a girl telling you, you won't understand isnt going to help because sooner or later he will need to explain himself to someone to get what he wants

Take note of the phrases and words he uses because its unlikely they will be his own

Can you check his Internet history?

I have seen Kiwi Farms before and not sure it is showing up anymore without lots of roundabout ways of accessing.

Not sure I want 15 yrs old seeing Kiwi Farms though. Maybe some material about creepy men, but not all the other stuff. Benjamin Boyce perhaps? Dunno.

Just put kiwifarms dot hk in your browser and it's all there.

You say he’s in his room all the time. I presume he’s on the internet all the time? As his parents you and his dad really need to cut down the amount of time he’s on there, it’s an addiction and it will be fucking up his mind. Get him out of his room interacting with family/friends and out and about doing things.

When my kids were 15 we had a rule that all phones etc were in the kitchen at night, my kids are now in their 20s and are really thankful that we had that rule.