Mother has persuaded asd child they are trans

[Gariboldi]

Our nephew's mum has told him that he is trans. He is 9 almost 10. He has always been clear that he's a boy who likes long hair and told his dad that he didn't think his mum was right. Dad divorced. Mum has now got his gender and name changed at school and cut child off from all family on both sides & we dont know why. We have not said anything about trans and called child by female name once mum said as we feared repercusions if we didn't. School say nothing apart from name has changed - still into ' male 'type pursuits, crushes on girls etc, prefers to play with boys. Mum says he is lesbian like her.He's autistic so tends to believe what people tell him. We and his dad are pro trans rights and if we thought he might be trans it wouldnt be a problem but we feel his mum is pushing him and from what we have all seen and hear from child he isn't. Mum has Borderline Personality Disorder and is bipolar and she is anti men and wanted a girl. We think she is having psychotic episodes again.We all want to help the child but mum cut off contact with all his family after she told us he is trans.Father used to get on well with him. Father in contact with Children's Services , NSPCC and School but won't go for CAO. Father had him EOW until mum cut contact. He's tried to get it back but mum wont communicate with him. We have contacted school and Children'sServices too but can't get anyone to listen. .We used to have him to stay a lot too and he got on well with our son..What can we as the child relatives do to try to help him? ( mum is my sister) we think the child must feel isolated and confused. Agencies and school just go along with immediate affirmation. A LGBTQ charity has told us the child should be safeguarded by school because it doesn't sound like it was his choice but no one listens to us. Child known to Children’s Services because of mums mental health problems and issues in the past but they are just saying case closed. We think mum is emotionally harming the child. If we thought he was trans we'd support him. We want him to make his own choices. Any advice welcome. We think this must be an unusual case. With many trans kids parents are reluctant to
accept they are which we feel is wrong too.Thank you.

Dad needs to contact the school and get his name changed right back. As far as what can you do, nothing unfortunately. Encourage and support the dad to go to court if appropriate. Children's services won't do anything.

Why on earth won't the dad go for custody? He needs to fight to save his child. I would harass social services with complaints too.

Why won't Social services do anything? If mother is persuading him surely that is emotional abuse. Child has autism so is vulnerable. Have tried to get dad to go to court.

This just won't meet their threshold. What do you expect them to do? This is a parenting concern. The other parent needs to take action.

Has any one else experience of a parent trying to persuade their child they are trans? We can't understand it. Surely you should let the child make up their own mind and 9/20 is very young.

Complaints about what? What do you actually think they could do in this situation?

Maybe complaints about the fact social services have been informed that a vulnerable child has been cut off from family unexplained, that it’s not possible to contact her about child's contact with dad, that mum may be off her meds (she is bipolar).

This child is at risk, even setting aside the trans issue.

The father needs to do some parenting. What on earth is he thinking allowing this to happen? Unless there’s other issues he needs to sort out contact and start participating.

Are social services not prepared to do anything about a child being emotionally abused? Surely isolating the child from all close family on both sides and persuading them they are trans is abuse. Are they only concerned about physical abuse? He's not even 10 yet.

Are you in touch with your sister op? What happens if you turn up on the doorstep and ask to go inside the house? What about your parents - can they influence her?

I would consider reporting to social services you think she has become mentally unwell again and is dangerously unstable.

SS may be more interested if the risk is that mum is unstable. If she’s prepared to do this, what might she do in a month or six months’ time? Cutting off all contact with family is a really bad sign - literally anything could be happening behind those closed doors.

Physical abusers rarely cause damage to the face. They do the harm in places it is hard to spot. Who knows if it is only emotional abuse?

It's up to the dad to sort out his contact, not social services. Parents have the right to come off medication, unless there is evidence that the child has come to harm because of this, it's not enough for them to get involved. She hasn't been cut off 'unexplained' - there is an explanation, mum will say that the family don't accept her trans identity or similar. That's not threshold for children's services.

What physical abuse? Do you have evidence? Social services cannot get involved in every case of emotional harm. Firstly they have to have evidence of this, which you don't actually have. It's a hypothesis. Secondly involvement with social services is voluntary, so even if they did want to do an assessment they would need her consent, which given she thinks she's doing the right thing won't be forthcoming will it?

She thinks? Dangerously unstable? Where is the evidence of that?

She wont speak to me or answer calls / texts or my parents. I went round and she was in but wouldn't come to the door. I agree that she might be not taking her meds. Will try reporting to social services. She and the child need help.

This is all guessing and speculation! You can't make a report based on things you think might be happening even though you have no evidence of it!

This woman seems to have what a former Tavistock doctor called ‘Transhausens by Proxy’ meaning a parent who is making their child be transgender. He was coining the word basing it on Munchausen’s by Proxy.

Unfortunately, as so many people have been brainwashed about ‘trans kids’ - including teachers, social workers, and the NHS, it will be difficult to get anyone to listen to you.

What the coined word is based on though is a well documented syndrome, Munchausen by proxy
(Excerpt from
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder_imposed_on_another)

Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also known as fabricated or induced illness by carers (FII) and first named as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP) after Munchausen syndrome, is a mental health disorder in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person – typically their child, and sometimes (rarely) when an adult falsely simulates an illness or health issues in another adult partner.[7][8][9] This might include altering test samples, injuring a child, falsifying diagnoses, or portraying the appearance of health issues through contrived photographs, videos, and other ‘evidence’ of the supposed illness.[8] The caregiver or partner then continues to present the person as being sick or injured, convincing others of the condition/s and their own suffering as the caregiver.[5]Permanent injury (both physical and psychological harm) or even death of the victim can occur as a result of the disorder and the caretaker’s actions.[8] The behaviour is generally thought to be motivated by the caregiver or partner seeking the sympathy or attention of other people and/or the wider public.
………………..

The child’s father should tell the school, social workers and the police that this woman is known to have problems and is harming their child with Munchausens by proxy.

Thank you for that.she has been trying to diagnose him and herself with a variety of conditions for years and spends a lot of her time on the internet reading up on symptoms.Shebis v bright. She has problems but physically not as many as she claims. She probably has more MH conditions than she finds acceptable and some we think are not very likely and her gps wouldn't diagnose but they get her attention and sympathy. . She has diagnosed all sorts of things for the child that drs will not agree to or she exaggerates the extent to which he has things. She is in a lot of online community groups who sympathise with her and tell her what a great mum she is so that could be her motive. As far as we know she hasn't harmed him physically and her diagnoses are for conditions on the spectrum , plus saying he has issues that will cause him to be in a wheelchair in a few years - drs have not made these diagnoses. If we won't affirm her diagnoses and say a dr should , she stops talking to us. She has been like this since we our late teens and is the same with my parents and younger sister.She got a lot worse in her 20s with internet access. Her trans diagnosis fits in with what you said. If teachers, social workers etc won't take any notice we are stuck. Will talk to dad again about taking a legal route. School immediately affirmed when mum phoned in but say child no different he has same interests, friends etc.

It's worth his dad making the school aware that they need to follow the new statutory safeguarding guidance (KCSIE 2024 - Keeping Children Safe in Education). This guidance points to the significant difference in risk profile between a child who is or thinks they may be LGB and a gender questioning child. In short, an LGB child is at risk of bullying and a gender questioning child is at risk of this plus conflation of other issues e.g. an autistic child may be vulnerable to believing that they are in the wrong body, depending on how trusted adults like those in school and at home explain what sex, sexual orientation and gender identity mean. Obviulously a 9 year old hasn't hit puberty yet, so sexual orientation is irrelevant at this stage, but the risks associated with being gender questioning are directly relevant. The guidance also points towards the Cass Report, which goes into more detail - it's written through the lens of a child who is already gender questioning, but is applicable for a high level understanding of autism versus gender identity.

This is a safeguarding risk and school should be managing it as such. There is already a court precedent from late last year where there were two parents disagreed on cross-sex hormones for their nearly 16 year old child: the child wanted them at 16, one parent said yes and the other said no. The court ruled that one parent's affirmative approach didn't override the cautious approach that is recommended in the Cass Report. The Cass Report itself says that social transition is not a neutral act, so at the moment your nephew is already on the affirmation pathway.

I agree the dad needs to take action and contact the school. Hopefully post Cass they will listen. Can you contact the dad?

Very sound info and advice from @ScrollingLeaves and @BonfireLady

I would add that I’m pretty sure both Dr Cass and KCSIE rightly state that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. The school safeguarding policy probably says the same as it’s a fundamental principle of safeguarding.

If you have no luck getting through to dad then you could try to get involved citing this principle.

You can cite 'safeguarding' all you like but it's not going to make either a school or social services magically start viewing parents transitioning children as a child protection issue.

There is more to this situation than you would like to believe, and much of it screams safeguarding.

The OP has already contacted social services and they haven't done anything. Suggestions on the thread that citing the cass report or 'safeguarding' will be the key to accessing some kind of intervention are just not true.

But in this case, the child was eventually removed from the mother for precisely this reason: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html

If you read the judgment, you'll see the courts did regard it as a significant safeguarding risk.