17yo injecting hormones

[UndertheCedartree]

I have just found out my 17yo (18 next month) has been injecting oestrogen for the past 7 months. He has researched and ordered it all on line.

Since he was 13 he has wanted to 'be a girl'. However this hasn't involved wanting to dress more feminine or do anything typically female. I have struggled to understand but kept lines of communication open. He told me yesterday he just hates his body, he hates how it looks and wants it to look more female. He doesn't want to do anything different or wear anything different. Just hates his body. This just seems to me to be body dismorphia rather than him being trans. He is autistic and I believe body dismorphia is rife in these children.

I'm so worried about what he is doing to his body and potential negative side effects and with no oversight. He says if we went to the GP that he would just be put on a waiting list for years. He also doesn't want to talk about it with anyone.

The only people who know are me, his aunty and cousin. So I can't talk to his dad about it and his 12yo sister doesn't know either. He has a key worker/therapist as he has been under CAMHS since December when he nearly killed himself with sedatives. But as soon as he turns 18 that stops which I'm so worried about. He continues to try different drugs to help with his anxiety. This was how I found the syringes as he was off his head yesterday and so I was searching around. He had taken a large dose of ketamin. He has also been smoking hash and taking large doses of a cough medicine from the US. He is at college doing Tlevels and has struggled due to one of the tutors bullying him. He is doing his exams now and it is affecting his sleep and he is crying often.

I don't know what to do next. I don't want to push him away and he is almost 18 after all but I need to do something. He doesn't want to go to the GP or talk to his key worker about it.

I’m so sorry to read this. I’m by no means any kind of expert, but have just (hopefully) come out the other side of two years of my autistic 15yo telling me he was trans.

Like you, I wanted to keep him talking to me and not drive him away (and into the arms of god only knows who on the internet!), so I was really careful with my language I neither affirmed nor denied, but I lived in a state of constant fear that he would get swept up by gender ideologues in CAMHS etc.

When the Cass Review was published last year I cried with relief because it felt like one more barrier to the process - one that hadn’t come from me having to draw a line.

When he asked me for oestrogen for his 16th birthday I had a gentle conversation with him about doing permanent damage to his body in the pursuit of something that may not give him what he wanted - ie happiness/self acceptance.

Luckily for us we never got to that point. He was prescribed sertraline last summer and whether it is the effects of that, or coming across different voices online, he told me recently he isn’t trans and it was probably an identity crisis.

He still has online friends who are trans, so it hasn’t gone away completely and he hasn’t swung completely the other way, but I’m cautiously hopeful. I never believed he was trans deep down. I saw a vulnerable autistic boy struggling with his changing body and finding his place in the world among the changing dynamics of his peers.

Of course our situation was different in that we never actually got to the hormone stage, but I honestly think you are doing the right thing by providing a safe place for him to feel able to talk to you, even if he’s saying and doing things that break your heart.

is he taking or would he consider antidepressants? Like I say, I don’t know if that was a deciding factor for my boy, but his moods are definitely more stable and he is generally happier since starting them, which surely can’t have hurt. It was a huge leap for me to accept that he needed them, but we were at a point where we had to try something!

I didn’t want to leave you unanswered, having some idea of what you are going through. I hope you have people you can talk to, but if not I got in touch with Bayswater group, who were lovely and supportive - as far as I’m aware it’s a group of parents with similar experiences and feelings to us.

I really hope your son comes through this and out the other side, but giving him love and a listening ear is the best thing you can do x

Thank you so much for your reply and I'm so sorry your boy struggled too.

I have the same feelings as you.

CAMHS have not been keen on anti depressants when I asked about it after his overdose. I just mentioned it to my son who said he doesn't want them as they will make him fat.

I will look up the bayswater group as I desperately need some support.

Hopefully they’ll have some more practical advice for you @UndertheCedartree. But I found it helpful just to know there are other people in a similar boat x

I couldn't just scroll by without comment but I think you'll be in the best hands with Bayswater Support Group. There are parents there who will be in a similar situation to you.

Autistic children and young people are being so badly let down by the conflation of autism-related puberty distress and gender identity. And parents who flag concerns about this are shut down as bigots and "ableist", including within autism groups.

The sooner the press exposes this awful medical scandal, which is disproportionately affecting autistic people, the better. It's not rocket science to recognise that something is not quite right when only 1% of the population is autistic, yet autistic children represent between 35 and 48% of referrals to GIDS (2010-2019). Yet our children are being funnelled unquestioningly into this pathway, by schools and other institutions, without the professionals involved applying their critical thinking skills.

I'm hoping that my daughter has put her gender questioning phase behind her, but she's still only 15 and is being subject to the same kind of messaging as your son undoubtedly is, about what it means to "be" male and female.

Sending 💪 and 💐 for you and your son, OP.

Ps I'm not a member of Bayswater but I would join up if my daughter becomes gender questioning again. She was 13 when it happened previously but the closer children get to 18, the more complex the situation becomes. That's where the collective wisdom of other parents in your situation will be of huge value I think.

Thank you so much.

I suggested to him on Friday that he could have body dysmorphia and WW3 has erupted. He is so angry he's not been home. Luckily is at his aunty's. She has told me that her daughter explained that to question if he is truly trans is super insulting. I am so heartbroken and so confused. My son is refusing to talk to me.

😞

I should imagine your niece is saying what she truly believes to be the kindest way to help your son. Unfortunately, this "Be Kind" approach completely shuts down the rational thinking conversation about whether something else might be going on related to your son's autism (as per the Cass Report and my comment above), which could be contributing to your son's feeling of an "identity".

I used to believe that we all had a gender identity, but I no longer do. However, I fully accept and appreciate that many people hold this belief to be true (just as I did) and for some of those people, they will feel a genuine distress that they are in the wrong body. The Cass Report comes from a position of this belief, so it's definitely possible to uphold/acknowledge this belief but also look at root causes such as autism-related puberty distress and/or cognitive processing (again autism-related) of the information that society gives us all about what it means to "be" a man or a woman. Unfortunately, autism groups seem to reject the latter as ableist, yet they also advocate for children to have access to SALT (Speech and Language Therapy) to help with their cognitive processing of information. Ironic, really.

Hopefully your son will continue to stay with family so that you maintain a connection through them and know that he is being looked after 🤞

I appreciate that now is not the time for comedy, but this article/blog was written yesterday in the Telegraph and really nails it regarding the Be Kind approach, with an alternative type of "identity" to gender identity:

https://archive.ph/5pPyS

I'm not suggesting your niece and his aunty would be open to looking into whether their kind approach is actually helpful just yet, but perhaps they might see at some point that supporting someone's deeply held belief through affirmation can lead to risks. I can't imagine many people would adjust their own thinking (that she is a white woman who has modified her body) just to accommodate this woman's belief that she is black and should be affirmed as such without question.
Just as in the parody article, the long term health impact of injecting hormones that are supposed to be for the opposite sex (as opposed to an injection to darken the skin) is unknown. There is a gap in medical research. Perhaps they would feel less inclined to shut down your concerns if they realised that they were advocating medical experimentation on your son?

Hopefully you can keep a dialogue going with his aunty and at some point he'll be open to understanding that there might be more he needs to consider. This BBC article about cross sex hormones relates to under 18s but perhaps they might recognise that his autism makes him vulnerable in a way that extends past the age of 18:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4md23dgg2o.amp

One other place you might want to use for information is a website that has been set up by parents of boys who began identifying as girls during adolescence (they cover lots of different "types" of boys, including those who are autistic):

https://www.rogdboys.org/

That was a bit of a brain dump, so please ignore anything that isn't useful in your situation. But please know that you are not alone and that people can and do empathise with your situation. It's my fear of my autistic daughter being pulled into a world that affirms without critical thinking, champions irrerversible medical interventions on vulnerable young people and shuts down concerned parents that is in my head every single day. I don't think we're out of the woods and I can only imagine how much more fearful I'd be about my own child if she was in your son's position. Sending a hug.

Thank you so, so much for all the information and the support and hug.

His aunty was just reporting back what my niece said to help us understand what is going through my son's head. She has the same beliefs as me and we are both very concerned at the teens thought that to suggest an alternative cause for his distress should just be shut down without any consideration.

I’m sorry for your anguish and worry. You mentioned your son having medication for anxiety. Is this not prescribed medication? Is he acknowledging the drug problem he has as well? He’s 18 soon so it should make it a bit easier to access some MH services. I hope you can re establish communication soon.

It sounds like he has a very caring support network. Hopefully he will remain within it and not be tempted away by the peddling that happens on social media, which suggests that anyone who doesn't actively affirm is harmful.

It's great to hear that his aunty is looking at this holistically alongside you. That's a huge support for you too.

💐💪

Yes, when I said he was taking drugs for anxiety I meant street drugs or prescription drugs not prescribed for him. He has tried weed and hash, cough medicine, lorazapam and pregabalin and now ketamin. He's not really acknowledging it as a problem (apart from when he nearly killed himself with lorazapam).

He has developed a good relationship with his CAMHs therapist/keyworker and I'm terrified about what will happen when she has to stop seeing him baring in mind how hard change is for autistic children. He has been referred to a 18-25 service which sounds really good but do not accept high risk cases so he may be pushed into adult services who aren't trained in how to work with teenagers with the waiting lists and lots of different people involved so it is harder to build a relationship. We had an assessment with them which he really struggled with unlike with CAHMs. Emotionally he is more like 16 and I don't know if he will cope with adult services.

It is and honestly if I didn't have her I think I would have crumbled. I'm so glad he has had a safe place to go.

I think drug support services have shorter waiting lists, though may not be suitable for your son.