15 y/o DS thinks he's transgender

[DaringRedLemur]

My 15 year old son has recently told me that he is transgender. For context he is very academic and has a great interest in (concerningly right-wing) politics and strategy games (So much so that he has an odd flag from one of his games up in his room). He has some friends who seem similar to him, although when he was younger he was bullied quite harshly. I've known he was gay for half a year, and while he wasn't an obviously flamboyant gay type i wasn't exactly shocked when he came out to me. However, recently he's told me that he believes he's transgender. I was somewhat suspicious when he told me since he never really showed any signs beforehand, though he has had several "secret" items of women's clothing in his room for about a year. I suggested changing his name or wearing women's clothing at home but he was skeptical since he worried that his friends wouldn't accept him, and said he didn't want to dress up as a girl in public till he was in 6th form (he's in year 10 now). I brought up the fact that it wasn't possible for him to take hormones until he was 16-17 due to the laws surrounding those kind of things and he seemed to be fine with that but did say that he would like to take them eventually. Is there anything else I should do? How can I help him?

Get him off the Internet as much as possible and try to be supportive but not encouraging. Neutral.

You help him by monitoring his internet and telling him it’s not possible to change sex.

Womens clothes or womens underwear?

Tell him he is not, he is being silly. Get him off the internet and away from games. It's a social contagion. Most commonly associated with gamers and anime lovers. And, kids who are gay but want to repress it due to internalised homophobia so think they can turn 'straight' if they 'trans' themself. Don't support it, please.

This is coming from a place of homophobia. Erasure of same sex attraction by transing the gay away.

Do not approach any of the LGBT charities for support. Stay away from Mermaids, Stonewall etc.. Get in touch with https://www.bayswatersupport.org.uk - it’s for parents and will help you navigate this.

Good luck.

I second getting in touch with Bayswater support group. You should also read the Cass review and do not affirm the change. Maintain a stance of ‘watchful waiting’.

Seems odd he doesn’t want to name change as that is usually one of the first demands from these kids, unless it is already a gender neutral name. I am speaking from personal experience as a parent and having sadly read too many similar experiences on the substack Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans.

Identifying as transgender seems to be happening a lot among kids on the autistic spectrum. No research has been done that I am aware of to understand why this should be the case. Personally I suspect that they are less gender conforming, struggle to fit in socially so this provides them with an explanation and are more vulnerable to social contagion. Is your dc, or could he be, autistic?

I think kids are so heavily influenced. I would be neutral.

You help him by telling him that it is impossible for any human to change sex and by restricting his internet access.

It is neither kind, nor good parenting to allow him to continue with the false belief that there is any process by which he can become female.

You contact Bayswater support and engage with their resources and experience.

Read up on ROGD. Your son is almost a textbook case.

I’d also be curious as to which items of women’s clothing he was wearing. My guess is that it wasn’t simple t shirts or trousers typically worn by girls his age.

This op.
Read some articles about detransition- thus something that is usually very unspoken- but very important to know as well.

Please keep him grounded in reality. Make sure he knows its impossible to change sex. Tell him the damage that can be done by hormones and surgery.

Get him out of his bedroom and out into nature. It's the perfect time of year. Maybe a holiday somewhere off grid, leave the phone at home and take books, board games and some simple sport eqipment like badminton or something.

Sending you strength!

Wow peoples replies on here. You sound like a supportive mother already but all you can do is continue to support. Let him express his concerns to you and keep an open dialogue. Restricting everything could lead to a lot of resentment. He feels like he can talk to you and its important to keep that going.

This series is a few years old, but it was one of the first things I read that wasn’t all about immediatly affirming, and it helped me so much:

https://quillette.com/tag/when-sons-become-daughters/

Also highly recommend the Gender A Wider Lens podcast. They have recently stopped making new videos, but there are so many really, really helpful ones on there. But do take it easy and pace yourself watching them - it is very easy to become overwhelmed.

He has a great interest in right wing politics and an odd flag up in his room? What does this mean, what odd flag? And how right wing are we talking? The sort of right wing where it would be better to be a woman than to be gay?

He seems quite confused op, no name picked out etc. I'd just watchful wait and see what happens. Don't ignore it but don't push it and see where tine gets you. I wonder if a friend of his has been going through something similar maybe and yes ask him what he's read up about this on the internet. Be interesting to see where it's come from or if he's being influenced by what he's watching/hearing etc

Most commonly associated with gamers

It is most commonly associated with unmonitored access to the internet. Gaming is literally just playing a game, unless you're also being groomed and indoctrinated by people speaking to you. Why else would gaming have any influence over gender confusion?

If this was one of my sons, I would be immediately having a strong conversation about why they think this, and why they think that being a male means he has any idea what being a girl is or means, and why he doesn't think he just likes typically "girlier" pursuits or whatever.

I wouldn't be supporting it - I would support him in that I would be suggesting and probably insisting on therapy because it is simply not possible for human beings to change sex, and he needs to feel comfortable in his sexed body and not be willing to make irreversible, medicalised changes that amount to no more than cosmetic surgery. If he's gay, I would suggest he really needs to explore why he feels that "being a girl" is potentially better than just being a gay man.

hey! trans young person here who is happy to answer questions over pm if you want. just letting you know that mumsnet is probably not a great to look for advice on this – many posters are transphobic and taking the advice of people who don't believe that trans children/teens can exist is an easy way to ruin your relationship with your child. make sure you keep having open conversations with your kid and keep an open mind to what they tell you :)

It isn't "phobic" of anything to tell your son firmly that there is no way he can turn into a girl/woman, that he can never have any idea what being a girl/woman feels like or entails, and that you love him and are proud of him as he actually is, which is a gay boy.

Tell him you love him but that he has to know the brutally honest unpleasant truth about what the surgeries involve and what it actually means for the rest of his life if he was to go down that path, that the painful surgery is irreversible and it would be a lifetime of hormone treatments, dilation etc and he still wouldn't be a woman. Get him to read some detranstioners stories or even talk to some of them you can , he has to know exactly what he's in for. It's not transphobic to want you child to be fully informed before making irreversible life changing decisions about his body & future sex life. He won't have finished going through puberty yet, that's a confusing time for everyone.

If you lie and tell him sex change is possible he will likely not trust you in the future and blame you when the drugs don't magically work.
What is behind his fear of accepting and appreciating who he really is?
Does he see the invitations to jump on the trans bandwagon as an escape or to boost his mood?

Ignore everything in the quoted post, OP. Bayswater uses harmful conversion therapy (there's an expose from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism here - https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-07-02/one-day-they-may-thank-us-for-that-abuse-inside-the-bayswater-support-group ). The fact that someone who supports them wants to stop your kid contacting Stonewall pretty much says it all.

As someone who's LGBT+ (asexual), I think the best thing you can do is be understanding. When I came out at 14 people thought it was a phase or that I'd been reading too deeply on the internet. Needless to say, that wasn't the case.

Good luck.

Why can't you discuss this here? Why does it have to be private?

It really important that you report anything that is transphobic. Mumsnet will take down transphobic posts.

Also I warn my children not to talk to anonymous people in the internet as we never know who anyone actually is.

Don't ask MN for advice around this.

Show me where Bayswater practice “conversion therapy”… quoting parents who use the Bayswater Discord server (you know, independent parents who make their own choices) is hardly indicative of Bayswater promoting conversion therapies. As an aside, it seems that the authors of this article (and the trans people quoted) seem to believe that anything that isn’t directly affirming is “conversion”. Limiting a child’s internet access etc is not “conversion therapy” ffs.