My daughter says she’s trans.

[Rushie123]

Please be kind. My just 13 year old has told me she is a boy. She’s not worn a dress/skirt for years and in the last year has a boys haircut and dresses like what I would call a tomboy. I was never imagining she was straight as this hasn’t come as a huge shock, but I’m struggling.
I am pretty open minded and I do believe there is a very small percentage of people born as the wrong sex, however it seems to me that nowadays a gay girl that dresses in a certain way, is strangely quite anti-men, must be trans. My daughter won’t engage in a conversation why she feels like this and I have become the enemy because I can’t fully embrace her new boys name. I’ve tried explaining this is hard for me and also tried to explain research shows affirming isn’t necessarily the best thing and that lots of people feel this way but change their mind.
She can’t see what’s the big deal, apparently I’m making it all about me and what was recently a great, close relationship is mow distant and I’m the enemy.
Not sure what my post is about but has anyone experienced this and if so how are things now.
Telling me to just ignore what she says isn’t helpful 😊 she’s strong willed and intelligent. She’s also very socialable, lots of friends (none of whom are trans, non binary etc)

I’m so afraid if I don’t embrace this, our relationship will break down. I read many things that the trans community is very black and white.
Thanks for reading if you’ve got this far!

I am pleased your son is happy, but being happy in your skin as a gay man is not the same as being someone who thinks that they will be only be happy if they can change sex, especially if they feel the way to do this is by permanently damaging and mutilating their body with chemicals and surgery. It is very clear from the little ( and frankly inadequate) research that is available that many young people claiming to be trans have other quite serious mental health issues such as anxiety, autism,anorexia which are the real things that they need to be helped with. If the now defunct Tavistock clinic had worked with their young patients, especially girls, on their underlying issues, had kept proper records and done long term follow up it is likely that doctors, professionals and parents would feel more confident in how they approach patients claiming to be trans and would recognise the dangers of affirming something that is more often a symptom rather than a condition.

@viques it's interesting that you assume my adult child is male

You are right. I didn't read your post carefully and made assumptions. I apologise..But I think my point still applies, being gay and happy about your sexuality is not the same as a young person saying they want to change sex and not understanding how radical surgery and ingesting hormones will affect their future life.

Says who??
I have never had a any doubts or curiosities tbh about my identity as a cis female however I do have enough experience within my circle of born female friends who identify as male and are now 100% male human beings.
every trans person I know has gone through phases of feeling so unacceptable to others that they have considered taking their lives on more than one occasion, that’s the society we still live in where people feel they have a right to preach their own, quite frankly weird, views on gender. Blows my mind that anyone would have any say in how someone else identifies, it does not affect your own life!!

with or without this experience of others I would still have enough empathy to feel that how someone else feels about themselves is more valid than how I want them to present or live their lives.
as parents surely it is our job to support our kids in whatever stage of their lives they are in, that is the unconditional love

One of the problems with affirming her by using the new name is that puts her further down the pathway to hormones and surgery.

It's interesting that the girl has no contact with her father. Often when a young girl pretends she's a boy, it's because she doesn't want to grow up into a woman who becomes a sex object for men. And there must be a reason for their fear of men.

The most common reason for gender identification issues in teen girls is neurodiversity, diagnosed or not.

Supporting your child with unconditional love does not mean affirming whatever method of coping with distress that they have adopted whether that is anorexia, self harm or believing themselves to be the opposite gender. .
Your post, whilst I’m sure well intentioned, shows that you have not thought or read deeply on the subject and have a very limited understanding of what drives somebody to declare themselves trans.
Affirming someone in their overvalued ideas can be harmful as their beliefs are not challenged and, in the case of trans, may lead them to seek hormones or surgery as an answer to their distress.

The very fact that you claim your born female friends are now 100% male human beings raises questions. They all now have a fully functional penis and testicles? They produce their own testosterone? Their pelvic bones have realigned themselves? They read up on the symptoms of prostate cancer?

They may live as males, but they aren’t men and never will be.

I agree that it’s irresponsible to go two feet in but to at least remain supportive and not make a child feel like whatever their identity feels like at that time is not a problem to other people

a very basic description of what ‘ being a man’ involves don’t you think, there’s more to it than a 1980s biology lesson

You might think so, but then again Professor Lord Robert Winston seems pretty sure that “being a man” is essentially something you are from conception, with all the particular physical attributes that brings, so since he is a world expert on the genetics of being a human being I am going to stick with him if that’s OK with you.

It has taken millions of years for humans to evolve, and I don’t think there has been much change since the 1980s, but if you know differently please cite a reference for the research you have uncovered.

My DD 12 has suggested similar - I have told her that she’s far too young to make such a decision, but I will always love her no matter what.

I know that your posts are well intentioned but there is a lot that people in general miss with trans, especially young people with rapid onset gender dysphoria. It is not kind to concretise a young person in a trans identity which may be the result of trauma, SA or internalised homophobia. Many of these young people have autism and lack insight. The kind thing to do is to support that young person in exploring the cause of their distress that can take very long time. That is what unconditional love looks like when your son or daughter declares they are trans.