Parents’ experiences of teenage sons questioning gender and later feeling settled

[FastDuck]

Has anyone’s son come out of the other side of gender confusion/believing he is trans as a happy well adjusted young man who is happy with his body?

My 15 year old is going through this and most of what so have read is that many girls this age going through it come out the other side of it, I haven’t heard as many of these stories about boys this age.

My son doesn’t have a smart phone, doesn’t game heavily and isn’t too much into anime. He has never had gender norms pushed on him.

He has friends, ‘misfit’ types and does attend one group where stating pronouns is a must . He has been brought up mainly by me (his mum) and lives with me and his two sisters, his dad is in his life but has some mental health issues (bpd). My son could potentially fit the high functioning ASD profile, is bi though I suspect probably gay and seems happy to be so.

I am praying this is a phase, though I am scared it could be the start of some greater mental health issue 😔

It would be helpful either way to hear from parents that have gone through this around this age, I’ve read many old threads and wish they would come back and update with an outcome.

Yes - gender questioning at 15, now at uni and a very happy, well-adjusted (probably spectrum-y but undiagnosed) boy who knows he is a boy.

There are a lot of threads in the Feminism: sex and gender section that have information, links, and conversations that you may find helpful.

In the meantime I recommend the Gender a Wider Lens podcast series, and “Read Some Piaget Please” on X/twitter.

Thank you 🙏

can I ask what your approach was? I’m trying to go neutral but inside I am panicking. Is there anything looking back that you did that helped?

My first thoughts would be to ask MN to have this thread moved to the Feminism: sex and gender section - I think you would get more responses there, as many of the women on there have been where you are.

More generally: we advocated for things to move as slowly as we possibly could and had a rule that he could dress how he wanted inside the house - to try the idea on for size as it were - but no social transition outside the house until he’d been through therapy. We got a therapist who I knew would not automatically affirm, and we were extremely lucky that the school (he told a school counsellor in a brief moment of frustration with us) were also not affirming and had read the Cass report and understood that they should be guided by us.

Fortunately our son somewhat understood that some people row back from trans identities (Kiera Bell was in the news around or just before this time) and also somewhat understood that we therefore didn’t want him to make unalterable changes to his body and then later realise that perhaps he wasn’t trans, so while he was sometimes irritated, he seemed ok to go along with our caution. That approach is obvs going to vary depending on your child and their personality.

Looking back, time and growing up was the biggest thing that helped. Other families have found any activity that actively brings the child into their body - hard physical sports like martial arts or climbing, for example - is helpful; working with horses is also really beneficial for some.

Some parents find the Bayswater parents group helpful. They are brilliant, and a great place to meet other parents going through what you are going through, but be aware that some of them may be much farther into their journey than you, and that can be very, very scary to listen to.

Finally, breathe. This can feel dreadfully scary, and you may have pressure from people who disagree with your approach, which can feel so isolating. Make sure you are taking care of yourself as best you can.

Hi OP, that's some really great advice from TwoLoons there.

I have an autistic daughter who seems to have come out of the other side of being gender questioning.

When she first told me about her feelings (of confusion and distress) I told her that I would help her explore whether she really was a girl - and that I would learn how to do this and who we could go to etc - but that in the meantime, everything she did to alleviate her feelings of distress about her body had to come from the position of being biologically female i.e. no change in pronouns... no trans-aligned practices of any kind. For example, it was sports bras not binders to hold down (and hide - this was important to her) the unwelcome development of breasts. She had her hair cut short at about 13/14 and has worn clothes from the boys' aisle since childhood. She didn't want people looking at her "as a girl". I supported her with this need but the line was clear: you are a biological female. This is a physical reality. When she asked for puberty blockers at the age of 13 we looked into it, saw that the NHS at that time said "the impact on the developing teenage brain is unknown" (paraphrased) and said no. We told her we didn't want her brain being experimented on. She accepted this.

I joined an LGBT trans parents' group so that I could listen to the experience of parents whose children had transitioned. It was very clear that every parent in the group loved their child very much and wanted the best for them.

I also found other viewpoints. I second TwoLoons' advice that asking for this thread to be moved to the Feminism Sex and Gender board might get more traction. FWIW I have no idea if I'm a feminist (I used to assume I was but I am not into feminist theory etc) but I found that board incredibly helpful to understand the difference between sex and gender identity during my research. There are teachers and other professionals who comment on threads about children and I learned a lot about safeguarding on that board.

I also looked at FB and YouTube to see the kinds of things my daughter might have been looking at. It was important to me to understand the information my daughter was seeing that made her wonder if she really was a girl.

I apply a safeguarding approach whenever my daughter meets a new health professional or joins a new club. I have a document with her safeguarding needs written down (by me) regarding the conflation of gender identity with autism-related puberty distress. If you believe your son may be gay or bi, the conflation of gender identity with sexual orientation (LGB) may be more appropriate here. LGB Alliance has lots of info on this.

I have also included links to changes in education, healthcare and law regarding gender identity for context. It's a great conversation opener and helps me to ascertain how likely she is to be protected from gender identity coercion in any given scenario. In most cases this coercion comes from a place of kindness, where the adults asking everyone their preferred pronouns etc don't realise that they are signposting the idea that everyone has a gender identity that could differ from their sex to children who may be confused about sex-based stereotypes and/or uncomfortable about their developing bodies/emotions and are looking for answers about who they really are.

I've only had one occasion where I was told my views were abhorrent and one situation where a health professional read the document, acknowledged it and then tried to get my husband out of the room (by asking my daughter several times if she wanted him to leave... despite it being a routine medication appointment, with a new doctor) after opening the appointment by asking her about preferred pronouns. On all other occasions, this document has been a door opener to positive interaction. For me, it's been a game changer in navigating this with professional support. (Unsurprisingly?), my daughter's distress turned out to be related to her autism not a hitherto stifled true authentic self.

The only other issues I've had were with the school. They considered me a danger to my daughter. A story for another day/thread.

Finally, I would say that if you do move your thread to the feminism board, it's worth being aware that there is a potentially unresolvable juxtaposition between the (predominant) support for a "belief in biological sex" (as this has won court cases under equality law) and safeguarding. Safeguarding requires a neutral position, where biological sex isn't positioned as a "belief". Thankfully the original case-law impacting court case (Maya Forstater's) also won protection in law for those who don't believe that everyone has a gender identity - this is the truly neutral position I.e. those that believe gender identity exists and those that don't, similar to belief in god/Allah versus atheism. There are lots of threads on the feminism board exploring this too. I found that getting my head around gender identity as a belief (the idea that we all have one that can differ from our sex), and that I ultimately realised I don't hold it, was fundamental. To this day, I still accept and recognise that others do believe in it and that that's OK. What's not OK is positioning that belief as fact.