13 year old son says he is Transgender

[WBNAS]

I am looking for general support and advice from anyone who has experience of a similar situation.

My 13 year old son recently told me he wants to be a female, has chosen a new name. This has been a complete shock as I have seen no signs of this throughout his childhood. I responded in a calm and supportive manner, told him I would love him no matter what and that I'm glad he felt able to tell me how he's feeling. He's opened up a lot about what thoughts and feelings he has since last October and I've really tried to be open and honest with him, explaining that puberty can make us question our sexuality, gender and general purpose of self all of which is completely normal. I have not trivialised what he is saying but also not taken it as definite, which he seems to accept. I'm happy for him to experiment with clothing,, hair, painting nails etc but told him I feel he needs to let puberty run its course before deciding he definitely wants to be a female. I have told him for the time-being I can't simply change his name/pronoun and he is understanding of this. When I asked him to try to pinpoint how he began to come to this conclusion, he said it started with playing Minecraft online whereby his character had been accidentally put as female and his friends were laughing at it and he had a thought 'actually I wouldn't mind being female', it has progressed from there.

A little about him - I would say a typical boy, except not much interest in sport. Has a good circle of friends, some of whom he has told and are supportive. Has had one girlfriend age 12/13 for a few months. He spends a lot of time online animating and has actually sold commissions which is what he would like to do as a career which I am fully supportive of. He is very easy going and good hearted. I do find he can be a little sneaky e.g. going to bed then getting up when the rest of the house is asleep to go back online. But in general he has never given me any trouble at all.

I would like to know how anyone in my position has dealt with this. If I'm completely honest, I am hoping this is just something he is going through and will eventually pass, this is not because I am not going to be supportive and accepting, it's because I worry for what he is going to have to deal with in life and of course I want him to have the easiest life possible. My thoughts are that he may be influenced by things he's seen online? Is this a trend as has been suggested in some things I've read?

I want to reduce his internet usage without it appearing that I am punishing him for what he's told me. I want to trial whether coming away from the internet and the engagement he has with his followers etc will make a difference. However to set parental controls to no social media for example would block him accessing his animation account on twitter/youtube which would feel like a punishment to him.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

He spends a lot of time online animating

I'm surprised more people haven't seized on this. Is he on Tumblr? The crossover between the anime / animation community (and with the closely-related fanfiction community) and gender-querying is very well-observed. I went to a fascinating lecture on the trends of sexuality and gender representation in fanfiction communities a couple of years ago, it's much more extreme than I'd imagined. It's something Keira Bell brought up in her AMA - here's her quote:

'there appears to be a big number of straight girls/young women who have experienced some sort of sexual trauma and want to escape from being objectified, usually have no history of gender non-conformity ("ROGD") and tend to get involved with fan fiction/anime on sites like tumblr where it seems more appealing to be a gay man. That is generally what I have seen, however of course there are always grey areas.'

Sounds like you're handling this well OP. My instinct would be to enormously limit his online time: I'd pack his schedule with physical / offline activities for a few weeks (even just the remainder of the summer holidays) and allow structured online time. Block access to tumblr if he doesn't already use it. Frame it as a health / sleep hygiene move.

(Sorry, just to add - I am not suggesting Keira's point about sexual trauma applies to your son, I just wanted to represent her point exactly as she'd written it.)

Oh crikey, I'm sorry - I left the tab open before typing my reply, that was quite the X-post. Sorry to hear this has escalated, but it's excellent that you've intervened early to remove influence from unknown online individuals who could be dangerous. Managing children's internet presence to keep them safe is a minefield and thank goodness you've taken control of it now. You won't be able to control it forever, but hopefully you can keep things under your control until he's at a less impressionable age.

Maybe he just needs a wider set of role models. Males who are comfortable in their own skin but gay or goth or artistic and not into sport. Does he sport as a male thing?

Just read your update. You are not a failure as a parent, you’re doing your best to safeguard him. It’s worth helping him understand why you’ve needed to take these steps and what’s the risks are of talking to people who groom him to assume he’s trans

Personally I’d wait for him to reengage fully for a few months with wider interests and a wider range of people before allowing his screens back.

Hey OP You've done so well getting closer to the source on this one.

I'm not saying he's not trans. But I guarantee if you logged on as him for a week and read every message you'd go to bed wondering if you are trans. (don't do this obvs).

Repeated messaging is powerful. What else is brainwashing except the repetition of a message?

There is absolutely a pipeline from anime to trans identification. Good luck.