Can we have board for parents of trans identifying children and young people

[Nightmare2022]

I know trans is covered by the T in LGBT, but it’s not really the same experience at all as a parent. LGB kids don’t want to medicalise themselves for life, aren’t changing their names, insisting on different pronouns, aren’t mainly autistic girls with mental health problems. It would be good to have our own space here on MN.

@Bluerisotto that is a good suggestion to not allow activism on either side, and that would be ideal but I’m not sure how it could work in practice. Any suggestions welcome.

A non-judgmental place of support for parents going through this is what I am hoping for.

As an outsider it seems like a good idea to me. However it would need some self-moderation from the parents / posters to accept that different families will have different approaches to having a trans child. Every parent is trying to do their best by their child, however there may well be vastly differing views as to what 'doing their best' looks like in practice. Otherwise there may well end up being 3 groups arguing the affirmation group v the watchful waiting v actively trying to dissuade. (And calling different views 'hate' or 'child abuse' will probably not be constructive.)

What I mean is that MN is - on the whole - hostile towards being trans. Being trans is seen by many posters as a pathology or a mental illness. My DC is a trans person, I personally am unlikely to find it supportive or helpful to share my experience of being their parent in a place where their existence is described as "heart breaking", "self harm", "theory", a "time bomb" and "really sad" (examples drawn from this thread alone).

As I said, I completely respect the right of posters to hold gender critical opinions. It's also clear from this thread that other parents of trans people may find a gender critical environment supportive. Each to their own.

What I would find helpful is an environment where people are curious and open-minded, and where it's possible to explore the whole range of possible responses to having a trans child. I think we all know that MN cannot provide this.

I think trans is a different ‘issue’ to LGB.

Increasingly, I wonder if trans is an autism presentation. It’s almost never popular/outgoing/happy kids who ID as trans, it seems to be linked to depression/anxiety and social/communication/sensory issues. It really is the new goth/punk/emo/tribe.

Writing the paragraph above was really difficult because I want outsider-y kids to be popular and happy (DS1 is AuDHD). But I think we need to help kids find community in shared interests outside of identity and ‘feeling different’.

Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, but I guess I was commenting on the trans/neurodivergence overlap, which must surely be almost total? Parents of DC who identify with trans issues need to understand that their children are likely ND and therefore need quite specific help/therapy.

Thank you for saying a bit more @greensharpie. FWIW I think you're right, MN is unlikely to be a place that encourages or embraces young people transitioning.