Trans Daughter

[itwillgetbettersoon99]

So here goes. Prob going to get destroyed us but oh well.....

I have a daughter who came from very a very bad start in life that involved a lot of child trauma , abuse, physical and possible sexual.

Since being a young child has struggled consistently with making and keeping friends, to the point where she was barely invited to any parties after age 8. When she moved to a secondary she moved to a diff one to all her peers as she had no friends and found it too hard so we put her in a diff school for to have a fresh start. The first 3 years she still
Struggled , no friends ever came round. We would have to do things as a family for her birthday as she had no one to invite.

Then we start year 10. A few months prior to this she'd just been diagnosed with ADD, possible ASD, was trying to have therapy for pyschosis, this had to stop until we got meds for ADD. In the past year she has told us she had an eating disorder (no evidence in anyway) she likes to self harm (plasters on her arms when no marks there) she said she was depressed 2 days after my husband started taking anti depressants after she accused him to all her friends of him sexually abusing him (she had to speak to social services to confirm it was all a lie)

So all this has been happening and a teacher who had no knowledge of any of this sort overheard her saying she wants to change her name to be a boy, and asked her if she wants the school to change it for her. So now since last year the school have changed her name and started calling her by a new name and referring to her as he/him.

The name was changed without any consultation with ourselves. We have now just received the meds this week and we are currently in the process of getting an EHCP to get her a more suited education as due to her ADD, possible ASD, pyschosis and trauma is unable to manage school, the school have also agreee that she isn't able to access school as well as she should. We're trying to do all this when she's entering her final year of school.

Anyone gone through anything similar, what are your thoughts? I will have prob left loads out, if you have any questions please ask ?

There's lots of support for you online and possibly locally too, dependent on where you live. So many girls who are on the spectrum are questioning their gender identity and it is often borne of social contagion. You don't have to be alone with this, search Transgender Trend as a starting point.

Good luck.

Depending on your view on this, you may find help on the LGBT children board or the Feminism Sex&Gender discussions.

There are help groups available, I have seen bayswater & transgender trend being mentioned as more balanced than say Mermaids which seems to be very affirming and pro-medicalisation .

I'm not surprised she wants to be a boy if she suffered abuse when young.
I am sure you are aware that girls with ASD also seem to identify as trans more than the average.

Personally I'd be complaining / raising it to the school as they shouldn't interfere without your consent, especially with a child from a trauma background.

Counselling? Post adoption support (if applicable to you?)?

best wishes.

Thanks, we raised it with school, their stance was they don't have to get consent and they also likened it to a girl callled Rebecca wanting to be called Becky.

Yea we have post adoption support, we have loads of help through various stakeholders as well as the adoption support fund.

I really feel for you, my DDs are adopted too and have their own struggles.

(I'm pretty certain there has been some guidance to schools on this area recently, the feminism board should be able to direct you to it I think).

I've been through similar with two of my own children and myself. . It sounds like your daughter has complex ptsd. Medication won't treat that, she needs intensive trauma informed psychotherapy before she is forced to accept the label of a personality disorder. Absolutely nothing happens after that, my eldest daughter (24) spirals constantly and the DRs just don't care. They offer her mod stabilisers that don't treat the issue, just zombify her. She needs to charge her behaviour but Doesn't know how. 6 hours of cbt won't cut it .

I have CPTSD and a label of bipolar I got the bipolar first, spent years on questions and ended up with serious damage from it. Then I got put on a medical trial and was offered 6 months of intensive psychotherapy and it totally changed my life. It saved me. I can now have functional relationships and keep friends. It took a HUGE amount of work but it was worth it.

This sounds very classis attachment disorder. I have two adopted girls who suffered terrible neglect and is text book attachment disorder.

I cant help with the trans side of this as that isn't something we have experienced (yet!!)

We went through so much with her - struggling to maintain friendships, morphing into the group of people she wanted to be with to the point that her own personality just disappeared. She found friends who were very into the church - she became a devout Christian until she fell out with them and the next group of friends were more alternative and she became a Pagan. She had a fabulous work ethic as a younger teenager until she fell in with another group of friends and now (at 21) she doesn't believe that you should have to go to work if the state will pay you not to!

Lies, oh the lies - she had cancer, she self harmed (like yours - plasters, no marks), we starved her, we beat her, my husband sexually abused her, she was raped by a boy at college (police were involved - absolute bloody nightmare)- you name it, it had happened to her.

It has got easier as she has got older - although I have to say that much of that is probably because at 17 she decided that she wasn't going to live at home anymore. She flitted from one boyfriends house to another (always telling the parents that she couldn't come home as we had kicked her out/we beat her/or some other concocted story) but also the lying isn't quite as bad as it was and the current boyfriend of two years is much more understanding of the problem.

We tried CAMHS (bloody useless), therapists (who didnt really get attachment disorder), allsorts of things. She is now seeing a psychiatrist which does seem to be helping but we couldn't access that until she was 18. More is known about attachment disorder now so I think it will slowly start to get easier to get help for those with younger children.

There is a fabulous group on FB - Attachment Disorder UK. Also look into theraputic parenting (Sarah Nash is a good place to start - there is a very good FB page). We learnt about this when ours were 11 and 13 and completely changed our parenting style. It had a huge effect on the youngest but I think the eldest was just a little too old to really benefit from it.

Sorry - I've gone completely off topic!

Hello, I'm late but your story seems very typical, your doing everything fine (well maybe the fact that you were refering to your kid as she but anyways) the thing that made me horrified is a website called transgender trend being brought up in the replys they are and incredibly transphobic group so please dont listen to them. You just need to listen to your child and they'll be fine.

Ah you see Middle you are starting from the assumption that this traumatised abused girl with ADD/ASD is a transboy. I am starting from the assumption that this is a traumatised abused girl with ADD who has seen all the publicity about trans and thinks it will make all her problems disappear if she identifies as a boy.

I don't know much about transgender trend. I suspect it is trans skeptic rather than transphobic.

I do also know that Mermaids is now being investigated by the charities commission and that enough evidence has come to light regarding their safeguarding that they shouldn't be touched with a barge pole.

And I also know that schools have been told not to socially transition children without their parent's consent.

Another adoptive parent to a troubled teen here. My DD1 is about to turn 15 and was recently diagnosed with ADHD and ASC. She is also registered blind, due to her in utero experiences, and has an A-Z compendium of other diagnoses. DD is in a mainstream selective grammar school but has NO friends there.

Interestingly, the only good friend she has out of school has recently socially transitioned and now identifies as male. This young person has also recently been diagnosed with ASC, has no other friends, has experienced the sudden implosion of their parents’ marriage and, as a consequence, has been sent to boarding school. Make of all of this what you will.

Personally, I would be raging at school as, like TeenDivided, I believe that current guidance is not to socially transition children without parental consent.

@itwillgetbettersoon99 , if your child is not currently on a Child in Need plan, would it be worth asking Children’s Services if this could happen? Due to various difficulties in our family home, my DD1 is now on a CIN plan and it does mean much more accountability from the LA. I have found post-adoption support to be fairly rubbish and very focussed on attachment issues only, whereas there is a mix of complexities here, as in my DD1’s case. Also, I’m afraid to say that I have found the ASF to be a gravy train for poorly-qualified ‘therapists’ who really should not be let loose near highly vulnerable children.

The school has overstepped and indeed current guidance is that you needed to be consulted and the option to disagree. I hope the meds are helping.

I really feel for you. No traumatised child should be socially transitioned. It is total nonsense. I hope she gets the psychological help that she needs.

Do not listen to the child about her identity she wouldn't know don't accept advice that will help push her down a trans path. do consult those who DO NOT AFFIRM THE NEW IDENTITY IF YOU DO WOW. One of the pieces of advise you have been given Transgender Trend accused immediately of being transphobic ALERT Anyone who contradicts the unscientific nonsense pedaled by trans activists and their supporters is IMMEDIATLY tagged as transphobic. (Anyone who questions or disagrees with trans believers faces abuse of 1 form or another especially Medical scientists and researchers ) That is all they can say after Tavistock, the Anna Lindgren Children Hospital, Finlands Department of Health, Swedens Karolinska University Hospital, Lund Hospital, The French National Academy of Science. The list goes on. Watch her activities on social media activists are there waiting to influence. Good luck and best wishes.