Your Teenage Child tells you they think they are Transgender

[sallyannemum]

Your teenage child tells you they think they are transgender, they have researched the subject on the internet and talked to others, What would your reaction be ?,

Yes dear very funny

Seriously though I would talk it through with her and discuss why she feels that way

What would yours be?

Low key 'OK' and then wait and see what actually happens.

Given one DC's quoting of the 'attack helicopter" meme, I'd expect pretty serious intent before saying anything to family. And of course you can't really stop teens doing exactly what they want to. But you can be there, come what may.

Conversation. Probably best kept low key ( in the car for example) direction would be History dependent i.e. Does that fit with my understanding and observations of the child or this is out of the blue? What else is going on in their life? How old are they? How much does it matter? If they are early teens and talking about drugs off the internet for example it may become a more challenging situation where I might seek advice - probably a doctor in the first case. I may just listen or gently prod or recount my own experiences of growing up. If it seemed serious I would probably feel sad and worried as you always want they easy path in life for your child.

I’d want to find out what had made them feel like they were unhappy in their own body. I’d be reinforcing that it’s fine for boys to wear dresses and have long hair. And asking them whether they were same-sex attracted and obviously reiterating that I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they were. And just generally keeping lines of communication open and cutting down on their internet usage!

I would thank them for sharing/ opening up, and reiterate that my role is to help them navigate life's complexities.

I would do some normalising and that it is common to think about sex, gender and identity during the teenage years. I would explain that adolescence is all about exploring different identities. I would reassure them that it is OK to feel this way and that they should continue to explore and think about who they are and what they want to be.

Change the WiFi password, buy a cheap non-smart phone for them. Remove internet access. Let them express themselves how they want, no drama. Don't make it a big thing/main topic of conversation. Reassure that they're loved. Watch and wait. If feelings persist for longer (with no internet), or are causing distress, find a decent counsellor.

Assume ROGD and help them to be their true self (without irreversible medical procedures).

It won't happen.
Mine are growing up able to recognise that stereotypes are meaningless, every person has a unique personality, and that there are male and female bodies. End of.
They won't suddenly start thinking that all they are the opposite sex inside their heads, because they know that isn't possible.
There are girl and boy bodies, but not girl and boy minds.
We talk about gender the way we talk about religion. That some people believe in many gods, some in one, and some don't believe at all. That you should be kind to people with different beliefs but you never have to pretend you believe the same thing, and that beliefs can only take you so far, before they butt up against reality. Which always wins. Also that sometimes people's beliefs can be nasty about you and very untrue, and you are definitely allowed to disagree with their opinion of you and your sex in general.

In such a hypothetical situation, my immediate reaction: "What will you be able to do once you switch genders that you can't do now?" + "Promise me you won't buy any fake hormones online tonight. If you need help, we'll support you." (to buy myself time to process). Depending on their age, in future conversations, I might ask them if they've also watched any videos talking about detransitioning on YouTube in addition to the positive timelapsed videos uploaded by transgender YouTube "celebrities" that cut out all the years of depression, pain, HRT side effects, prostitution work to gain funds for cosmetic surgery like FFS (in the USA) and gore (SRS).

Any parents out there, you need to watch the YouTube videos from young trans people promoting packers, stp packers, binders, tucking tape, etc.

This is the Feminism and Women's Rights section of Mumsnet.
If you want a Transgender section you need to request it of MNHQ.
Please take your relationship question to the parenting section.
Thank you.

@thebewilderness
I should have phrased the question as Feminists, I do apologise,

If you want to ask parents something about dealing with their teen age child the parents dealing with teen age children area of MN is designed just for you and your question, sallyannemum.

Nice to see you again, sally
baracker phrased it perfectly. I am sure you would agree that removing the straightjackets of gender stereotypes can only be good for children. Wouldn't you?

What if it was your early 30s daughter.........☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️😳

Id not contradict them or tell them they were wrong but I would down play it in order to see how it pans out. Id try and get them to talk about why they were feeling that way to see what the issue stemmed from.
Id let them dress however they wanted, call themselves whatever they wanted etc
Unless they were at risk of hurting themselves or I thought they were depressed I would not take them to a doctor....
I think if they were adamant for a couple of years then I would take them to a doctor to see what specialist help they could access.
I do think some kids are genuinely are trans but you do have to make an effort to see if its not inspired by normal teenage issues.... I had problems accepting that I was a girl when I was a teen.... was very upset by my periods and body... used to dress in my dads clothing.... but by age 20 I was perfectly happy with my womans body (well went on diets like many other girls but nothing extreme) and as an adult would say im very stereotypically girly and pretty happy with that.
Being a woman can be hard..... theres a lot you have to accept about yourself... its scary watching your body change, its scary when you see this weird standard of beauty set for you, its scary when you experience sexism and hatred directed against you for it, its scary thinking about pregnancy and childbirth and all of these things..... so its no wonder some girls find puberty very hard to deal with.
I do think teens need a lot of help sometimes in accepting and learning to love the body they were born with.

Sometimes that just isnt possible and a child is actually transgender and will go on to transition. But I do think its very common to have issues with puberty that may cause a teen to think they are trans when they are not.
I think altering your body in any way should be a last resort and that as a parent you do have to make some effort to try and help your teen accept their body even if in the end it turns out they are certain they were born in the wrong body.

I would take a deep breath, give your child a very big hug, tell them you love them then give yourself time to gather your thoughts.

Then read this:

4thwavenow.com/2018/05/10/the-project-of-a-lifetime-a-therapists-letter-to-a-trans-identified-teen/

I would be very concerned that they were on the verge of being sucked into a highly destructive cult, only unlike the moonies or scientologists the TRAs have managed to get the majority to go along with their delusional, child-abusing, homophobic ideology and my worry would be compounded by the lack of help that is out there and the cries of "transphobia" whenever anyone tries to address the issue.

It has happened to me.

I have a 16 year old son who last year told me he was transgender.
It’s awful. If you met him you’d have no idea. He’s very bright. Has. No special needs. He’s a bit geeky. He’s not feminine in any way. He has long hair but that’s it.
He lives in a home which is not overly traditional and no one could describe his dad as butch or anything similar.

It’s beyond bizarre.
I know he googled womb transplants!
So far, I’m ignoring it. He’s not doing much, I suspect there is lots of internet activity but that’s a genie I can’t get back in the bottle.

The whole thing is a bloody nightmare!

Well, first off, if my particular child were to come to me, I'd be very surprised, because he is intensely sceptical and free-thinking by nature, has a very good grasp on people and the complexities of their interactions, is very thoughtful about the difference between reality and the socially constructed, and about socially constructed things having real world implications (we had an interesting conversation the other night about "girly" clothes being at one and the same time a culturally arbitrary category yet strongly upheld by social consensus - which then led into a long discussion about money as socially constructed but having massive real-world consequences).

I've also brought him up to know that there are no "girl toys and girl activities" or "boy toys and boy activities" - that anyone can do whatever they're interested in. So he'd have had no pressure from me to "identify" as a girl because it was the only way of being allowed to play with a dolls house/get the pink shoes he coveted. He knows he can behave and present how he chooses, and that it does not matter and has no implications for some magical internal gender.

Thus he'd be unlikely I think to suffer from "social contagion", and so far in his life has shown no signs of dysphoria about his sexed body (and genuine dysphoria tends not to be sudden-onset).

However, if he did come to me, I'd talk, talk and talk more - more stuff building on early conversations about social construction, the reality of biologically sexed bodies, gender as an oppressive set of sexist stereotypes. And I would make it quite clear to him that whatever he chose to do to his body at 18+, no irreversible physical interventions would take place prior to that - including puberty blockers. I'd also be looking round for a counsellor who would come at talking to him from an angle of unearthing what was going on in his head, rather than the "affirmation only" model pushed by some people.

Formats this was me and my son. Indeed all my children and husband.
It was a bolt from the blue.
I wonder if it’s part of his free thinking and resistance to stereotypes that has pushed him so far. Eg: he’s such a big believer in personal freedom that this is proof. I don’t know. Sigh
I just hope it’s a phase. There isn’t much I can do after he is 18 but I’m not indulging it now. He can talk if he wants.
I’m hoping that the fact he isnt mentioning it much means it’s not all consuming

God, that's terrifying starfish. Hang on in there! Is there an angle with his investigations of "uterus transplants" with trying to go at the science with him? Talking him through how scientifically unlikely it all is? Also, re. the personal freedom angle, can you talk to him about the distinction between libertarianism and liberalism, and the whole idea that one person's freedom shouldn't impinge on anothers? Thus (going back to the uterus implants) ask him where the uteruses are supposed to come from, and what the side effects on the foetus are likely to be, and whether it's ethical to expose a baby to those risk for the sake of the personal freedom of the adult?

I guess you're doing all this already, but it sounds like his rationality is your way in! (There's a very good blog on fourth wave now by a mother who took this approach - just kept very calmly saying "you can't become a man - you can maybe choose as an adult to live your life in as close an imitation of what you believe to constitute living as a man as possible, and you can as an adult surgically modfiy your body to look cosmetically a bit like a male body, but you cannot become a man, not in any literal sense." Eventually her daughter desisted.)

That was my sibling, though in their early twenties.

Very gender critical, generally 'critically think for yourself' upbringing that we both shared.

My sibling was never one to submit to peer pressure. Flouted norms and expectations left right and centre. Wore hair and clothes exactly as they wanted, not as anyone else would expect.

Past the teenage rebellion, she just wanted to live, without always making a statement. Unfortunately, living the way she felt comfortable with necessitated 'making a statement' as it didn't fit into any expectations.
From at first 'coming out' as 'trans', she then spent about 15 years trying to fit in somehow without actually 'transitioning' - because she was so gender-critical. She felt, rationally, she ought to be able to live the way she wants (that sounds a bit entitled; I mean simple things, like, living free of harrassment and without constantly having to explain yourself) without having to alter her body. She fought for this (on a grassroot level). She felt that society's expectations towards gender are in need of change, not her body.

But unfortunately she found that living a quiet life when your behaviour and appearance don't match what is socially expected of your legal & biological sex isn't really possible in our society, unless you are prepared to continuously be making a statement, and submitting yourself to query, criticism, and ridicule.

The attempt was so stressful, it made her mental health deteriorate massively.

In the end, she couldn't take it anymore. Surgery was the only way to get her papers (bus pass, driving licence, bank papers, passport, ...) in line with the life she was living, the only way that allowed her to 'just live'.

For this reason, I support some kind of (well reflected and thought out) form of self-declaration. My sibling would not have had to have surgery if that would have been an option.
For this reason I furthermore do not think that 'trans' is a medical issue per se (though I suppose it can be). My sister was not 'ill'. It was society's gender expectations that caused her issues. There is nothing 'ill' about a male bodied person desiring to live, peacefully, in ways that are associated with female bodied people.

On this background, if either of my children consider themselves at any point to be 'trans' of any kind, I would totally support them in fighting for changes in society, towards the end that they can live the way they feel comfortable, without having to change their bodies. In fact, I continue to fight for this myself, and will support my children in fighting against gendered expectations wether they have trans issues or not.

But if either of them should have 'trans issues' I would equally try to show them that they sadly cannot expect huge changes in social expectations, and though it is a worthy fight, it is not their responsibility alone to change society. So if it becomes more than they can take, I would totally support them in finding a way to 'just live'. If that means changing their bodies, I would feel very angry that we live in a time and place where that is the only way, but I would support them every step of the way nonetheless.

Live and let live, if you don't like someone else's lifestyle you don't have to be part of it, as long as we're all civil and respectful of one another. I absolutely defend a person's right to be trans if they want to, but it isn't something I want in my family life. If my child expressed trans feelings I'd discuss why they felt that way and try to talk them out of it. If the feelings persisted they could transition at age 18 with my blessing, when they're no longer living under my roof and we don't need to have any further contact.