If your child has come out as trans what are you doing?

[Eatingchips]

I suppose I am interested in this because 3 years ago my DD suggested she might be trans and it is ongoing.

She says that some days she feels like a boy and some days she feels like a girl. She considers herself non binary and has the pronouns they/them - she/her and he/him and wants all 3 used interchangeably. She has given herself a male name but we don’t use that because a diminutive of her actual name is unisex/male and I have always mainly called her the diminutive name anyway so we have stuck to that.

She has all her life been gender non conforming whatever that means or an old school tomboy and coming from that experience myself I have always whole heartedly embraced that aspect of her.

She has some trauma in her past. She also has many traits of ASD which are becoming more pronounced as she gets older and a diagnosed sibling and another sibling likely to have ASD as well.

She is fully out in school and this is rife in her friend group.

My main focus at the moment is to embrace what she says in order not to alienate her. She feels how she feels and since that isn’t rational I’m trying to meet her where she is at. I have told her that we will support her no matter what and no matter where this journey takes her but I have discussed the perils of the medicalisation of trans people and how it is unlikely that anyone who could recover psychologically if they despised their body all their lives no matter how much surgery or treatment they had. I explained to her that the brain operates on patterns of thought and just because you change your body if you continuously have patterns of thought hating your body then most likely it will take an incredible effort to shift your brain from those patterns of thought even if you’ve changed your body. That seems to have helped her to make peace with her body as it is at the moment because in many ways she is a very rational person.

But it is an incredibly tricky path and we are very reluctant to involve psychologists or medical professionals given the culture of the moment. What are others doing? I’d love to hear from other parents in a similar situation.

Thanks for starting this thread @Eatingchips . It's very interesting to hear how other parents are managing in this situation. To know we're not alone in this.

My child is over 18, in fact DC most likely waited until they'd turned 18 to tell us they were trans. And like many on this thread have acknowledged, once your child becomes a legal adult, the choices are up to them. I've subsumed my own feelings and beliefs in favour of maintaining a relatively positive relationship with my child.

We disagree on transgender issues, I'm not allowed to discuss these issues because they find my opinions upsetting (they can't defend their beliefs so would rather not have to hear mine).

My child is also ASD and despite a very expensive course of therapy with a gender identity specialist, my child continues to believe that changing their gender identity will resolve all their mental health issues - but of course as every adult in the room knows, ASD can never be resolved no matter what clothes you wear and what bits of your body you chop off.

As you'll be able to tell from my post, I tend to avoid referring to my child as either daughter or son, because each of these terms will upset either me or them. I have succumbed to pronouns though, because that makes them happy.

And that's the end result for us as parents, isn't it? That our children are alive and happy. Or as happy as they can be, however they manage that.

Yes, I probably do sound bitter, because I am. And angry. Angry that this ideology has been encouraged and given credence to young, gullible and susceptible children; angry that these children are misled and encouraged to embark on dangerous medical paths to embrace restrictive and suffocating gender stereotypes.

Will stop there, before I type something that might get me deleted. If I haven't already :/

The thing is, I think it's normal for teenagers to experience this kind of feeling of alienation from their bodies, and also a sense of fractured identity. Some more than others, but they are essentially leaving the bodies and minds they have had behind and find themselves in a body that is unfamiliar, and a mind that does not think or often even feel the way it did before.

The task of the teen years, psychologically, is to come to some state of, ideally acceptance, but at least a truce, with the body, and to being to form an integrated personality or identity.

Gender ideology as a response to that, I believe, directly undermines that psychological work, and can actually create further dysfunction. And so will in fact increase and prevent the natural diminishing of dysphoria.

@LittlestBaoBun

Yes, I see where you are coming from. I think everyone could be kinder, on all sides.

I strongly suspect that there are things that we might not agree on (for example, I think medically puberty blockers do cause harm, based on the studies and side effects, but whether they cause the least harm in a child who is really struggling is far more open to debate and has to be resolved on a case by case basis after exploration of the causes of distress).

Being totally honest, I don't think that TWAW, if what is meant by TWAW is a proxy for "female" (as some of the more vocal and extreme trans campaigners would have it) but I have no issue with referring to someone as their preferred pronouns or with a trans woman referring to themselves as a woman, or accepting trans women as women socially. For example in terms of the female/woman distinction, I don't believe that Emily Bridges (the trans cyclist) should compete against natal females, because it simply isn't a fair competition having experienced male puberty, but I think it is unreasonable and unnecessary to keep calling her a man against her express wishes on a public forum (which is what sometimes happens on here). She should have a separate category open to her where she can be celebrated as a trans woman, ditto Lia Thomas - I think this is the middle way.

I think there is also a middle way open on single sex spaces, but I think it does require compassion on both sides (and quite possibly a healthy dose of third/separate spaces for some scenarios). You only have to look at the threats JK Rowling has received (even if you disagree with her, she doesn't deserve rape or death) to see that it isn't just GC women who don't cover themselves in glory. I don't think anyone benefits from locking up a fully transitioned trans woman who kills her abusive husband with men, but equally I don't think we can just take it on face value that Jane (who was called Kevin 3 weeks ago) should be allowed to perform mammograms unchaperoned; it's only reasonable to build safeguarding into processes and to respect the wishes of those females who do find it traumatising to encounter someone who doesn't pass very well in a space in which they are extremely vulnerable, which means having some single sex spaces and options.

This will sometimes mean that someone who is a TW won't be treated as if they were a natal female - extra checks will be needed, some natal women will opt out. Similarly, I don't care what a trans woman and a natal female call their relationship, if it is also acceptable for a female to only want to date females if this is her preference - she does not require coercion or reeducation.

I think a lot of women on here feel very threatened, because we now exist in a climate in which a minority of trans activists call us transphobic whatever we say and wish violence on us. I think that "be kind" has been used far too many times to mean "shut up, you cannot talk about this, it doesn't matter what words you use". As a result, some GC women have adopted "let's not be kind at all" in comments on here, which diminishes us.

I thank you for your considered thoughts. Where children are concerned, I think kindness and compassion are key and it has been really helpful hearing your views - I agree that in a lot of cases you can be compassionate and supportive and treat your child with respect and dignity (and listen, even if you don't agree) without actively encouraging an irreversible transition before 18.

@MangyInseam

I don't disagree. Hence my view on dysphoria in children (I referred to "people" to mean not just children) is that watchful waiting is likely to be the least harm option, probably, for the vast majority. I myself became anorexic in my teens as a response to puberty - lacking physical
development as a result just delayed my healing and personal growth. But I know that is not the case for everyone. And adults are a different kettle of fish.

@morescrummythanyummy you probably captured most of my views in that post too. It is hard reconciling that with a daughter who is trans because obviously we all want our children to have every opportunity life has to offer.

I taught many teens who had gender dysphoria. I saw the hurt, bewilderment and confusion they suffered whilst trying to figure out who they were. I used to say I will call you whatever name you want, dress how you please but wait until after you are 18 before making decisions that are pretty much irreversible. I also told them if they had any doubts do absolutely nothing until you are sure. I taught a girl for four years that became a transman in Sixth Form. The other day I saw this ex student in town and did not recognise her. She had a baby in a travel system and was walking along with a male partner smiling and she said hello Miss. I looked at her and could not place her. She told me her name and I realised who she was. She said thank you for suggesting I wait until I was certain. She said she was going to have breast bound but decided to wait after what I said to her. She said after leaving school and her peer group she did not go to uni as most others did but instead got a job and met her now partner and when she met him she was then sure she wanted to be female again. She said her Mum told her thank goodness you listened to your teacher because you would not listen to me. She also said she was still in touch with two other friends who were also trans and one of them had recently reverted back to birth gender. I think waiting until person away from school friends who affirm their choices and asking person to wait until certain gives them time to either confirm or change their choices before they make irreversible physical changes to their bodies.

Possibly, but what research was done on them before ideology took over suggests that this is an incredibly tiny number of people, the number of girls were almost non-existent. And even so it was controversial whether transition was an evidence based solution.

So in terms of numbers, right now if your kid is buying into this ideology, it has a much better chance of harming to affirm. Even the stuff that is just social like pronouns.

What is maddening is that this is a problem that has largely been created by the social doctrine.

@MangyInseam

I don't disagree that there is a significant element of social contagion amongst girls identifying as boys. I myself would have been highly vulnerable to considering myself a trans boy as a teenager, so I do take this very seriously. But I don't think the solution is to deny that there are trans adults who have felt this way since children (a minority of those who will explore as teens, but it isn't always possible to work out who they will still feel the same as adults) or to shout down those doing the exploring (likely to be highly counterproductive in teens). As I said, loving watchful waiting (leaving an option to desist and an option to press on, whilst trying to keep from making irreversible decisions until adult) is likely to be best for most.

@Eatingchips

I don't disagree and I have a lot of compassion for you as a parent. I do understand what it is like to experience significant difficulties with identity and to not feel at home with one's body and I also understand that as parents we want our kids to be ok, to not experience hurt.

I think that the statement that we all want our kids to have all available options open to them goes slightly too far, at least reading it literally. I have a friend who took 2 gap years to try to get in to medical school; it was literally all he could ever see himself doing and it caused him great pain to think he might not. It was pretty obvious to me from sharing a chemistry class with him that there was no way he would ever manage to get the grades and, at the time, as someone who is quite prone to black and white thinking, I wondered why his mum was indulging the idea that he could employ different strategies/change schools/retake and didn't just let him down gently. Ultimately, he didn't manage to and is now successful in something else, using the skills that would have made him an amazing doctor had he been able to pass the academic element. Looking back on this now, I realise that his mum did know, she wasn't deluded about her son's abilities, she was giving him time to make his peace with the fact that what he wanted and what he could have were two different things (even though she might have told another mother in the same position not to do what she was doing - it is always easy when it isn't your child!).

I am not making a direct comparison or saying that being trans is a career path, or that it is a choice or something everyone grows out of, just that part of growing up and being an adult is accepting that everyone has limitations and there is often no perfect answer (as @LittlestBaoBun says, even too surgery is not the end, it is part of a process - for some people, it will be a very important part of a process) and that we can't always solve the pain that comes with that as parents (either by telling our kids to just stop doing the thing they think they want, or by changing the world to give it to them). It is extremely painful seeing it all play out sometimes though.

You sound like a brilliant mum, OP. I wish you all the best.

Thanks for your very kind words @morescrummythanyummy .

I think that the statement that we all want our kids to have all available options open to them goes slightly too far, at least reading it literally

Oh I don’t remember saying that, I haven’t checked back but I don’t agree with it if I did say something similar so I definitely should clarify. While I do think that all options should be available over the longer term which @LittlestBaoBun is an example of a person who needed some of those options, personally I believe full medical transition should be vanishingly rare because of the extreme repercussions it has for people pertaining to fertility/sexual function etc.

I want my child to become at peace with her body and mind as a trans person without a need for modifications to her body. Ideally I want the incongruity she is experiencing and expressing around gender to be resolved by her. In an ideal world I would be the absolute first person to bring my child to therapy to help her deal with these issues but I don’t think that is the best option for her at present.

As a result, some GC women have adopted "let's not be kind at all" in comments on here, which diminishes us.

What is it you mean by 'kind'?

I won't lie. I won't mouth things I don't believe. I won't submit.

Kindness can mean many things and depends on context.

Some would say it is 'kind' to accede to pronouns. Some would say agreeing to a pretence that someone can change sex is actually potentially damaging. Is it kind to affirm an anorexic's belief that she should lose weight? Or would it be kind, in that situation, to spend time listening to her, and challenge her beliefs with compassion and care?

In my view, real kindness is robust and is based on morals, reason and belief. It is not based on fear, a wish to be liked, or a desire to appease. It is more about action than words, to be honest.

I no longer care whether anyone else sees me as 'kind' or 'nice'. Women get inured, eventually, to the various insults that are flung at us. We have all sorts of nasty names called on here - eventually they roll off your back, because name-calling only reveals a flawed or weak argument.

Women know we will be damned, burned, and hounded whatever our choices; may as well stand our ground and speak our truth.

morescrummy, I hadn't read your later post about your history, apologies if my analogy there was insensitive - it wasn't directed at anyone in particular! I am reading posts out of order and skipping some.

Well I don't think anyone denies that some people have sexual or body dysmorphia that persists into adulthood. The question is what does that mean for those people and how should it be treated.

The problem with children is that people often seem to think that "watchful waiting" includes what they consider to be passive to neutral things like name and pronoun changes, even binding. Or frankly even saying things like "well maybe you are trans" as if that is a category of being rather than a treatment pathway. People seem to think this represents some kind of middle ground.

I think it's really important to realize that those things are not neutral. They contribute pretty directly to undermining the development of a stable identity.

As noted by Hilary Cass.

I think it's really important to realize that those things are not neutral. They contribute pretty directly to undermining the development of a stable identity

This idea really interests me. I had some severe trauma in my life that left me with PTSD after which (or really during which) I could honestly see my identity and sense of self crumble as I endured the ongoing trauma.

In order to prevent that from happening I read through everything I needed to do to put myself back into one piece and I worked extremely hard to do that.

There needs to be a better understanding of the conditions necessary to develop a stable identity and practical guidance offered to parents to help with that which can be applied to see if the incongruity a child is experiencing is permanent or not. One thing I will say though was that for me unwavering support from another person was one of the things I needed most to recover. For me that came from my husband but for our kids that comes from their parents. I know in my case there were times my husband had to let me believe what I needed to believe rather than attack some of the foundations I was building towards my recovery even if he didn’t necessarily agree with me. Once I was solid again with decent foundations then he could question things. Identity issues are complicated.

I try and say this gently OP as I recognise how difficult your family's situation must be.

If my son was gay and wished to present in a 'feminine' way I would 100% support him and validate his choices.

If my daughter wished to present in a 'masculine' way I'd support her and validate her choices.

If my dc told me they actually think they are the opposite gender (rather than merely identifying as), I'd look at and all out 360 intervention to help them feel comfortable in their own skin.

People cannot change sex and gender is a social construct. I am all for challenging gender stereotypes and would support my dc to present exactly as they wish without being deluded into thinking they have actually changed sex. I'd personally support a name change so that their name feels right but not a change in pronouns.

I want to see traditional notions of what women and men must present as and behave like in order to fit in transformed so that members of either sex can present and pursue interests in exactly they way they wish.

I'd worry if my dc expected us to pretend they have changed sex (not possible) and I'd be annoyed if they expected my to collude with this sort of delusion.

@Eatingchips Im listening to a really interesting podcast series “Gender: a Wider Lens” by two psychotherapists Stella and Sasha whose family names escape me (menopausal memory blanks - scary!)

They are amazingly knowledgeable and compassionate therapists who discuss all sorts of things about gender and sex from multiple therapeutic perspectives. They are mostly quite “gender critical” but also very open and enquiring about the wider view. For example, they interview the Dutch medicos who started the trend for “affirmative care”.

honestly, I am learning so much about child development and ideas about the formation of the self. It’s like a wonderfully warm and human self-help book. And I’m not in the least and never have been dysphoric - well only insofar as any female is tied into the cultural hatred & suspicion of female bodies.

I’d really recommend this podcast. It is evidenced, balanced, compassionate and curious. And their voices are like honey - I just feel so good and embraced while listening to it ( that sounds a bit weird, I know - I’m a hard-bitten rad fem!)

Your DC might also enjoy listening - they talk to trans people, they discuss types of transition and detransition. They want to reverse the NoDebate mantra to have rational and compassionate discussions of EVERYTHING.

In order to prevent that from happening I read through everything I needed to do to put myself back into one piece and I worked extremely hard to do that.

One of the themes of the Gender: a wider lens podcast is precisely about this. Both psychotherapists discuss the ways in which suffering, pain, and discomfort are probably essential experience of adolescence as ways of establishing separation from parents and integration. That is, not seeing things as either/or but as yes/and. Therapist Sascha talks about her practice as aiming for the integration of the self.

So, for example, a young woman can
^^ masculine social/cultural aspects into her reality as female.

That sounds like an amazing podcast @GoodThinkingMax .

I'd also ensure dc understand that their sex absolutely matters. If they have a male body, they need to be aware of certain reproductive and health considerations and if they have a female body, obviously they have a completely different set of reproductive and health considerations as per biology 101.

This as their bodies matter, not once they have been surgically or medically altered, but 'as they are', it's their birth right. To me this is affirmation and supportive, whereas supporting they convert their body to fit with what's in their minds and souls represents a violation of their human rights.

Ah yes Stella O Mahony. I will give it a whirl.

there were times my husband had to let me believe what I needed to believe

Well, okay, OP, but the relationship between partners/spouses is very different from that between parents and children, no?

A child has a need to know at a deep level, and have demonstrated clearly, that a parent will not allow a child to harm themselves (or others). Children (even half-adult young people) need boundaries: strong, clear, firm boundaries.

Sometimes they need a parent also to remove options. It can be terrifying to give a child too much responsibility. 'what do you want, what do you feel' all the time can be stressful.

Permissive parenting does this and results in frightened children desperately acting up looking for their parents to say a firm 'no'. That means that sometimes a child will deliberately test and push at boundaries seeking a parental 'no'.

I'm not saying this is easy, nobody gets it right all the time; but I think children need parents to lead by example, to demonstrate calm groundedness, honesty, integrity. Of course communication, compassion and listening are absolutely key to all of this, and it can be really hard to balance firm boundaries with compassionate parenting. Authoratative rather than authoritarian is not easy! It asks a lot from parents.

But also we often forget that parents need to parent, they need to protect, and part of that sometimes means going against a child's wishes. A parent has to exercise their best judgement sometimes to make decisions on behalf of a child.

www.ahaparenting.com/guide/teenagers

Authoratative rather than authoritarian is not easy! - It seems I might not even be able to spell authoritative, let alone achieve it. Mea culpa.

Ask my kids @PearlClutch they definitely don’t regard me as permissive 🤣🤣🤣

Thanks for the info I have actually read that site before.

I think from the outside it can be easy to have all the answers. When it is happening to you, it is much messier and more complicated.
We now use our daughter’s chosen name and pronouns at home. This was not an easy decision to make. Neither was it a decision we made on our own unfortunately. It came about as a result of one-on-one therapy my child was having to help her with self-harming/suicidal ideation (DBT). It was presented to us as being something my child felt very strongly about and that it would help her in relation to the problematic coping methods she had developed.
A depressed child that is harming herself wields a lot of power. It is extremely difficult to know what is the right decision to make as a parent. In our case we sought outside help and trusted those that were involved to know what they were doing. I’m not at all sure that they did now. So that’s why we are where we are. The one thing it has taught me is not to trust outsiders to understand what is going on.
Every trans-identifying child is different. They all have their own story. There are children that were gender non-conforming from a young age, another group that absolutely were not, children that are straight and others that are gay. Children with trauma, others that are searching for acceptance within a group because they are lonely and have no friends. Parents are for the most part just trying to do their best for their child. I might not agree with the path some parents are taking but who am I to judge.
My take on our situation is that our child has been indoctrinated by a cult. It had already happened before I could understand it completely. My job now is to build back up the relationship with my child, to ensure that she feels loved no matter what she believes. Even though I’m not happy about the name/pronoun part, it has taken the heat out of our family’s situation and allowed us to move forward in a way.

I understand it must be very hard to deal with, of course. But if one starts from roughly the place where you are now, it's perhaps and hopefully easier?

I've watched this movement over a period of years - we had the claim first of all that puberty blockers were entirely reversible with no side effects, then seen the NHS delete that assertion, then seen the Cass report sound warning bells, the enquiry into Sonia Appleby, Sweden reverse their policy, etc, as we have steadily started to unravel the horrible tangle that's been held up as 'expert' service for children/young people.

Various organisations/people that had declared themselves experts have subsequently proven themselves to be very much not trustworthy - I'm thinking of people like Drs Helen and Michael Webberley - who style themselves as saviours of 'trans kids' but have been found to have harmful and substandard practises and suspended/struck off (respectively).

Wishing you and your daughter all the best. I hope that you find a way through this, and can heal.