I have sympathy and understanding with them, that like @Messyhair321 if you have a child with severe mental health difficulties being Trans might seem like the least of your issues or even a relief if it seems to help.
But I'm also thinking about the social environment & type of parenting approaches that might lead 3 of your children to become Trans.
I'm increasingly thinking about how the parenting culture is more child led, focused on child voice, encouraging expression and finding your real self unencumbered by expectation, & parents accepting whatever this is. As if this is positive.
I suspect Carrie is this type of person. Even her Christianity is the radical unconditional love type.
But what does this do to children? In terms of their mental health which Trans occurs as a symptom of?
When children don't have expectations set for their behaviour and the roles they should play across their life, but they are encouraged to create this sense of who they are from their feelings without any constraint, what does this do?
It requires extensive focus & rumination on the self and attending to all feelings as important indicators. From this you have to create who you 'really' are. All feelings are validated as if they are reasonable and real and decisions are made on these passing feelings.
I think this creates an unboundaried open ended array of decisions and possibilities for young people and this in itself creates anxiety and to being overwhelmed by life.
Young people need adults who communicate an order to the world: roles you should play, your place in the world, how you should be in them, things they value, that some ways of living are better than others, the type of life they envision for you.
This then provides a structure within which to explore yourself. For some the boundaries placed will be too restrictive and we need to find ways to include those people but if we had clearer boundaries I think there would be fewer of those people.
Carrie Grant's family has made me think about how we are creating a mental health crisis as much as anything.
Of course parents can't isolate their children from the culture and any child is susceptible to these identity absorptions which undermine mental health.
I just think those children who have parents who throughout those difficulties still maintain some boundaries for them to push against: no your are not my son, no you can't change sex, I won't say things that aren't true, I don't think this is a good thing, have a much better chance of finding a way out of the ideology than those who go total full support.
I wonder if what Carrie has done here is an abdication of the parental boundaries needed over time. And in my opinion she continues to seem to be doing it.