My autistic 13yo DD identifying as gender fluid. Need help to navigate this

[Concestor]

I'll start by saying I don't believe in gender. You can't change sex. And gender is just personality. My DD knows I have this view but recently "came out" (her words) to us as "being" gender fluid.

I want to keep lines of communication open and keep her safe from the worst of this cult (hormones, surgery).

None of her friends identify as anything trans. She is off school long term sick and spends time online but not on social media (she's not allowed).

I'd appreciate any ideas on how to deal with this. At the moment I'm just telling her I love her as she is, and using her normal name and pronouns.

Does she understand the difference between gender and sex? If so, I'd just go with it, there's nothing wrong with experimenting with the social idea of gender (hair, clothes etc), like you say it's personality and everyone's personality is fluid.

If she doesn't understand the difference between sex and gender I'd have some gentle conversations along those lines to make sure she does.

Fine to be gender fluid. Sex isn't fluid and really dangerous to pretend that it is.

Part and parcel for ASD children at the minute.

The only way out of it if she's not influenced at school is to reduce online activity but it's everywhere now, even young children's cartoons.

I let DD do as she pleases at school but made my views perfectly clear and that I won't be using they/them pronouns.

For most children I worked with within secondary school the phase reared its head in year 8 and then reduced in year 11 or the move to college.

The attraction seems to be that children who feel like outcasts either through ASD, trauma find the trans/non binary community accepting so you have to try and emulate that through other areas. Sports teams, craft groups, volunteering with animals. Anything to give them a sense of belonging preferably a way from any form of media.

I wonder if it's just a phase she is going through as a teenager @zurala ,

I think it's quite normal as a teenager to explore ,question your own identity , ect,
it's probably been that way for eons of years as tranisational confusing phase of growing up into adulthood ,

The difference today, nowadays is the cultral society and peer pressure, seems to be a lot different,

as its become ,or can be real problematic terriority if not handled or percieved in healthy balance , of questioning rigorously the extreme far reaching irreversible impacts of body altering modifications top.

I went interestingly a few years ago to one of interestingly talks on this transgenderism, a former male mental health hospital nurse, and a former member of a bikers gang, when he was in his early fifties, decide to take the ultimate decision to have sex change become female and all that entailed to becoming female,
said knew from age 5 yrs age, allways prefer idea of play acting/more comfortable being female,

I totally understand that someone can feel this way inclined,
but disagree strongly on a child or teenager going on process, at such a young age, of changing into a different gender ,sex change, as that age, you are still learning, developing emotionally,/mentally/psychical aswell.

Interestingly at same time of Transgenderism Talk , there was a news story of someone who had started on process of this, in as much taking hormone treatment aspect of this ,
this young person of 19 yrs age, Regrets now doing this and is blaming his Liberal minded parents for giving thumbs up go ahead ect
so it was a test case news story.

I see gender fluid as being like David Bowie Pop star icon type of mindset ect.

Sorry I went off on tandem with my ubove post like that @zurala ,

I rember being very much Tom boyish and prefer tracksuits as a child too,
more fun...

Oops typo mistake too i should have said...

"That's nice dear"

I’m late diagnosed autistic (I was diagnosed after my children) so I deeply understand the allure of gender labels for autistic kids.

I didn’t feel like I fit in. I felt ugly, gawky and awkward. I wasn’t interested in boys or hair/make up. Puberty was rough.

In my later teens I started to reject feminine things. I wore CK One and CK Be (remember those?) and refused to wear skirts and dresses for years. I definitely would have called myself non-binary or gender fluid just to show how unconventional I felt.

Obviously your DD is in quite severe distress already if she is not able to attend school @zurala. I would be very concerned that “gender fluid” is a means of gently testing the water before adopting a more fixed trans identity.

Would she be receptive to a gentle talk about how autistic kids (girls especially) can be so easily convinced that their autistic traits are actually transgender traits?

Sex is different to gender

Explore with her what she means by gender and how it impacts her - it's likely to be quite negative , feeling wrong , being bullied for being different- but the people who say she is wrong are wrong and narrow minded

Help her untangle what is gender , what is sex, and how people assume gender because of sex

Lots of women reject the feminine gender - and I hope you would be happy to support and encourage that ? Are there ways you have rejected it ?

Telling her you love her , everything about her , is good

The attraction seems to be that children who feel like outcasts either through ASD, trauma find the trans/non binary community accepting so you have to try and emulate that through other areas

This is true. I yearn for the days when the outcasts and misfits found their tribe through alternative music - from goths to scene kids. That was the community I found.

We don’t seem to have many youth tribes centred around music anymore - instead it’s “queerness”. The kids who, in the past, would have found a friendship group, drenched themselves in eyeliner, hair dye and piercings are now all some flavour of trans, keeping the hair dye and piercings but dreaming of surgeries and hormones.

My autistic son did this at a similar age because he'd done a quiz online. (!) He wasn't in school either so no peer pressure from any friends but lots of people in his gaming group doing the whole pronoun jig.

We went out shopping and I told him to get whatever he wanted.
I showed him dresses and girl's shoes and bras and within fifteen minutes he was back in the car, mortified and saying "it's all bollocks isn't it?"
We then had a lovely chat about how he thinks he might be gay or bi.

This might be a sexuality thing and not a gender thing.

Check her internet history and see what she is looking at.

Have a listen to the Gender A Wider Lens podcasts from Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley. There's a lot but try the first couple and there are some useful parents' Q&A ones - episodes 23, 30 and 42. And one specifically on autism 18 and one with Tony Atwood 82.

There are no guaranteed answers. Try to keep her as busy as possible and as physically grounded as possible. It's more difficult if she is sick. Does she get out of the house? Does she spend time physically with friends? Ideally she shouldn't be spending too much time just sitting around thinking about her gender.

Seconding Amaryllis recommendation, that’s a great podcast series
I think I heard on it that Stella O’Malley has a book out, or coming out, in this area too.

Agree with everything said so far but would add

Listen to her - a lot. Listen 10x as much as you talk (to begin with at least) Ask her questions, and be honest. It is really really important that she

1. Ask questions that are about her feelings, tell her that you want to hear about her feelings because her feelings are important to you. Regular tips on active listening techniques are totally applicable

7 active listening techniques

• Focus on the intent and purpose of the conversation. ...
• Pay attention to body language. ...
• Give encouraging verbal cues. ...
• Clarify and paraphrase information. ...
• Ask questions. ...
• Refrain from judgment. ...
• Summarize, share, and reflect.

Here the refraining from judgement part mostly means treating her feelings as being genuinely important to you.

Sex is real, sometimes it matters. Nevertheless there is an enormous quantity of sexist bullshit teenage girls need to navigate and even if you aren't autistic this can be difficult. Reinforce that you will always be 100% on her side against any and all sexist bullshit.

Nevertheless it remains important that between the two of you you can talk honestly and openly about sex & puberty, sexual relationships & sexual orientation, conception / contraception.

@Singleandproud
"The attraction seems to be that children who feel like outcasts either through ASD, trauma find the trans/non binary community accepting so you have to try and emulate that through other areas. Sports teams, craft groups, volunteering with animals. Anything to give them a sense of belonging preferably a way from any form of media."

It goes beyond a feeling of acceptance (and a lot of members of the online trans community I would describe as predatory more than accepting). It gives a rational for their behaviour. Firstly it provides a socially lauded explanation for why they don't fit in or get social interaction: they're born in the wrong body with all the perks of special status that brings. Secondly - a double hit - it provides you with a model of how you should behave. Suddenly doubt and uncertainty falls away as you now have a stereotype of boys / girls for you to emulate.

Acceptance can be part of it but looking back at my own childhood a lot of what caused me some isolation was my own behaviour. I chose to act in ways that made me fit in less well and I could have been much more accepted at any time. Without even necessarily having to be that conformist, just willing to be less seeing myself as some special case. Of course at the time I didn't see that and I needed to feel I was different because I was unhappy with myself. So I think it's a special kind of "acceptance" that the trans community offers. It's a co-dependent one of a bunch of people, mostly online, validating each others' specialness. That's different, and frankly less healthy, than just being accepted by those around you. Plus there are ever-present predatory elements on confused adolescents.

Yes, gender fluid is really relatively harmless. She probably feels the need for an identity label as is common these days among young people. She is obviously in experimental stage, and just 10/15 years ago she might have become an emo or a goth - as a way to signal non her conformity and individuality.

If she feels she can experiment within the parameters of a gender fluid label then she hopefully won't feel the need to take it further.

It is concerning that is she is off school long term sick, though?

There were a couple of comments that reminded me of a book that my gender-questioning autistic daughter found very helpful in the early days of her wondering about her own gender identity:

Sex is different to gender... Help her untangle what is gender , what is sex, and how people assume gender because of sex

If she doesn't understand the difference between sex and gender I'd have some gentle conversations along those lines to make sure she does.

The book was called Sex and Gender and I felt it was particularly clearly and well laid out for an autistic teen. I worried that she might find the drawings childish but she didn't at all. In fact she had the book up on a shelf in pride of place for a long time. She told me it had been helpful in understanding everything.This is the book

Also, here's a link to my and my daughter's own story in case it helps.
I focused very much on helping my her to understand her changing body in relation to autism, not on gender identity. My only focus on gender identity was to remove any unconcious bias, as far as I could,Our story that might lead her towards a conclusion about her gender.

Our situations sound different ("gender fluid" was never said, for example) but with the autism commonality you may find some of our story helpful.

Sorry, formatting and grammar fail! Hope that's legible 🤦‍♀️

Thanks all, I'm reading and will pay a proper reply in the week, but to explain her illness, she had autistic burnout and now has chronic fatigue, agree is unsafe to cope with more than 3 hours of activity a day which includes things like showering and getting dressed (which take her ages). I'm not sure why a couple of posters find that so concerning? She has some online lessons and we see doctors.

Thank you for sharing that, it's really interesting.

My daughter is also autistic, also 13 and also longterm out of school because of school related trauma.

She is also gender non conforming but isn't saying she is trans or non binary identifying.

If your daughter is not able to access social media where is she getting the idea she is non - binary? Is it through You Tube?

I personally wouldn't make a big deal of it. Just say there's no wrong way to be a girl or a boy and I wouldn't go against it , as such, otherwise you might get the teenage rebellion thing going on.

Try to encourage, if she's out of school, healthy activities. My DD is massively into sport which really helps and she's made it on a girls county team in her chosen sport which has helped her understand that not all girls are only into tik tok/ make up etc.

My daughter and I do have arguments over trans issues, so I try to avoid discussing them. She is very much 'be kind' it's just not worth the kick back. She's generally very articulate but struggles to articulate the reasons why she thinks humans can change sex and precisely why she thinks JKR is an evil bigot.

None binary at 13 is not really a big deal. At least being away from schools you can't have them affirm her identity and put other ideas in her head.

OP off topic, has your daughter sorted Alternative Provision? Do you know that councils are responsible for providing an education she can engage with even if just theraputic. Many have Mind Jam (gaming therapy in their Local Offer).

Unless you have a child with autism in school it's hard to comprehend how damaging the school environment can be to neurodiverse kids.

Don’t over react.

love them regardless

Roll with it as best you can. The more you argue the toss the more they will dig their heels in and they’re clearly working something through so see where it goes.

the advice above about getting them into physical, community activities is great. There is little better you can do for someone’s health and mental health.