DS is buying oestrogen off the internet

[Snowinsummer]

What do I do? DS told us at Christmas that he was trans (it had never come up previously).

He is on the spectrum & easily influenced.

He has had a friendship at uni with a trans man who is 20 years older.

I have always been gender critical & he knows this.

Tonight he has told us he's bought oestrogen off the internet from the Ukraine, as he doesn't want to wait for the NHS.

I am so upset & sick & feel like asking him to move out.

He has just graduated but has come home for a year before potentially starting a masters and he has a job in a coffee shop starting tomorrow.

Has anyone been through this & can offer some advice?

"Maybe it was clumsy. I was trying to express how much of a shock it was. People assume a girl saying she feels like a boy just be a tomboy or very masculine. She wasn't."

With a lot of girls it seems to be the male attention they get which triggers gender dysphoria, trying to escape from the attention on their changing body. I can imagine if she was very beautiful she maybe attracted a lot of attention that was too much for her. 😞

It's very trendy to be "trans" these days, but a
lifetime of artificial drugs and surgery has serious implications.
Your child is likely to grow out of it given time and space. I would seriously talk to them properly about reconsidering this lifestyle choice.

Oestrogen is not a controlled substance in the UK. It's perfectly legal to source your own and import it for personal use.

OP, if I was you I wouldn't bother trying to scare him by declaring things illegal when they are not. If he's autistic it's highly likely he's already researched this.

After doing some research it will be bought of someone called Lena from Ukraine who’s the main supplier. Here is the website he’ll be purchasing it from https://diyhrt.cafe/index.php/Main_Page
I think you need to get in contact with the gp, police,social services and the university. He’s a vunerable person due to his autism. The fact he’s prepared to take injections purchased online is proof he has significant mental health issues and needs intervention. Is there anyway you can approach the older trans person who he friends with?

Mumtothreegirlies has said it all .

@Snowinsummer firstly are you in the UK? Do you have access to private healthcare? If you can afford it, encourage your son to see a gender specialist therapist, if he is willing - there are a few therapists around who do not automatically affirm trans-identities, you'll have to search for them and check for yourself of course.

There's little you can do, given that your son is a legal adult. Only through discussion with him could you hope to persuade him, but I expect you know him well enough to know the likelihood of changing his mind.

@Mumtothreegirlies one could get in touch with all those devices as you suggest, but there's little they can do for the OP, given that her son is over 18. It matters not one whit that the son is autistic - he's a legal, functioning adult, even if you don't like or agree with his decisions: I speak from bitter experience with my own autistic, trans child.

I'm sorry also you're in this situation OP.

Any reason to assume that the oestrogen being sold is intended for human use or has been tested in any way that would make it prescribable in the UK?
There are medical consequences to self-prescription and good reasons why we require doctors and pharmacists to undergo extensive education and registration.

I wonder why he decided to tell you about these products he bought?
Is he looking for the shocked and worried reaction you appear to be making?
He could have just not informed you about his purchase and injected the hormone in secret.

If he is drawing up drugs and makes a mistake he could kill himself with an air embolism. Sorry to add to your stress but maybe point this out.

I found an empty packet of oestrogen tablets in ds bedroom. He is gay& swore they weren't his, he said a friend who is transitioning had them delivered to our house so their parents wouldn't find out. That was weeks ago & I'm still worried sick that ds could be taking them, he has moved out to live with his dp as they get married next month so I can't really check for more tablets.

Thank you for all your help.

It's been resolved (mostly!) except I still feel like I've run a marathon.

He's given me the vials. He'd bought the needles & alcohol separately from a legit site (he said they were)

He injected himself once. He'd bought 18 months supply. I have promised not to chuck it away (I keep my promises)

He's not moving out now but will go through the NHS instead. He did mention some another clinic but I asked that he went through the traditional channels (hoping desperately he will change his mind in the meantime).

We normally have a very good open honest relationship and this will be why he told me. We only just got back yesterday from being away celebrating his graduation.

So although he is adamant that is what he wants, I feel that I've bought us some time. I also asked that he try & talk to me first in future before making any rash decisions.

It was estradiol valerate 0.4g & looks like it was made in someone's back room.

That’s great OP, going the NHS route is a good solution. Who knows what’s in the medication he’s bought. In addition it sounds like its a controlled drug, which means it has street value. Although it is a safeguarding issue and he’s vulnerable due to autism, he’s also considered to have capacity. The medication ordering may have happened with the input of the older trans person? Who knows? Personally I’d get him some counselling to help him reflect

Sorry this is happening to you. Same with my sister, who is also on the spectrum, but she got testosterone prescribed with no evaluation from the same doctor who diagnosed her with autism (the doctor is a man who identifies as a woman).

Good morning OP.
Trans issues are the hardest thing I have ever dealt with.
I have a 20 year old FTM. I am now going to refer to her as she because there is no way on earth she is a man. We have had 6 years of trans ideology. It has been awful for our family. The fights, the self harming, the suicide attempts. I am intrigued by the reference to a trans man friend because that would be a natal woman. Is that correct? Is your son gay? Lots of trans people are.
My daughter is not autistic but has traits, she is actually a selective mute which popped up from extreme bullying including a sexual attack at 12. Like the pp with the model granddaughter my DD is very beautiful (I think beauty is sexless). If you can buzz cut your hair off and still look like Beyonce you're a looker.
My DD wanted to take hormones but it has a huge impact on future fertility. I found the links and sent them to her. I refused to go to any gender clinics. At 18 I said your story, you make the appointments. I have never asked her to leave and wouldn't. That is a dangerous game. I think these young people fall pray to a very dark ideology. They are actively encouraged to ditch their families anyway. It is cult like.
If it is of any help I suggest asking the question 'why do you want to be a woman?'. Few trans people can answer it.
I have employed two MTF in my time. One happy, one not.
You have to be very strong and say you are worried for his health, his life going forward and his happiness. As his mother you are entitled to an opinion. I am not transphobic but I do not think the majority of trans people are actually that. Statistically only 2000 people had full gender reassignment surgery per year ten years ago. There is now a ten fold waiting list. Very few UK surgeons will operate and there is a call for it to be limited to over 25 only.
Keep talking to him and appeal to his intellect. FWIW my daughter is changing and I see femininity creeping back in. It could be age or being around intelligent people at university.

Go for the facts.

He has autism, most people with autism know there is something different about them, often they look for the thing that makes them different, not realising it is the autism not being trans / non binary / in the wrong body.

He thinks he is taking hormones from Ukraine, he has no idea what it is he is injecting or the effects on his body.

Ask him what he thinks oestrogen will do to his body? He might believe he will grow a ovaries or other nonsense the trans ID lot say.

Then research, together what it does do. If it is what he is buying.

Ask him to go to the GP to be put on the waiting list for treatment and for blood tests to see what effect the injections have had. Sorry I have just read your update, he's already done this hasn't he?

True story

Many years ago when I was working in cardiology we had a patient who had started to transition, on modern parlance had had top surgery but then developed a cardiac issue that the surgeons believed would not be compatible with the stress of what is now known as 'bottom surgery'.

Every so often this person would take an overdose and be brought in to A and E. I actually thought at the time that if the person was so miserable then maybe they should be allowed the surgery even if they died during it.

How would your DS cope if he were to get in to that situation?

Good on the looker granddaughter for living her life I suppose but if you think the social experience of a conventionally attractive NT FTM and an autistic MTF will be the same you are having a laugh. OP’s son thought he found a magic cure for his problems but he’s only massively adding to them. So sad to read.

I agree with @sashh that you need to adopt a factual approach. As an autistic person, I can tell you that lots of us like facts, we like a logical approach, and we like to be able to make an informed and accurate assessment. Information is king.

We also tend to think that there's only one possible correct viewpoint - and that's ours. It can be really, really hard to think that someone else might have a point when their viewpoint seems so utterly wrong and illogical (I have some insight into how I am!) Imagine something you're 10000% certain about - and now imagine someone else telling you the opposite is true...you'd feel infuriated that they couldn't see the truth, right? That's how it feels a lot of the time.

So with this in mind, if you try to overtly persuade him that he's wrong, and that your views are actually correct, he's more likely to dig his heels in. Does he have any kind of demand avoidant or PDA profile? Because if he does, he's going to pull even harder in the opposite direction.

Does your DS have a tribe, a community that he connects with? A sense of belonging which isn't relating to gender might be useful for him. I wonder if his new job could be a turning point, if it goes well? Lots of us feel "other" and despite our difficulties, we do want to feel as if we belong (because we never do). If your DS were to find a welcoming social group away from the gender woo clan, you might find that his trans identity gently slides away without you needing to say much at all.

Can you make an adult safeguarding referral OP, is he open to adult services under the autism pathway already? Would he consnt to a referral?

Autistic kids often fall for trans ideology because of loneliness. They get a ‘tribe’ when they change sex but don’t realise the tribe falls away as soon as they transition. I suggest if possible you work to expand his social circle - prove he can have friends without transitioning

Somebody very close to e made that same sudden announcement of being trans, and was similarly fixated on drugs, almost as the only aspect of transition. They were sourcing drugs from the internet, but it was pills not injection. I just kept on with the mantra go to your GP, go to your GP, go to your GP. Which didn't work. And I made them an appointment with a private gender clinic in London - which we never got to, but which was importqnt in showing that I was committed to supporting them in taking safe and appropriate action.

If it was needles, though? I'm not sure, but I think I might have gone to the police since injections off the internet seem like a whole new level of danger.

Please be aware that one possibility (one amongst several since he may actually be trans or he may just have been sucked into a toxic set of online pressures), but one possibility is that the idea has developed in the context of a mental illness.

The person I have experience with was autistic and additionally was falling into psychosis. Psychosis isn't always highly visible and obvious, especiallly if you are close to someone who has always had certain thinking and communication difficulties related to their autism.

I spent months 'riding two horses' - trying to take all of the actions necessary to support someone trans and tryng to take all the actions necessary to support someone who was mentally ill and refusing help. It was a horrifying period.

Ultimately, the person was sectioned and received a diagnosis of schizophrenia. There was rapid significant improvement on anti-psychotics, and the idea of being trans evaporated. I want to emphasise that this wasn't an 'abusive' medication of any kind of genuine trans identity. The idea of being trans was fully a delusion, involving intensely pyschotic experiences of voices and cartoon characters talking to the person (which the person kept entirely private - severe psychosis is not always florid and obvious).
It never reappeared, all through the subsequent long course of the person's illness. I stressed to the person that they would have our support if they questioned their sex or gender in future, but the person emphatically told me they never wanted to speak of it again, and that continued to be their preference.
I believe that their intensely online life and the forums they fell into shaped this particular delusion.

(Whn I say 'they' it is not because of any residual uncertainty about the person's trans status, it is just to be as vague as possible to respect their privacy.)

The reason I feel it is important to speak of the person of whom I have experience it that 'being in the wrong body' (a man in a woman's body or vice versa) is a fairly common delusion in psychosis. And yet psychosis seems not to be part of the public discussion in this context (eg when debating the ban on'conversion therapy' or when talking about broader mental health needs of young people questioing their gender/sex).
Additionally, psychosis seems never to be part of the conversation. Parents are reasonably familiar with autism but are not generally very familiar with psychosis, which is equally common.

@Random789 I agree with a huge amount of what you have posted.

My DC was very ill after the attack. My child (at the time) had dreams and she thought they were real. She is medicated for depression (low dose) and finally has weekly counselling. The medication saved her life I believe.

Don't throw him out. Try to get him involved in social activities of some kind. The job will help but what interests him? Can you find him some hobby still predominantly male - trainspotting, birdwatching, computer game club, mens shed. Does he play any sport? Research the treatment with him so he knows exactly what is involved, focusing on those honest about the physical issues and risks. If he may be gay can you get him talking to LGB Alliance.

OP, how much does he know about his autism and how it affects him?

As in has he had much in the way of support/psychoeducation from CAMHS, speech and language therapy, EHCP support when he was a teen?

As an autistic person myself with autistic DC, the struggles of navigating an NT world with autism can feel very similar to the experience that many trans people describe in terms of feeling "wrong" and not meeting others' expectations of what it means to be a man/woman.

I realise it might be hard to find a non-affirming therapist at present, but I feel like some further psychoeducation to understand his autism and how it affects him (and to help him manage those struggles) is the best place to start here.

It's also really positive that he's still sharing his intentions with you and that he's listening to your advice.

Aside from the obvious danger with taking random drugs off the internet and without medical supervision (especially in light of potential cardiac issues), it's worth also asking him "what if you're wrong about being trans and this feeling is a part of being autistic in an NT world?".

If he tends to be quite logical, I would hope that he might be able to appreciate the logic of having some psychoeducation to rule out the possibility that his feelings are caused by a diagnosis he already has (the autism) before jumping straight into diagnosis of another condition that causes similar symptoms. Occam's razor and all that.