Good morning all, I am a long term member, in the background who has not posted much but read alot.
Just want to help some parents who may feel lost in the great gender/sex worry that teens can bring.
My eldest child started dressing masculine when they turned 15, nothing of worry, I'm not really a girls girls, don't do make up etc. Liked she was finding her own style. she came out as bi and was comfortable. She started dating girls. She then started dating someone who identified as they, female at birth identified as male. Experimenting was fine with us.
I then get a call from school about her mental health issues. However they referred to her with a different name, a male name. That she had requested this and was identifying as male. I advised this was not discussed with us and she had not told us anything. Until she did she was still our Daughter and still use her real name.
She started cutting her hair short, I found a charity or online person of some kind sent her a binder for her chest. She wanted to go drs for meds. This was pushed alot by her partner. I knew this wasn't what she wanted, I know my daughter, she was going through a phase.
This phase lasted a year, that's it, she had a nightmare as the school put her GCSE certificates in her male name, she worried the binder had affected her development. She withdraw more due to this.
But with our support, and her leaving the partner who was pressuring her that she was trans etc she is now an independent grown woman, loving life and being happy.
Looking back at that time was such a stressful time for her and us, she felt alot of online information and people including school pushed her into believing she was trans as she wasn't body confident.
This is more for parents going through it now, this will pass trust your child they know who they are, you know who they are.