How do you support other siblings when a teen decides they are trans

[Autumnleavesareslippery]

I've name changed for this, have been a member for 19 years since pregnant with DS. I'm going to try and be factual as I'm in shock and dealing with a whole host of mine and my children's emotions. Yes I'm using 'he' here as none of us have got our heads around this. I'm trying to be very honest in how I feel and really need some support from people who have more of an idea about how to handle this than me.

DS (19) came home from uni on Friday. On Friday night at about 11 pm in the family chat he declared he was transgender. He informed us what he was called. It was an unusual name choice for a 19 year old - that of someone perhaps born 150 years ago. Think Enid. He told us he'd known for years.

All of us were in shock. I have DD (17) and DD and DS (both 14). I sent a message privately to him thanking for letting us know as I wasn't quite sure what else to say. He didn't read it and remained in his room. Didn't even bother with the usual teen response of a thumbs up.

Saturday and Sunday he acted completely normally, like nothing major had happened and he had told us he was vegetarian now or something. He seemed calm and relaxed. He looked exactly the same - a 6ft 2 broad shouldered man.

He then came downstairs to get a lift to the train station dressed as what I can only describe as a stereotype of what someone might think a woman looked like. Badly done make up. An odd dress that didn't fit. And started talking in a completely different soft 'feminine' voice and doing strange things with his hands that he must have deemed 'female'. He had lace like gloves on. It looked so outdated and strange.

The best way to describe it was he looked like Dame Edna or the character out of little Britain from 20 years ago in that the clothing was odd and it seemed almost designed to get a reaction. But he appeared to be deadly serious and nonchalant about it. A woman would have been clearly mocked if she dressed like it. It just leaves me wondering whether this is what he views women as?! Not that he knows any women who would act like this - he's surrounded by many women who express themselves in multiple ways but not in an Edwardian lady about to collapse way.

I drove him to the station trying to make small talk about the weather and his course and came back to everyone sat staring in disbelief. He's never said anything, acted in any way 'feminine' (whatever that means). He's at a RG uni, studying a science subject with 3 As at A level, and has organised himself a part time job. I only say this because life seems to be going well for him, rather than a potential response to something.

He is however autistic.

DD 17 is furious and says he's making a mockery of women and that woman is not a costume. She says he better not be going in female only spaces.

DD 15 looks stunned and keeps asking why he thinks he can just become a woman and what he thinks that means. She can't identify out of periods etc etc. DS 15 is laughing in disbelief. DH just looks completely confused and keeps muttering about getting loads of tattoos when he wanted to shock his parents thirty five years ago.

I genuinely don't know what to do next. Please bear in mind I'm in shock, had only just 'got over' my first born leaving for uni and all the emotions that brings.

I want to support DS19 with whatever gender expression he wants. When he still looked like him (and didn't appear to be 'dressed as' a mockery of women) I was shocked but we just thought ok, this is him experimenting with finding himself or whatever. But now I'm really worried about him and his future and whether others will look at him and think wtf. I'm also angry at the very (sorry to stereotype) 'teen boy' way he told us - late at night, no response, informing us what he was called rather than perhaps asking 'could you call me'. No consideration of the impact but I guess that might just be being 19.

I agree with what both of my daughters are saying. How do I say this because it then directly criticises DS? Do I accept he is an adult, has made his choices and my care and focus should be on them? I can't gaslight them and tell them they're wrong.

I'm now worried he's going to go into female spaces, as a clearly visible six foot plus male. This would make me angry.

He is at a university where I know lots of his lecturers (I am an academic in the same field). I know many are gender critical. Do I mention it to them first or let it be the elephant in the room?

I don't know what to say to my 85 year old mother. I think she will be very shocked and worried. I'm trying to work out if we have to tell her (she doesn't live nearby).

I don't know how much to talk to him or challenge this. I feel a kind of grief. I'm worried he's going to take hormones or do something irreversible.

We all dislike the name / think it's a very odd choice - which makes me feel very alienated from him.

And at the end of the day he's my 'baby' - I want him to be happy. I don't want people to criticise him. I want to support him but how do you do that when you question so much what he is doing? It wasn't the fact he declared himself to have a different gender but rather what followed - the declaration of name, strange clothing and fear of him going in women's spaces.

I also do absolutely realise he is an adult and can make his own choices and face the consequences. He has his own life (albeit he's being financially supported by us).

I guess it was just so sudden.

Any advice on what to do next would be gladly received.

"Is it harmful to live as the opposite sex" is a good question.
Does it mean "everyone has to pretend they are female and treat them exactly as you would a female" (yes, harmful - apart from safe spaces, there are medical risks)
Does it mean "everyone has to change their definition of woman to mean "male or female with an undefined collection of traits or feelings"" then yes, that's harmful.
If you treat people differently based on their sex, when their sex is entirely irrelevant, then yes that's harmful.

You mean PAIS and CAIS?

If the Mullerian duct has developed and the Wolffian duct atrophied, then we are talking about someone who may be genetically male but is going to have a cervix and most of the other biological female stuff, just without periods, and for most purposes should be regarded as female. They can't make women pregnant and will need some gynaecological care, such as cervical screening.

Whether CAIS and PAIS people should be deemed female for sports, I'll defer to sports governing bodies.

What CAIS and PAIS people definitely aren't, and the OP's DS is, is unambiguously a fertile male who wants to LARP as a female. So let's not pretend that androgen insensitivity syndromes have anything to do with the OP and her DS.

MN deleted because I used the cult word.

The trouble is the ideology behaves in a cultlike manner, often telling young people to disassociate with their families and because they provide a better glitter family.

There is plenty of evidence of this happening online and in real life trans communities.

The OP is potentially dealing with a son in this situation surrounded by people reinforcing the idea that his family struggling to deal with things are bigotted. It sets up a situation where many trans identifying people are primed before families even know, to be on the defensive and almost go seeking to test their family.

Every transgression or mistake therefore blows up out of proportion because of this cultlike behaviour.

It makes it harder for parents to counter and to have a rational approach. They can't compete with this cultlike behaviour.

As I say the degree of militancy the OP encounters with her son is highly relevant to how she deals with it.

The OP can't 'save' her son from this if that's how he's gone. He's made a decision to believe and you can't counter belief with rational.

It is important we do tackle and talk about the cultlike nature of this even though MN and the monitors don't want us to, because that's the experience that families are facing...

These are such important points. Thank you for continuing to post @RedToothBrush. I didn't see your first post and wish I had.

I just wanted to add also, mainly for OP's benefit, to be wary of posters who, doubtless in a desire to be helpful, are suggesting she encourage her other children to 'call out' their brother on his belief that he's a woman. Whatever stance you want to take on transitioning generally, the fact is that when there is an actual trans person in the family, instead of a hypothetical trans person in someone else's family, the spectre of estrangement is always there, just out of view but hanging over you like a threat. As parents, that's a nettle you have to grasp eventually, either boldly or by default, because as RTB says, your existence is a constant reminder of what used to be and, actually, on some level always will be. With my son, it's quite clear in retrospect that he was determined to find something to estrange himself from us over, whatever we said or didn't say (not that that makes it any easier). But that's quite a trip to lay on children. Imagine what guilt OP's son's siblings will have to live with if they speak bluntly and candidly, and that is the last they see or hear of him.

Since the idea that not being affirmative risks your trans family member suiciding has been largely debunked, the ever-present threat of estrangement has been the key weapon the TRA community has harnessed to drive mainstream acceptance of its ideology. We often read on the Relationships board about the "script" that cheating DHs use but there's a trans "script" too, with a flow chart that mostly ends up with NC in 72 point bold. Along the way, it mostly focuses on divide-and-conquer behaviour as far as I can see, so OP might expect individual siblings to be co-opted one by one and asked to keep secrets from their parents, or the parents from each other, or sometimes extended family will get roped in. The resulting network of secrets and lies is a large part of the grenade that rips through the family in my experience, though ymmv. So I think its really important that the rest of the family keeps talking about this, as currently you all seem to be on the same page and that will be a protective factor going forwards.

but he can live as a woman if he so wishes.

No, he can't. He's not ever going to experience life as a woman, only as a male identifying as one. Being a "trans woman" is simply another way to be a man.

Is that really going to harm anyone???

Yes.

Those of us who are, or justifiably believe ourselves to be, fertile females have a right not to fear rape and impregnation when using the loo, changing rooms, dormitories, etc. Hell, those of us who know for sure that we can't get pregnant have the right not to fear rape. The presence of any male, regardless of his intentions, causes us to feel that fear.

It's not about people being trans. It's about the perceived rape threat that all men pose because of the actions of some of them. The man identifying as trans doesn't alter the threat that women will perceive him as.

It was me who tagged you into the thread because I knew you had a perspective that could really help OP understand the psychological experience of being the sister to a gender transitioning male.

I’m sorry your time was wasted - I have found so many of your posts to be uniquely insightful in the years since this came to my own family’s doorstep - I was just getting to the bit where you talked about the disruption that occurs to everyone else’s identity, eg the Eldest Daughter with a Big Brother has her own family identity and personal history overwritten by the brother’s transition - now she is supposed to agree that she has always been the Second Daughter to an Elder Sister, which just isn’t true. Being able to be open and factual and state reality, (in OPs DDs’ case that would be something like, ‘I had an elder brother who started identifying as my sister after he left the family home’) is so important to retaining one’s own sense of self.

I know my exDH really struggled with being forced from ‘Dad-of-Daughter’ to ‘Father-of-Son’, especially as his daughter had always been quite gender conforming in terms of hobbies and appearance. If she’d been a lifelong tomboy he wouldn’t have had quite such a difficult time adjusting to the All-New Boy Persona (which he sadly found respite from at the bottom of a wine glass, hence the exDH phrasing). He felt like all his fond memories of the daughter he’d raised must’ve been false memories, even though he had the photos (and the social media captions) that proved these events had actually happened.

While I don’t want to use up any more of your time maybe it would be worth collating up some of your posts and making a blog site that we could link to in future?
Or perhaps submitting a guest essay to Children of Transitioners or Trans Widows Voices?

I am acutely aware that the sibling experIence is missing from both the pre referral-boom literature and the current discourse, which is a massive oversight (although I suspect there are a lot of sibling observation reports quietly filed away in the basements of the pioneering Paediatric Gender Clinics like the Tavi and the Dutch Clinic).

If, as I suspect, the spiked trend in younger adolescent females wanting to transition is largely over but a new trend in older adolescent and very-recently-adult males identifying as trans is now in swing, there will be an accompanying trend of sisters-with-brothers (and brothers-with-brothers, but this is the feminist board!) who are forced to deal with the family disruption that comes as a package when a relative announces a previously unmentioned gender identity.

It’s a whole additional way for Trans Ideology to negatively affect adolescent girls and young adult women and it needs to spoken about, siblings can’t be pushed into the shadows forever.

There are only two sexes defined, but some people don't fit very well into either category, and the measure we have used socially for millennia is sex at birth. This very rarely has to be revised for medical reasons. We don't need to be getting arbitrary definitions according to chromosomes, or other biological tests. The only time tests are at all important is investigating infertility and defining eligibility for elite sports. Otherwise we let intersex people stay in the sex category they are borne in. Socially it is binary, but biologically there are is a continuum and no one biological feature is paramount. I see no reason to whip up hysteria about athletes who have always lived as female but turn out to be intersex, with hysteria about sex being binary and them having somehow cheated. Ok some are ineligible for women's sports according to somewhat arbitrary rules (as of course are all males calling themselves females!) but we have known how to recognise males and females for most social purposes throughout history. Sex is binary is used by some as a pseudo-scientific slogan. All we need to say is that people are born and brought up as males or females, and while they might want to change that for some social purposes they can't be allowed to for all. But among a small but vulnerable minority sex is scientifically a continuum. That doesn't mean we can't rigidly allocate it for social purposes.

If you say sex is binary according to biology then you need a single test to define it, and there isn't one that always gives the right answer.

There is no way to ‘live as a woman’ other than actually being female. What do you think living as a woman entails?

Are women who drive lorries and drink pints ‘living as men’?

Some transwomen dress exactly as you describe, jeans and a hoody, no make-up etc. Maybe you just don’t notice them?

Like many men, then. And therefore clocked as men.

I completely agree with every word of this, and can I say what a relief it is to read posts from someone who totally gets it.

I was going to mention "love bombing" earlier but got sidetracked. That's why I asked the OP about his circle of friends and if she knew them.

I haven’t had chance to RTFT yet but my experience of ASD ppl (including my own DS although he is a tween not teen) is that I think it unlikely he’s doing it for ‘attention’ or as a joke in the way that an NT person might. While he may well be enjoying the feeling of ‘fitting in’ (however superficial that is in reality) many of the ND people I know just don’t understand or seek the validation of others giving them attention. Similarly, they just wouldn’t ‘get’ this being a joke. It’s not how their brain works. Though he is of course vulnerable to being used by others for this in a way others may not be. I think it’s fairly common for ASD young people to be emotionally immature compared to their peers so maybe thinking more like his 17 year old sister than a young adult living away from home.

Why is it sexist? We raise children to be what we hope will be the best version of themselves, not our version of who they should be. If he wants to explore this route, he needs to be able to talk about it, Mum clearly doesn't understand so she wants to talk about it as its all new to her but the family can be supportive.

@RedToothBrush & @Chersfrozenface- it might be the current womans fashion to dress like the Kardashians or Cardy B - its not my style, I find my own, in the same way that trans do. I don't want to be a Goth, Emo or Steampunk, it doesn't mean they can't express their style how they want. It also took me a while to experiment with makeup etc, its a learning curve and one her son has only just embarked upon - patience and support is what is called for.

Thank you to @SophiaCohle and @TransSister for sharing some of your own personal experiences too. Perhaps you have shared them before using different usernames (I certainly have!) but you have both given me new insight today.

And thanks to @MumOfYoungTransAdult and @Branleuse and @GatherlyGal whose names I do recognise but whose contributions to this particular thread are invaluable for both understanding a fuller story than the one depicted in popular media or given in EDI training sessions.

Because 'living like a woman's has no definition other than sexist stereotypes and because, as you point out you can't change sex, he can only ever live as a male pretending to be his interpretation of what a woman is.

It's meaningless gibberish we are expected to believe but has no actual rational or explainable definition based in any form of scientific merit or testable characteristic.

Women who have certain jobs and wear certain clothes aren't 'living as men' now are they?!

This is such a shame, as ASD children are particularly prone to it. I hope you can pressure him over time.

They can be a man in a dress then.

And use male facilities and have male services.

This thread is not about DSDs*, which are sex-specific, so that anyone with a DSD is still either male or female. Sex is binary (DSDs prove this - see previous sentence) and is immutable. You can't change sex. You cannot 'feel like a woman' if you are a man. I am a woman, I have no idea what it feels like to be one inside my head, I just know how it feels to be me.

*intersex is a term much disliked by those who have DSDs.

We have the narrative of 'you didn't accept me you evil bigot' and the threat of suicide to hold over family members and prevent honest and rational conversations.

It's not ok. And that really is a massive part of the problem.

In the OPs case this is effectively held over younger children by an adult. (Noting that autism is genetic so he may not be the only family member who is ND).

Families need to be able to have the type of difficult conversation that you might not have with others precisely because of the impact on everyone in terms of their own identity and their own sense of self and wellbeing.

A family where you constantly walk on eggshells and someone goes BOOM if you use the name you have been accustomed to using your entire existence for your elder siblings, is not a healthy family. A family were another member demands the correct pronouns or else, is not a healthy family. And this isn't just about the trans person.

The thing is, the people who are invested in the current day phenomenon of Trans Ideology (aka Transgenderism-as-Political-Identity as opposed to the previous narrative of Transsexualism as a psychological diagnosis made by a HCP) are not interested in what (to use the language of the ideology) ‘cis girls’ wear and definitely do not care what middle aged mums wear.

Trans Ideology says that OPs son was born with a female gender identity and that means he has always been just as much of a girl/woman/female as OP and her DDs are.

Consequently this means that OPs son knows just as much about being a girl, including dressing in ‘girls’ clothes, as they do (even though his fashion inspirations are likely cartoon girls from Japanese anime books, other males who identify as women and the accessory selection page of a video game).
He likely doesn’t want to go shopping in Primark or Superdrug with mum and sisters and learn how to blend in with actual girls/young women because the group he considers himself a part of consists of other males his age who identify as girls and they buy thigh high socks and pleated skirts from Amazon.
In his world he can even be a woman without ever doing anything to look like a woman at all, because transition can consist entirely of asking (coercing? demanding?) the people around him to call him Enid (she/her) while playing video games as a female character.

I’m not saying that pre 2010s style transsexualism is unproblematic btw, just that the current day trans phenomenon is probably quite different to what most people imagine it to be, it’s far more akin to a subculture of it’s own than actually wanting to look the opposite sex in a convincing manner due to debilitating, long term Gender distress/Dysphoria.

I don’t know OPs son, of course, but I do have 6 years worth of association with other parents of teens who experience transition ideation. The same stuff comes up over and over. It’s essentially applied Queer Theory, destroy all boundaries by ‘queering’ definitions.

Offering to give a male-who-identifies as a woman a make over is considered patronising , it’s ‘forcing a cisheteronormative appearance’ and ‘denying a trans woman’s right to bodily autonomy’ and is the action of an obvious ‘Bigot’.

Feminism isn't "intersectional" if sex isn't one of the axes of oppression.

"Living as a woman" is not a concept that much troubles trans people nowadays as far as I can see, not in the way that 1960s-style transsexual people understood it.

In my experience, transwomen don't think of themselves as "living as a woman", they think that they actually are women and, crucially, that they always were but just didn't realise it. That is why they think they're entitled to lay claim to the female experience.

The exaggerated female appearance, whether Dick Emery style or blow-up doll style, isn't to do with wanting to "live as a woman" imo so much as to act as a provocation to actual women, who are then positioned as the hostile enemy in the victimhood narrative. (Notice how the victims are then men.)

I think it's important to differentiate individual trans people from the underpinning ideology though. To me, people like OP's son are victims of the ideology themselves, until they start recruiting others or being hateful to non-believers.