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 It looked so outdated and strange.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.

Sorry, @ColinTheGenderMinotaur, cross-posted with you, didn't mean to nick most of your ideas! You put it rather better than me as well.

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.

Yes and I think the "community" pushes them to do those things. And then they get validation and reassurance from it.

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.

No this is the pseudo scientific claptrap. You are mistaking secondary sex characteristics for sex. You cannot plot sex as a continuum on a graph. It is binary.

And we do have a "single test". It's about gamete production potential.

Stop spreading pseudo scientific misinformation please.

OP I would be very very careful if you need to get any counselling for any of your children.

We were made to feel like we had no right to be anything other than elated when our close friend transitioned. There was no allowance for the grief we were struggling with that comes with it.

It makes my heart feel heavy to read how the underpinning ideology here completely ignores, actually bans, discussion of how this affects families and their loss. I think Red described it as a grenade. That grief is absolutely real.

Those who believe wholeheartedly that we should accept without questioning, an individual declaring they are trans, how does this shutting down sit with you?

Acceptable collateral damage I'm guessing. Actually just the start of it.

"Gamete production potential" is a nonsense. So you want to say a women with total androgen insensitivity who looks female and is brought up as female is in fact a man because of some half-baked dogmatic biological statement and the fact that they have non-fertile intra-abdominal testes that are never going to produce gametes because their genetically defined physiology doesn't allow it? And all because you have a scientific dogma that human sex must be defined by "gamete production potential" and not by morphology and physiology.

That is really a religious statement, not a scientific one.

Gamete production potential" is a nonsense. So you want to say a women with total androgen insensitivity who looks female and is brought up as female is in fact a man because of some half-baked dogmatic biological statement and the fact that they have non-fertile intra-abdominal testes that are never going to produce gametes because their genetically defined physiology doesn't allow it? And all because you have a scientific dogma that human sex must be defined by "gamete production potential" and not by morphology and physiology.

That is really a religious statement, not a scientific one.

<<head tilt>> so you think your definitions of "looking female" and "brought up female" are the scientific definitions. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 No. I'll stick with what the developmental biologists say thanks.

<<head tilt>> so you think your definitions of "looking female" and "brought up female" are the scientific definitions. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 No. I'll stick with what the developmental biologists say thanks.

Yes I am saying that that is the definition of sex that should matter to us socially, not what biologists explain is how this has happened. And since this person will have a female birth certificate and a female identity throughout their life my definition is the relevant one.

Thank you so much to the OP, parents, siblings and others who have shared such powerful posts detailing the chaos this can cause in families. There are so many moving and powerful posts.

They're in stark contrast to some of the tone deaf comments from those showing no sign of empathy or concern for the futures of young people caught up in all this - just the cold mantras of trans allegiances and alienation.

The whole trans phenomenon is a fucking tragedy. Why we put up with this shit is beyond me. A man does not become a woman by wearing a frilly dress and talking like John Inman FFS. Get over it. You were born a man and you will die a man.

Honestly the human race has gone down the shitter.

That's it I'm quitting Mumsnet. I don't want to read this shit day in day out. It's so fucking depressing.

They're in stark contrast to some of the tone deaf comments from those showing no sign of empathy or concern for the futures of young people caught up in all this - just the cold mantras of trans allegiances and alienation.

This.

They are part of the problem.

The well meaning do gooders actually are causing a huge amount of the harm.

In preventing the exploration of WHY family members are struggling to deal with it, they throw them under the bus. They stop honest conversations which explore the reality.

This is a really important point thank you - I hadn't thought about my daughter no longer 'being' the eldest daughter.

I'm so sorry your post got deleted @RedToothBrush , what you have said has really helped me.

Those of you who are recognising the grief of the family, thank you. He seems so uncaring about it. He doesn't care about anything we feel. I feel he's mocking me and other women by dressing that way.

These are so at odds with my son's usual traits that I feel he's gone. I had been struggling with him leaving home anyway as the first child to do so (in a normal healthy way) and feeling a sense of loss and change there which ironically I had just got to grips with. Now we're left with a future where in all probability we're unlikely to have the same relationship I thought we would, either because he becomes estranged or we simply can't deal with him apparently mocking women with his dress and behaviour.

A few people mentioned the make up / dress of myself and my DDs. Ironically? Possibly because of? none of us wear much make up. I'm usually covered in mud half the time and soaking wet from being outside being active. I don't think DD2 even owns a dress or skirt. Both girls are very into male dominated STEM subjects.

OP have you have a frank discussion with him about why he's doing this? Why he feels he is a woman now and why he has chosen the clothes he has?

It's a difficult conversation, but it needs to happen.

OP you are in a shocking situation. What struck me was your comment, which I completely understand, that “l feel he's mocking me and other women by dressing that way”.

I know nothing directly about autism and I wondered to what extent someone with autism would actually be mocking women by dressing in this stereotypical way? Is there room for talking to him at some point about what women are? And why he isn’t dressing like you and your daughters?

Your description of his clothing reminds me of Hinge and Bracket. Did you ever watch those programmes as a family? Might that be a way in to discuss caricatures?

Morphology and physiology still means a male can't be a female. Anyone with a DSD has an anomaly, they have a disruption in the sexual developmental pathway and have absolutely zero to to do with Dave suddenly deciding to put a skirt on, slap some make up and a wig on, take some estrogen pills and declare he is now a woman called Davina and he is allowed to get his female penis out, that he fathered his kids with, while simultaneously saying he is on his period cos his words have created female reproductive system.

People need to stop using others medical conditions to enable men to do what they want.

Omg, just googled them as hadn't heard of them and yes this is exactly what he was dressed like!

This is a key point I think as to why he isn't dressing like us. We spend most of our time in jeans/leggings and a hoodie. He spent most of his time in skinny jeans and a hoodie. I sometimes swapped hoodies with him before he got bigger than me. He must know the women around him don't dress like this.

Autumnleaves, I commented on identity and relational identity too.

For me, this was a huge thing - role within the family unit.

Your son is literally marking his terrority as eldest daughter and removing part of your daughter's identity by saying he's now a woman. Its not a surprise that's why you are seeing the biggest conflict in the family between your eldest daughter and son.

Sibling rivalry was a huge factor which compounded issues in my family.

I do think jealously played a huge role. I think part of it was about power and control over me. My then boyfriend didn't help because he was all the things that my brother wasn't and he made a point of actively rejecting him and trying to exclude him. I think he always felt in my shadow (he's younger).

Your son in saying he is now a woman, he displaces your daughter to a lower position in the family unit. He is no longer the eldest son which is more equal to the eldest girl. He is the eldest girl removing her from that status.

I also had no idea how I was SUPPOSED to react. I was totally lost by it. Was I supposed to suddenly go 'yeay lets go shopping!'? Was I supposed to share fashion advice? I was being asked to treat him differently, but I certainly did not know how.

It made me question my own sense of feminity and self identity. I'd already gone through a period of wishing I was male but had largely come out the other side of that - my brother transitioned in his mid twenties and I was older. But around ages 17 to 23 I really struggled with it and thats slap bang where your daughter is. I think its a difficult age as friendships are starting to shift again as everyone approaches adulthood with many reconsidering who they are and who they want to be. Its a REALLY difficult point for her.

I think affirming him, will totally alienate her and make her feel second class - in addition to this relational 'demotion'. It will make her feel sacrifical.

My parents enabled and didn't challenge aggressive and hostile behaviour directed at me. I was warned to expect it too! I didn't speak to my parents for years because I felt they priortised his fantasy and didn't stick up for me when they should have been they were too afraid to challenge behaviour that in any other circumstances they'd have said something about.

This is the risk. The one people talk about is the alienation of the trans person. In practice what happened was my parents lost both of us, as my brother eventually just rejected them despite them bending over backwards to try and support him.

One of the issues is the spiralling need for affirmation. One I don't think can really ever be satisfied because the person themselves always knows and others can't do enough to counter that no matter how much they try. Affirmation can almost become like an addiction with a gradually increasing need for higher and higher bars to meet to 'prove' that you believe.

And likewise a well meaning parent who says uncomfortable truths is up against and competing with a cultlike mentality where a group to which an individual belongs, accepts and doesn't challenge or ask those difficult things. It is intoxicating and inviting to someone perhaps wanting to avoid reality. You have to have a very good relationship with someone to be able to be listened to against the simple affirmation only mantras. And this is where its important to note the cultlikeness of it - rather than beating yourself up for not being able to gt through to them or reason with them. You can't. They will only listen when they want to and when they are ready to. Cultlike adherence and online communities tend to be time limited because these social groups only sustain for a certain length of time for various reasons.

You can be there NOW for your daughter. Your son might well need you at a point in the future. But the manner in which he's told you, doesn't sound like he's reality looking for that support, at this moment in time. He wants validation now and thats different to support.

Reflect on these differences for each of your children in terms of their individual identities and needs...

Yes I saw a young man on the tube dressed like a granny recently. It’s like they haven’t actually ever looked at an actual woman, basically it is a caricature of one.
The irony being he was stood next to a young woman in massive boots, and a band tshirt literally looking cool and confident, what you wished you’d looked like as a young woman.

I might be tempted to let your daughters let rip. They are in the position to tell him he isn’t actually dressing or acting like a woman.
Im glad you haven’t fully embraced it, I do know someone who has done that and they have basically chosen a name which is a version of his sisters name, I can’t imagine how damaging it will be to her.

I do know someone who has done that and they have basically chosen a name which is a version of his sisters name, I can’t imagine how damaging it will be to her.

That's awful.

the daughter is a ‘golden child’ with 2 brothers and I suspect that might be at the root of some of it.

While I think it's nice that you want to be kind to people, "feelings" of sex and being "brought up as a sex" are not in any way scientific. It's you that's strayed into religion here.