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 It looked so outdated and strange.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.

My guess is that what you are seeing is his fantasy girl persona whom he is acting out. Why he has chosen this in particular only he knows, but for whatever reason it appeals to him on a certain kind of level.

And this is why I am convinced this is more of a fetish type fantasy to avoid reality. Drag queens perform an exaggerated impression of what they believe is feminine, which is not close to reality.

why all this is acceptable I don’t know - since when has it been ok to insult women?

I could have written this, albeit slightly different ages. My youngest is a mid-teen and it's very, very cringe (and tragic for the kids who fall into it as they are quite vulnerable). My oldest DD is a young adult and all those she knew who were some kind of gender are either desisted, or very disturbed...trans didn't make them better at all...but the twentysomethings are starting to see this clearly now.

MN said my deleted post contained too many negative things about trans people and their intentions.

Cowards. Too frit to look squarely at real experience, or allow it to be seen.

That's interesting, I've always found drag acts, pantomime dames and TV such as Mrs Brown's Boys disquieting and offensive, and, since childhood, I've been told I'm being silly. Glad someone agrees! Hadn't realised the association with modern versions of 'trans women'.

So many thoughtful and thought-provoking powerful voices on this thread. My heart goes out to those of you who are living through and have lived through this difficult experience - especially when your voices are ignored or shouted down. It is so important we create space so that these voices can be heard. Siblings are not sub-human support creatures. And vulnerable people need protection, even if their vulnerability is currently trendy and encouraged.

Actually, gametes are the major reason why we need protection from men.

No woman, no matter how evil, can force me to become pregnant using only her own body. This really, really matters.

Autistic girls need more support with puberty than being told to "deal with it", especially when the sexual harassment starts from men old enough to be their fathers.

I agree that we should not be told that we can opt out of being female, because we can't.

Autumnleavesareslippery

Hi, I have not read all the comments. I have a trans son who is 19. If you want to chat at all, please do send me a private message.

It's a very difficult path but there is lots of support out there from other parents of trans children and adults.

I hope you will all be OK.

I suspect that your DD is autistic, as well as your DS. Autism is often missed in girls and is strongly correlated with a desire to escape womanhood. Autism was hugely overrepresented in girls referred to Tavistock. And autism has genetic components, meaning that the siblings of an autistic child have an increased chance of being autistic.

Was DD ever diagnosed with borderline personality disorder or BPD traits? Autistic girls are often misdiagnosed with BPD.

The missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis of autistic girls is a national scandal. The whole family is harmed when an autistic girl is misdiagnosed or undiagnosed.

Since forever.
It's never not been acceptable to mock women.

Same for my two sons [15 & 13yo] and their peers. They don't bully or mock those who identify / have previously identified as transgender or non-binary but are rather quietly embarrassed for them.

Sorry - yes in other posts I’ve explicitly stated DD is AuDHD so forget that not all PPs being reading my posts will have seen those. She has a side helping of OCD and social anxiety, all factors in rejecting messy periods, change and her increased social awkwardness - especially after 2 years in and out of lockdown. We also think she may be lesbian or bi, but not having had a romantic relationship yet this is not 100%

CAMHS were aware of her ASD as we went private for the diagnosis having been told the wait time was years. They (incorrectly) then treated ‘as though’ as though she was EuPD (despite simultaneously stating that they do not like to give an actual diagnosis of EUPD to under 18s) and having refused to refer her for and ADHD assessment because her key worker (not a clinician) was adamant that ‘she was just autistic’ - despite and extensive family history and high incidence of ADHD. We had to go private for that assessment, but had to wait until she was 18 as she was no longer at school and under 18 assessments require school based 360 reporting and we couldn’t provide those.

she spent several years on antipsychotic meds, which made things worse, during which time she was still on the Tavistock waiting list so did not receive any therapy as it was a trans issue that only they could deal with (apparently).

The ADHD diagnosis was significant, not least beacuse we went to a well respected unit where ADHD and ASD are the specialisms. The anti psychotics were stopped, and we’ve been trying different ADHD meds with varying degree of success. They weren’t the magic pill DD had hoped for BUT we also now have access to a great ADHD/ASD specialist therapist who is actually working with DD on her anxiety etc… and she is engaging at last as it is not about the trans stuff.

I think having the correct diagnosis and treatment plan is key, which is why I would urge OP to sit with her DS and try and drill down to what is motivating what he is feeling - is he isolated from peers, is his anxious/overwhelmed from his degree course, is he struggling to find a girlfriend or does he think he may be gay? And help him to find a therapist/counsellor specialised in working with ASD clients to help him navigate through those feelings.

edited - and yes, I totally agree that the lack of diagnosis and support for autistic girls is an utter scandal. We have considered suing CAMHS for the lack of diagnoses AND the lack of appropriate support provided in response to our own privately obtained diagnoses (which they accepted btw). She has lost 3 years of her life due to lack of care and her behaviours/symptoms spiralled as a result. Timely, appropriate and immediate assessment and intervention back when she was 12 may have prevented the suicidal ideation, the self harming, the damage to her life and self esteem… as well as the traumatic impact this has had on us as a family and our DS in particular.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this link to siblings and about my own part in potentially creating this trans identity/confusion in my son. He has been brought up in a strongly feminist household and has a younger sister who has always taken up a lot of space. He has always been the sweet, compliant older brother and she is loud and opinionated and not acquiescent. We have definitely tried over the years to make sure he has his space and to teach him to say what HE needs and what HE wants but I know we have also often followed the easy route because his sister makes such a fuss when things don’t go her way. I can see how, as described by others, he may well have grown up thinking it’s better to be a girl….god this makes me feel so guilty. We have over the years - especially in the last 5 years or so when the rhetorical backlash against “straight white men” happened and it was starting to be used as an insult, to talk about all the amazing straight white men who are empathetic and do good things and how he should be proud to be one (he believe he fancies girls not boys) but I worry it’s too little too late. They say your ideas about yourself and the world solidify by the age of 7….

i did ask him yesterday, for the first time in a long time, why he wants to be a girl and what is it about being a boy he rejects. But as ever he doesn’t talk or respond. I feel like we have a ticking time bomb as he goes to 6th form next year and I think he’s sitting on his hands planning a huge change in how he presents himself.

his sister being so affirming is probably absolutely validating his idea that it’s better to be a girl and she is making it clear she accepts him as one

This was one of my thoughts. I suspect he really dislikes patriarchal culture and has never fitted in with a lot of the boys partly because he's autistic and partly because he just didn't like football etc. He also has a lot of strong vocal women in his life. I'm also now replaying conversations he might have over heard over the years when I've got pissed off at 'men' i.e. having gone for a run and being heckled by several of them. Of course NAMALT etc etc but ... I obviously never said I hate men and have always supported all the DC to be whoever they wanted.

But then the dress wearing and stereotype of womanhood has thrown me. You can't hate the patriarchy and simultaneously buy into it by dressing in a mockery of women. But maybe he doesn't understand that he is.

@PrettyPickle Yesterday 21:04 I think you need to take a break, think about it more once you have calmed down.

Take a break from being the mother of a son who has started to behave in ways that are devastating to her, her other children, and the rest of her family?

Sympathy and respect to all of you who are in this situation - it is also pretty devastating for people who lose a sister / niece whatever to this thing and it is obviously long past time that you had a place on MN to discuss it and all its horrors. Compulsory affirmation is an awful policy, as is the deliberate destruction of family trust.

We’re about to start the ASD process for my son too.

we’d not talked about gender for ages, I was just relieved his mental health was better but I asked him yesterday and one of the first things he said was being excited to change his voice when he goes to sixth form. I’m back to the knot of anxiety permanently in my stomach

Indeed, thank you. I don't need to 'calm down', I'm not panicking. Nor do I intend to react any time soon towards him. He's away at uni so that's a help. Everyone has done a very good job so far of not reacting at all really. My main concern was how I now process the reactions of my other DC (and others) in the immediate aftermath. This thread has been enormously helpful in reassuring me that everyone counts in this scenario and he does not get to just care about himself.

I am so very grateful to everyone who has understood and taken the time to respond. You have really saved my mental health over the last few days.

I'm so sorry @AreTheyOrArentThey . It seems like any transition such as college or uni appears to be a chance to make a new start. Many of us did that to some extent looking back. I had friends who became / stopped being goths, changed from their 'posh' accent, left relationships behind etc ... this is just a worrying extension of that I guess. I can only hope that just like many of my friends they then grew out of it.

@AreTheyOrArentThey this sounds so complicated - I do wonder whether toxic masculinity/the rise in popularity of the Tates etc is connected to many boys’ desire to transition. I’m not rejecting the influence of porn and am wary of saying that sometimes feminism can be perceived as anti-male - my DH is an educated professional with decades of board level interactions with both sexes in positions of authority, and a champion for women in the workplace. However when I recently mentioned that I am in the WRN and would describe myself as feminist (my PhD is in feminist perspectives of crime fiction, focusing on the demonisation of the ‘mother’, so hardly a surprise, I thought), he was almost offended. His knee jerk response was that ‘feminism’ is anti-men, that it ascribes all society’s ill to men, that men are regarded homogeneously as a malign demographic. I was stunned, but I think men - young and old apparently - feel targeted by an anti-male narrative.

I think it’s fair to consider that if girls are opting out of womanhood because of misogynistic social trends (#MeToo, the Tates, the rise of extreme islam where women are utterly oppressed, a police force that contains sexual predators and thinks nothing of joking about raping partners and wives in its social whatsapps) then young men may be picking up on this narrative of toxic masculinity and trying to reject it. I can see how autistic men might feel that this emerging strongly negative masculine narrative does not fit them and the ‘if not A> then B’ cognitive process kicks in.

As a society we have sorely let our young people down. The focus on trans/LGB rights in the last decade has displaced work that could have been done on teaching YP/children that they are not defined by their biological sex, even if there are some physical/hormonal/developmental differences that need managing in different ways. When I was a Guider the brief was ‘Girls Can’ - ie girls can do anything that boys can [kayaking, shooting, archery] and provided a safe space in which they could explore these activities and build self esteem away from the male gaze. It wasn’t that ‘Girls are Best’ or that ‘Boys Stink’ 🤣. Boys and Girls need space to explore who they are, with respect to their biological sex, but also opportunities to understand how that does not limit them or need to negatively shape their behaviours.

Sorry, I am not sure I am conveying what I actually mean properly, but what I mean is that my form of ‘feminism’ is about equality - of opportunity and accountability - it is not about making men feel small or feel guilty but I think sometimes the message men hear within a ‘feminist’ discussion is precisely that. As feminists - as mums of sons, sisters and parters/wives - I feel we need to advocate for women without making men feel ‘less than’. I worry that some forms of feminism undermine our cause because we cast men as the enemy, rather than seek their willing and respectful collaboration.

Sorry, clear as mud as I am thinking this through as I type.

I grew up a very misogynistic household. I routinely countered it (fell on deaf ears). It fired in me a deep sense of injustice, but I never wished to be a boy, I wished for equality (I’m autistic for reference). I don’t believe that you caused him to be this way. Yes upbringing has an effect on us but I believe this is an extreme thing for him to do and I would be more likely to find the fault lies with outside influences.

This is a really moving and important thread. @Autumnleavesareslippery , I'm afraid I don't have any meaningful advice - but I wanted to say that you seem like a great parent who is focused on supporting all of your children and taking the time to grapple with these complex issues. You've had some great advice here and I hope it helps as you navigate all this. Sending love.

There have been so many great posts on this thread but thank you to @SisterofMCW in particular. Someone close to me is in a similar situation to you - sibling transitioning from male to female. I have been trying to support him and would describe myself as gender-critical, although with the luxury of not having to think too hard about these issues so a good dose of 'be kind' can creep in.

It was like a lightning bolt when I read your post -- I am now ashamed to admit that I have generally used his brother's preferred (female) pronouns when discussing his brother now (although not when discussing their childhood etc. - e.g. "shall we invite her"). I suppose I was swaying too much there being no harm in respecting how someone wants to currently identify even if I privately don't believe them to be a woman. But now I just think what an idiot I've been - why on earth would I care so much about 'respecting someone' who isn't there and demonstrating how tolerant and balanced I am in this context. And how this action just shows how profoundly I don't get it and makes me complicit in the harm siblings tend to suffer. Thank you.

You are deliberately misunderstanding me and twisting my words. I meant take a break from this site whilst she thought about all the comments.

DeanElderberry (and as it happens I) may have misunderstood you, but I am certain it wasn't deliberate misunderstanding.

I'm worried, @Autumnleavesareslippery and @AreTheyOrArentThey about the self-blaming thoughts you have in relation to how wider societal issues like perceptions of feminism and of 'toxic masculinity' play out in your own household and parenting. There is such an intensely strong tendency among mothers to try and find ways of blaming ourselves and I want to say very emphatically that the humanity and care in your parenting is evident and it just wouldn't be fair to focus on any real or imagined failings.
All of us, of course, to some extent internalise and perform various malign societal influences such as misogyny and resentment of certain male behaviours; all children find themselves by working though these currents in their parents and in their family.
What matters most is not for parents to be somehow immune from all the current that shape everyone's personality and behaviour, but that children can develop and respond to all these currents in an emotionally supporting environment in which we are all open to monitoring ourselves, apologising when we get things wrong, inviting our children to express any hurts that they feel and so on.

I also want to say that our own attitudes as mothers in relation to feminism, masculinity and so forth might be quite a minor influence in comparison with other aspects of sibling dynamics. Position within the family (older, younger, middle) is also extremely important. I know that in my own childhood my extreme 'tomboy' persona (which may have been twisted into a trans identity if I was a child now) was as much influenced by my status as a middle child as it was by my father's manifest preference for doing boy stuff with his only boy (my younger brother).
Another massive influence is being the sibling of a child who has severe problems, whatever those problems are - gender/mental health or physical illness. I think that at least one other parent on this thread has spoken of how gentle, compassionate, kind their non-trans-identified child is, and how they feel guilty that this gentle persona has contributed to a kind of reduced parental focus.
But I do think that the siblings of children with problems can sometimes develop into incredibly compassionate and self-sufficient adults, partly as a result of their early experiences. Of course we have to keep on reminding them that THEY ARE ALLOWED TO BE NEEDY AND NOISY TOO. But we can also accept, with gratitude and pride, any signs that their self-sufficiency and compassion might be genuine. My son's sibling (another boy, I haven't said that before out of obsessive anxiety about privacy, but it is material I think, since I think it would have been much harder for him in various ways if he was a girl) is astonishingly grounded, kind, functional. I can't believe it. But it is real. Some consequences of family trauma can be ok.
Anyway: TL;DR -- be kind to yourselves. You are going through a lot.