Teen declared they were trans and now says they can't be in contact with us

[crochetedcat]

As the title says really, I'll try to keep this brief but obviously it's complicated.

DS went to university and within a few weeks of being there declared he was now trans and had a new name. We were all rather confused as this seemed out of the blue at 18. He is autistic but seemed happy and doing well, good course, plans for the future etc. I've kept using 'he' here for clarity.

We decided to jointly take the approach to be supportive and to focus on everything else, didn't question it, carried on as usual. I was very aware that challenging it would not go down well, especially when at uni with potentially lots of people saying how awful we were for asking any questions at all. So we decided to take the 'thanks for telling us dear, that's great, how's uni going' approach.

Tbh there was very little change apart from when they came home for a visit in November they were wearing a bit of make up and had made changes to voice and mannerisms. This was difficult to deal with as it felt like the concept of being female was being stereotyped but again, we didn't react and continued to support. He happily went back off to uni after a few days of seeing family etc.

Christmas was the same. He came home for a week but was fairly distant. But we continued being positive and asking about course, friends etc etc - everything you would usually do. No one questioned anything and just rolled with it. The key point here is we have all been as accepting as possible, no one has said anything even vaguely negative, lots of enthusiasm about uni and life more broadly.

Then early in the New Year, we got a message that we were all clearly embarrassed by him and there would be no more contact ever again. It felt ludicrous tbh. The day before we'd been chatting on WhatsApp about his course and something I'd been reading. I responded asking where this had come from, that we weren't embarrassed and would support him in whatever. He said ok and asked about the dog as she'd needed to go to the vet. A completely unemotional reaction really to having just declared he'd never see his family again.

However I haven't heard from him since. He ignores all messages including asking him if he's ok. This was nearly 3 weeks ago. He's not great at responding to messages but would usually do so in a day or two even if just an emoji.

I am guessing the accusations that we are unsupportive are about his anxieties. Or wanting the drama of no one supporting him. It feels very similar to 'the script' of the cheating husband where history is rewritten to fit the narrative.

I also assume the wanting to cut contact is due to him feeling uncomfortable in his 'old life' because it's confronting and now his new normal where probably everyone is effusive.

I would bet money on new friends / the internet driving this.

But it feels so unreal and I don't know what to do next. Is it serious? Is he just never going to have contact with us again? Do I just remain supportive and sending him photos of the dog and articles I see about climate science and including him on the family groups, he hasn't left those yet?

I'm of course angry that someone could just send a message like that to his mother with no feeling. And upset. And scared etc etc

And then there's the minor fact I'm financially supporting him through university. I'm paying for the phone contract for the phone he used to tell me he was never going to see me again. Is he assuming I'll carry on sending him £700 a month to cover his uni halls costs whilst he declares he's estranged?! It feels like a younger teen yelling that they hate you and then asking what's for dinner and can they have a lift to town.

At a loss really and not sure where to go from here to have the most sensible outcome.

Thank you.

I don´t agree with you entirely. The old religion has been discarded and long live the new religion. It has always been like that and it always will be like that. Just without churches and priests.

I've read posts where people are suggesting he is a member of a cult. I think people would be interested to know what cult this is. There will be vulnerable students who's parents would like to know what's going on.

When I was at uni I got a knock on the door when living in the halls. Long story short my friends & I ended up going to a flat where we were presented with a beautiful meal. The hosts were so inviting & charismatic we were all doe eyed. At the end of the meal I looked at the huge picture on the wall. It was the leader of the cult. We suddenly realised who these people were & made our excuses & ran for the hills. I heard there were students who fell into the trap,stopped contacting their parents & left uni to join them. It's horrifying.

I’m so sorry, your son has been captured by a cult. Speak to the university (although they’re likely to support the cult do word it along lines of very sudden change in personality and distancing himself from family and friends and you’re worried whether he is safe.).

Drive up and see him. Explain you will always love him and suggest you talk.

if he keeps rejecting you tell him you can no longer support anyone financially who doesn’t want to be part of the family.

I didn’t say @crochetedcat s child was having a mental health crisis, I evidenced my assertion that university could help by sharing our experience of getting help for an adult at university. Adults often need help. There is no reason concerned friends or family shouldn’t expect a university to check if a student or member of staff is ok and offer support if appropriate.

Sorry you are going through this, OP. I think you have handled it as well as you can.

I agree with not cutting him off financially. I can understand the arguments for cutting him off. But I think it's like you said, that he has not thought it through. He is still young and, it seems, very vulnerable to manipulation. Cutting him off financially would just feed into the narrative he has likely been fed since he arrived at university. It would make a future reconciliation much harder.

There appears to be a link between individuals with autism and those who are susceptible to the trans-cult. I also believe that he expected a fan-fair the times he came home. I think it's good you didn't though, that would just have reinforced his believes. I also think that when he didn't get any special attention, that it must have reinforced the believe that you are embarrassed. It's a very black and white way of thinking. Only one type of response to someone announcing they are "trans" is considered "accepting" and "supportive".

With regard to communication, I would just back off for now. Keep the lines open. Communicate if he contacts you, but don't contact him first for now.

You have my sympathies. This must hurt. But he is young and immature. I think he will grow out of it and perhaps even cringe at his behavior in the future.

I would, however, not support him financially beyond his education. Just honor your promise to him, but don't make any more promises if he stays estranged from you, although I have good hopes that he'll come to his senses when he get a bit more mature.

I think you’re handling this very well, OP, and I agree that you shouldn’t cut him off financially during university.

The summer will be a decisive time, as what will he do if he doesn’t want to come home at all? I have a feeling that he will come home.

Exactly what I was going to say.

You need to allow her to cut herself off. I think you should explain what you're doing so it's not a surprise, but the basic message would be

• Sorry you feel we're not supportive. I'd like to know why so I can work on that.
• Your funding will stop.
• Please arrange collection of any property you wish to keep that is still in the family home, otherwise it will be disposed of at the end of the month.
• If you change your mind in future, please get in touch.

Suicide rates in trans youth are so high because of the lack of support.

correlation does not equal causation. You could equally argue that suicide rates are higher in trans youths because they’re mentally unwell.

OP, I would be so cross with his entitled attitude that I would want to cut the money off. How dare he thinks he can cut you off but still take your money. But you’re probably right and the best way of trying to salvage a relationship with him is to carry on paying. Will be interesting to see where he intends to spend the summer.

dd did something similar in her last year at uni although not trans related. She was living at home and commuting to uni and just disappeared and pretty much cut contact and wouldn’t explain why. I did not pester her with loads of messages. Just told her I hoped she was well, that we loved her and she was always welcome back. And then left it. She came back home at the end of year 3 as had nowhere else to go. She’s still at home two years later and our relationship is actually quite good.

Don’t feed into the drama OP

He wants to cause you upset and have you chasing after him.

Say you’ll always be here for him and the door is always open but you respect his wishes and leave it at that. Don’t contact him again.

He will come round….probably when he needs money.

There’s no named cult - that’s not what posters mean by cult 😂 people just mean that it’s ’cult like’, that uni can be a breeding ground for students to have an excessive devotion to certain belief systems. It can be ‘common’ for a student to fall into an echo chamber of people telling them to cut off their abusive, unsupportive parents. These other students have no true grasp of the ramifications of estrangement and what it means to truly be alone in the world with no emotional or financial support from parents. OP’s son has only just met these people, his family network have known him for 18 years.

OP I think your response is measured and I would hold strong. The uni years are full of drama.

Coming from parent of ASD young adult.

There’s the constant ASD noise going in his head all the time. From what I see of my persons “introspection and learning how to be”:

1. seeing others outward behavior and rejecting what they are doing
2. seeing others outward behavior others and trying to model a behavior-May adopt it
3. just rejecting everything and doing the one thing that feels “not anxiety/ bad” or just comfortable. Crocs, certain types of clothing, certain foods. Cut out what causes unease & anxiety.

A. Some behaviors seem to be deliberate repellers. I do this and people don’t get in my face. (Avoid social engagement). Spent all that time on social stories, communication groups, but really he doesn’t want to be in the group “getting along”.

B. Given all of the above: can being trans, goth, Jedi be a way to cope with “I’m not that - so I’m this”. Everyone in my group, is alone in this and we have an excuse for the isolation that we desire. You can’t transition to goth, or Jedi - not on a journey of transformation anyway. It takes years and years to get to the full trans so it keeps you mentally busy with your long term plan. So busy with your plan, can ignore rest of things that used to make you feel different. Can cut out anyone or anything that makes you anxious and can battle “discrimination” and lack of acceptance all day long because it makes sense.

just a thought

I suggest you read what the OP actually described as her reaction.

so many posters either never read the OP's posts or have dismal comprehension skills.

I wonder if your non-reactions felt, to him, as if you were ignoring this huge change in his life. Maybe it wasn't enough to continue with normal relations. Perhaps he wanted you to embrace the change. Ask his new pronouns, what plans he might have for any treatment, offer to take him shopping for new clothes and offer help with makeup etc. I'm sure this would have been pretty hard for you, but maybe he was hoping for more of a positive reaction than a business-as-usual reaction. From his perspective, I can see how it came across that you just ignored his news, even though I can also see that you had good intentions by continuing to relate to him as closely as ever, and not being negative about it.

I think if you want him in your life, you're going to have to embrace his new identity and be really positive about it, and help him with his new life per the suggestions above, and suchlike. This will probably be majorly uncomfortable for you, and I sympathise, but you might grow through the experience - and grow closer than ever to him, too.

When all is said and done, your child is still your child, and you just want them to be healthy and happy, no matter what their gender is.

Friends tried this after they 'got it wrong' by treating it like it wasn't a big deal.

They were berated for that too.

Suicide rates in trans youth are so high because of the lack of support.

How high do you think is ‘so high’? Suicide rates are no higher for ‘trans youth’ than for other young people with the same comorbidities.

However, they do shoot up after transition as affirming a delusion embeds the underlying untreated mental illhealth.

honestly? I’d cut them off. Of course I’d support a trans/ lgbt child, that’s really not the issue. The issue is the disrespect towards someone who is paying for their lifestyle. It’s your money that pays for rent, phone, new clothes and makeup. Absolutely not.
id send them a message “whether your my son or daughter I’ll support you no matter what, but your lack of respect towards me, the person paying to fund your lifestyle, isn’t fair or right. I need you to keep up frequent contact. If you don’t reply to this message by 1/23/4567 I will be cutting off financial support”.

When all is said and done, your child is still your child, and you just want them to be healthy and happy, no matter what their gender is.

Which is why they wouldn’t want him taking hormones and having surgeries that will cause significant harm to his body, making him a lifelong patient and lead to increased suicide risk. What is needed to be happy and healthy is therapy, and not by a therapist who thinks it is their role to affirm someone’s identity.

The situation is incredibly complicated and nuanced but whatever else, the one thing I would not remove is the phone.

Suicide rates in trans youth are so high because of the lack of support.

Yes support for people who identify as trans has NEVER been higher. Being trans has NEVER been more accepted and it's NEVER been more high profile than it is now. How do you explain that? What happened to trans youth in the past, when barely any of us understood what it was to be trans, let alone be able to go into any large town or small city centre and spot several people who appeared to be trans or non-binary by the way they present, in just one trip?

Where were all the suicides then? In fact where were all the trans people, come to that?

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that they were mentally healthier when forced to be in the closet. Or perhaps they just didn't exist in such numbers in the first place.

I would go to the university and see him in person. I would stake out his halls if he didn’t respond to my request for a meeting. I would probably pay until the end of the year and see what happens in the summer. Presumably he would have to leave halls then?

I think he's picked up on how you honestly feel, regardless of how you acted in front of him.
There's a perception that people with autism aren't empathetic or emotional.

As my autistic dd has gotten older she's more abe to tell me when she knows exactly what I'm thinking, even when I'm denying it to myself.

At the time it seemed like her emotional range was impaired, dimmed, but actually it was her ability to communicate that was dimmed.

If you want to repair your relationship you need to be completely honest with yourself, and then with your child.

Don't be hurtful, they already know you feel uncomfortable, you don't like their name and you're shocked and worried. But admit to them it's hard for you but you love them and you want to try.

In that case your description is indeed describing a cult I've since read people mentioning a trans cult ie enforcing their beliefs on vulnerable young people who adopt their views in order to be part of a group. If they encourage them to go no contact with their parents & live by their teachings alone then again that is indeed a cult lifestyle which is no 😂matter.

I believe people such as trans people have every right to live as they please. They deserve to be respected & accepted for their differences,without influencing vulnerable others who may be going along with the idea for the wrong reasons as is possibly the case with OPs son.

When all is said and done, your child is still your child, and you just want them to be healthy and happy, no matter what their gender is.

Who says? I want far more for my child than this and “gender” has never come into my hopes or dreams for them.

I agree here. Taking a hard-line stance and making money dependent on contact is dangerous. It feeds into a narrative that you ate controlling op. You cannot allow that. I do not think this is the time for being confrontational. Just keep being there.