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.

You're wrong; I wrote the below at 02:02, before the TRA accusations a few hours later around 8.30.

"I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you, OP. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to think of anything that might help close this gap between you.
It's possible you might just have to wait for the distance he's put between you to pass. It doesn't sound as if you've done anything wrong, and I'm sure he still loves you. I'd be angry as well as hurt, in your shoes. Fine if he wants to change gender, but imo there's no reason or excuse to treat his mother like this. Mine is dead and I'd give anything to have her back. I can't believe some people treat their mums like this. 💖 He'll regret it one day, OP."

I wish I could understand this all much more, but I don't/can't. I am the wrong generation. It is incredibly confusing.

My heart goes out to parents who are facing this. It must be horrendous on many levels. My heart also goes out to the young people who feel that they have been been raised as the wrong gender.

My ideas around all this are so simplistic: I wonder if we should be far more fluent in terms of the way we all dress and behave. For example, I think that I would love to experiment with dressing as a bloke sometimes (moustache/beard and all) and to, for example, go into a work as a man. I wonder what that says about me because I have no desire and have never had the desire to be a super-feminine woman and wear high heels or false lashes or even makeup. The genders are still so rigidly defined. I sometimes feel that biology is so restrictive.

I don't understand however how people would want to undergo surgery to become another gender. My mind just can't get round this. I wish someone could make me understand.

Its fascinating to watch in real time, people who don't want to see something from someone else's point of view even well they've spelt it out in detail because they are too busy projecting their own ideas and experience onto everyone else to pay attention

I actually found this statement so deeply ironic that I wasn't entirely certain which of us between myself and ND was being referred to.

If it was referring to me, then I find it unfair. I was trying to assert to a poster hellbent on framing ALL MTF kids as abusive misogynists actively trampling women's rights and demanding pronoun usage that whilst yes, this can be the case, it is not always the case and that maybe she could find some compassion for vulnerable autistic kids like mine who means no harm but have got sucked into this awful ideology.

It doesn't mean that I am affirming my kid. As I said repeatedly, it's a wholly distressing position. I have an adult child who wants to ruin his body. If I seek medical help I risk a much greater chance of finding affirmation than finding a gender critical therapist. And I can't stop him from seeking such help. All I can do is hold him steady as far as I can in an adult version of watchful waiting. I might be wrong but I believe that giving a little - accepting clothing and name change - might keep him away from the medical field and hormones for as long as possible. It's awful and it's not bloody "pandering".

No one is forced to live as the wrong sex. You just are the sex you are - male or female, and that will never change. A trans woman will always be of the male sex.

Meh. I posted at 4.30am this morning. Once again, avoidant when it suits. Excuses rather than engagement.

And strangley you had enough time to engage with others.

Hmm. Wonder why.

Always the bloody same.

@ChicLilacSeal, your posts suggest you feel compassion towards people with trans identities and want them to live happy and fulfilling lives.

There is a long history of psychology research and theory that suggests that psychological resilience makes a positive impact on quality of life. Psychological resilience involves being able to tolerate/navigate others holding views and opinions that differ to yours, without this impacting negatively on you. There are really successful interventions to support this. In the case of the young person this thread is about, they could enjoy the love and warmth of their family, recognising that different members have different beliefs about sex and gender but that doesn't need to get in the way of their love and positive regard for each other.

I think everyone's rights should be protected

And what happens when those rights conflict? Whose rights take precedence, are more important?

This

I find your longer posts pretty complex. Maybe I just don't have the brainpower for them.

Edit: To put another way, I don't have the same need to intellectualise the issue as you seem to, because to me it's quite simple: Kindness, understanding, and rights for everyone. Trans people have rights but so do other people. Trans people should live free of discrimination but equally should understand that playing women's sports if born male is not fair.

I am so sorry for what you're going through. Unfortunately there are thousands of families who have been affected by what is essentially a social contagion. Alienation and estrangement are very common ways of separating confused children and young people from their loving and supportive parents.

As well as Bayswater Support Group mentioned above, Our Duty UK also provides excellent advice and peer support from other, similarly-affected parents: ourduty.group/united-kingdom/

Well if thats what you think of yourself...

Maybe its the case that the issue is rather complicated and that affirmation only is brain dead to this and can't be reduced to the size of comforting tweet sized comments or thought terminating cliches like 'Be Kind'. And thats the problem.

I guess people want it to be easy and simplistic to understand. Sadly its not.

Personally I'm not going to try and simplify something complex for the benefit of others who find it difficult to understand, at the expense of actually understanding the full nature of the problem. Cos that would be stupid and damaging to all concerned too.

That's a very good question, and it encapsulates the problems with the trans lobby. They won't give an inch. They are unreasonable to play women's sport and to try to get access to women's changing rooms and prisons via self-ID. In doing so, they are trampling over women's rights. The activist lobby acts like only trans people have rights. On those two subjects, it's clear to me that trans people don't have the right to do what they want to do, because what they want is unreasonable, so it's not really a conflict. A test in a court of law is whether something is reasonable, and the trans lobby is unreasonable on some issues.

To engage with the issues on the same level as you would take far more time than I have to spend on this. I would have to spend weeks reading.

I don't think that affirmation-only is the way to go. I think that each case should be assessed individually. I said in my last post to OP that some young people might be feeling that they're trans for a variety of reasons but not actually be trans, or they might indeed be much happier living as the opposite sex.

they might indeed be much happier living as the opposite sex.

They can't "live as the opposite sex" because they are not the opposite sex, and no one really sees them as the opposite sex.

https://www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/

Bayswater Support Group provides sensible support for parents of trans identified people. They are the opposite of Mermaids so no danger of going down the medical affirmation route with them.

https://sex-matters.org/

Regarding your last couple of sentences, I believe that that's what the OP was aiming for, but her DC has distanced himself, sadly.

Agree about resilience, but I don't think that 18-year-olds who are at uni, away from home for the first time, and some of them suffering from depression, anxiety, etc. are the most resilient cohort. In fact, I think it's a real flashpoint for mental health in many young people's lives.

But they can transition to some extent.

But it's meaningless.

@RedToothBrush thank you for your brilliant posts. They are so clearly thought out. Sometimes the distress becomes so much that I can understand why families affirm, which would be fine if it were not for the harm that medical transitioning can cause.
Thank you also for mentioning the sunk cost fallacy. It makes so much sense when thought of like that.
I have read quite a bit on the comparisons with eating disorders and the need/desire of the autistic person to have control. Eating disorder clinics recognise this and they offer support to families going through this with their loved one regardless of their age. Gender clinics, on the other hand, offer no support to struggling families but merely affirm affirm affirm and act in a deeply unprofessional manner by not exploring the impact of co occurring mental health conditions and by driving a wedge between the trans person and their caring family. Just as the trans person rails against their parents so too does the person with anorexia but the dating disorder clinic, recognises the power of the family in supporting the patient in their recovery. As I write this down, it is dawning on me that the gender clinics are also acting very much like a cult and isolating the distressed young person from their family. Deeply unprofessional.

Not to them.

There is absolutely nothing kind about encouraging a child to believe that their atypical interests mean they are not a 'proper' version of their natal sex.

And that this can be corrected with drugs and surgery that will leave them infertile, unable ever to experience orgasm and without the vital development that puberty brings.

And that anyone who objects to this, or refuses to play along with their wishful thinking, hates them and wants them dead.

Nothing at all. It's not kindness, it's at best complacent avoidance of critical thinking, and at worst actively facilitating a medical atrocity.

Not to them.

Lots of things are meaningful to individuals but not to the wider world. They don't all get special treatment or carte blanche to behave in ways that cause harm to others.

But if a young adult says they are trans, and really means it, and has felt like it for a long time, and finally feels "right" when they live as the opposite sex, isn't it pretty horrible to deny their reality? (Their reality being that they feel better as the opposite sex.)

I was at a party yesterday (all women) and, kind of in-passing, one of the other guests mentioned she had gone to a WI meeting and the moment she walked in, she heard a male voice and realized there was a man there.

She was mostly concerned with which pronouns she ought to have used when discussing it, and obviously hadn’t thought about it too deeply. I kept my mouth shut as they were an established group of friends and I was new, but it struck me how obvious it must have been to every woman at that WI meeting, that there was a man there.

And of course, whether she thought about it or not, I assume various women would react differently, some rushing to make him welcome, others rolling their eyes and avoiding him, but he will never, ever live as a woman, because everyone there reacts to him as a man that they have to work around.

And whether the woman who mentioned it consciously resented the fact that there had been a man at her WI meeting, it was obviously enough of a jarring experience that she was still mentioning it to a group of unrelated women, several days later.

I'm happy to believe that they identify with the "trans" label, like I'm happy that someone feels aligned with goth culture or considers themselves a typical Gemini. I don't think they should expect anything else.