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 agree with your last statement. That's where I get thoroughly sick of the trans activists. They act like no one else has rights. Trans people should be accepted, but in turn, they also need to accept that their bodies are more powerful than biological women's and they should not be playing in women's sports or entering women's spaces via self-ID.

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.

Exactly, which is why the narrative that GC views are harmful to those with a trans identity needs to be challenged. Telling young people that they can't enjoy mutually supportive relationships with people who disagree with them about the nature of sex and gender is extremely harmful. ANYONE, who has a genuine intention to support people experiencing gender confusion and distress would let them know that beliefs and views only cause harm if you attribute harmful meaning to them. The mantra of 'be kind' is often paired with a very limited notion of what kindness is.

She was mostly concerned with which pronouns she ought to use and obviously hadn’t thought about it too deeply. I kept my mouth shut as they were an established group and I was new, but it struck me how obvious it was, presumably to every woman in that room, 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.

Exactly.

@ChicLilacSeal but have you considered how horrible it is for women to share their single sex spaces with a man who wants to indulge in their fantasy of living as a woman? His male privilege will allow him to walk into any female single sex space and force his presence on a natal woman. How is that scenario not horrible for a woman whose rights are being violated by a man yet again.

or entering women's spaces via self-ID.

There are no reasons men should be in women's spaces, piece of paper saying they are a "woman" or not.

Maybe you could spend some of your time reading respected sources and evidence. Perhaps Transgender Trend - who you dismiss as "anti trans"? Dismissing evidence without reading it because you don't like the source has all the hallmarks of a transactivist - which I know you state that you're not.

If you had done the research into the serial gaslighting of children by adults into believing that their bodies are flawed but a "sex change" is the solution, you may find it easier to appreciate the nuanced issues of being a parent and both putting in place boundaries yet supporting an older child?

So to 'engage on the same level' would involve weeks of research, you can't be bothered to do...

But you are happy to also dismiss me as 'just someone who believes its mental illness' and 'not real' and that this is not ok because we should just believe and be kind?

Rather than perhaps acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, I've done a hell of a research and have lived experience which might be really valuable and inciteful to others who find themselves in this mess and address a lot of things that people like you are happy to overlook in their quest to be seen to do all the right things and appear accepting. All because its 'too complicated and too much like hard work' to understand.

In short, you think its all about virtue signalling rather than understanding a complex issue.

Can you actually hear yourself?!

You really are part of the problem of why we can't address matters and actually help very vulnerable individuals and their families.

Its really bloody annoys me when there's such obvious attempts to smear others who really can't just 'walk away' from the subject.

Honestly, posts like this really bloody stagger me.

Give me bloody strength.

Well, you can acknowledge that they feel better, sure.

And when my son's spindly, fragile, probably gay and obviously vulnerable friend next comes round I will use the name they've chosen and make them welcome. But I'll be noting that they don't seem to feel happier at all, because 'the world hates them so much'.

The world doesn't hate them at all, of course. What the world is mostly saying it's that they are not, and never can be, female. That they can wear whatever they like but they should stay out of women's sports and spaces because they don't belong.

The kindly ones and the echo chamber tell them that this is hate. That the world wants them dead.

I say true kindness would have been helping this kid to analyse what about being a boy/man scared or revolted them so much; what female-coded qualities they felt they couldn't express as a boy, and work with them to realise they can, in a healthy, unmodified male body. To embrace reality, not live a scared, impaired life as a terrified medical patient.

It is obscene.

I think that GRCs should only be issued to people who have transitioned medically, including having had gender reassignment surgery. And no certificate means you have to use the changing rooms of their birth sex.

I mean, if a bio male has no male genitalia and is on hormones that suppress his male characteristics and others that give him feminine characteristics, by that point, to me he's not male enough for me to worry about him in a changing room. And I would probably call him her at that point.

If this person sounded and looked exactly like a woman would they therefore be a woman? How would anyone know? Does it matter? Genuine questions.

I find you too aggressive to really engage with, I'm afraid.

I don't understand why you're swearing at this. I think what I wrote is very reasonable.

Will hormones change his height? His shoe size? They certainly won't change his strength to less of an average woman's.

You calling him a she is up to you, but he remains a man. A eunach on hormones.

Frustrating and worn out by deliberate missing the point and obvious smears not 'aggression'.

Funny how you have resorted to that rather than admit properly that you don't actually have a clue but aren't willing to admit that because you think being nice and being seen to be nice is more important.

You don't have kids do you?

Will it change patterns of behaviour?

Nope.

That's nice of you.

Could you tell me where my Muslim friend and Orthodox Jew neighbour can change and pee in that scenario, please? Because by allowing in that man you've made the space mixed sex and now they can't use them any more.

They've lost 100% of their provision in order that a male gets his preference of all the spaces. What do they do now?

And don't even start me on the abused and traumatised women who will be triggered into full blown panic by encountering an obviously male person in an intimate, single sex space.

But hey, be kind right?

(Where's the kindness to women? Ever?)

I just laughed out loud at that.

If someone turned up at your door who looked and sounded like they were from the gas board would they therefore actually be from the gas board? Would it matter?

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.

The clue is in the phrase 'deny their reality'. When adopting the stance that individuals hold their own reality, what can be done about someone else's reality being built on sex being a material reality and that notions of what being a given sex 'feels like' denies their deeply held sense of 'feeling right'.

We need to find a way of acknowledging people have identities that carry deep meaning for them, but this need not/should not place demands or expectations on others. People may find the identities of others anything from benign to deeply offensive, why can't we both accept that these are the genuinely held identities of individuals and that individual identity does not require action from others.

Apologies if that sounded snarky! It wasn't intentional!

If a bio male has fully transitioned, you can't tell by looking at them that they were born male. Trans women who have gone through a full transition, including hormone treatment, usually look completely feminine.

Good for you.

No they don't.

And you're avoiding the question. Even if they looked female, which they almost always don't, they are not.

What do the women who can't use mixed sex spaces do when people have given their consent away?

• And when my son's spindly, fragile, probably gay and obviously vulnerable friend next comes round I will use the name they've chosen and make them welcome. But I'll be noting that they don't seem to feel happier at all, because 'the world hates them so much'.

The world doesn't hate them at all, of course. What the world is mostly saying it's that they are not, and never can be, female. That they can wear whatever they like but they should stay out of women's sports and spaces because they don't belong.

The kindly ones and the echo chamber tell them that this is hate. That the world wants them dead.

I say true kindness would have been helping this kid to analyse what about being a boy/man scared or revolted them so much; what female-coded qualities they felt they couldn't express as a boy, and work with them to realise they can, in a healthy, unmodified male body. To embrace reality, not live a scared, impaired life as a terrified medical patient.

It is obscene.*

💯