Please help: looking for resources to manage DD who is saying she's trans

[CyanExpert]

Long Time Lurker here. I've found these FWR threads invaluable/eye opening/informative and generally all round brilliant. I

I'm looking for practical support and resources to help me with my DD who said last week she's trans. She is ASD, ADD, highly intelligent, in a group who are similarly all ASD/id-ing as trans or non-binary. I'm looking for any links on academic papers that refute the safety of cross-sex hormones, higher risk factors for same-sex attracted ASD girls who are more likely to identify as trans, risk of social contagion, any support for the 'but some people are born in the wrong body' views that I can gently counter (and then have the data/science papers to back up). Additionally, I remember reading on here via a link to a woman who had successfully 'scared off' the gender clinic her child was attending by filling in a comprehensive form of background information that made the clinic withdraw hormones (I think based in Scotland? maybe the form was from the Bayswater support group?). I know this is asking other people to search for information which I could spend time finding for myself, but honestly I am feeling so overwhelmed emotionally that any help and support would be gratefully received. Please note: I am not looking for supportive messages saying 'isn't it great your DD trusts you with this important news on her new and shiny identity'. If you believe in trans ideology, good for you - but I don't want to hear from you here! As a life long feminist (yes, middle aged, dried up old rights hoarding dinosaur), I'm astounded as to how this misogynistic and homophobic ideology has captured society ... and my daughter.

This is why I think Bayswater would be the best place to ask and be a part of

You can find a non affirming one. I did before I introduced my child.

I think this one is good especially if she will let you watch it together. It even discusses the degrees of autism and how that affects transition and detransition etc.

Also joining Bayswater TBH

That's sound.

First of all, OP, please look after your own mental health. This sounds like a difficult, stressful, and draining situation, and you need to be able to let off steam, find support, and offload. Make sure you have a good network of friends, family, professionals, etc. Bayswater is often recommended. And there's us on here, of course.

As for the parenting ...

I'm sorry, this must be very hard to navigate. Largely because teenhood is a time when your child is differentiating themself from you as a parent, and a certain amount of push and pull is totally healthy and to be expected.

My suggestion is as ever, active listening.

Sometimes very hard to do. Emotionally challenging. But very helpful and often healing for both parties, in the long run, too. As kids grow this becomes more like a thoughtful, calm conversation - with the parent doing the listening and 'holding space' for the child, trying often to work out what they are actually saying rather than the ostensible subject of the conversation. Talking while driving or walking can be good, so the focus isn't just the chat, as can making a point of hanging out - what we'd call 'special time' when they were little.

So while there is a shitonne of information out there and women here can link it up for you, as Loons says parenting through this may be as much a listening exercise and an emotional process as an info-data-and-evidence one.

https://www.peacefulparenthappykids.com/read/parent-teen-relationship

The woman who runs that site is unfortunately mildly captured, but the basic advice is sound.

A calm, Socratic questioning process, that doesn't expect to resolve everything all at once or even quickly can be helpful. Gentle challenge. Question beliefs without getting into a power struggle. If in doubt, don't feel like you have to make a judgement. You don't have to have all the answers all the time. You'll probably fuck up. Stay human and keep trying.

Lots of us here for you if you need it. Bon courage.

Thanks all for the advice. It makes me quite emotional reading it - both the empathy and the advice itself. It's all much appreciated.

She's so completely logical (in a very ASD way) that it completely baffles me that she wouldn't be logical about this. My natural instinct is always to revert to facts and logic and reason, but I can see that this is not the right strategy here. I'll have to learn to bite my tongue and perfect my active listening skills!

@CyanExpert watch it by yourself first.

Autistic people are overrepresented amongst both trans identified people and de-transitioners (Keira Bell, Ritchie Herron, Laura Becker...) Autistic people are also particularly sensitive to perceived or real injustice (look at Greta Thunberg and how far she's gone with her ideas). Autistic people are also at higher risk of being manipulated or radicalised. So yes, there is logical thinking, but it doesn't always protect autistic people from dangerous ideas.

I would very much avoid helping her to obtain medication (I believe still not impossible to get puberty blockers, though it's been reined in). Would she respond well to being told that there is a fair bit of dodgy medical advice out there, so it's worth waiting to see if "best practice" changes over time?

If she's autistic, she may have quite poor recognition that how she feels Right Now is not necessarily more important than how she will feel in later life. She also may not really have believed that she would have to become an adult (erm, trust me on that one).

In addition to all the resources listed (Gender a wider lenses was a lifesaver), I also find You must be a kind of therapist a good podcast. We (parents) registered to her course and we found useful approaches, although we didn't like it entirely (very geared to a US audience where medical interventions can happen really fast). Sasha Ayad is coming out now with what I consider the best resource, targeted to late teens/young adult, on YouTube. It's called the metaphor of gender. I would start to listen to it as a parent, and then see whether/when/how to introduce it to your teen.
After three years of trans identification and a big improvement of underlying mental health issues, we start to see signs of flexibility.
I agree with previous posters on the pill as the less of two evils, sport bras, and don't try to fight it logically/with information.

Contact Bayswater

Presumably as she’s bright, she knows your position on this generally already. If so don’t pretend otherwise but make it clear she, your child, is the most important thing regardless of your position. Stress you would feel the same if she was saying she was too fat or her nose is too big. That is you would be highlighting how to accept herself as she is, rather than seeking some kind of medical intervention to change.
I think it was Hadley Freeman who wrote about her anorexia. It was very striking how much of what she felt about her body, not fitting in etc etc has parallels with children claiming a trans identity. It might be worth tracking that down and using it as a starting point for a discussion. (I’ll see if I can find it).

Keep talking. Give her space to backtrack. .

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this.

You've had some great advice on here. We're by no means through it - and unfortunately my autistic, previously gender-questioning daughter is now getting all sorts of messaging at school from trans-identifying peers and from Be Kind staff - but I can share some points that have been helpful for us. They echo others on the thread. My daughter was 13 when she told us she thought she might be trans and asked us for puberty blockers. We looked at the NHS website and said no, based on the information at the time which said that the impact on the developing brain was unknown. Unfortunately that wording has since been replaced by something less punchy.

• I told her I would do lots of research and asked her to trust me that I would support her. She knew I had contacted the LGBT network at my work to learn more from their perspective as well (I stayed in the "trans parents'" group for about two years)
• I empathised that although it's difficult not having a fix straight away, the Cass Report (at the time it was the interim report) had been commissioned by the NHS and made it very clear that social transition wasn't neutral, that doing it changed how someone then felt about themselves right from the start. So she reluctantly agreed that it was important not to make pronoun changes. We have always taught the children about checking sources are reliable, which is why I emphasised that this was via the NHS
• we agreed it made sense to focus on what she didn't like about her body and make things more comfortable for her. The "deal" we struck was that it was important that it didn't "move her away" from "being female" e.g. it couldn't be branded or marketed as trans or gender affirming etc. As she doesn't like her breasts, I got her sports bras (we had to try lots of different ones due to sensory issues but eventually got there) and her GP prescribed the pill to stop her periods (this took a while to work and she nearly lost faith it would work but we got there in the end.... and TBH having the occasional breakthrough has been helpful in demystifying and normalising periods for her)
• I am very careful about professional help. We were lucky to get a good GP and after standing my ground (due to her initially being incorrectly recorded as "identifying as a boy"), we have good support from CAMHS. Recently, she's started with a counsellor but it took a very long time to find one and it's still early days.... I have to hope that the discussions I had with the counsellor up front will keep her protected from an affirmation pathway. She's been through intense bullying and a mental health crisis and is still really struggling with friendship, so counselling is something she really needs ATM
• It's been an... interesting... journey with the school. I can now see where the Be Kind agenda is being driven from and have achieved as much as I'm ever likely going to to mitigate it. The school is putting her at unnecessary risk so I am a) keeping a risk log and managing each risk as appropriate....the school is somewhat reluctantly accepting this and there are some individual staff who are helpful b) using her EHCP process to capture her needs re autism-related puberty distress .... this one seemed on track but got derailed by the Local Authority delaying it... for over 2 years. I'm still working on that... I've had to develop a very thick skin on how the school (and now the Local Authority) view me as a parent. So far, I've been referred to Children's Services twice, for example. My advice here would be to politely and carefully stand your ground. I've spent a lot of time listening and liaising with the school about gender identity - although it's not sorted, I have gained valuable support from certain individual staff members along the way. I ended up having a similar experience with Children's Services when I asked for the second referral to stay open, even when they said they were happy to close it as it was clear that we were supporting our family well - they effectively became a fly on the wall with everything that was happening
• I am gathering information about the impact of testosterone on the female body. She knows that I'm doing this research and has already done some herself. Occasionally I have mentioned things to her that appeal to her logic, such as how obvious it is that it puts a significant strain on the heart when we already know how dangerous this is from the gym-addicted men who have tragically died from this. She currently seems to be in a place where she thinks it's unsafe but wishes there was a safe way to do these things... I have to bite my tongue quite a bit (and sometimes don't manage to do so)
• I've realised that I'm going to push her away if I don't step towards her recent (beginning to get close) friendship with a trans-identifying girl. She's 16 now and this kind of thing is going to increase because most people are knows well have ASD and gender identity still seems to be a top subject in this demographic. A friend gave some good advice that I should "embrace" this friendship in a similar way to how her parents did with her choice of boyfriends when she was younger. She now understands that her parents did this because they didn't want to push her closer to the boyfriend and away from them.

I'm going to find a couple of helpful links, including the one to the survey you mentioned in your OP.

Edited for typos.

Didn't manage to catch all the typos. Anyway, links as promised:

1. This information from Transgender Trend on autism and gender identity was really helpful for me. It was one of the first things that I found outside of the original NHS info, after being pointed towards their website by a friend. The links at the end of the report that is on this page were really useful:

& Gender Identity - Introduction - Transgender Trend www.transgendertrend.com/autism-gender-identity-introduction/ Autism & Gender Identity - Introduction - Transgender Trend

2. The thread which has the (Genspect) survey you were looking for. It's in the first post, along with some other links. The mum of the child involved found and joined the thread, so you may find some of the comments helpful too:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5355146-gender-clinic-backs-off-after-family-successfully-challenges-direct-contact-with-adult-daughter

This is a peer reviewed article that looks at the link between autism and trans among other things.
www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A

Ah yes, the one that flips around causation and consequence.

There's a great photo that I saved when someone posted it on a previous MN thread that sums up this kind of approach...

(Although she's a bit overweight, thankfully my cat isn't this heavy yet. So my roof is still straight).

Would you go to Stormfront because you wanted advice on your relationship with a friend who is black?

Stop treating your child as someone you need to "manage" and start treating them as a human being. The aggressive adversarial approach to relationships with queer family has a whole history of terrible outcomes (even evidenced on this hideous forum). Treat them like someone you actually care about, be supportive whilst expressing your concerns, listen to actual experts, not people who have a seething hate of queer people.

Also, you should perhaps look up Bayswater and some of the physical abuse they advocate, it's utterly disgusting and shameful.

Jesus, this is basic parenting.

Mumsnet is a parenting website, Bee. Hope that helps.

I hear more and more of this. I worry about disrupting periods in teenage girls.
Periods need years to get your head around, especially if they are crampy, heavy, clotted etc.

It is not in the woman or young girl's best interest to keep pushing back when she'll finally be able to understand how to live with her body and it's functions.

This would rob young girls of their learning moment or extend it which is really unfair.

Yes parents should not complicate children's lives and Yes women have problems being listened to so no one knows what normal is but removing it altogether is infantilising at best and manipulating someone who doesn't know any different at worst.

Is this the "Bayswater abuse" you're thinking of?

day they may thank us for that “abuse”’: Inside the… | TBIJ www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-07-02/one-day-they-may-thank-us-for-that-abuse-inside-the-bayswater-support-group TBIJ investigation

It's quite the hit job. On the face of it, it's about parents taking away their child's possessions and forbidding them from interacting with friends. Peel it back a layer and it's similar to any safeguarding approach that a parent may take if their child is getting pulled irreversibly towards harm. Not all parents will make good decisions but the fear of watching their child potentially end up physically harmed (body parts amputated, brain development impacted, endocrine system damaged beyond repair etc) can easily lead to a level of desperation that thankfully most parents won't ever have to face.

Take breast binders for example. I can understand why a parent would destroy these, given the known and permanent damage they can do to the spine and breast tissue. I don't know if it's the approach that I would take but everyone parents differently.

To make things more difficult for parents, "the system" doesn't even recognise the safeguarding issues at play. If vulnrtable child is being coerced into friendships that lead to county lines and isolation from the family into a gang, adults in schools and supporting services know it's vitally important to work with families. Likewise under Prevent when a child is being pulled towards acts of religious extremism.

But where a child is being pulled into a belief system that tells them that a) they have a gender identity that is separate from their sex and b) they may need to alter their body to match this if it's different from their sex no such safeguards exist. Instead, parents are seen as a risk to their child. Loving, supporting parents who want to desperately help their child.

I'm amazed you can read the OP's request for help and equate it with racism or homophobia with the word "queer" (which is a word that means all sorts of things these days and many gay people find offensive).

Being black (or of any other ethnicity) is a fact. Sadly, some people are racist and don't want their children in mixed-race relationships. That has nothing to do with this post.

Some people are gay. Unless they are encouraged to confuse their emerging feelings of same-sex attraction with being trapped in the wrong body (which is inherently homophobic because it suggests that a gay person might actually be a straight person trapped in the wrong body), they are not at risk of removing body parts etc.

It's not "managing" a child to recognise that they need help and support during a difficult time in their life. That this may be exacerbated and influenced by others (see above re county lines and religious extremism). To borrow your quote: "Jesus, this is basic parenting".

Yes parents should not complicate children's lives and Yes women have problems being listened to so no one knows what normal is but removing it altogether is infantilising at best and manipulating someone who doesn't know any different at worst.

Or... it's helping an autistic child who experiences sensory issues with periods and distress in relation to their changing body and changing emotions (and the way in which boys suddenly start acting differently around boobs etc) to gradually get used to everything that's happening to them.

That's not manipulation. It's support.

My daughter understands that it's not ideal that she's taking medication to surpress her body's natural function but that for now, this is helping her to feel less distressed. Thankfully, the GP who prescribed the mini pill understands this too.

bang on @BonfireLady

Hopefully the OP has been lurking long enough to recognise the weaselly tactics of trans activists, who spin and twist what are in fact safeguarding processes.

These processes are grounded in evidence and reviews — notably Cass, among others.

Other EU countries have also been conducting reviews and halting medical gender-affirmation programmes.

And yes, binders should be removed. Bear hugs, for example, are considered occupational therapy equipment and are carefully prescribed for no more than 20 minutes at a time, because of the pressure and restriction they place on breathing and on developing rib cages. Binders are no different from foot binding or the extreme corsetry of the past. (Why is it always women and girls who bear the brunt of this?)

Online influence is a very well recognised issue in all this; of course limiting access is sensible.

Of course, DARVO remains the trans activists’ favourite spin tactic.

Hi.

My ASD daughter went through the same at 13.

She is now 16 and 'back to normal'.

It was a response to trauma, her Autism and social contaigen.

I have a thread under a different name from a while ago, I will see if I can find it.

But I basically didn't allow any name/pronoun changes and made that clear to school.

The OP made it very clear she didn’t want TAs butting in with their usual manipulative bullshit. How about you respect women’s boundaries for once in your life?

You forget that mothers universally have had experience of female puberty.

You're male. You really don't know as much as you think you do about this, Bee.

It’s important for women and girls to have a cycle so they absorb calcium and flush out the uterine lining periodically. Without doing this, there is a greater risk of osteoporosis and uterine cancer.