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.

Where does it do that @bonfirelady?

You're right. I got the wrong Cambridge study. Apologies!

This is the one that flips it round:

Transgender and gender-diverse individuals are more likely to be autistic

Unfortunately there has been quite a bit of research coming from places like Cambridge University which muddles autism-related puberty distress and gender identity together. On this occasion it was me who was muddled 🤦‍♀️ (but I still do like that photo 😁)

Apologies too to @WindmillOfWimbledon

You ask on MN? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Are you planning on trying to convince them otherwise, if so: did your parents ever tell you not to do something you completely believed in?

You should really reflect on what outcome the advice here is likely to have, given all precedent, and whether or not you would like to maintain a compassionate and open dialogue with your child (or whether you would like them to learn to ignore you when you try to "debate" them into agreeing with you about something personal to them).

I have indeed been lurking long enough to recognise this! (and those were precisely the sort of comments I was hoping to avoid with my 'if you believe in gender ideology, good for you' remark ... but, hey, boundaries? who needs 'em?!).

@CyanExpert, have DMed you

I am sorry that you are going through this, my Autistic DD is now 20 and came out as trans 5 years ago. She is extremely intelligent, but constantly says rage inducing things like "ooh let's have a lovely mum and son day" and my eyes nearly roll out of my head. Testosterone has been bought from Gender GP and I hold hope that she will come out the other side, whilst reading and listening to as much as I possibly can.

If it weren't for the predators, amoral health care providers and foolish be kinders, all thoughtful parents whose kids are caught up in this could relax and let it run its course like any other teenage fad.

And every person who pretends to believe my DD has changed sex is complicit. Even if they don't really believe it.

Happily, these days most women never need to get used to heavy, painful, cramping periods - they can go on the pill and stay on it apart from if they want to conceive. Do you honestly think that men would think it a rite of passage to get used to all of that?

Nope, this is bollocks. Not having a period due to PCOS comes with a risk of endometrial hyperplasia and cancer. Not having a period because you're on the pill (combined or progestogen only) doesn't. And I'm fascinated to her that having a period helps you to absorb calcium better. Where did you learn your physiology/endocrinology from - I'd ask for a refund on whatever it cost you.......

I’m curious why you think PCOS-related oligomenorrhea/amenorrhea would be any different from medically induced oligomenorrhea/amenorrhea? Either way, you are preventing the body from expelling an old uterine lining, and those dead cells are just sitting there, rotting. We don’t re-absorb our uterine linings like other female mammals do. The cells that don’t die like they are supposed to may start replicating out of control, which is what cancer is. If you flush them out regularly, there is less opportunity for cancers to grow and metastasize.

I have PCOS, and my ObGyn prescribes progestin pills that I take for a week and then stop in order to induce withdrawal bleeding, which I do if I go longer than 2 months between periods. This is the recommendation and explanation that she gave me, that regular periods reduce the risk of endometrial cancer.

Even if there was a difference between intentional skipping of menstruation and PCOS induced skipping… It’s estimated that up to 1 out of 3 women have PCOS these days, and if you’re starting a young girl on hormonal BC before she’s even had a chance to show symptoms of PCOS, you could miss out on that diagnosis and potentially end up missing signs that something is seriously wrong (see: doctors prescribing me BC for irregular periods when I had a 9x11 cm cyst destroying one of my ovaries.)

Estrogen plays a role in calcium absorption. Suppressing your estrogen levels through prolonged progesterone (or the artificial, simulated kind) exposure reduces the body’s ability to absorb calcium. (Not to mention the horrid side effect of just feeling like you’re in the early stages of pregnancy constantly. Yuck)

Our bodies have evolved over millions and millions of years to function the way that they do. It’s not a good idea to be messing with them by pumping them full of exogenous hormones.

It's depressing that clock's arguments are considered perfectly mainstream in gender medicine, and typifies the extreme way 'follow the science' has been co-opted. The template is - create a slightly plausible argument casting doubt on a certain pathway for harm and consider the matter proved, when in fact the proper frame should be excluding the likelihood harm through robust longitudinal trials, and then being very careful to describe that what's been demonstrated is a qualification of risk, not a demonstrated absence of harm.

Because PCOS amenorrhoea is a high oestrogen state without the progestogen to balance it which is entirely different from pill induced amenorrhoea. Oddly enough, as an experienced GP with a sub interest in women's health and experience of working in a specialist WH clinic, I do know what I'm talking about. Remind me what your qualifications in this area are?

That's a conflation and a half...
OP's DD was not being advised to go on the mini pill because of PCOS.
and I don't mention PCOS anywhere.
I don't care what men will or won't accept.

There is a current tendency to portray everything uniquely female as subpar, painful or backwards i.e. periods, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Yes the older generation has a duty to make the lives of the younger generation more comfortable but consistently painting everything female as awful is not it.

I was responding to the concept that women handed years to adjust to their awful periods, which is just not true anymore for the majority, thankfully.

Sprry, that women needed years.....

I was coming here to say this. The "Gender: A Wider Lens" podcast has finished, but roam through their back catalogue: there is a massive amount of information for parents, presented gently & thoughtfully by two therapists who are ex[erts in the field and who support questioning, exploratory therapy rather than blanket "affirmation."

You might also find that Dr Az Hakeem has published both general reader + scientific research papers on the topic. He's one of the UK's most expert specialists in treating those with a range of gender questions, and is also very sceptical of the affirmation at all costs model. He's been involved in surgery in the area as well.

For scientific research, the Cass Report is probably your best starting point. Professor Cass commissioned several systematic reviews (science researechers can explain better than I what those are, but they're a standard lynch-pin of science research in all areas). She was quite blunt about the lack of appropriate & peer-reviewed research in the area.

You could also follow up Colin Wight and Jesse Singal in the US, on the lack of evidence or proper scientific peer review - see also the scandal of one highly affirmative "gender doctor" who repressed the results of her research, because it didn't align with gender extremist ideology ...

Good luck - it's an awful position to be in.

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.

Also try looking for your local Women's Rights Network for sisterhood & support. It's a broad gradd roots feminist organisation which formed in the wake of the realisation of the social contagion of trans "identity" but it's broader than that, and has lots of resources and expertise embedded locally.