Middle aged brothers suddenly finding a trans identity

[Transister]

So as not to derail another thread. And I can only comment on our families actual reaction to a middle aged man going down this route. I think he now has very little in common with himself as a teenager.
My brother - a 6ft hetro sexual decided he was a trans woman a couple of years ago. It was a massive shock because he had been very much a drinking, slightly homophobic, lots of sexist banter kind of bloke.
He has suffered from poorly managed mental health problems since teen years. A functioning alcoholic, I suspect but don't know for sure he may now be adding ketamine to his system along with various types of HRT bought from risky websites.

He is quite erratic with the shear amount of stuff he is medicating with so it's hard to truly grasp whether he is ill, poorly prescribed via the health service or suffering from whatever he has taken over the weekend.

@ilod hope you find this thread!

hi, yes, I’m here! I was wondering how you manage things with him? Do the family affirm him? Our relative is much younger and was very much affirmed by his parents, which I suspect is part of a wider issue. I believe he would have benefited from exploring his identity more and being comfortable as a male with long hair and
makeup. Instead people have just bought into his delusion and told him he can be a woman. The parents are
considering all sorts of dodgy routes to get the oestrogen which, after agreeing to prescribe it for a year or so, the NHS have now stopped. His mental
health issues remain unexplored and ignored because professionals seem hellbent on attributing all
his issues on Trans.

If there's one thing that's come out of all this it's highlighted how bad me tal.health services are in the UK. People moan about paying more tax but we drastically need a massive investment into mental health.

If someone with mental health issues and a serious drug problem decided they were anything / anyone else other than themselves we would intervene with care and medical professionals.
A man with mental health issues and a serous drug problem decided he is a woman and we discuss which pronouns to use.
This poor man needs proper mental help.

every trans identifying adult I’ve met has had serious mental health issues, which have been ignored because the only concern “professionals “ had was their trans identity. Often, autism with comorbidities like depression and severe anxiety, going untreated and ignored. And the side effects of wrong sex hormones are often extreme mood swings. Add that to an already unstable cocktail.
But doctors have been selectively forgetting their medical training and safeguarding in their rush to be inclusive. Even when it harms patients.

My brother has very much failed to get a grip of his mental health as a grown man.
He didn't have a cruel childhood but looking back he had a few health problems, which spun my mum into 'making up for it'. So basically whatever my brother wanted - be it food, toys, holiday destination he got. Of course this was never going to be enough so as a late teen, early 20s he was disappointed to find the world refusing to revolve around him. He looked elsewhere for answers - drinking, drugs, casual hetro sex. It didn't work.
He has been very dismissive and unengaged with therapy - CBT and various other types. He makes the same mistakes in different decades.
Trans is the latest and he is going for it, wants surgery, researching endlessly, taking up trans causes, it's all consuming.
I have limited contact between him and my children. After the funeral it was apparent that he was getting kicks out of talking to young women and men about sanitary protection and loos. It's was creepy, and I felt he'd read about it online and was just trying his luck in real life.
I would worry about young people developing their love life through the broad range of specialist literature on line. Pretty hard to change or fulfill those pathways mapped out as a young person.
I think my brother after a fairly normal 90s life, led a celibate life within a relationship and turned to porn.

To his face I mostly now use his new chosen name, I would use she. I slipped up once after a long day and he was clearly just waiting for an excuse to be angry.
As a family we use he when talking about him. mostly as his problems, social life and joys are generally about being trans and not something my mum and I would instinctively recognise as a ' woman''s ' thing. My mum had to be very strong, angry but pragmatic about success at work in a patriarchal time. She's totally torn to see her golden child claiming now he's wearing lipstick he's a woman.
He's started to overplay his hand there.

I figured the estrogen is just the latest in a long list of things that make him feel a bit better. Doesn't get to the root of any of his problems or reprogramme patterns of thinking or reaction.
He's been ripped off a few times from buying from abroad. His GP has correctly refused to prescribe and focused on his current prescription medication, trying to kick the can down the road.
Of course my brother knows better so buys, double doses, mixes with alcohol and pills from a bloke in the pub. Even with a lot of resources, I'm not sure any professional could pick it apart plus my brother has always lied out of shame, confidence, lack of responsibility, so much he doesn't know his own truth.

is this a new thing, I wonder, post Cass, post supreme court? This decision to refuse or stop oestrogen? My relative is early twenties so I figured age was a factor and irreversible damage/infertility. But your brother is middle aged. Have they stopped the oestrogen recently and did they say why? My relative has never had a relationship and wants bottom surgery. It’s baffling and heartbreaking.

Much here is familiar.

I've heard anecdotally that GPS are saying they aren't qualified to prescribe and that's why they are stopping. Maybe they feel like they can say this now, since the supreme court ruling.

Some GPs are on a ‘work to rule’ action via their union’s direction and one of the options in the union action is refusing any tasks that are usually seen as secondary or tertiary care (ie outside of the basic GP NHS contract).

Gender stuff is categorised as super specialist in England (because it’s funded from the top NHS England pot rather than via the local area budgets. This is why people seeking trans care can be referred to any gender clinic, excepting a few pilot services, rather than being referred to the nearest one. Nottingham is a big favourite because it has shorter waiting lists and does online appointments. It’s run by very activist-y clinicians).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3wgjkedzo

@Transister My brother - a 6ft hetro sexual decided he was a trans woman a couple of years ago.

I'm not sure why his height is relevant.

My friends son wanted to go on estrogen when he was depressed/struggling. It’s clearly perceived as a cure for mental health issues which frankly, is bananas.

being comfortable as a male with long hair and makeup.

A young man I know, AuADHD and v v self centred, has ‘come out’ as not wanting to be a man. So therefore must be a woman. But when talking about this, it’s all tied up with not feeling like a man etc. The bandwidth of being male or female has considerably shortened and gender stereotypes ever more restrictive and reductive. Add in character traits of autism with black and white thinking and hyper focus becomes such a dangerous mix for young people. I can see this young man becoming even more confused, angry and miserable when identifying as a woman doesn’t bring him happiness or the gf he’s desperately seeking.

I’ve heard a lot of young men conceptualise it like this and it’s fairly obvious the young women often do too. They think their sex doesn’t fit them, like a star sign, and that they can opt out of it. They don’t have much idea about the lives of actual members of the opposite sex.

Because the vast majority of actual women are a lot shorter than 6ft?

Yes, and the vast majority of actual men are a lot shorter than 6 ft too. So again, I'm not sure how height is relevant here.

This thread was started in order not to derail the men afraid to go out in case they need the toilet thread.
My brother since the ruling clarification has become obsessed with toilets and his ability to access women's ones
As a 6ft male he has lived his entire life physically dominating space at home, school and in public. He played rugby as a teen This new fear is not because he physically feels threatened in women's toilets, it's because mentally he has to argue that he has a right to be there.
I mention his height and age in order for other posters to anonymously build an image of my brother and his life.
This is for anecdotes about how families react to individuals not for discussing trans life on a society basis.

My brother is probably undiagnosed autistic. When all is well, the hyper focus and b&w thinking have allowed him to develop a successful specialised career. he's an absolute mess now, the hyper focus means that his mental health and trans issues are the only thing he has time for.
When initially his work made a huge special effort for him to bring his new authentic self, it made him so happy but it was never enough. With family, and we suspect work, he looks for more and more validation and takes more offence when none is intended.
Initially it was about the name and gender neutral clothes. It's escalated quickly to family even being told off for mentioning sporting events generally because he is no longer a man and we (mum, my sister & I) must discuss things that stereotype women like with him.
It's creepy and I feel he's using us to get weird kicks from. We suspect work has fallen apart.

Don’t be silly. Being over six foot isn’t unusual for a man in the Western world, but it is for a woman. Someone over six feet tall is much more likely to be a man than a woman. These everyday perceptions matter.

Question.

Why do you facilitate and enable this?

It's creepy and I feel he's using us to get weird kicks from. It’s very controlling. You have to use only the words I tell you to use. You can only talk about the subjects that I say are permissible. What I say constitutes reality is the only acceptable form of truth. Driven by a desire for power. Not being able to accept the normal flow between two people is why they struggle with relationships and will likely never be happy. Including the young man I know.

Quite.

Enabling it makes the problem worse and it is to your detriment.

I would encourage others in this situation to take a long hard look at this dynamic.

Would you tolerate your brother being an incel? If not why not? And how is it different?

At some point you matter, and if you enable it because of fear of being labelled as transphobic, it's not a good reason.

I learnt early on that the shame and guilt was a powerful motivation but realised it's abusive behaviour and you have a right not to accept the behaviour. This is different to rejecting the identity.

I stress a lot on these threads to focus on behaviour not identity. If we are talking about equality, would you tolerate that behaviour from someone else behaving in that way? Being blind to identity means you wouldn't make exceptions for unacceptable behaviour and the more you tolerate unacceptable behaviour without challenging it, due to identity the more problems you create for both yourself and society.

This isn't transphobic. This is about wanting to be treated with equal respect and this is a reasonable position to take.

I would also say that nothing you do with ever be good enough either because it's not about identity at all. It is about power and control.

Worse still as a sister or mother you often represent the very thing that these men can't be, and they hate you for that because of their own jealousy. Thus trying to constantly please and appease becomes something of a fools errand.

It's difficult but do take a long hard look at the dynamics and realise that you own emotional well being matters too. It's ok to refuse to be someone else's emotional punching bag. You can't help everyone and sometimes, especially when it's family, the best thing you can do is acknowledge this and acknowledge that you are never going to be able to give the support they desire because it's an impossible task.

Ultimately people have to realise that other people can't do all the emotional work. At some point they themselves have to decide to take responsibility for themselves and their actions. If they are constantly lashing out at loved ones then the consequences might be family take a step back and leave a gap for professionals to fill because the family simply do not have the capacity and ability to prove that support in a way that is constructive and doesn't harm them.

@borntobequiet Being over six foot isn’t unusual for a man in the Western world

False. Globally, only about 5% of men at most are 6 foot or taller.

I did say the Western world. It’s not unusual in that you see such men on a regular basis, even in this country. In the USA, it’s nearer 15%, whereas it’s only 1% of women.

Even so, someone over six feet tall is more likely to be a man than a woman. Height matters.