My 11 year old Autistic/ADHD son has just told us he thinks he is a girl, wants to be a girl and wants to change his name and pronouns. I feel so very very ill equipped for this.

[Queenelsarules]

I dont want to alienate him, I am concerned foe his mental health. Do I just have to play along? I am Gender Critcal, don't believe it is possible to change ones sex. But so afraid of getting this wrong.

Wrong thread!!

"that's nice dear! Now can you run upstairs and get your washing, im just about to put a load on"

@Queenelsarules this is happening to me right now. My son was 11 as well. Autistic, likely ADHD.

First step would be joining https://www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/ they have been invaluable to me.

Second is, don't affirm. Don't be harsh, don't be dismissive, be curious, ask for details, the way and where. Ask for what he thinks the definitionns of all these terms are. Encourage being able to sit with discomfort and not feel solutions (long journey). Find a non affirming supportive therapist (I did, took some time, it's very useful). My ex wife is affirming, I am not. It's a challenge.

Join Bayswater, I'll chat there in more detail or please PM me any time.

Some good advice already. Take your time.
Let him know he's loved and cherished. Listen to him, hear what he's saying.
I'd avoid raising this with him repeatedly. For most children (as Cass pointed out) this will be a phase and linked with him developing, asking questions and exploring

A few suggestions:

1. If you don't already, check and monitor his internet access and restrict his time online. There are some awful adults grooming kids into all this so keep him safe from them - alienating children from their parents is a particular theme with them.
2. Make sure he's engaged with family life and other activities as much as is possible. He needs to see himself as a family member, a friend, an athlete, singer, collector - anything that establishes himself in the real world - not the pretend identity world.
3. Ensure that school does not get involved in socially transitioning him in any way. they're not experts in child sex change, there's growing evidence that socially transitioning young children is psychologically damaging to them.

You're not alone - this is a dreadful social contagion targeting young children but there's finally lots of support and advice out there to support parents in supporting their children through all this:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

As he's only 11, this may be a better fit in terms of advice than the teenager version I've just posted. They're written by a clinical psychologist and are very useful:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

It's terrifying. I would have 100% gone down the trans route had it been available to me in the mid 90s when I was going through puberty at school. I hated my breasts, my period, all the sexual attention from old men (ugh, which started when I was 11). Hated it. I fancied boys but I didn't fit into the typical feminine type of girl. I totally get for teenagers today (and the girls in particular who if I remember correctly the statistics say are more likely to experience ROGD) why they are more easily led down the trans path with irresponsible adults immediately affirming their confusion.

It should be treated gently with therapy and support like other dysphoria conditions.

My DD (26) has ASD. When she was 4 she wanted to be a boy. Changed her name, dressed like ‘boy’ (much more defined back then ie she chose the boys school uniform and boys Clark’s shoes for school etc). When she started school everyone thought she was a boy.
At the time she didn’t have a diagnosis and wouldn’t until she was 17. Being a boy lasted for just over a year. It is a common ‘comorbidity’ (I very much dislike this term in this context but it gets the point across) especially with girls who have ASD, they know they are different but don’t know why so try being the opposite gender to see if that ‘fits’ it often doesn’t. They are non neurotypical not transgender. Just another angle to consider and be aware of with your son.

God, you poor thing. 11 is so young.

Be all over his internet access as a starting point. He didn't dream this up himself.

I was also going to suggest Transgender Trend.

But I second much of the advice on here, go gently, dont be too confrontational, ask questions, help him explore his feelings without affirming/shutting them down.

Most research from the days before the “affirmation only” approach shows that: of young children who said they thought they were the opposite sex (and who were just basically left to grow up, with love but no affirmation) around 90% grew out of it by puberty. (Also, of those 90%, more than 80% ended up being gay/lesbian - thus the criticism that affirming a trans identity is potentially quite often gay conversion therapy in disguise: so-called “transing the gay away”.)

It’s more complicated now, because of the new cohort of largely autistic, largely (though not exclusively) female pubescent children saying they are the wrong sex (the “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” or ROGD cohort).

@Queenelsarules, that reminds me: these essays by Angus Fox (pen name of Alasdair Gunn) about young boys caught up in “all this” are very good: quillette.com/author/angus-fox/

Thank you everyone for all of your sensible and calm advice. I will look into all the resources that have been shared. I do think he is latching onto this as he is feeling isolated and different, he is aware he doesn't fit in with neurotypical boys. I think he thinks that being a girl is 'easier' somehow, he said it would help him like himself and his body more. I think imagines if he was a girl all the social challenges would disappear, he's not understanding that his sense of difference and lack of social success are due to his neurodiversity and also to an extent his age. I mean all teenagers/pre teens feel misunderstood and confused about who they are, right?

We have told him we are glad he told us, and that he has been very brave. He was so upset, hysterically crying.

I am going to reach out to a friend who is a therapist and also Gender Critical and see if she can recommend someone who will be able to talk this through with him in a safe, listening space, but not be affirming. I have worries that his school will jump right into affirming and social transitioning, I know Cass should mean this won't happen, but I worry that it might not be being implemented on the ground as it were.

I mostly just feel sad and worried, his life has been so hard already, with his Autism and adhd, he thinks this will make him happier and feel more included and I know it won't, that if he follows through his path is just going to get harder as transition will not give him what he thinks it will.

Some great advice here and it sounds like you have it well in hand OP although I'm sure it doesn't feel like it.

Agree it's very important he doesn't end up in the hands of a well intentioned but excited teacher performing their own inner experience and halfwitted indoctrination using him as a resource, I've seen it happen. He is so young. If he still feels this way in his late teens then so be it, but my main aim would always be to keep every single door wide open around a child and teen and all of their options and choices intact for them as long as possible, while looking into and meeting the needs that are at the root of feeling that trying to be someone/something else would be an escape.

And ensuring that particularly a child this young can't get anywhere near the disordered mess, unwell emotion, manipulation and escalation of illness and distress that is the poison he'll find on places like Reddit. This would be something that would make me break the wifi to avoid those influences, while focusing as much as possible on doing enjoyable and active things and staying busy as a family, and not feeding the kind of introspection that makes anxiety and doubt increasingly worse. Feelings and thoughts that come from him are one thing. A distressed child manipulated by unwell adults and other distraught kids to believe what they're told, much of which is fantastically unhealthy and about severing connection between the person and their natural, real and present support system, and fed on a diet of fear and glitterwashing is something else entirely.

I second Bayswater as well (DD is non-binary but an adult).

Autistic thinking goes like this

"I'm not like a boy, therefore I can't be a boy. The only alternative is therefore girl".

This is a failure to grasp that you don't have to fit in with black and white stereotypes.

You need to understand that "Not like a boy, CAN NOT mean you are a girl. It means you are boy who is different and that's ok." And find some male role model who ARE different and celebrate and thrive from being male but not conforming.

The wall of reality means that no matter what you believe it doesn't happen like that, so you have to work on confidence in what you ARE not what you are not.

When you are being bullied for being different and not liking football and getting on better with girls and liking 'girl things' thats tough.

I have a gay friend in his late 40s who dresses fabulously and is very happy. He thinks now he would have been told he was trans and probably would have felt pressure to go down that route. He's glad he didn't because of all the harms with that. He found it tough as a teen but he survived and is happy for not transitioning. He dresses in crazy clothes, like make up and nail varnish but is definitely male. He doesn't need to pretend to be something else.

A huge amount of this is driven by a desperate need to feel like you fit it so you don't get singled out and picked on. But it's ok to not fit in and it's ok to be different. Everyone finds their tribe at some point - but not necessarily at school. I do think a lot of it comes down to bullying over a long period.

Not very helpful, is it?

I’d seek support from Bayswater parents in the first instance - they were invaluable support to me when I went through this with my DD.

I also would counsel to be neutral - no affirmation but no hard/fixed rejection of his ideas. Gentle exploration as to what he feels and why he thinks those feelings make him a girl rather than a sensitive and clever boy. A conversation over the fact that boys - like girls - come in different shapes, sizes and personalities. That lots of boys love ballet and art if that is in his explanation (hence the famous male people in those fields).

He is at the start of puberty. Children find this very confusing, especially when school friends will be divided between boys who have suddenly sprouted up in y8 and the boys that still look like they’re at junior school. He may also be battling with a crush and navigating early feelings of attraction and affection towards someone outside his family. Puberty is the time when children of both sexes begin to differentiate from the family unit and explore/develop their individual self (individuation). They seek connection with the community, the world outside their family unit, and this involves understanding who they are more like, who they identify with. It’s a period of investigation and exploration. An adventure even, if you frame and support your child positively.

I would find a neutral, non affirming counsellor for him to talk to (Bayswater can help here too). It took my DD 7 years to come out the other side, but we were hampered by lockdown and her neurodiversity. We have friends of my younger son, so 3 years younger, who also went through this phase but ‘grew out of it’ after a few years and are now feeling more congruent with their sex body at 16/17.

Above all, keep telling him that no matter how he feels about himself, no matter how confused he may be feeling just now, that you (and dad?) love him unconditionally and will always be there for him. No matter how he wishes to dress or present to the world, whoever he one day comes to date/love, whatever he choses to do with his life when he’s grown up… your love is unwavering and you will never abandon him. I think it is the latter that kept my DD at home, helped keep her grounded when she was deeply confused, so I’d say that repeating that message is probably the most important advice I’d give.

Thats crap. My son was groomed at the age of 10 by these people https://allsortsyouth.org.uk

@Queenelsarules hand hold here as well. You mentioned he doesn’t feel like a neurotypical boy….check out Mr Menno on X and YouTube. He is a gay man who is also gender critical who is doing lots of interesting things discussing in particular ’what is a man’.