How would you handle your (adult) child coming out as trans?

[Thinkingtoomuchandnotsleeping]

Just that really. I am petrified of losing our incredibly close relationship but I cannot come to terms with the expectation that I am supposed to just affirm his choice.
He is very early in his "realisation".
How would you approach this?

@WorriedNorthernMum There's a big gap between the rainbows & glitter public relations version of Gender Identitarianism & the reality. If, for example, your husband's had workplace traning on the subject it will have been all rainbows & glitter but your husband will understandably believe he's been reliably informed.

It sounds like a very difficult situation for you, I'd echo @ArabellaSaurus's suggestion to contact Bayswater, you'll feel less alone & that's a decent enough first step.

Can I just say, I am not pitting my child against anybody.
My child is an ADULT.
My child has free will.
My child does not use single sex spaces. My child does not participate in single sex sports, competitions, go into changing rooms etc. and I do believe in part that is because they are aware of the competing rights in play.

I have zero power to make my adult child do anything. Even if I fundamentally disagreed and threw them out, it wouldn't change that and it wouldn't make them detransition. I am not to blame in any way.

I never think of her as vulnerable, it's hard when everyone says it's a mental illness because she's my amazing, wonderful, independent daughter. I am so angry at the trans movement and how easily this has become acceptable. She says I care more about my bias and that I don't think she's worth the effort of unlearning. But really regardless of any ideology on either side, it's the physical change that terrifies me. I don't think I can ever accept or support her decision to damage her body. 21 is so young.

Mine is definitely vulnerable. Enormously so.

I do take comfort in MTF transition being more "undoable" and I would be lying if I said I didn't.
When I went to the GP and cried my eyes out in terror at the enormity of it and thinking of the loss of the child I birthed, at the beginning of this journey, she said "sometimes as a parent you have to make decisions based in love, not fear" and I found that enormously helpful.

If detransition happens, I will be here in love.
If detransition does not happen, I am here in love.

Wishing you peace.

Thank you, I hope you too can find a way through this. It's just so overwhelming, and even with a possiblity of detransition, the damage has been done. Will see what happens at Christmas, and try talking again, I don't want to lose the relationship, but it is already in a different place.

My adult daughter claims she's trans. When she told me (at 20 and in college) she fully expected me to put her on the street because I was already a known terf. Because that's what transphobes do, right? All the TRAs and affirmers say so. I explained that I'd never do that. She shows no sign of wanting to move out 4 years later.

As a known terf, I absolutely refuse to call her by the male name all her friends and coworkers use. I use female pronouns for her in her presence. She has accepted that I will not acquiesce. She could move out if she finds that living with non affirming me is just too awful, a couple of friends have room and have invited her but she is happy here, apparently.

Not long after her announcement I scoured the internet looking for help. I came across a former Jehovah's Witness who said that those still in the cult will tell the person you're hoping to help that you are bad and evil. So his advice was show them that you're not.

I highly recommend joining a non affirming parents group. It helps a lot to be able to not have to censor yourself with people who get it.

I have told my sisters that it is painful for me when they use my son's trans name and/or pronouns, but that it is their choice. They know that I think it is unhelpful to my son to affirm. My sisters are their own people and I will not make my relationship with them conditional on my approval of their actions.

My son knows that DW and I each object to being coerced into going along with his current worldview, in the same way that he would object to us requiring him to hold our religious position.

The net result is a strained and distant relationship, which is very painful. I have hopes that he will apply his natural scepticism to gender identity politics eventually. I think the only way to have avoided the current degree of estrangement would have been to feign enthusiastic affirmation. That would, I believe, have destroyed my own mental health. I cannot lie to myself for the rest of my life.

I'm not trying to upset you. But people on here are not obliged to pretend they think a certain way in order to protect your feelings.

Respectfully, holding others responsible for your emotional state of mind is disempowering. It can also be used as a form of emotional manipulation.

This isn't making a personal comment or judgement, just describing how dynamics in relationships can work.

Saying that someone can be vulnerable and also coercive shouldn't be seen as an attack. Its just acknowledging that dynamics in relationships are rarely simple. To suggest that even discussing these things is hurtful, unkind, or less 'loving' is maybe something that bears thinking about.

"Love' doesn't just mean passive acquiescence. And ditto kindness.

I have sympathy with your situation and am offering ideas that may be helpful. If not, disregard them. Your situation sounds very difficult; you are the one who is experiencing it, and have the power to affect it. Wishing you well.

'When I went to the GP and cried my eyes out in terror at the enormity of it and thinking of the loss of the child I birthed, at the beginning of this journey, she said "sometimes as a parent you have to make decisions based in love, not fear" and I found that enormously helpful.'

What does it mean, though?

It's actually not difficult at the moment. It's hopeful. With a kid with complex SEND it's never straightforward but we do seem to be seeing green shoots ATM. And the 'transition' is proceeding at glacial pace, which suits me as it gives plenty of time for reflection. 18 months in there are no hormones and no permanent changes. I am holding the line on seeing a specialist first, and getting no kick back.

DC has never asserted that we cut off people who don't use correct pronouns etc. In fact one of their favourite people is their granny who gets it wrong all the time. The decision that we would not risk exposure to people who consciously and with knowledge of our situation continue using former name and pronouns is mine, and if that makes me coercive then I will take it. If there is coercion from DC it's subconscious. My DC is very far from the stereotypical entitled student with pink hair yelling at 'TERFs'.

What did the GP mean? She meant that I was frightened of losing the child I birthed. Frightened of changes to their name, their appearance, frightened of the possibility of hormones. But she was trying to say I couldn't base my parenting decisions on fears of things that I didn't yet know the outcomes of.
And 18 months later my DC is very much still the same person, just walking with a lighter step.

What did the GP mean? She meant that I was frightened of losing the child I birthed. Frightened of changes to their name, their appearance, frightened of the possibility of hormones. But she was trying to say I couldn't base my parenting decisions on fears of things that I didn't yet know the outcomes of.
And 18 months later my DC is very much still the same person, just walking with a lighter step.

I think being frightened is often a perfectly rational response. And sensible, because we are frightened of harm coming to our child, and that gives us the impetus to protect them.

I couldn't base my parenting decisions on fears of things that I didn't yet know the outcomes of.

The fears you list sound like pretty concrete outcomes to me.

Earlier, you said that you are helpless and totally powerless over your child, but you talk here about parenting decisions. Maybe you have more power than you think.

I never said I was helpless and powerless? I said as an adult there is nothing I can do to prevent them from transitioning whatever my opinion.

I disagree. I think a huge part of the problem is affirming parents. Children raised by parents who have no knowledge in this area of identity politics and the ideologues who push their agendas, are at risk.

If children are raised from birth to understand that they absolutely cannot ever change sex and that becoming a lifelong medical patient in an attempt to pursue an impossible dream is a dangerous fantasy, there will be far
fewer teenagers/young adults getting stuck on this dead end cul de sac.

Obviously it’s often too late when they’ve started down the path and are taking irreversible drugs, but if they’d been raised with a healthy curiosity about it, things might have been different.

It's dead easy to say that from here, isn't it? From 2025?

My DC was born at the turn of the century.
When did Stonewall start pushing this? 2016 or 17?

Forgive me for not anticipating some 15 years in advance what might be part of the pshce curriculum.

I have an adult child the same age and I did have conversations around this when she was younger, a tomboy who sat in the hairdressers chair and said she wanted to be a boy when she grew up. I know this approach won’t work with all young people hellbent
on changing their bodies, but I think the kind affirmative approach along with the suicide threats from children, encouraged by pressure groups and trans activists, was a huge part of it snowballing.

One's son or daughter trying to change their identity can impact your identity as a parent. I am the father of my son and it is not true that he is "really" my daughter; I have known him for longer than he can remember; I (and of course his mother) was present at his birth and know what his sex is; his mother's relationship with him is even longer and profounder than mine. Now that he is demanding to be referred to with a very female-coded name and pronouns, with the threat of estrangement hanging over us, we have a choice:

• constant cognitive dissonance at referring to our son as our "daughter", leading to an acceptance of worldview we know deep down to be false
• or a much more distant relationship with him, for the time being at least

Hobson's choice.

We have come to the conclusion (separately) that we are not prepared to be coerced into a pretence that our son is a woman. I am prepared to call him by his trans name when emailing him; this in itself feels like lying. I am not prepared to affirm him as a woman by referring to him as "she". In his presence, I try to avoid using any name or pronouns, as whatever name or pronouns I use are offensive to at least one person present. I'm not very good at this. But he is adult, and quite capable of understanding and accepting that we have different worldviews (as we did before he announced his trans identity). He cannot assert dominance over us by demanding that we accede to his view of himself.

I can only relate to him (or to anyone else) as I see him, just as he can only relate to me as he sees me. If he has been indoctrinated to believe that I am hateful, there is nothing I can do about that other than try to relate to him in the same way as I relate to my other child. This gender identity movement is the most destructive force our family has ever experienced, and it is very difficult to deal with.

I am sure I have made many mistakes; we are trying to deal with an unprecedented movement, an authoritarian worldview that tries to redefine language and culture to suit itself, and most of us were completely unprepared. I assumed at first that I must be missing something, so I researched gender identity theory and, to some extent, queer theory. It made absolutely no sense to me. It appears to be based on the obfuscation of language ("gender" in particular is a term that means exactly what is useful at each moment, and shape-shifts within the same paragraph or even sentence). "Spectrum" is redefined, as is "binary". "Sex", "gender" and sex-related words such as "male" or "woman" lose their ordinary meanings and are temporarily whatever suits the argument being made. I came to the conclusion that gender identity theory is incoherent and an unhealthy way of understanding one's place in society. It puts people on a dangerous path that sometimes leads to damage to a healthy body. And whatever parents do, their family dynamics are thrown up into the air, and are often badly damaged when they fall back to earth. Because we are all physical beings, and physical reality is unavoidable.

Its a struggle but "your child" hasn't changed, they are still the same person you love. This is their journey and the only decision you make us whether to hold their hand through it or not.

Ive been there and done it - its hard but your decision is yours to make - their journey through this is theirs. Its bloody hard for them, please don't decide rashly - think it through.

People don’t exist in a vacuum though. And as I said upthread, trans is an identity that requires an audience - a controlled audience that is only allowed to respond how the actor wants them to.

That is not sustainable long term (without huge harm to the coerced) or in the wider world.

It's more a hand grenade than a 'nuke', and it is thrown into a family when a member of the family announces a trans identity. I have certainly not stopped loving my son. When he was a toddler and ran out into a road, DW didn't say "that's fine dear, I respect your desire to run free".

Your child is the sex your child is. Any attempt to physically alter that sex is not only limited by what hormones and cosmetic surgery can achieve, it is not conducive to physical health.

It is very difficult for most adults not to feel they have their parents' blessing. It is often tough to come to terms with having one's own identity and worldview that goes against one's parents' cultural expectations. So I understand that my son finds it hard that I don't accept trans identity theory. When we have managed to communicate, it has been clear that he doesn't like being challenged in any way, and thought he had to point out that as an adult he can make his own choices. We agree, and we will always love him even if he makes catastrophic choices (we hope he won't). We won't watch him going down a dangerous path and take the cowardly option of saying nothing though.

Our son has also challenged us, and we have thought long and hard about how we are handling this situation. I have apologised for everything that I can sincerely apologise for; but I can't sincerely apologise for not agreeing with his worldview.

One of the many frustrating things about finding yourself in this predicament is all the people who seem to believe that disagreeing with someone means you don't love them. I expect that from 12 year olds but grown ass adults should know better.

When you’re pregnant and don’t know if the baby is female or male and asked what we hope we’re having, we tend to say it doesn’t matter as long as they’re healthy. Which is usually true, it doesn’t matter what they are born as.

That child 20 years later deciding they want to change to a female/male is not the same. We know what sex the person is so no my answer wouldn’t be the same. My question to you would be is it actually healthy for someone to want to start changing themselves in such a way?

Parental alienation is a key part of cults.

Exactly. Since when are parents not able to offer anything other than blind acceptance? It is because we love them so much we want them to make informed decisions that don't cause them harm.