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?

I'd just love them for who they are. My silly opinions on these matters are irrelevant to our relationship.

women's rights and believing that nobody can actually change sex are not a silly opinion.

No Some are drawn into a quasi religious cult others are gay/lesbian but can't accept/admit it some are agp and yes many are mentally unwell due to trauma, abuse and/or unmet needs due to being nd.
I don't believe anyone is trans i really don't know why you can't understand that I'm an atheist and I dont believe in gender ideology or any other religion

@Thinkingtoomuchandnotsleeping I haven’t read the full thread so don’t know if anyone else has posted

https://www.pittparents.com/archive?sort=new

https://www.aww.org.au

These people seem largely to be parents of teens. That is different to having an adult child come out.

I’d like to think I’d be supportive of them and what makes them feel happy, seen and safe. I have trans relatives and trust me when I say I’d rather them now 1000x over to the gender they were born, why? Because they are thriving, happy, living their lives freely, they aren’t in despair, they aren’t depressed, they aren’t disgusted by themselves or feel lost in their body. They went through years of therapy and hormones prior to surgery and had many times to retract if they wanted too, but they knew. The support, love and compassion I’ve given them, id give a million times over to my child.

i was raised by a catholic mother who had very warped views on sexuality and gender, I was cast out at 15 for being bisexual and it being “unnatural”. I could never and never would cast a hateful ideology on my child for their choices in life. Even if it makes us uncomfortable or if we don’t understand. It isn’t our being, we do not “own” our children, we don’t dictate what they do with their bodies when they’re of a legal age to do so, the best we can do and what we should do is help educate them, offer them a safe space to talk and explore their feelings and potential wishes while they navigate their own journey. Ultimately in the end they will do what they want. No what we want, and I’d rather be there to hold my child’s hand than be someone they never speak to again.

I think this refers to me. If so let me be 100% clear.

I would NEVER EVER EVER illegally discriminate against someone for being trans, not least because being trans is not a PC under the EA 2010 so it is impossible to illegally discriminate against someone for being trans.

I would NEVER EVER EVER illegally discriminate against someone for having the PC of gender reassignment.

Things I might do... (1) decide to keep my business the tiny size it currently is to make 100% sure that I do not ever feel obliged to employ someone who I do not wish to employ, or (2) Only employ people who I know and like and trust 100%, and who are willing to come work for me as a result of conversation between us and not as a result of an advertisement (the last person I employed was a cousin of mine).

In our family's case he was assaulted after he transitioned. He was encouraged by friends to cut off his family and they said he could stay with them. They had no spare rooms so he shared a bed with this trusted friend. He said looking back he realises he was groomed. In his 20s though so not a child. It is heartbreaking that they managed to lure him away from his actual safe family and keep him in a vulnerable and dangerous situation. He was so angry with his mum for a long time, misdirecting the blame which lay firmly with the abuser.

True. But not all. I used the search bar. And the techniques suggested may translate. Also, there was a headmaster who spoke at the Genspect conference in Lisbon last year who had interesting points.

I think I am right in saying that there’s no bitumen road taking everyone at speed to the result OP wants. Everything I have ever read or heard says that her steps need to be the smallest of small. So she needs to read what has worked for other people and decide what to use now and what to try later. I’m just offering a couple of resources, that’s all.

It’s easy to think of yourself, but imagine what they are experiencing. They’re reckoning with their entire identity. I’d suggest working through your negative feelings in private and just continue being very supportive to them, ideally with a therapist guiding you through this complex situation. Trans people are so heavily persecuted and are vulnerable, it’s not an easy thing to broach and your child deserves to have respect as they navigate that.

The problem is that " what makes them feel happy, seen and safe" in the very short term and the medium to long term are almost certainly 100% opposites.

Long term happiness is more important that short term, not least with your children.

That your mother was / is homophobic is utterly irrelevant to the issue of gender identity.

How are they persecuted?

If you note in my response, I highlighted it takes many years. Not overnight. So short term happiness doesn’t really apply, because transitioning isn’t a short term fix and it takes a long time, the short term would be referring to them by their chosen name and so on, and if you don’t agree that’s absolutely valid, we all have our own feelings and thoughts. I’m not one to attack someone if they disagree

I also said my mother had warped views on sexuality AND gender. So it kinda is relevant to my own point and views 😊

Can you tell me what definition you are using for "trans people" when you say "trans people are so heavily persecuted and are vulnerable".

It is clearly not a self-ID "trans people are anyone who says they are trans" definition because that would include men like Barbie Kardashian and Isla Bryson who are very clearly predatory and not vulnerable. It suggests that you are using a definition which many people would find to be transphpbic gatekeeping. What definition are you using that only includes persecuted and vulnerable people? And what persecution do they face?

I would put my child first and accept them as they are.

What you do is up to you entirely but it's probably worth acknowledging that if you double down on "not playing into delusions" or whatever excuse you come up with, you're likely to completely lose your relationship with them.

Funny, but all the numerous women around in the city center that day were dressed mainly in jeans/trousers, warm coats and scarves, just the poor person struggling with his identity in a v short skirt and white tights....
Many have a fetish, not identity issues, get real, they're exactly what women are trying to get away from, we don't need our peers encouraging their creepy sons into it.

Thank you for your replies @Diverze. Sorry for abandoning the thread for a bit. It’s moved in a bit since then so the only couple of things I want to say is that I don’t think conflating someone’s proper name, which belongs to them and is theirs to do what they like with, with pronouns, which are part of language which is a collective belonging to all and has clear meanings, is helpful to anyone - but I know a lot of people do it.

I would also say that there’s no respect in demanding others deny reality or wanting to deny them the language to describe that reality. It really is quite the cognitive headfuck to be forced to refer to someone male using female words and I would say that it can be outright abusive to do so.

Finally, I would say that a vulnerable young adult is more vulnerable to lying gender cultists than to sex realist relatives or friends or acquaintances.

Accepting them as they claim to be is not accepting them as they are nor is it putting them first - putting them first involves doing what is best for them.

I am interested in loving, honest, truthful, mutually beneficial relationships (ie positive ones), not simply any old relationship. Affirming a child's trans ideation would destroy any hope of the having a positive relationship, IMHO.

Love them.

It's amazing how many TRAs demand that we listen to trans people, but when we listen to TIMs describing their autogynephilia we are supposed to pretend that we never heard a word they said.

Oh God OP that's hard. Are they vulnerable in any way? This doesn't tend to happen so much to happy people in a good place in their life and I'd be concerned what else might be happening or what other needs might be arising.

It's a very, very difficult tightrope to walk. I'd be keeping the relationship as normal as possible, and not going into conversations on difficult grounds wherever possible, although I'd also be horribly aware that's cowardice and possibly leaving my child to go unchallenged into areas of thought that might in the long term add to the confusion and harm, particularly if later he starts to regret it. I would be also finding it very difficult to accept attempts to re write the family's history by changing names and pronouns, and I'd need there to be understanding that the family needed HIS understanding as much as he needed the family's, and everyone needed to be sensitive and compromising. It could not be all about him or walking on eggshells around him, as much as possible I would be trying to protect him, me and everyone else from unhealthy relationships.

Basically my main aim would be to maintain the bonds and support all he needed but without getting into beliefs on either side, in fact being boring as possible about all that and focused instead on what we enjoy doing together and what connects us. And to try and help him keep all his choices and options open around him without doing anything that locks him into any specific choices he can't back away from later if he wants to, until he's had a long, long time to think about this and be certain what he wants and what works for him.

The Bayswater support link is a good one.

I really don't care if you do or don't throw a nuke into your relationship with your child- they will find other people who love and embrace them as they need.

There's nothing my child could do which would stop me loving them. Particularly not something which has no impact on me whatsoever and requires extremely minimal effort to respect.