Worried my vulnerable son may be influenced by friends' gender identity views

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I have a younf adult son. He is autistic, dyslexic and has a lot of child hood trauma issues and depression. He leans on alcohol and can go a full week without leaving the house.

He kept some friends from education who he sees every so often. He kept talking about a new person 'Sarah' in the group, with a lot of enthusiasm. He never told me but turns out Sarah is a male.

My son is extremely young mentally. He still has a room full of teddies and watches cartoons. He is mentally capable to a point and high functioning autistic but he is still very nieve and I would definitely class him as a vunerable young person.

So anyways he says he has this friend Sarah and now another friend of Sarah, Amanda. And I am 99% sure Amanda is going to be a man too.

I am just so worried that he is going to get influenced into believeing he is trans too. He is a big man! Tall and broad and there is absolutely nothing womanly about him at all but the sort of culture he has embedded himself in is very much under that sort of influence.

I have had discussions with him in the past about this but now he has direct social ties.

I am very much gender critical and I know my son can never be a woman. And I know these men that are his friends are not women. But I don't want to upset him.

I was hoping when he talked about Sarah that me night have found a girlfriend and it would be a positive thing for him. But now I am worrying that he may start a relationship with Sarah and that would be extremely difficult as I just could not go along with the farce of 2 men being in a 'straight' relationship or calling a man his girlfriend etc...

I know I cannot do anything but watch and wait and keep having open and honest discussions with him but I know how deeply ingrained this ideology can be, especially within friendship groups.

I'm not even sure if there is anything I can do but just wait and see what happens :(

I have no answers (no direct experience) but bumping your thread as there are others on this board with (alas) lots of experience.

Contact Bayswater You’ll feel less isolated

www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/

Hi OP

Sorry that you find yourself in this difficult situation.

As said up thread there is usually lots of advice in response to a post such as yours.

Maybe people are still getting back from holidays, or first day back at work.

I have found these older threads, which may have information or advice that will help you.

And hope those with direct experience advise will come on this thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5500326-concern-my-child-is-trans

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5546276-5546276-help-son-13-with-severely-mental-health-issues-thinks-he-is-trans

I do have personal experience unfortunately, with my daughter in high school. That was a non binary (with male name) thing and went on a few years but resolved naturally after a lot of neutral therapy and discussion around puberty and being a woman etc (as well as removing the social contagion aspect)

I think I find it harder to sympathise with TIMs to be honest as I think the reasons behind it are vastly different.

Sorry that must be hard to feel you are having to go through it again.

But so glad things worked out for your daughter.

Although situation with your son is of course different.

I'm sorry your son has suffered trauma and suffers from depression op. I think you can make it clear that you don't believe men can be women if the subject comes up while holding space for him to express his beliefs which may be different to yours. Do you think your son is attracted to men? Is there any reason he might prefer to be attracted to men who identify as women (so he can pretend he's attracted to a woman)? I agree with reaching out to Bayswater Support. Would he go to the same counsellor your daughter saw - to tackle the depression and problems with alcohol but avoiding a counsellor who might affirm a gender identity?

Hi OP, I appreciate your concerns about his vulnerability and being influenced by friends. It sounds like so far all that has happened is that he has new social contacts who are TW, he hasn't expressed thoughts about his own gender identity or got into a relationship with one of them. So hopefully that doesn't happen. Has he had a relationship before or expressed interest in anyone?

I don't think there's much you can do other than keep communication open and encourage him to share his thoughts and feelings - as you are doing.

How did you find out "Sarah" is trans?

Being trans isn't contagious. None of my son's friends or classmates (or his autistic brothers or LD-autistic uncle) are trans as a result of knowing him.

He himself isn't autistic, but several of his friends are. None have caught being trans from talking to him.

Autistic trans people come out more often than NT trans people, because they can't mask who they are.

If your son enters into a relationship, then maybe just be happy for him? Lots of trans people have cis partners.

Meet these trans women and talk to them. You'll discover they are perfectly normal individuals. Make friends with them.

Anything which makes him happy is a good thing. It sounds like he's looking for happiness and may have found it.

You may wish to bear in mind that closeted trans people often gravitate towards out trans people, and talk about them as a way of broaching the subject of their own feelings. This gives parents the misleading impression that being trans is contagious.

The only way to make yourself feel better is to meet a trans woman and realise they aren't monsters. Here's your chance.

Nobody is saying they are monsters. But social contagion is absolutely a thing, as anyone who's had a young person at school among certain friend groups can affirm. A large minority of kids in my daughter's year were trans or non-binary... most have not continued to be. Which is fine, they will explore identity and belonging as they have always done - as long as nothing irrevocable happens in the process.

Yes it has a pattern of social contagious.

The above post is not correct.

You’ve claimed before to have other trans young people in your family, and you yourself claim to now be NB - having been a ‘cis woman’ only a few months ago. But sure, no contagion

It’ is different with boys, not least because you may well have to confront the impact of porn and consider how much is a sexual fetish. No mother particularly wants to delve into their son’s sex life. Honestly. Bayswater.

And fails to acknowledge OP's knowledge as his mother that he is easily influenced.

Sadly if this is in an education environment it is less easy to keep a vulnerable child away from inappropriate trends etc..

The trouble is with these social circles is just how many are completely made up of young people who are ALL claiming to be trans.

In this situation I'd be concerned that there's something more here already.

There is a reason he has kept this social circle - some of it will likely be because they are all autistic and vulnerable

The fact you are only now finding out that Sarah is trans and your son speaks about him with such enthusiasm, would be concerning to me. How did they meet Sarah as it sounds like he wasn't part of the original group. What's the story there? How do they meet up? Is it in person or all online?

I know Sarah is trans because we met in person (and unfortunately my son didn't tell me this beforehand so I didn't know it was 'Sarah' I was meeting and proceeded to talk to him as the male I saw, which does make me feel bad. I wouldn't have used female pronouns but I absolutely would have avoided male ones and used direct language without pronouns so I didn't cause any upset.

The trans ideology absolutely is 'catching' and I know this because out of my daughters group of 8 friends, 6 of them became trans or non-binary over a course of 6 months and her HOY told me herself the was an EPIDEMIC (her words) in that particular year group.

Great and eloquent answer 💯♥️.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed I know 2 transwomen personally, one a very close family member.

Of course they are not monsters 🙄

They are not women though.

And their lives are not how I wish my son to live. They live lies and I have never met a genuinely HAPPY transperson

I would like to come back to this rhetoric being mafe by transparent that as gender critical women, we need to go out there an 'meet' transpeople so we can understand their struggles.

Many of us DO know trans people and that is ibe of the main reasons we are wary of these people's behaviours and the 'script'.

When dealing with my daughters 'gender identity journey' I was constantly around her gender questioning female friends and what I saw was a group of very confused, very sad, very frightened young girls who were at the beginning of their puberty and journey to womanhood. I saw a lot of self consciousness, a lot of self loathing, a lot of self harm. A lot of neurodiversity and ADHD. Also sexual trauma.

Out of those 8 girls only 2 are still 'trans'.

On the flip side I know 3 transwomen. 2 older, in their 50s and I can only describe them as crossdressers with too much broadbrand allowance.

And the 3rd is a child who, quite frankly, has been indoctrinated from being a young gay boy to a girl.

So my concern is very much based on my personal experience with trans people.

Autistic trans people come out more often than NT trans people, because they can't mask who they are.
This is a new take that I haven't heard before! Do we have any research that backs this theory up? Because, coincidently, it would work as a rationalisation for why so many young females are trans+autistic, if taken at face value.
If I had a vulnerable son, I would be somewhat wary of trans identified men befriending him.. are they older? do they have anything in common? Just some questions that would come up for me.
I'm sorry OP, or must be a difficult situation, I have no advice, just best wishes.

Being trans isn't contagious. None of my son's friends or classmates (or his autistic brothers or LD-autistic uncle) are trans as a result of knowing him.

Of course it's social contagion. You were a "cis" woman with second cousins who were "trans" when you first contributed to FWR. Now you claim to be NB with a "trans" child.

Autistic trans people come out more often than NT trans people, because they can't mask who they are.

I find this quite insulting towards autistic people. Far too many autistic people mask far too many aspects of who they are every day in the workplace and at school. It's perfectly possible to hide who you feel you are and be autistic. It's not generally a good thing at all for autistic people that society expects unusual behaviour to be quashed, but I think this minimises the struggles that autistic people routinely go through and implies that neurotypical people are better at acting and have developed the same masking skills to a higher degree, which I doubt they've generally had to.

I have to remind myself constantly every single day not to dance in front of the photocopier, fidget too much in meetings, sing songs to myself constantly in the office, talk too much about my weird hobbies, and all of that is nothing in comparison to the stuff my child is trying to mask and suppress to fit in with society. If anything autistic people have far more practice and ability to mask than neurotypical people because we have practice and experience of being rejected and stigmatised for being who we are.

Sending 💐, OP.

It sounds like this has been a really tough journey, including the difficult time your daughter had navigating her feelings about her body in the early stages of puberty.

From the way I'm reading it, it looks like two different things:

1. Your son may end up in (or already be in) a relationship with a male who identifies as a woman
2. Your son's fascination with Sarah and the other TW may indicate that he is thinking about "coming out" as a TW himself

Whilst the first would be tricky to navigate with your and your son's difference of views on gender identity, that sounds like the "easier" of the two possibilities as long as you didn't end up in a situation where your son decided he couldn't cope with your "views" and cut you off.

To me, the far more concerning would be the second possibility. It's good that you're aware of the different risks faced by boys. It sounds like he could be vulnerable to being influenced towards autogynophilia. Dr Az Hakeem talks both in videos and in his book "Detrans" about autistic males who were drawn towards this, had operations to remove their genitals and then realised it was a mistake. Bayswater will undoubtedly have helpful information on how to support your son - and yourself, given how worried you must be.

Being trans isn't contagious.

There absolutely is a social contagion element where vulnerable children and adults are influenced to believe themselves in the wrong body because they see being trans as the answer to underlying difficulties that they face. Unfortunately young autistic males are particularly vulnerable to being groomed (by older trans-identifying males)/influenced (by those who are peers) towards autogynophilia.

Referrals to gender service clinics were how big before social media made trans a thing.

Then they skyrocketed in just a couple of years.

And now there are less kids presenting in early high school years than there were five years ago.

For something that's not a social contagion that sure is uncanny.