When young people transition, whilst the decision to transition and ‘gender distress’ might be sudden and seem to come from nowhere, the vast majority have a significant history of distress - eating disorders, mood disorders, self harm etc.
Parents of children with a history of significant mental illness often find it hard to let go and often do seek more control than parents whose children have had good health. They have feared for their children’s lives, seen their children engage in self destructive behaviour and their intervention has been life saving. When their children make a good recovery, the parents can take decades to feel as thought they can ‘stand down’. They saw their children go from being healthy and thriving to being desperately and dangerously mentally unwell. Seeing them thriving again doesn’t provide reassurance that they won’t all experience the horrors again.
Im just posting this to try and expand some of the hypothesising about parents who are ‘overly controlling’ and have difficulties ‘letting go’. It is the case that in some cases, this is underpinned by personality traits. But sometimes, this is because of past vulnerabilities and behaviours arising that can be understood through a different (and worrying lens) when childhood history is known.
It can be frustrating and upsetting for adult children to have their parents viewing their current behaviours through then lens of the past. Especially if they are well. However, it can be life saving when they do this and the young person is unwell.