If your teen suddenly announces s/he is transgender...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would rather err on the side of being a supportive parent than a parent that rejects their child. Growing up and finding your own identity is a hard process.

My best friend is trans and I think he is a lot happier and at ease living as a man than as a woman. His parents are incredibly supportive of him.

I believe that the percentage of population of people who are gay is around 4 to 5% (it's difficult to get an accurate census since people will lie about it) and people who are transand even smaller population but trans issues are in the news more. Likely because being gay is less and less of an acceptable target for conservatives but they can still pick on trans people to make the Christian conservatives happy.

I think it's appropriate to be supportive for any non-permanent changes. Hair, clothes, names are temporary and can be changed back later if a person changes their mind. Surgery and hormones have permanent repercussions. The health risks are significant and understudied. There are bone density, problems, cancer risks and more, never mind the sterilization aspect. I worry for kids who are just a bit lost and exploring their identity who get caught up in this and make permanent changes. Especially those kids who never expressed gender identity confusion before their teenage years.

Totally disagree.

Your role as a competent parent is not to be "supportive" of every crazy idea your kid comes up with.

Guidance, people. You're not their best friend.

[Anonymous]

I get the feline that many of these same parents would be supportive if their kid announced they wanted to be cats. Live as a cat, poop in a litter box, eat kibble, get plastic surgery for the eyes, ears, nose, teeth. This I believe to be the next great liberal cause celebre: trans-species rights

[Anonymous]

Looks like they are starting to collect some evidence that most of these "transgender" teens are confused kids caught up in a dangerous fad.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330

Interesting that this is creating so much controversy. Seems like common sense.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/new-paper-ignites-storm-over-whether-teens-experience-rapid-onset-transgender-identity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:or you could reach out to PFLAG, the gender clinic at Children's https://childrensnational.org/news-and-events/childrens-newsroom/2015/childrens-national-opens-youth-pride-clinic-for-district-lgbt-youth or any number of other resources.

Jut because your child's announcement seems "sudden" to you doesn't mean that it hasn't been well thought out by the child over a long period of time.

Trans kids are at huge risk of suicide and other self-harming behaviors. Family support is a tremendous protective factor.

Whether your child eventually decides to transition or not is less important than whether your child is happy, healthy, and alive.

+ infinity

This.

My child isn't trans, but has classmates who are. The kids with support from family are doing fine.

[Anonymous]

The fact that your child knows more than one kids who thinks they are transgender is concerning. This used to be very rare. There's more and more evidence suggesting that many of these young kids are actually gay, and the older teens are caught up in a social contagion. The media is doing a terrible disservice by not reporting on this honestly.

[Anonymous]

FFS. When I was a kid, I was constantly being told that being bisexual was “trendy”, “a fad”, “you’ll grow out of it”. I’m in my 30s, still 100% bisexual. I had several trans& gender non conforming friends as a teen growing up in Herndon. My parents modeled respect, and kindness and it wasn’t a big deal even pre-marriage equality and repeal of DADT. My dad had a coworker in 1993 transition over the Christmas holidays, she came back and said “My name is now ___, my pronouns are she/her” and it was nbd bc she was great at her high tech job. More people are trans nowadays, they’re just spending less of their lifetime hiding in shame and distress. That’s a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Every time I look at a magazine or paper, I see all of these people saying they are now transgender or nonbinary or whatever the latest term is. A bunch of people taking hormones and surgeries and thinking they are the opposite sex. How can you call this a good thing? This has nothing to do with being gay. What does nonbinary even mean? This stuff is messed up.

[Anonymous]

It’s the cool thing to be nowadays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't give into this trendy bullshit. Tell your child he or she is beautiful the way he or she is. Tell your child that boys can wear pink and girls can wear camo. Don't encourage them to disassociate from their bodies. It is parents' job to help children to love themselves as they are and to help them reach their dreams from a place of reality, not a place of delusion. Help your child have the courage to be a feminine male and be proud of himself and live in the real world with a healthy body, not one crippled by sterility and ill-health from estrogen. Stop the madness, seriously.

Serious question though. What if the trans kid in question (born male and claims to identify as female) already embraces the things you have outlined and isn't looking to wear pink or high heels. In fact, this 19 year old transgender person I know is maybe one of the more masculine kids I've met, does not shave facial hair, and thinks it's a ridiculous question when his mom asked if he planned to "present as a woman" (i.e., is he going to start wearing skirts or makeup or shaving his facial hair?...or are we all just supposed to start calling him "her" when he doesn't do anything to help the visual along?) The answer was "mom that's ridiculous! I'm not suddenly going to become a different person with different tastes. It's just that now I'd like you to address me as "she" and "her" and use my new name "Laura" instead of "Mike". WTH is she supposed to do with that???

[Anonymous]

They are investigating this in the UK: "Investigation as number of girls seeking gender transition treatment rises 4,515 percent"

THE NUMBER of girls seeking “transitioning” gender treatment has skyrocketed in the last eight years, with some girls as young as four wanting to change their gender – and social media may be partly to blame....

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1018407/gender-transition-treatment-investigation-penny-mordaunt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't give into this trendy bullshit. Tell your child he or she is beautiful the way he or she is. Tell your child that boys can wear pink and girls can wear camo. Don't encourage them to disassociate from their bodies. It is parents' job to help children to love themselves as they are and to help them reach their dreams from a place of reality, not a place of delusion. Help your child have the courage to be a feminine male and be proud of himself and live in the real world with a healthy body, not one crippled by sterility and ill-health from estrogen. Stop the madness, seriously.

Serious question though. What if the trans kid in question (born male and claims to identify as female) already embraces the things you have outlined and isn't looking to wear pink or high heels. In fact, this 19 year old transgender person I know is maybe one of the more masculine kids I've met, does not shave facial hair, and thinks it's a ridiculous question when his mom asked if he planned to "present as a woman" (i.e., is he going to start wearing skirts or makeup or shaving his facial hair?...or are we all just supposed to start calling him "her" when he doesn't do anything to help the visual along?) The answer was "mom that's ridiculous! I'm not suddenly going to become a different person with different tastes. It's just that now I'd like you to address me as "she" and "her" and use my new name "Laura" instead of "Mike". WTH is she supposed to do with that???

She could call the kid Laura and try to use the pronouns the kids prefers. It's unusual, but it's not harmful and it doesn't have to be permanent. Teenagers love conflict and feeling like their parents don't understand. One way to deal with that is to avoid conflict and go along with the kid on things that aren't harmful--and pronouns and preferred names don't strike me as harmful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mental illness. Hurting people seeking pain relief. Children need solid parenting.

+1000. What are we doing to this generation of kids?

Some pls fine the article about the % trans from homes w two moms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFS. When I was a kid, I was constantly being told that being bisexual was “trendy”, “a fad”, “you’ll grow out of it”. I’m in my 30s, still 100% bisexual. I had several trans& gender non conforming friends as a teen growing up in Herndon. My parents modeled respect, and kindness and it wasn’t a big deal even pre-marriage equality and repeal of DADT. My dad had a coworker in 1993 transition over the Christmas holidays, she came back and said “My name is now ___, my pronouns are she/her” and it was nbd bc she was great at her high tech job. More people are trans nowadays, they’re just spending less of their lifetime hiding in shame and distress. That’s a good thing.

Yes. But how is this relevant ? Being bisexual doesn’t involve you making permanent changes to your body.

[Anonymous]

I find myself socially fine with it, but really concerned about the long-term effects of puberty blockers and hormones. The process is making artificial bodies from children. This seems... problematic. Very. I would prefer an approach that allowed for people like the "laura" mentioned above: a male-looking person wearing dresses.

I mean, we don't make castrati anymore for legitimate reasons. We are against FGM. I don't see much difference. I want to--but everything I've read says the hormones aren't safe. Wasn't there some scandal about giving lupron to autistic kids a few years back? Aren't the side effects in adult women considered to be severe? Just what are we doing to the kids with this stuff, and is there another more body-positive way to approach this?

[Anonymous]

Is there a distinction between teens who are not sure/confused/etc and kids who have strong gender feelings from an early age? We have a friend whose daughter, now 8, has been since an early age, identifying more with boys--in how she manages clothing, appearance, activities and now, desire to use the boy's bathroom and says she feels like she is more like male friends (she doesn't have many female friends, maybe 1)--without having the language yet to identify as transgender. The parents are supportive, but also kind of want to let her figure it out and not push anything one way or another. TO me, her identity seems pretty strong, and emerged without exposure to what being transgender is.