Reply to Teen son questioning gender

Forum Index » LGBTQIA+ Issues and Relationship Discussion

Reply to "Teen son questioning gender"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a heterosexual CIS gender woman, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My dd has ASD (what was previously considered Aspergers), and recently she came to me and told me that sometimes she doesn’t feel like a girl or a boy. I assured her that, since she’s only 12, it’s normal to have questions about who you are and how you fit in. I told her that she should just be who she is and her father and I will support her, however she identifies. I told her that nothing is written in stone and she can identify however she wants, even if it changes over time. She was relieved to hear that. She told me that she sometimes wonders if she’s pretty enough as a girl, so maybe being non-binary would take that off the table. I asked if she would like to change her appearance, and she literally replied, “Why? I look fine.” So, in short, there’s nothing masculine about her and she doesn’t want to change anything.

The next day she confided in me that she’d had a dream about kissing a girl, but she’s always had crushes on boys, so she thought she might be bisexual. Again, I assured her that she should just be herself and that her orientation makes no difference to us as her parents, but that at 12, no one expects her to have everything figured out. I told her that dreams are sometimes a mixed up jumble of lots of things running through our heads and that to know her true feelings, she needs to pay close attention to her feelings when she’s awake. Later that same day, she came to me and told me that she’d read about an effort for people with mental illness to reclaim offensive words, like “crazy” or “psycho.” (My dd has been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, as well as ASD.) I found it interesting that she was coming to me with these separate issues all at once. I think she feels different from other kids and is hoping to be embraced by others who feel marginalized.

I brought up your post with her to hear her thoughts. She said that it doesn’t sound like your ds is ready to make any changes and probably isn’t transgender, so he should take it slow and start out by being an advocate for the  LGBTQ+ community. She said allies are very important, so he should embrace being an ally and see if that’s the right role for him. I was surprised that that was her take on it.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. I want to support my dd in her true identity - whatever that may be - but I have seen no evidence that suggests anything other than she’s trying on different identities to see how she fits in and test how accepting we are. She will have to figure this out for herself. My role is just to support and love her.[/quote]. Thank you very much for the detailed and insightful reply.  So much to ponder.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics