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[quote=Anonymous]OP -- I'm the parent of a young transman (female at birth).  First, let me say that your initial post and the comments from 16:42 are quite reasonable and I endorse them.  This will be a difficult time for your family no matter how it all ends up. As difficult as it was for us, I am so thankful that my son came out before anyone ever heard of Caitlyn Jenner and the trans-thing exploded.  I am sure that only makes it more difficult to sort out what's going on today.

The internet does make kids strident.  Happened with our son too.   We kept warning about the reliability of info on the internet, but in truth our son was able to figure out pretty well who was and was not reliable,.  It probably does help them confirm whatever they are thinking somewhat, but its very hard to take it away.  Just keep engaging and hope he'll share what he's looking at so you can evaluate it too.

I have just a few thoughts prompted by some of the posts above.

1.  We too were skeptical about using a therapist who specialized in this issues because we were concerned they would just have a bias to confirm what the child said.  On the other hand, we also tried a therapist who no real experience with these issues and that was both a complete waste of time and we discovered he had a strong bias in the other direction.  We finally settled on a therapist who had previously had a number of patients who were exploring trans identity and seemed up on the literature, but whose pediatric practice was much broader, i.e., she was not dependent on potential trans referrals for a primary source of income.  She was very good.

2.  We took the position  -- back then we had support for it form several medical organizations (not sure if they have changed) -- that there could be no medical interventions unless our child lived as the opposite gender openly for some period of time (I forget if it was 6 months or a year) and was also in therapy dealing with the issue for some period of time (again, I don't recall exactly how long but I'm sure it was at least 6 months, if not a year).  I should note that our son never thought he was gender queer -- a term that he knew but we didn't at the time.

3.  Hormones.

First, you need to understand the difference between puberty blockers and cross hormone therapy - what they do, side effects, etc.

Second, you should start researching this now -- without your child in my opinion.  If he starts pushing again you will already want to be armed with the information to share with him. If he goes on the journey with you to do the  research, he'll likely get very excitable making it harder to learn quietly.

Third, you need to ask specifically about these with respect to fertility. I think cross hormones after a while can make a boy sterile.  I had heard that puberty blockers did not way back when, but I am sure there is much more data today so you should consult a medical expert (endocrinologist, I believe).  I doubt most 11 year old boys are really in a position to evaluate how they will feel about biological reproduction, and if he hasn't hit puberty yet you probably can't do anything to preserve those options unless there have been some medical breakthroughs I've not heard about. But you should be asking these questions of medical specialists now "just in case" you have to go down this road.

Fourth, and this is the really tough one.  If it turns out that your child really is trans and is going to live as a woman as an adult -- and based on how recent this all came up I doubt you will have an opinion on that one way or the other for quite some time -- then yes, puberty blockers can dramatically improve the child's appearance, self-esteem and quality of life later (voice, adams apple, physique,  etc.).

My son has one friend who is a young transwoman (not in this area).  She is beautiful and confident.  But I understand she was one of these "boys" who insisted she was a girl and behaved accordingly from a very young age and did so consistently, which gave her mom the confidence to use puberty blockers.   You sound too early in your journey to know where this is going, but do all the fact gathering ASAP.

Best of luck to you, your child, and the rest of your family.

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