Child with Gender Dysphoria

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I'm after some advice from anyone who has experience of gender dysphoria, either as parent, professional or your own personal experience if you feel like sharing.

I have a ten year old boy who announced he wanted to be a girl nearly a year ago. Nothing more came of it, he didn't mention it again although he began to grow his hair.

He recently asked for a t-shirt from the girls section during a shopping trip which I was happy to buy. More recently he asked for a dress and some sandals which he then wore out to a school function.

He's had indepth chats with me and a member of staff at his school and has stated he feels like a girl, wants people to use she/her pronouns and wants to wear girls clothes. He's also said he feels huge relief at having told me and he seems 'lighter' somehow.

I have agreed to the requests. I am finding the she/her change difficult though, which is weird because I've never had a problem using other people's preferred pronouns even if I knew them as something different originally. I also feel a lot of sadness that he wants to change his name. I love his name. I know it's only a name but still...

The school agree that there are very clear signs that he is completely serious about this and I've been been surprised by just how calm, articulate and matter of fact he has been about it all. The school have suggested I contact the GP for a counselling referral which I will be doing next week (I've got to go there in person because the phone just rings out - very frustrating).

I have also applied to join Mermaids but there's a moderation process and they are not phoning me until the middle of next week.

Would people mind sharing their experiences please? For instance, the timeline of the transition?
Has anyone experienced it just being a phase that lasted a while?
He seems quite happy from a mental health perspective at the moment. Is this likely to change? Especially when he reaches puberty?

Any advice or words of wisdom are welcome.

*I've used 'he' during this to avoid any confusion.
 
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Honestly I'd just keep supporting him/her the now an let it play out, it could be serious it could be curiosity or could be a phase, it's honestly hard to say an I feel like there's more pressure now for kids to "make up their mind" with who they are than just leaving them to get to feel out who they are in their own time

My cousins kid from age maybe 3/4 said she wanted to be a boy, we allowed her to explore that an never denied her the way she wanted to dress, portray herself, her hairstyle, what she wanted to get into hobby wise etc, the only thing we said no to was a full sex change as somthing as drastic as that needed to come from a mature mind that fully understood what would happen and the full process of it an not from a child's mind still maturing but we allowed her to be who she wanted an said at 18 or 21 if this was still her choice then we would still support it an raise money for the change, back then there wasn't this whole she/him/they/them etc so no real pressure to decide on the spot what to use, she got to 13 an out of the blue said she was a girl an happy, took us a few weeks of chatting about it with her if she had been bullied, pressured into getting this being a boy out her head, if someone had spoken to her etc, nope she just hit puberty an that was it, she's 16 now an still doesn't quite know where it all come from an she calls it just a phase

I honestly feel in two minds about the whole he/she/them/they movement because for one I fully support people's descions an am really happy they are more welcome now to be who they are an have the right support in place an it's easier now for people to come out than it was years ago, but secondly I feel like it's more pressure on kids to feel like if they don't fit one sex then that must mean they are the other an they need to make up their mind quickly an aren't really getting the time they need to just explore their own feelings, emotions an who they are

I definitely think counceling might help an wish you the best of luck in whatever happens, but maybe just have a chat with him/her an see if social pressure is maybe having a influence in it an also that it's fine to explore but doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a certain sex in order to do so, I grew up dressing as male an only wanted to hang around with males an had 0 interest in anything female but I had no desire to actually be male, however if I had been exposed to all the socal sites an publicity back then that kids are today then maybe I might have felt confused an felt like I needed to be male to "feel right"

Hope you don't mind me using him/her, honestly am still confused as to what can be seen as offensive or not an I don't mean any offense with this
 
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Honestly I'd just keep supporting him/her the now an let it play out, it could be serious it could be curiosity or could be a phase, it's honestly hard to say an I feel like there's more pressure now for kids to "make up their mind" with who they are than just leaving them to get to feel out who they are in their own time

My cousins kid from age maybe 3/4 said she wanted to be a boy, we allowed her to explore that an never denied her the way she wanted to dress, portray herself, her hairstyle, what she wanted to get into hobby wise etc, the only thing we said no to was a full sex change as somthing as drastic as that needed to come from a mature mind that fully understood what would happen and the full process of it an not from a child's mind still maturing but we allowed her to be who she wanted an said at 18 or 21 if this was still her choice then we would still support it an raise money for the change, back then there wasn't this whole she/him/they/them etc so no real pressure to decide on the spot what to use, she got to 13 an out of the blue said she was a girl an happy, took us a few weeks of chatting about it with her if she had been bullied, pressured into getting this being a boy out her head, if someone had spoken to her etc, nope she just hit puberty an that was it, she's 16 now an still doesn't quite know where it all come from an she calls it just a phase

I honestly feel in two minds about the whole he/she/them/they movement because for one I fully support people's descions an am really happy they are more welcome now to be who they are an have the right support in place an it's easier now for people to come out than it was years ago, but secondly I feel like it's more pressure on kids to feel like if they don't fit one sex then that must mean they are the other an they need to make up their mind quickly an aren't really getting the time they need to just explore their own feelings, emotions an who they are

I definitely think counceling might help an wish you the best of luck in whatever happens, but maybe just have a chat with him/her an see if social pressure is maybe having a influence in it an also that it's fine to explore but doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a certain sex in order to do so, I grew up dressing as male an only wanted to hang around with males an had 0 interest in anything female but I had no desire to actually be male, however if I had been exposed to all the socal sites an publicity back then that kids are today then maybe I might have felt confused an felt like I needed to be male to "feel right"

Hope you don't mind me using him/her, honestly am still confused as to what can be seen as offensive or not an I don't mean any offense with this
Thank you, that's all really helpful! I'm planning on taking it very gradually and to really be led by him. I'm trying not to catastrophise and worry about things that are way in the future. I'm more than happy to support him, as is his dad, so there's no issue in that respect. It's more a worry that he could be hurt by other's reactions or bullied or that life will be difficult. I just want to protect him.

Fortunately it's the six weeks holiday now so he'll have some time to experiment and just be. I'm happy to support any requests although I have already decided I won't be allowing anything permanent or irreversible to be happening at a young age. There is plenty of time to address that when he is an adult if he still feels the same.

I'm not offended by your use of he/him at all don't worry. I've used it too. It's just much easier for this thread. (I am respecting my child's wishes at home though in case anyone reading this thought I wasn't 😬). I imagine in time using she/her will come far more naturally to me. It doesn't help that all my children are boys so I group them together a lot eg "boys, gets your shoes on". I might just start calling them "you lot" 😆.
 
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I totally understand, am not a parent but I am a aunt an I know we always want to protect them at all costs but sadly he/she will need to face the reality that this isn't going to be accepted by everyone, maybe using the school holidays will be a good time to address this as unfortunately there's always going be bully's an they will take anything given to them, some kids are just plain nasty

I am happy he/she has all the support an love at home, his/her home will be a safe space an the holidays will give that time to just be

Do you monitor socials sites? I know some do, maybe have a look into his/her world an see what they are being exposed to, somtimes certain people out there can come accross as being good in the community but really are a bit toxic, it could help to keep a eye on making sure they aren't following any of these toxic people that if you don't fit into what they want you to be then they are nasty about it
 
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I can’t offer any advice or experience unfortunately, just to say what a fantastic mum you are, it sounds like you are already doing more than enough to help support her. She’s lucky to have you on her side x
 
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I can’t offer any advice or experience unfortunately, just to say what a fantastic mum you are, it sounds like you are already doing more than enough to help support her. She’s lucky to have you on her side x
Thank you, that's incredibly kind of you.
I feel a bit like I've stepped into somebody else's life and I'm terrified of getting it wrong.
 
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Let him wear what he likes, but also make sure he understands that he is male and can never change sex.

Avoid Mermaids. It’s a lobby group that peddles untruths. You’ll get more measured advice at TransgenderTrend.

Learning to accept his sexed body and knowing he can wear whatever clothes he likes is hugely preferable to making him a lifelong patient on hormones, heading towards Frankenstein surgery that will disfigure his healthy body.

Don’t believe anyone who tries to convince you he will “kill himself” or that a “living daughter is better than a dead son.” This is emotional manipulation. Better a well-adjusted and mentally healthy son than a facsimile of a “daughter” bolstered by delusion and trendy ideology.
 
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Let him wear what he likes, but also make sure he understands that he is male and can never change sex.

Avoid Mermaids. It’s a lobby group that peddles untruths. You’ll get more measured advice at TransgenderTrend.

Learning to accept his sexed body and knowing he can wear whatever clothes he likes is hugely preferable to making him a lifelong patient on hormones, heading towards Frankenstein surgery that will disfigure his healthy body.

Don’t believe anyone who tries to convince you he will “kill himself” or that a “living daughter is better than a dead son.” This is emotional manipulation. Better a well-adjusted and mentally healthy son than a facsimile of a “daughter” bolstered by delusion and trendy ideology.
Oh gosh, Mermaids was recommended to us 😬. I clearly have a lot of back ground research to do.

In terms of encouraging people to accept themselves, I wonder if that's partly why there has been an increase in gender fluidity and the use of they/them amongst young people. It's a way for people to explore who they are without setting an either/or definition.
 
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I think you’re doing a good job by supporting him, let him wear what he wants, play with what he wants etc, but I would remind him (gently obvs) that this doesn’t change his sex and he’s still male, but he can be male and like xxx, wear yyy. It’s a tough line to balance I think with children and being trans because sometimes they mean ‘I am in genuine discomfort/dysphoria’ and other times they just mean ‘my friends say xxx is for girls/boys but *I* like it. What does that make me?’
 
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Unless your child has had numerous sessions with an unbiased therapist they do not have gender dysphoria. Your son is part of a social contagion of children who are being guided by the likes of tiktok, youtube, redditt that it is cool to say you are trans, non binary or any of the other multitude of genders that are invented on a weekly basis. Sadly all the school will do validate this belief which will invariably lead to more mental health problems in schools.

Stay away from Mermaids and redditt as the first is an organisation that continually lies to further their own agenda. Redditt is a cesspit of the mentally unstable.

You are the parent so its your job to be the adult not his cheerleader. Talk to him and find out who else in his school is trans/NB, ask him why he wants to be a girl, find out what he has been watching influenced by. Seek out an unbiased therapist that is not going to simply validate his views but explore where they come from.
 
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Unless your child has had numerous sessions with an unbiased therapist they do not have gender dysphoria. Your son is part of a social contagion of children who are being guided by the likes of tiktok, youtube, redditt that it is cool to say you are trans, non binary or any of the other multitude of genders that are invented on a weekly basis. Sadly all the school will do validate this belief which will invariably lead to more mental health problems in schools.

Stay away from Mermaids and redditt as the first is an organisation that continually lies to further their own agenda. Redditt is a cesspit of the mentally unstable.

You are the parent so its your job to be the adult not his cheerleader. Talk to him and find out who else in his school is trans/NB, ask him why he wants to be a girl, find out what he has been watching influenced by. Seek out an unbiased therapist that is not going to simply validate his views but explore where they come from.
I have already asked about other trans/gender questionning children at the school. There aren't any.

He hasn't had any access to TikTok, Reddit or similar. There was a short interest in Gacha Life during lockdown but I stopped him watching it because I felt it was not age appropriate. He's only ten so he has limited access to devices anyway. He doesn't have a mobile phone for instance. He mainly plays Minecraft.

I've questioned him a fair amount so far, in a gentle way and it seems to be just how he feels. There don't seem to be any outside influences at all. Of course the conversations will be ongoing and also it's very early days.

You're right in that I am the adult but my job as a parent is to be supportive and guide him in the most sensible way. By doing this I am his cheerleader. It is no issue to me if he wants to wear girls clothes etc but I won't be ploughing headlong down one particular route. There's a difference between being supportive and actively encouraging and I think the neutrality aspect of counselling can also be applied by me to the situation.

I found some further info last night about Gender Dysphoria and the point at which it is officially diagnosed and the different criteria. That was really interesting because he appears to be at the lesser end of that scale currently because there doesn't seem to be any overt distress (although he has been withdrawn for a while, something I'd put down to lockdown). He may not ever be diagnosed with it.

I intend to find a therapist who will work with him to help him be happy and confident. They would need to be unbiased, surely, as anything other than neutrally supportive wouldn't be what my idea of counselling is. I absolutely agree with the importance of exploring where these feelings have come from rather than straightforward validation without question.

I wasn't sure about posting about it originally because it's so personal but I feel like there will be a really broad spectrum of advice from people on here which seems a sensible way to gain information. Especially as people have begun mentioning that there may be issues with the organisations that have been recommended to me as places to seek advice.
 
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Please explain to him that sex is the important characteristic, not gender. He will never be able to change his sex but that doesn't mean he can't wear what he likes and play with what he likes. We need to take the idea of 'gender' off toys and clothes. It's damaging to all of us, not just children.

There are two sexes, male and female. Within each category there can be lots of genders. Butch women/feminine men. It doesn't matter. Gender isn't about identity. It's about the clothes you were and hair styles and lots of other very superficial things.

Keep him away from trans ideology. Trans Ideology promotes the chemical castration of boys. Boys who are not old enough to make that decision nor understand the ramifications. For me, at least, this is child abuse. Do not allow this to happen to your son.

There is so much more but it's your duty as a mother, to look more deeply into this. Look at what people like Kelly Jay Keen have to say and ignore all the slurs and lies that are thrown about when it comes to her.

I truly wish you all the best in the future and I wish that for your son too.
 
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Do you know he's doesn't have access to these sites like tictoc or is he telling you that he doesn't?

I know of a lot of kids who use friends to gain access to all these sites (my own family included) but won't say out of fear because they know they aren't allowed to be on them an don't have their own phones either, plus youtube now shows some tictoc stuff, am not sure how honest your son is, am just used to having to be sneaky to catch out my cousins kids 😅

Also is he in any communitys with Minecraft, I myself play that an honestly I'd be monitoring if he plays online in community servers because the toxicity I have come accross is unreal

I also agree with others that gender really shouldn't be getting placed on toys/clothes/styles etc because it makes kids feel they can't enjoy things because it's for certain sexes, somtimes I think society puts this pressure on people to have to decide they are either male or female in order to act or be a certain way an if they prefer the other then they need to change, so it's important he knows there's no such thing as gender when it comes to enjoying what he wants an toys/clothes/styles can be freely enjoyed by both but doesn't mean you have to change who you are to do so
 
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Do you know he's doesn't have access to these sites like tictoc or is he telling you that he doesn't?

I know of a lot of kids who use friends to gain access to all these sites (my own family included) but won't say out of fear because they know they aren't allowed to be on them an don't have their own phones either, plus youtube now shows some tictoc stuff, am not sure how honest your son is, am just used to having to be sneaky to catch out my cousins kids 😅

Also is he in any communitys with Minecraft, I myself play that an honestly I'd be monitoring if he plays online in community servers because the toxicity I have come accross is unreal

I also agree with others that gender really shouldn't be getting placed on toys/clothes/styles etc because it makes kids feel they can't enjoy things because it's for certain sexes, somtimes I think society puts this pressure on people to have to decide they are either male or female in order to act or be a certain way an if they prefer the other then they need to change, so it's important he knows there's no such thing as gender when it comes to enjoying what he wants an toys/clothes/styles can be freely enjoyed by both but doesn't mean you have to change who you are to do so
I'm fairly confident about the lack of TikTok access. His older sibling has access to it and he's never shown any interest in it and hasn't pestered him for a look at his phone or anything but as you say kids can be sneaky.

He does use some of the smaller community servers on Minecraft but mainly just the one he's created which has about 10 people in. I haven't noticed anything other than typical gaming interactions but I'll keep an extra close eye on it, thank you. I have asked him if he ever discusses things like this on there and he said no.

I agree completely about teaching kids they don't need to slot neatly into a gender box with regard to clothing, toys etc. His older siblings played with dolls as youngsters, two of them decided pink was their favourite colour for a while. I buy items of mens clothing sometimes. My take on it has always been that people like what they like and there shouldn't be restrictions based on gender stereotypes.

I do believe that some people are born into the wrong body but I don't think that is the only reason for/outcome of a child questioning their gender. This could go many ways. That's partly why I asked for people to share their experiences because I bet there's a really wide variation.

In response to the previous poster (Cassandra I think), one of the first things I said when discussing it with my ex husband was that I felt very strongly I wouldn't be allowing any medical interventions at a young age. I'm interested in hearing from other people who felt like this about their own child's situation, whether this affected their relationship with their child. Or has anyone felt compelled to change their stance as time progressed?

In terms of our situation there probably aren't that many decisions that need to be made right now. For the moment he's just picking some new clothes and expressing himself and I'm just making sure he has support in place. I do feel it's important for me to educate myself fully about it though. Forewarned is forearmed. I'd rather know what could potentially happen in the future so I'm ready for it if that makes sense?
 
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Absolutely nobody is born into the wrong body. Plenty of people want a different body or look but what they've got isn't wrong, they just don't like it.
 
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That's good then as I know from experience just how bad servers can be on Minecraft an there seems to be a huge group that's trying to attract the lgbt+ but is less about love an support an more about forcing their own ideas onto others especially young minds that can be easily swayed

I do agree that for some kids they genuinely believe they are in the wrong body an the very small % that have changed over have been happy an it's been the right thing but for my cousins kid we also genuinely believed she was in the wrong body as she went from such a young age to almost 10 years later still saying she was a boy but puberty changed all that when it hit, so I agree it's best not to go down a irreversible route as I've heard more than enough horror stories from adults who were being changed as a kid because the parent had jumped on with changing them all for them to reach adulthood an wish they had never changed

You are doing the right thing an don't let any others put it into your head that changing them this young is much better than when they are a adult as its a "easier" process, or that you aren't fully supporting them because you won't start the hormones an such, wait till puberty hits an it maybe a very different outcome (not saying it will but puberty changes everyone differently) ❤
 
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Could he want to stand out from his brothers? I’m sorry if this is completely ignorant of me.. Maybe he sees them doing typical ‘boy’ things and because he likes more girly things he might think oh that must mean I’m a girl.

I wouldn’t change to her/she at this stage.. it’s too young to fully understand imo.

One of our neighbours grandsons used to love to dress up as a girl, he wore heels and wigs, preferred anything considered girly but now he’s grown out of it.
 
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I know you’re asking for advice from parents with experience — maybe you can find a playgroup for trans kids for your child and get to chatting with other parents.
 
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Let him wear what he likes, but also make sure he understands that he is male and can never change sex.

Avoid Mermaids. It’s a lobby group that peddles untruths. You’ll get more measured advice at TransgenderTrend.

Learning to accept his sexed body and knowing he can wear whatever clothes he likes is hugely preferable to making him a lifelong patient on hormones, heading towards Frankenstein surgery that will disfigure his healthy body.

Don’t believe anyone who tries to convince you he will “kill himself” or that a “living daughter is better than a dead son.” This is emotional manipulation. Better a well-adjusted and mentally healthy son than a facsimile of a “daughter” bolstered by delusion and trendy ideology.
I concur with all of this. There's an excellent podcast which explores all of these issues called Gender - A Wider Lens - with two very sensible and smart therapists. It's aimed specifically at parents. This episode features someone from TransgenderTrend: https://pca.st/episode/0a9262e0-821d-4ce7-86c5-ec33ba12da79
 
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