My child is trans, help!

[jacksmom53]

I apologize for this post if any find it offensive or ignorant. I was referred here by my sister, who told me that livejournal had many good communities for this kinds of issues

Comments

[nikolche]

First of all...can you be my mom? So few trans adults have supportive parents, let alone young teenagers.

Second, you'll probably want to find local groups for both yourself and your husband and your son. PFLAG has a support network for families of transpeople called TNET that could be of some use. Unfortunately, they aren't quite as common as PFLAG itself just yet.

Jack won't like this, but he's not likely to get a doctor to prescribe him hormones at 12. Most doctors are not AT ALL willing to work with anyone under the age of 16. You might be able to convince a doctor to prescribe him hormone blockers for the interim to at least stop his period and keep him from developing hips and breasts. This may also allow him to grow an extra few inches, something many of us would love.

The same is true for surgery, very few surgeons are willing to work with anyone under the age of 16. Parental consent helps so that he may be able to go in at 15, but 12 is near impossible.

I wouldn't worry too much about him changing his mind. There have been very few studies on gender-variant children, but what little we do have shows that if the feelings are still there after puberty has hit they're almost certain to stay. Plus, he's not allowed to do anything irreversible yet anyway. So he cuts his hair and gets a male wardrobe, at the end of the day those are easy enough things to change.

School...will be complicated. It very much depends on if Jack wants a completely new start or if he'd rather stay with the friends he has now (and if a new start is even possible). A new start is probably a little easier in terms of getting people to use the right name and pronouns, but it does mean not having a support network should anything go awry.

Be prepared to see the inside of the principal's office more than you'd like. A few schools have amazing trans protections, but most have no idea what the term even means. Jack will almost certainly not be allowed to use the boys' locker or bathrooms. What most schools do is instead allow access to a single stall bathroom in the nurse's office or one of the staff bathrooms.

You're also not the first one to have that reaction to Boys Don't Cry. It scared my partner back into the closet for the better part of a year. Luckily, those kinds of reactions are relatively rare. When they do happen it is almost always by a sexual partner who wasn't aware of the person's trans status (or claimed to be unaware). That's an issue that you'll want to start addressing early, but it's a very personal one that causes contention even amongst transmen so I won't go into it here.

I rarely do this, but you may want to post to ftm. I know there are a handful of guys over there who transitioned early in high school and are now college aged so they may be able to give you some more concrete information. They're also a bit more likely to have some local resources for you.

ETA: I also suggest picking up Jack a copy of Parrotfish if he doesn't already have it. Great YA book about a teenage transguy.

[keito_f]

Do you know why medical doctors are unwilling to prescribe hormone therapy before puberty? As a doctor of anatomy, I would think that the results would be much better if you act early than if you wait. Also I have a friend who is intersex, and I know he has been on hormone therapy since he was very young. Obviously being intersex is not the same thing, but if children who are intersex can receive hormone therapy early on, I do not see a medical reason why trans children should not.

[nikolche]

There isn't a real medical reason, to be honest. Trans children are so new that no one is quite sure how to deal with them. Right now there's still a huge fear that it's just a phase and they'll be stuck with undesired physical effects for the rest of their lives. While there certainly ARE instances of gender variant children growing up to be gender normative adults (so far the few studies show that most will be gay, a handful will be trans, and a very small minority will be straight and cisgendered), by the time puberty hits the numbers drop significantly.

The only somewhat valid reason anyone has ever been able to give me is that a child that young should not be allowed to make such a life changing decision. In many cases I agree, most 12 year old simply are not mature enough to understand everything that goes with starting on a life-long course of mind and body altering drugs. I think the rule should be more flexible though, not every child hits the same cognitive milestones at the same time.

To be fair, there's not a whole lot of difference in terms of starting T at 12 or 16 if the kid is on hormone blockers that entire time. It means that he hits puberty a little late, but the changes kick in rather quickly due to standard dosing so that by the end of his senior year he should be blending in with no issues. The problems come in when they're NOT on hormone blockers so they have to deal with 4 (or more) years worth of female development. It's much harder to live as a guy when you have boobs the size of Texas.

[keito_f]

*nods*

Hormone blockers does seem like a good way to deal with the issue if you want to make sure a child is ready. I would just be worried about letting puberty proceed and then trying to reverse it. The body would be much easier to shift if it is done before puberty engages.

[nikolche]

Oh I agree. The problem is, there's nothing for the kids who come out between 10ish and 16 other than blockers. To be honest, kids coming out at 12 is pretty damned rare. At the moment most are either 3 or 16.

Of course, there's also the issue of never allowing a child to experience the *puberty of their birth sex. Nearly all of the gender variant children who grew up to be gender normative adults switched over about when puberty hit. There's something to be said about "creating" transpeople by skipping it entirely. It's not a popular opinion to voice, but it's something that needs to be considered.

*There has to be an easier way of phrasing that...

[keito_f]

Yeah, in my original reply above I continued at greater length and talked about the "wrong" puberty, but it seemed awkward and I didn't know how to phrase it.

Since all embryos start off being capable of going either way, that would be the ideal time to give hormone therapy if we could know that the person would really want it, but of course not only is it not feasible, but there could be a lot of concerns with that. It is just a shame that the body becomes a lot less flexible as we get older.

[tko_ak]

My (total) assumption is that they're afraid of the liability. A potential lawsuit has a way of scaring a lot of people, especially since medical malpractice insurance is so expensive.

That, and it may not be deemed ethical by the AMA (perhaps not unethical, either, but still) or the state's medical licensing authority.

[jacksmom53]

This was an amazingly helpful reply.

I'm sorry that you're not supported by YOUR Mom. If you don't mind my saying so, shame on her.

I need to investigate our options with public vs. private high school and see if I can get a copy of the policys at high school he's currently slated to go to.

My husband and I will look into getting him on some drugs to block puberty. It might be a bit awkward to still be completely pre-pubescent at 16, but I guess it's superior to being curvy and buxom (like his Mom).

I have to get back to work now, but I wanted to pop in and let you know that I really appreciate your comment. Thank you!

[nikolche]

If he has to Jack can always say that all the guys in his family develop late. I was lucky enough to have a family where that really is the case, photos of my father at my age (23) still show him with a perfectly smooth face and no muscle mass (even after a year in the Marines). It helps that guys in high school have such a wide variation in developmental levels, the worst that new people will come up with is that he's a late bloomer or young for his grade.

Oh, you will want to talk to sports coaches if Jack shows an interest in being on any teams. Those can pose a problem because he obviously can't be on the girls' team, but the boys' team requires sharing a locker room and possibly hotel room for away games. Make sure to INSIST on privacy, there is nothing worse than being outed to the entire ninth grade.

[tko_ak]

I remember a kid at my high school who was 18 and a senior, and his voice hadn't changed yet. It must have sucked for him, but I don't remember anyone giving him shit for it (and I had PE with him).