Our Story in a Nutshell

Two years and seven months ago, our then 15-year-old, autistic son made a halting announcement, “I think I might be trans….”. It caught me completely off guard but somehow it made sense for me to reply with, “Ok” and I think, not much later on, I added, “I guess I have a daughter”.

I don’t remember the details of my thoughts but I believe that lasted maybe a week or two before I changed my mind. My husband never “affirmed”, as I learned it was called. I spent a whole lot of time researching online. I found Fourth Wave Now. I read Jesse Singal’s 2018 article from The Atlantic, titled, “ When Children say they’re Trans”. I learned about ROGD. It certainly seemed to apply to our son.

As I read more, listened to various podcasts (Gender a Wider Lens mostly) and thought about it more, our son became louder and more insistent that he needed Estrogen and a good therapist. In my desperation, I contacted the neuropsychologist who diagnosed our son with autism. She is very kind but gave us the only referral I think she knew to give: the local gender clinic affiliated with the hospital…..

Not knowing any better, we contacted the gender clinic and were told the wait was nine months. I am so deeply grateful for that long wait. Instead, we were referred to a PhD candidate who told us she would act as a placeholder until we could find a full-time therapist. She met with our son for almost three months and yes, she affirmed and referred to him as female. We managed to find an actual therapist through Therapy First and thankfully, our son seemed to like him. I took my son’s name off the gender clinic waitlist.

Since those first, incredibly fraught months, I have done my best to keep my head above water. I have found other parents in the same situation. I am cautious whenever I manage to meet other parents with gender non-conforming kids on the few occasions when my lonely kid has managed to connect with others through the GSA club at school or with a therapy group for autistic teens. Mostly the parents who are supportive of the idea that one can be born in the wrong body make themselves known, and I am left to wonder about the parents who are silent. I make my cautious overtures. I generally say something along the lines of, “ We call him (insert initial) ____.  It’s our compromise.”  I make it a point to signal to the various doctors and the teachers we have met with in a similar way. I talk to some of my neighbors about this and almost invariably, they know someone else or they have a relative going through this. In our old community, which we left just as Covid was winding down, I know of five or six kids who got caught up in this. It is mind boggling that more people don’t see this for what it is and don’t see the danger in the delusional thinking behind this.

I have gone deep down the rabbit hole since this all started but hey, my son went in first and I am looking to find him and making plenty of mistakes along the way.  My husband and I are working on the relationship and trying to stay away from futile arguments with our son. This is extremely hard, for me especially as I like to argue but I am trying.

This is our story in a nutshell and I am hoping for a happy ending. I will settle for a so, so ending if it means a return to sanity for our family.