My daughter was totally happy until puberty hit. Puberty caused rapid onset scoliosis. She had spinal surgery in 2017 at 13 but her hate for her body and the PTSD after the surgery has made her say she is a boy. Other than short hair and wearing pants, she has no interest that would be considered "boy". She came out as gay 3 years ago. I was fine with that. She is allergic ( found during spinal surgery) to all pain meds. Transitioning would kill her. She is 15. The cops come to our house at least once every 3 months because of her and she goes to the hospital. She told me that since I do not recognize her as a boy then I am a TERF and I should not be alive. All her online friends tell her I am abusive because I refer to her as a female. She said when she turns 18 she will never speak to another person unless they acknowledge she is a man. I am truly scared for her.
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@Sandyt0es
Let me guess, Tumblr online friends?
@alyx Yes, exactly. Also Quotev
@Sandyt0es
This is starting to become a reoccurring theme from what I'm seeing. She's most likely not actually transgender, she's a trans-trender. She feels the need to fit in with "the cool kids", her friends. The whole thing manifests itself like how being goth or emo was like 10 years ago. Even back then kids would be so adamant in saying "It's not a trend mom! This is who I am!". And of course after a few years, they'd be over it.
The problem here is of course that you can't let her completely adopt this trend since it would cause health issues. And I severely doubt at this point that even hormone blockers don't have an effect on people's brains and make things worse.
Since you say that she already had a traumatic experience with her surgery, I would suggest finding a good therapist, one that wouldn't just jump on the trans bandwagon. The problem here is that even most therapists seem to have been forced into giving in into these delusions immediately. So I have no idea how you could find a decent one.
If you don't think you can find someone who you trust, then you play the part. Ask her why she feels like she isn't a girl. Be the parent that wants to understand by asking questions. Lots of questions about every small thing you can think of. Therapy is a lot about asking the right things to make the patient think things through. You can get a better understanding about how and why she's feeling the way she is, and hopefully she will too. But if you do attempt this yourself, you'll have to create a friendly, non-confrontational environment, which might mean you'll have to accept calling her however she wants for now.
Another approach would be to get her involved in other things. Get her out of the house, take family trips, maybe help her discover a new hobby. Anything that keeps her mind off things and away from the friends that influence her in this direction. The critical part is, don't let her figure out under any circumstances that you're trying to keep her away from her online friends.
I wish there was an easy solution, but I haven't seen one. The scary part is that even legitimate gender dysphoria is not that simple to diagnose, and now we're getting a wave of kids that can easily learn online what to say to make people think they have it too.
