Premium: How can I help my son realize he can never actually become a women? (Q+A)

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Hi Stella. Hi there. We've got we've got a long letter here, but um it's it's it there's an awful lot of content in it and I think it's worth reading it out. Do you wanna take it? Sure. Uh I'll I'll start it. So my son who is now twenty wants to transition but only socially. He's intelligent, he loves math and science, straight a student. Not sporty, but kind, gentle, and fits a hundred percent the ROGD personality as described by Angus Fox.

Late in twenty eighteen he was in a relationship with a girl from high school and was crazy about her. She started sharing some information with him about her parents' abusive relationship. Her dad found out and asked her to end the friendship with him. The dad told her that South Asian boys are rapists and asked teachers to tell my son never to talk to the daughter again. So this is a South Asian family.

He told us that he Um he never told us and he tried to talk to her in the locker room, giving her a birthday present and a note saying, Please don't end this friendship. Her parents found out about that and then sent us a letter saying that if he ever tried to contact their daughter again they would get a restraining order from the police.

That was the first time we came to know what was going on. When we asked him he was scared and shaking, and kept saying he would never hurt her. We told him that she should have told us earlier. That he should have told us earlier, and we asked him to stay away from her for now on. He was very sad and cried for a day, but after a few days he seemed fine. But then after a month or so I started to notice some changes.

He was spending more time in a girls group. He was saying these are my sisters, even though he used to have a crush on one of these girls in the early days of high school. I had no concept of gender ideology at the time, so I thought that some kind of this was some kind of reaction to what happened earlier due to the early situation with this friend group and they were divided as well. My thinking was that maybe he wants to show that girl that all the other girls feel safe around him.

These girls started to treat him like a doll. One day he asked me, Can I do makeup? Let me tell you, he has big beautiful eyes. One of the girls told One of the girls told him that his eyes deserve makeup and his big lashes are like a girl's eyelashes and perfect for mascara.

After a few months he started shaving his legs and arms, stopped wearing shorts, developed extreme social anxiety and body issues, hating his big feet, wearing socks even in hot weather, covering up his neck with a scarf, etc etc. When I asked him he sent me a text saying he's transgender with a new name at the end of the message. As a Muslim family we found a therapist for him. The therapist helped his social anxiety and body image with

but he's changed his name and pronouns with his friends and in university as well. He started university in twenty twenty one. He dresses up as a girl in university. He's been insisting for us to affirm him which we don't. His therapist said he needs to see a psychologist. Now he's seeing a Muslim psychologist and at least willing to listen. He's gonna move out soon and I want to avail this time before he moves out to have a positive impact on him.

He wants us to affirm or he will leave the family. He says he has no other choice. He thinks that what happened between him and that girl has nothing to do with his identity change and that the incident didn't have an impact on him. Even though he admits it was painful for him, we don't talk about it and he acts like he's forgotten anything.

When the therapist or our family tries to talk to him about the incident, he says, I don't know, or I forgot, or I don't want to talk about it. He's created some false memories around this as well. He says he's awesome and there's nothing wrong with him, so we should stop trying to fix him. He's a woman and he knows that and he shall live like a woman. So my question is.

If he's willing to listen at the moment and he's a critical thinker, how can I help him realize that he can never actually become a woman? When this topic comes up, all of his critical thinking just stops and he starts talking senseless. Is it okay if I ask him to watch detransitioner stories or send him links, or will this make him more stubborn?

What's the way forward? Do you think a family vacation would help? I just want to add that he doesn't really act like a girl with the family. My husband is very clear that no such thing will happen under his roof. He wants us to accept his girl identity or else he'll have no choice but to leave the family.

There's there's an awful lot in that and uh my heart goes out to this this uh mother who seems so in tune with her child and uh re really has understood it. There's a few kind of points I want to make just to to kick us off. I would let go of you, the parent, probably do see the right root of the issue. You probably are reading it right. It probably was triggered by that heartbreaker, that disgraceful behaviour by that family. and his his traumatic response.

And his traumatic response is a defence mechanism. I don't see him maybe ever admitting that. He may never like like getting him to admit that this is the root of all the problem. I'm not sure you need to, and I'm not sure it'll be productive And I'm not sure that's where the most valuable conversation is to be had at the at this point. I i i he will he will have I'd imagine this is a few years ago.

'cause he started university in twenty twenty one. So he you know, and this was in high school. I'd say he will have really entrenched his false memories, as the parent says, on this. I just think that's just let that go. Let let that off. There's there's other ways to talk to this kid. The second thing I think is, you know, they often say that the most cerebral, very clever people get caught up in in in cult.

And I'm not sure convincing him whether he's a woman or not. I'm not sure if that's the way to go in. I don't know. Exactly where I'm going with this, but I kind of think it's like talking to somebody religious. You don't go straight talking about there's no God. ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. Maybe you might talk about something else I don't know about going straight into but the identity, the actual belief.

Because as as the parent said, he goes from being a critical thinker to being senseless. Which suggests he goes from his cerebral brain to his emotional brain, which suggests that there's very little moving the emotional brain. It's it's the stupidest part of our brain, it's the most certain part of our brain. We hold it tight.

I don't like this person, I just don't like them and I'm not going to talk to them. That's the way we are with an emotional brain. So you're trying to get into a cerebral brain, so therefore I'd be trying to get thought provoking conversations. As as the parents said, I've only a few months and now we will talk about the father and that that's a whole other issue. But I I kind of feel if you can get into thought provoking conversations rather than standoff.

you might go further. But I what what are you thinking? Well there there is so much. Um I mean I tend to think Talking about the root need without trying to connect it with gender can be helpful. So for example, I think the root injury here. Is that he was treated like a predator. Yeah. When he's not. And um you can try to say, Oh, I think what happened with your girlfriend is why you're trans, but that's not what I mean. I think the point is it must have been so painful when you were.

Caring about this girl, you liked her, you of course you thought she was beautiful, but you're not a predator. It must have been so awful to be treated that way. And what this family did is wrong. And maybe talking about Being misunderstood, being judged, prejudice, misunderstanding, you know, um, those types of things, stereotypes, like that might be an important thing to talk about.

Which kind of sidesteps like, are you or are you not a woman? Because I think like you said, Stella, he's so far away because this is his new coping strategy. Yeah. But if you can kind of describe accurately the initial wound, that could be very helpful. And I mean, I I know this family is working with a therapist

If the therapist has consultations with the parents or ever talks with them about that, I'd like to know: are you working on the initial wound? Are you working on the heartbreak of when we are misunderstood? In such a like a personal way, like to be treated like a predator is a very Violating

intimate, like private, like weird, because obviously I'm sure he thought she was attractive. Like he probably did have physical feelings for her, but to separate out what is like a normal attraction versus predatory behavior and to be treated like that. So I I feel inclined to say therapy needs to be working on the primary wound. Okay. Very good.

Another thing I would say which could be interesting is uh this uh parent has written and said, should I show them detransitioner stories? In my experience with this is he'll say, Yeah, but that wasn't me. That won't be me. That's not gonna be me. So that in a way just kind of concretizes them sometimes. It could be interesting to to find a couple of good

films of wrongly accused people, y you know what I mean? And the impact of it. That could be very powerful. Good idea. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah, without no you don't need to have the conversation, you can just watch the film and just l let he you know, this guy's clearly no fool, so he'll he'll register it. Sometimes if we watch a film and then we think we're gonna have the conversation, we can almost tarnish.

The film. So you're just like sitting there like, are you watching? Are you watching? Are are you seeing? Are you are you joining the dark Trust them. But I wonder if you could choose a couple of um there's there's a really good film. I'll I'll uh put it in the notes. It's really good. About it's a series, but it's really, really good about a guy who was wrongly accused. Do you remember what it's called? Um, I can't think of it.

I can't think of it. Well I look for it. That's a really good idea. Yeah. Well Yeah, look for it while we talk. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. Um So what do you what do you think about um The dad. You I know you mentioned Oh well let me let me ask let me m mention this while you are looking up the film. She asked do you think a family vacation for a month would be helpful? I think absolutely. I think she said something valuable here. In the context of family, he's not acting like a girl.

So I think the one one thing we know about extreme groups or identity change and cults and things like that is. If you can spend positive, fun, quality time in your natural old identity. That actually helps to create a bit of conflict about leaving that all behind to run off to your new group, right? Because your son seems to think. He has a choice to make between living as a woman and my family. And actually we want to be very careful not to enforce that choice.

What we want to do, and this is something we know from cult intervention, we want to make time with the family loving and fun and warm and positive, positive, positive. And we want to make sure that the young person knows You can always come back to the family. You don't have to pick between these two things. But we want you to be yourself. We don't want you to pretend to be someone you're not, for example. You know, like I wouldn't harp on that too much, but you do not want to present.

It's either us or trans. You actually want to say it will always be us. No matter what happens, we will always be your parents and love you. We will never abandon you. We will never leave you. We just want you to make the best decision for your health, and we want you to be yourself.

And I think the family vacation is a great idea. Yeah, month, definitely, and and more so if you can. And I think more than anything, if if you can kind of talk about authenticity, if you can talk about kind of connecting with them i uh i out of the context of being dressed up as the doll and you know, I think the parent has it right that he he was enthralled and I've heard you speak about this so many times, Ash, and you do it so well, about how they kind of

They're they're loving it, th these kind of innocent boys, they're just loving being dressed up as a doll by by these girls. So it it it is very alluring for them. And he's got caught up in it. It sounds like he's got caught up in it. I did look it up. I think what I found aga instead was actually something really good, which was must see, wrongful conviction films and T V shows. And there was a whole list of them.

So if they look up that they'll see if you look up must see wrongful conviction films. You'll just see there's so many of them because it doesn't have to be the predator. The wrongful can the the miscarriage of justice, the awful, awful because sometimes if you go straight in for the juggler, straight in for the main point, they'll resist.

While if it's kind of a a a misaccusation about murder or something like that, it can resonate and they'll be open enough to to to watch it. And I think people sometimes underestimate the value of that.

Um but just before we finish because I know this is going on, the the the issue with the father I think is something that needs a little bit of attention in it, if at all possible if if maybe this parent could talk to the father and say, Can we can we pull this down a little bit? He's still immature, d can we can can you give a bit more space to this? Because in a way it's a self imposed deadline the father is bringing in.

to this kid's life by doing that and it could propel the kid f further or deeper. Yeah, it's really tough because of course there are religious issues, family issues, cultural issues at play, and I know that this is probably incredibly difficult for the dad. Um And I think if if the family can lovingly set some boundaries around university.

but then be less rigid about making it a black or white issue. Like I think that would be helpful. I generally advise try to set some speed bumps in the way. So for example In a non-confrontational way, maybe the family can say something like, you know, we've been saving up for your university education, and the point of that is school. It's academic.

So we are not supporting the idea of you medically changing yourself, but we understand you have to sort this gender thing out over time. We just like I would encourage the family if they're going to draw any line in the sand. If it can be about medical things, I think that's probably better than if you dabble at any capacity with gender, you're cut off. Like I would not do that. So it's it's a lot, but we hope that's helpful. Yeah.

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