"Even questioning why we use different pronouns for people based on our assessment of their sex/gender"
I've always taken this to just be about ease of identification. If I'm talking about somebody whose name I don't know, I'll refer to them by their gendered pronoun. If that doesn't whittle it down enough, I'll use other things like thei…
"Even questioning why we use different pronouns for people based on our assessment of their sex/gender"
I've always taken this to just be about ease of identification. If I'm talking about somebody whose name I don't know, I'll refer to them by their gendered pronoun. If that doesn't whittle it down enough, I'll use other things like their height or the colour of their skin or what they were wearing. Also, even if I do know their name, it's clunky to refer to them by name at all times so he/she is easier on the ear.
I find the politicisation of pronouns so strange! They're such a benign, purely descriptive part of speech as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you, Steve, for being a voice of reason and humanity on this topic and for creating a forum for thoughtful, respectful conversation. I have been scouring the internet over the last 10 days, wanting to find my way to clarity, and though I have found a lot of passionate, evocative perspectives, they have been alarming and not that helpful. I am looking to understand. This comment encapsulates a key aspect of what I have been feeling and not knowing how to articulate. I am grateful.
I am here, because recently, my autistic son shared that he wanted to change his pronouns shortly after his mentor had told my son that he was changing his.
Initially, I thought that I could let this run its course. After all, this is the typical identity exploration of an adolescent. As I research the gender identity debate, though, I am becoming increasingly nervous. Will this escalate? If so, do I have to tread around the issue rather than directly challenge my son’s thinking when he has built a strong belief from what he hears from his peers, school, mentor etc? Can I help him to shake loose the dogmatic and dangerous aspects of this identity exploration without setting off an alarm with outsiders who have no bearing whatsoever on our choices, but feel that they do?
Rather than this remaining a private family matter, my son’s exploration could become visible to the systems we belong in. These are fraught with so much emotional, political and social charge, black and white, and us vs. them thinking. In managing this for my family, I have to account for the erosion of parental oversight when schools are allowed to socially transition children without parents knowledge or consent. If we need to get any support for him as he moves through the challenges of puberty, I risk having to fight with therapists and doctors who are instructed to encourage my child and pressure us onto a path of radical medicalization despite very little scientific research to assess the cost/benefit. All this, when all my son has done is pick up on the zeitgeist.
It is alarming that rather than question the systemic forces that are leading to unprecedented numbers of children coming out as trans, we are to automatically affirm their new gender identity without acknowledging or treating the root causes of their dysphoria and distress.
Thank you for creating a space where I can read grounding perspectives, hear from others who are thoughtfully challenging the rigid, un-nuanced narratives that prevail. As a parent embarking on this involuntary adventure, I will need all the sanity that I can get.
I just also remembered this video (https://youtu.be/uyp0nBY_lBs) which is aimed specifically at parents, from the perspective of a detransitioned woman who was diagnosed with autism.
Steve, thank you for your compassionate and generous response and the two links you shared. I will look at them and forward them to my husband.
Yes, I agree that being supportive of my son rather than oppositional is important here. I am working to get clarity in my own mind and to work through my anxiety and fears so that I can settle myself and continue to be a safe and understanding resource to him. We’ve always been close and I will continue to be his biggest champion.
I agree with you on limiting internet use. It is a must given all the potential pitfalls and dangers of the internet, and my husband and I already do this. We are also clear that medicalization is an absolute no for all the reasons that you list. He will be able to make more informed choices as an adult. Our job is to get him there as whole and healthy as possible.
Finally, I appreciate your comment about my son perhaps taking some of these ideas literally. It’s quite possible. One inquiry we want to open with him is around gender stereotypes and how breaking gender norms might mean accepting that both men and women can be anything they want to be. It’s what we genuinely believe and we would love for him to feel that he can be fully himself, as he is.
Thanks again for sharing your insights and resources with me!
"One inquiry we want to open with him is around gender stereotypes and how breaking gender norms might mean accepting that both men and women can be anything they want to be. It’s what we genuinely believe and we would love for him to feel that he can be fully himself, as he is."
This is a mindset I desperately want to see adopted more widely. The idea that a boy becomes a girl simply because he likes stereotypically feminine things reinforces the exact gender stereotypes and limitations we should be breaking down.
I hope this, especially, is a useful way for him to think through these issues. I'm sure he won't get this perspective very often from the other influences around him. Best of luck navigating this. Let me know if any other questions come up that you think I might be able to help with.
"I am here, because two months ago, my 12 year old son shared that, after a lot of introspection, he wanted to change his pronouns to she/him (I know, I did a double take too). This came a month after his adult mentor (they are both autistic) had told my son that he was changing pronouns from she/her to he/him."
Hi there! Welcome, first of all. Yeah, this is an incredibly challenging time for parents especially. The desire to support they children vs the fear of what this ideology might end up doing to them is a horrible place to be.
There is a wide range of advice on the topic of how to support a child who is being exposed to this ideology. Some suggest limiting or removing internet access. Which, if feasible, I think is a good step. There is a wealth of deeply irresponsible advice online. And if your son really is trans, he will be trans without the influence of people only a few years older than him putting ideas in his head.
Others suggest compassionately refusing to use opposite gender pronouns. Scott Newgent, a transgender man, has an interesting take on this (https://youtu.be/iDJ-12h-0Jc?t=311). Scott offers a lot of advice to parents navigating this issue, so I'd recommend checking him out.
But having said all that, the key piece of advice I'd offer is not to become adversarial to your child's exploration. There is sooooooo much rhetoric out there that frames any resistance or questioning as hatred. Your son will inevitably be exposed to it. And it's often used as justification to cut that person out of the process. "Parents just don't understand," turned up to 11.
As with all things, this process will be better if your son always feels that he can talk to you about what he's going through. This doesn't mean you shouldn't explore his thinking with him, but phrasing challenges in the form of questions rather than statements might be helpful.
Children who start questioning their gender later in life are unlikely to be suffering from genuine dysphoria. This is supported by the fact that your son has asked for such unusual pronouns and that the change seems likely to have been precipitated by his mentor. I desperately hope I'm not about to say something ignorant and/or offensive here, but autistic people are also over-represented in the trans/non-binary community and I think it has to do with the greater chance that he'll take certain concepts literally. It's easier, perhaps, to bridge that gap from "this is a girly thing to do" to "this makes me a girl."
Obviously I don't know your son, so sadly I can't give you any definitive advice. But I'd say this; you know your son better than the doctors and therapists that might end up speaking to him in the future. You know him better than his teachers. Listen to and support him, as you obviously will, but I'd leave decisions about medical transition until he's an adult and can really make that decision for himself (again, the video I linked above has some nice insights on this). Puberty blockers are not "completely reversible" as you will likely be told. And once a child has been placed on that medical pathway, they almost always continue on it.
If transition turns out to be right for your son, it's possible to achieve completely convincing results post-puberty. There is no rush. Allow him to take his time. Anybody who doesn't support your desire to do that doesn't seem likely to have his best interests at heart.
"Even questioning why we use different pronouns for people based on our assessment of their sex/gender"
I've always taken this to just be about ease of identification. If I'm talking about somebody whose name I don't know, I'll refer to them by their gendered pronoun. If that doesn't whittle it down enough, I'll use other things like their height or the colour of their skin or what they were wearing. Also, even if I do know their name, it's clunky to refer to them by name at all times so he/she is easier on the ear.
I find the politicisation of pronouns so strange! They're such a benign, purely descriptive part of speech as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you, Steve, for being a voice of reason and humanity on this topic and for creating a forum for thoughtful, respectful conversation. I have been scouring the internet over the last 10 days, wanting to find my way to clarity, and though I have found a lot of passionate, evocative perspectives, they have been alarming and not that helpful. I am looking to understand. This comment encapsulates a key aspect of what I have been feeling and not knowing how to articulate. I am grateful.
I am here, because recently, my autistic son shared that he wanted to change his pronouns shortly after his mentor had told my son that he was changing his.
Initially, I thought that I could let this run its course. After all, this is the typical identity exploration of an adolescent. As I research the gender identity debate, though, I am becoming increasingly nervous. Will this escalate? If so, do I have to tread around the issue rather than directly challenge my son’s thinking when he has built a strong belief from what he hears from his peers, school, mentor etc? Can I help him to shake loose the dogmatic and dangerous aspects of this identity exploration without setting off an alarm with outsiders who have no bearing whatsoever on our choices, but feel that they do?
Rather than this remaining a private family matter, my son’s exploration could become visible to the systems we belong in. These are fraught with so much emotional, political and social charge, black and white, and us vs. them thinking. In managing this for my family, I have to account for the erosion of parental oversight when schools are allowed to socially transition children without parents knowledge or consent. If we need to get any support for him as he moves through the challenges of puberty, I risk having to fight with therapists and doctors who are instructed to encourage my child and pressure us onto a path of radical medicalization despite very little scientific research to assess the cost/benefit. All this, when all my son has done is pick up on the zeitgeist.
It is alarming that rather than question the systemic forces that are leading to unprecedented numbers of children coming out as trans, we are to automatically affirm their new gender identity without acknowledging or treating the root causes of their dysphoria and distress.
Thank you for creating a space where I can read grounding perspectives, hear from others who are thoughtfully challenging the rigid, un-nuanced narratives that prevail. As a parent embarking on this involuntary adventure, I will need all the sanity that I can get.
I just also remembered this video (https://youtu.be/uyp0nBY_lBs) which is aimed specifically at parents, from the perspective of a detransitioned woman who was diagnosed with autism.
Steve, thank you for your compassionate and generous response and the two links you shared. I will look at them and forward them to my husband.
Yes, I agree that being supportive of my son rather than oppositional is important here. I am working to get clarity in my own mind and to work through my anxiety and fears so that I can settle myself and continue to be a safe and understanding resource to him. We’ve always been close and I will continue to be his biggest champion.
I agree with you on limiting internet use. It is a must given all the potential pitfalls and dangers of the internet, and my husband and I already do this. We are also clear that medicalization is an absolute no for all the reasons that you list. He will be able to make more informed choices as an adult. Our job is to get him there as whole and healthy as possible.
Finally, I appreciate your comment about my son perhaps taking some of these ideas literally. It’s quite possible. One inquiry we want to open with him is around gender stereotypes and how breaking gender norms might mean accepting that both men and women can be anything they want to be. It’s what we genuinely believe and we would love for him to feel that he can be fully himself, as he is.
Thanks again for sharing your insights and resources with me!
"One inquiry we want to open with him is around gender stereotypes and how breaking gender norms might mean accepting that both men and women can be anything they want to be. It’s what we genuinely believe and we would love for him to feel that he can be fully himself, as he is."
This is a mindset I desperately want to see adopted more widely. The idea that a boy becomes a girl simply because he likes stereotypically feminine things reinforces the exact gender stereotypes and limitations we should be breaking down.
I hope this, especially, is a useful way for him to think through these issues. I'm sure he won't get this perspective very often from the other influences around him. Best of luck navigating this. Let me know if any other questions come up that you think I might be able to help with.
Seems to me we got over these Ward & June gender stereotypes fifty years ago.
"I am here, because two months ago, my 12 year old son shared that, after a lot of introspection, he wanted to change his pronouns to she/him (I know, I did a double take too). This came a month after his adult mentor (they are both autistic) had told my son that he was changing pronouns from she/her to he/him."
Hi there! Welcome, first of all. Yeah, this is an incredibly challenging time for parents especially. The desire to support they children vs the fear of what this ideology might end up doing to them is a horrible place to be.
There is a wide range of advice on the topic of how to support a child who is being exposed to this ideology. Some suggest limiting or removing internet access. Which, if feasible, I think is a good step. There is a wealth of deeply irresponsible advice online. And if your son really is trans, he will be trans without the influence of people only a few years older than him putting ideas in his head.
Others suggest compassionately refusing to use opposite gender pronouns. Scott Newgent, a transgender man, has an interesting take on this (https://youtu.be/iDJ-12h-0Jc?t=311). Scott offers a lot of advice to parents navigating this issue, so I'd recommend checking him out.
But having said all that, the key piece of advice I'd offer is not to become adversarial to your child's exploration. There is sooooooo much rhetoric out there that frames any resistance or questioning as hatred. Your son will inevitably be exposed to it. And it's often used as justification to cut that person out of the process. "Parents just don't understand," turned up to 11.
As with all things, this process will be better if your son always feels that he can talk to you about what he's going through. This doesn't mean you shouldn't explore his thinking with him, but phrasing challenges in the form of questions rather than statements might be helpful.
Children who start questioning their gender later in life are unlikely to be suffering from genuine dysphoria. This is supported by the fact that your son has asked for such unusual pronouns and that the change seems likely to have been precipitated by his mentor. I desperately hope I'm not about to say something ignorant and/or offensive here, but autistic people are also over-represented in the trans/non-binary community and I think it has to do with the greater chance that he'll take certain concepts literally. It's easier, perhaps, to bridge that gap from "this is a girly thing to do" to "this makes me a girl."
Obviously I don't know your son, so sadly I can't give you any definitive advice. But I'd say this; you know your son better than the doctors and therapists that might end up speaking to him in the future. You know him better than his teachers. Listen to and support him, as you obviously will, but I'd leave decisions about medical transition until he's an adult and can really make that decision for himself (again, the video I linked above has some nice insights on this). Puberty blockers are not "completely reversible" as you will likely be told. And once a child has been placed on that medical pathway, they almost always continue on it.
If transition turns out to be right for your son, it's possible to achieve completely convincing results post-puberty. There is no rush. Allow him to take his time. Anybody who doesn't support your desire to do that doesn't seem likely to have his best interests at heart.