Best products from r/TransParents

Hi, I'm a Trans adult who transitioned as a teen, and now works with Trans youth.

Blockers are absolutely not out at 14. I have no idea who told you that, but tons of Trans 14-year-olds are on blockers. Blockers are not things that you give prepubescent children to prevent puberty. They are things you give pubescent children to halt puberty.

Testosterone injections are done weekly at home. Most people self-inject, or have a loved one inject them. You're not making constant visits to a doctor. Lab work is typically done right before starting hormones (to get a baseline), after about six months on hormones, after about a year, and then annually after that. That's it.

I'm not sure what you think Depo is. Do you mean Depo-Provera? If he's going on T, I'm not sure why you'd also put him on birth control. T will stop his period anyway. (It will not perfectly prevent pregnancy. It lowers the risk of pregnancy enormously, but it is not birth control and if he is sexually active with anyone who possibly produces sperm, which includes Trans girls or women who are on estrogen but still have their testicles, they should always use a condom. Of course, if he's sexually active, he should be knowledgeable about safer sex and using protection regularly anyway. Pregnancy isn't the only potential issue when you have unprotected sex, no matter whom it's with.) Some doctors do put guys on birth control briefly in the beginning so the T doesn't have to fight with the ovaries for chemical dominance, and there's no real harm in doing that as long as the birth control isn't estrogen-based, but it's not strictly necessary. Yes, as far as I'm aware, you can start both at the same time.

See if there are groups for LGBTQ youth, and especially Trans and gender-questioning youth, in your area.

Tell your son flat-out that it's completely fine with you that he's Trans, binary or non-binary, and that you will support him no matter what. We have to actually explicitly say the words, or the message isn't clearly received. I'll never forget the wonderful PFLAG mom (join PFLAG, by the way, especially if your local chapter has a group for parents of Trans and gender-questioning kids) who talked about her gay son coming out in his early 20s; he was terrified to tell his parents, which confused and upset them because they'd very consciously never said anything about being gay not being okay. His response was "But Mom, you never said that it was okay either."

Remember, too, that you have to walk your talk when you say you'll support him no matter what. Support for Trans youth matters. Support doesn't mean saying "I support you" and then not letting him get a binder, or not letting him wear a boy's suit to an upcoming family event, or not using his name and/or pronouns, or telling him he has to wait until he's 18 to pursue medical transition. That isn't support. If he doesn't feel supported, he's in the stat group of unsupported youth.

This is more of a general resource dump, but I hope it helps!

The books The Transgender Child and The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill are the two halves of your new bible, seriously. There's also a new book out for Trans teens and their families, called Where's MY Book? by Linda Gromko, MD. I haven't read it yet, but it looks well worth a look. Share all of those books with your son.

Check out http://t-vox.org/ and http://camparanutiq.org/ . Your son would love Camp Aranu'tiq.

Watch this great video too. It's about Trans kids and it's really good. (Ignore the line from one mom about how blockers are "brand new". They aren't. They've been used for decades. The books I mentioned above explain a lot more about all that.)

Run, don't walk, to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tyfa_talk/ and join it. It's a wonderful parents-only group specifically for parents of Trans and gender-questioning kids who are 18 and under. There's a lot more to it than "you should support your kid". There's lots for you there, even though you're already supportive. On Facebook, check out these great groups for parents of Trans and gender-expansive kids: here and here. And here on Reddit, check out /r/cisparenttranskid.

Trans Youth Family Allies, Gender Spectrum (and their fantastic conference), and the Trans Health conference, among other resources, will help your whole family a lot.

The nice folks at the Gender Development clinic at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, the Gender Management Services (GeMS) clinic at Boston Children's Hospital, The Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, the Genecis clinic at Children's Medical Center Dallas, the gender clinic at Seattle Children's Hospital, BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, and/or the Trans youth clinic at SickKids in Toronto can help your family connect with more providers and support networks in your area for Trans children and their families, even if you're not near any of those clinics. They do a lot of networking with groups and providers across North America and around the world.

My daughter was also 2 when I started transitioning. At the time, my wife had similar issues with me being called mommy, and we wanted there to be as little confusion as possible. So, I went with "Allie", which is just short for my name, Alison. it worked well because it had a similar cadence to daddy, so it was just a matter of saying "oh do you mean Allie? " and similar things like that. It took a little while, but it did work after a few months. There was a weird period when she was 3 that she thought daddy was a different person, and that was tough for me to deal with, but as she got a little older she understood.

​

I would very much recommend this book, Red. It's about a red crayon who could only draw blue, no matter how hard he tried to change. In the end he realizes that he was actually blue and just had the wrong label. https://www.amazon.com/Red-Crayons-Story-Michael-Hall/dp/0062252070