# I had 3 daughters, now i have 2 daughters and 1 son



## Chloe2017 (May 13, 2017)

Hi everyone, i'm new here. I was searching the internet for a place i could come to talk about this ''problem'' i have (but i don't want to call it a problem really because i love my children regardless of anything) and here seemed like a good place. its more, i guess,like a very unusual situation rather than a problem and i am not entirely sure how to handle it.

I am a 36 year old, married and my husband and i have 3 children. We had 3 girls aged 6, 9 and 13. Now we only have 2 daughters, the youngest two. Our 13 year old for the past 6 months has been living as a boy.

I have always wanted a son and i got 3 girls and that was fine, i still loved them and i didn't wish they were boys instead (but i have to admit i do/did want to try again for a son) 

But as she grew up my 13 year old was very boyish, into boy things. Not at all girly in anyway. So it was like having a boy anyway. She would hang out with other boys at school, she would be more interested in football than in girly things and so on. She was more like a boy than some real boys are! This was never an issue for my husband or i, we didn't mind having a tomboy, even though she didn't seem close to her sisters who are a lot more like typical girls.

Well 6 months ago she told us she wanted to be a boy and was going to start living as a boy properly and intends to go the full way with it eventually. Now our daughter is no longer our daughter, he is our son. He dresses like a boy, acts like a boy, talks like a boy, looks like a boy, hangs out with boys, plays football, has very short hair and he wants to go the full way and have the full sex change. He has asked us to start calling him by a different name, a male name which he has chosen for himself 

I have been taking him to a clinic where he talks to a specialist/psychiatrist about gender realignment. He is considered too young to go ahead with the procedure right now but in a few years when he is old enough he is adamant he wants to go ahead with it. He can't wait to start taking some testosterone injections.He wears a boys uniform for school and everyone calls him by his new male name. He has no problems at school, all his mates are boys and they have always considered him as one of the boys anyway so they don't mind the transformation. He says some of the girls are bitchy with him but he can handle them. The teachers can be a bit weird with him he says but mostly they just treat him normally. We have had meetings with the school over this and they have been surprisingly supportive about it all, i have been very impressed by them

I am quite convinced he means this, he isn't going to change his mind. In a way i guess i wasn't all that surprised when he told us, i kind of knew already. He just was never really a girl, you know?

I don't have a problem with it, i love my child like i always have. So i had a daughter, now i have a son. The transformation has been sudden and drastic but i have adjusted to it well, i surprised myself with how used to this i am now. The other day i took my son out to do shopping for clothes and we bought boys stuff when once i would have bought him girls clothes, and i didn't have a problem with it. He is the happiest i have ever seen him and gaining confidence. He looks like a boy, he used to wear somewhat boyish clothes before he started the change fully, but he had longer hair and he flet he had to keep up the pretense of being a girl. He was scared to tell myself and his father the truth for a long time as he was scared of our reaction, but he told his friends a long time ago and they supported him.Now he feels like the weights been lifted off his shoulders, he ''came out'' and told us the truth and now he is being the person he wants to be.

The problem is that firstly my husband is not handling it as well as i am. He tries his best, i can tell he is trying hard, but he doesn't know how to handle it and is weird and awkward around our son a lot of the time.

Secondly my two daughters also don't know how to deal with it. My youngest is 6 and doesn't quite understand it all, its a bit beyond her comprehension right now. She can't understand how her big sister is now a boy

The third thing that troubles me is that i wonder if my son knew i wanted a boy and as he was growing up it influenced his feelings and played some part in this. I know i am probably irrational but it bothers me. I am happy and i love him no matter what, as long as this is really what he wants (i think it is but i wonder how much i played a part in it)

The saying daddies girl and mummies boy is true because my other two have always been closer to their father. while my son/daughter has always been closer to me. As he was growing up there were times when i thought he was a boy, he was just so boyish. Everyone always said he is like a boy more than a girl. Family, Friends, teachers, they all said it. Did i subconsciously project my wish to have a son onto him and influence how he felt about his own identity? Did i turn him into the son i didn't have? I don't feel like i did, i keep worrying myself and thinking it over, i don't honestly think i did. But may be i did and i didn't even know i was doing it? I never discouraged him from acting like a boy and being into boy things, whereas his father would try to get him doing girly things with his sisters (which usually ended in a fight between him and his sisters) When my hubby took the other two girls to the brownies or rainbows i took my daughter/son to climb trees or to play football with the son of my est friend (he's always been best friends with my best friends son and a couple of other boys)

Anyway, i feel like i am going on a bit now. Thank you for reading if you got this far! I guess i just need some advice about how to deal with my husband and my two daughters and how to get them to come to terms with it....and i guess i need to hear what people think about all this. Do you think i did this to my child? Its really bothering me, i still want to try for another child so i can have a boy even after this has happened.

This has brought me and my son/daughter closer than ever. He knows i support him. But i feel there is a rift in the family now, my son and i being close and sticking together and my husband and my daughters on the other side not knowing how to deal with it all.

Its a very odd situation (well i know others have gone through it, of course my son is not the first person to identify as the opposite sex to the one they were born) but i never expected this to happen. Yeah i thought he was a tomboy, i didn't expect him to sit down with us and announce he would be living as a boy/man in the future. I still love him ,he is a sweet boy and i love him as my son, i accept him as my son, i just wish i knew how to help the rest of my family deal with it. His gran (my mother) is also funny about it, she doesn't understand it. My father and my husbands mother are both dead now, but my father in law is still alive. He is ok about it, more supportive of his grandson than my mother is being so far. He told me privately a few weeks ago that he wasn't that surprised by this, he used to take him over to the park and they would kick a ball about. He said it felt like he already had a grandson long before he told us he wanted to be a boy.

Anyway please forgive me, i have gone on and on , i need to stop now. Any support,advice or opinions are welcome. I want to support my child as best i can, i guess i need to overcome my own feelings of guilt and feeling like i caused this, I don't have a problem with my child changing gender if its what they want, i do have a problem with the idea that i may have somehow influenced his feelings. But the main thing is that he is happy, i want all my children to be happy and i want my husband, my daughters and my childs grandmother to accept him and love him as he is. It hurts to think this has caused us all to be more distant. But my father in law has been a great support to myself and to my son, i am grateful he has been there to support us both, he has been amazing


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## NiteNicole (May 19, 2003)

I don't have any advice. I haven't been in your situation. It sounds like you are very supportive of your son, and that's wonderful. Your husband and daughters may just need a little more time to get their heads around it. As long as they aren't being mean or pushing your son away, I would say it's normal for them to need a bit to adjust to such a big change. Finding someone for them to talk to might be a good thing. 

As for "wishing" your daughter into a son, no. Mom to mom, just don't even put that on yourself. Your son is who he is. The only thing that you might have done is let him know along the way, in big and small ways, that whoever he is, you are there for him and as a mom, that's my goal.


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## 95191 (Nov 8, 2007)

OP I don't know where you are but perhaps not far from Philly 
https://www.mazzonicenter.org/trans-health This is happening in Sept and would be great for you to attend & meet up with other parents AND for your 2 daughters to meet other families. This is for kids & families as well as adults.

As the other poster said, don't beat yourself-IF as mom's we could have such powers to project it would be great, but we don't have that ability.

I'm not dealing with your exact situation so I'm not able to say those correct words you need to hear. We have a 9 year old "bunny" (fluid one!) who announced a year ago no longer wanted ANY gender pronouns used, so we just go by bunny. We have known since birth no set gender fit, so it's no shock here to anyone. We aren't "changing" as much as no set gender fits.

There are other parents out there, just search around and reach out.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

My husband's parents were religiously conservative farmers, and they wanted boys to help out on the farm, give spiritual leadership to the next generation and carry on the precious family name. First they had a girl. Then another girl. They really wished the next child would be a boy. Nope, a girl. On and on ... they had six girls in a row. I highly doubt that you wished for a boy more than my in-laws did. (After thirteen years they finally had a boy, and then another, for what that's worth.)

But my point is, if wishing a girl was a boy created transgenderism, at least some of my sisters-in-law would identify as boys. And nope, they don't. You did not cause your son to identify as a boy, any more than you caused your daughters to identify as girls.

I highly recommend finding something like a conference for families dealing with transgender issues. Male parents tend not to be persuaded by books, videos, explanations or emotional appeals, but by experiences. And when it comes to ensuring the happiness of their children they tend to be more focused on fitting in than on fully realizing individuality. Give your husband an experience where he sees families with trans youth being happy, finding their groove, fitting into the world, and he'll probably move towards acceptance much faster. If you can't make it to a larger gathering, at least see if your local networking can put you in touch with another family with a transgender son, especially one a little further along than yours, who will agree to be informal short-term mentors to your family. Invite them over for dinner, or meet at a park for a shared picnic. Explain that your husband just needs to know that happy normal life exists on the other side of acceptance.

My own experience with this husband-persuasion tactic isn't related to transgenderism, but it was successful nonetheless.

Miranda


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## SpringRain (Nov 19, 2001)

I'm have been going through something very similar over the last 18 months with my oldest child. PM me if you want to chat. I'm not comfortable going to go into many details in a public forum because I want to protect my child's privacy.


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