My child had severe bipolar depression and was not stable. He had only recently told me he thought he may be transgender. I found him a gender therapist and he was also seeing a psychiatrist for his bipolar. The therapist needed for him to be mentally stable before recommending hormones-he never got to that point.
Long story short...we were very close and I tried very hard to be supportive. I call him "he" because he was questioning and he had not asked me to call him "she" yet. In fact, he was afraid to tell people his secret. I feel terrible he had this confusion and that he felt shame for his "innocent" feelings. Shortly before he took his life, he asked me to buy him a girl shirt. I was happy to do this but I picked out a tshirt that had a feminine design on it but was a regular tshirt. I thought it was a step in the right direction since he never wore any girl clothes in public. I thought this would give him a feminine feeling without being totally frilly. However, he said something about it not being very feminine. I regret buying that shirt instead of a more feminine one.
I'll never know for sure what would have become of my son's questioning. Maybe he would have transitioned? At one point, he indicated he might be gay??? He wasn't sure or mentally healthy but I would encourage all of you who love someone questioning their gender identity to love them 100% as they are...today.
It's only been a month and I'm devastated!! Everyone knew he had bi-polar and I'm planning to do all I can to raise awareness for bipolar and mental illness in general. I also plan to try to find a way to be an advocate for the GLBT community.
