Anyone else dealing with young adult child who claims to be transgender?

[TamIam]

My son "came out" to us 3 weeks ago, saying he is an atheist and identifies as a female. Needless to say, this is devastating.
He's 20 and lives here, so we told him we love him, and will be loving him by being truthful and calling him by his birth name and referring to him as a boy.
He has also been severely depressed and I know he is being heavily influenced online and by 1 in person friend in particular.
I have enrolled in counseling with a conservative counselor, but just wondering if anyone here is dealing with this.

 

[Hidden In Him]

My son "came out" to us 3 weeks ago, saying he is an atheist and identifies as a female. Needless to say, this is devastating.
He's 20 and lives here, so we told him we love him, and will be loving him by being truthful and calling him by his birth name and referring to him as a boy.
He has also been severely depressed and I know he is being heavily influenced online and by 1 in person friend in particular.
I have enrolled in counseling with a conservative counselor, but just wondering if anyone here is dealing with this.

Never dealt with it, but welcome to our forum and thank you for sharing.

I think you are making the right choice not to agree with him identifying as female...

If it were me, I would increase my prayers for him, and that the depression that seems to be driving this lift off of him. That God send him someone (of His choosing) who shows him there is a better way, and that he ultimately comes to Christ.

If I may, why is he depressed? Is it due to loneliness maybe?

 

[TamIam]

His depression began in the fall after his girlfriend broke up with him. I think that + college stress were the catalysts. I think at this point loneliness is driving it, because he came out to his big church friends group. While they still talk to him, it is strained. They have also come together and told him they refer to him as "he".

We (my husband, other 2 adult kids, and my parents) are in daily, earnest prayer.
He has shown shadows of doubt that he is trans, so I pray God will get into those cracks and expose the lie to him.

It is hard. He dresses like a boy here as we insist, but he has a neutral-to-maybe-leaning-girlish haircut and even that is hard to deal with. It's just so tense and uncomfortable in our own house.

Anyway, it's a balancing act of wanting to keep showing Christian love, but being against the sin of this.

 

[Hidden In Him]

His depression began in the fall after his girlfriend broke up with him. I think that + college stress were the catalysts. I think at this point loneliness is driving it

That's kind of what I suspected, so I would be praying against this problem in particular. Young people look for love, and if the enemy uses someone of the opposite sex to burn them, he can then set them up to think maybe they weren't meant to be straight. That's why I said pray the Lord sends someone his way who opens his eyes. But look with the eyes of faith. Don't look at how he is in the natural, look with the eyes of faith to what he was created to be, and what he was before this happened, and keep believing God that he will find companionship from the right girl, maybe someone who sees past the current image he is trying to create as well.