12 year old FTM son, interested in starting medical intervention, getting pushback from other parent
Hello everyone ! 37F mom to 12FTM son. He came out as trans a little under a year ago. First to his close friends, then to me, a coach at one of his activities, a friends parent (who is also my friend) and then his uncles on dads side and dad (38M)- we are divorced.
I’ve always been outspoken about LGBTQ rights, done volunteer work, etc. very supportive when he came out, and a couple months later when he came out to Dad, he was supportive and has been using correct pronouns, etc.
My son has in the past discussed wanting top surgery and getting on “man medicine” as he lovingly calls testosterone, but it was always a “someday this will happen” kind of discussion. More recently, he has stated he would like to start meds “sooner” and I said ok cool let’s get you into a gender clinic and look into all the things. I let him know ahead of time he’ll have to do a lot before they’ll prescribe anything, including therapy, etc. they won’t just give you meds. He seemed annoyed (went to therapy for unrelated issues recently but found it “boring” and didn’t want to continue) but willing to do that when the time comes
I live in a purple state, currently safe for LGBTQ folks, and a reasonable distance to a large city/the nearest children’s gender clinic. I sent an email to them asking for info, to which they are having me fill out a bunch of stuff. At the time of sending said email, I reached out to Dad to let him know our son wants this, and I’m going to look into this clinic to start the process. Let him know they have all sorts of resources available and wanted to get started, knowing that it was going to be a journey. I was met with pushback, first with “not telling him” that I was doing it (literally texted him immediately after I sent an email to the clinic looking for information) and making decisions without him.
I always saw him as an ally (albeit less active in the community, but very vocal on social media against MAGA, voting, etc) so I was a bit surprised about the pushback. I reassured him that we knew that it was going to take a lot of time, and they weren’t going to just give son meds walking in the door. He said “I thought we were going to have them do therapy first” and I said that’s all part of the clinic. then he stated he wanted to look into the clinic first (it’s run by the one of the largest healthcare systems in the city) so I sent him the link.
That was about 2 weeks ago. I checked in once about a week after texting him the link asking if he had a chance to look at it and he said “not yet”.
My gut feeling is that he’s scared to take any action on the subject. I understand his fear comes from a place of love and protection - he’s been so vocal about being scared for Son since coming out, given the current state of the world. But I don’t know how to make him understand how important gender care is for non Cis folks. I can’t make him look into it, or want to research. But how long should I wait before continuing on with the clinic ? (We share custody of all our kids 50/50 and have equal responsibility for healthcare, etc)
I guess I’m just looking for input. Should I keep waiting? What can I do to make him feel more at ease ? Is that possible if he’s not willing to even look at the website ?