u/TieBeautiful2161

Knowing what some of you know now; how would you approach a teen (16 mtf) struggling with severe gender dysphoria and wanting to start medical transition?

I have been reading a lot of posts in the other detrans sub that really resonate with some of their experience - they are that classic neurodivergent/ on the spectrum, gifted individual with anxiety and possible depression, that seem particularly vulnerable to this path. 

I believe that they at least need to reach mental maturity and some level of financial self sufficiency before proceeding with this. But we are just being accused of not being supportive parents, denying them health care, they are throwing all the talking points at us how only 0.1% regret transition and it's life saving treatment and so on. Of course if it's literally what we need to do to save their life it's the lesser of two evils; but I just don't feel right about this, I truly feel they are destroying their life and I don't want to help them in doing that. This is a child that was blessed with so many advantages in life - they are brilliant, ridiculously good looking, and were given a very strong start socioeconomically and academically. They could have had everything in life and instead this is the only thing 98% of people around them will see and define them as. I just can't help but feel they are making a severe mistake by not at least attempting to deal with these feelings through therapy or other mechanisms (they are convinced those don't exist and that people with true dysphoria never get past it, which i know isn't true). To be clear i am not talking about "conversion therapy". simply about therapy that may try and get to the bottom of these complicated feelings about identity and how they may be influenced by neurodivergence, social fitting in and so on.

Please don't flame, I just have nowhere else to take these feelings to. On the trans kid parent sites they will chase me off with pitchforks. Maybe someone here can share a perspective, independent studies, anything. Fwiw the teen also believes this sub and similar communities are infiltrated by right wing bot to promote transphobia or something to that extent. I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall as they are in their echo chamber and won't listen to anything else. Please help I'm just a distraught parent. 

This might be controversial so bear with me.

With the way the world is going and K-shaped economy, my take is that there will be money left to be made by helping ultra-rich part with their money. I would like to explore a side hustle offering some sort of service that would target that demographic, without physical labor or high barrier to entry. For instance, I watched the show about the crazy rich asians in LA and they would do things like invite some sort of 'energy healer' or spiritual guide or feng shui expert etc to their homes, that were very highly regarded and I am sure charged a decent amount for their services. I am extremely skeptical that these were people truly gifted with some sort of spiritual gift, you don't need any formal certification for it, I think they were just very good at personal branding and creating an image - and this is something I feel I could do too.

I just need ideas of what other similar sorts of things out there exist that are similar and could work to sell a service that's prettily wrapped in 'vibes' to people with money to throw around on stupid stuff. I have a great sense of style and considered personal styling/ shopping but that seems to have less of a demand around here. I don't want to do anything like personal assistant where I'm at their home as their employee though, it has to be on my own time and terms. Or anything very high pressure like event/ wedding planning. Something calm and more one on one. Thoughts?

Hey! So I plan to be traveling with my older elementary age kiddo to the Bahamas from west coast, and instead of doing a layover we are thinking of taking a couple of extra days to check out Chicago. Thinking of staying in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare as we got Hyatt points and its a great rate, and taking the train downtown and maybe Uber back in evenings. One thing giving me pause though is it'll be the 4th weekend and while it'd be fun to see fireworks etc, we don't want to risk getting stuck in any crazy crowds etc especially if trying to get back to the hotel. Can someone give me an idea just how crazy things get downtown there on the 4th? Could we come downtown during the day and leave by late afternoon without too much trouble? Is transit/ uber going to be crazy? Any areas to stay away from or nice areas where it'd be relatively quiet? Thanks!