My teenage son got hormone pills online with his pocket money

“It’s really a woman,” he said.

I was calm about it. “How do you know what a woman’s feelings are?” I said, he had no answer but was offended by the question. From then on there was a lot of tension at home.

At her single-sex public school in London, she told her friends her new feminine name. He joined an LGBTQ+ group, run by a teacher’s aide who helped his son transition. Later, when we were called to a meeting with the school – because of his absence and because he said he was not happy that we didn’t call him by his new name – the teaching assistant was wheeled in give his opinion. He said it was a good thing for our son to accept this new reality.

Harry applied to a mixed sixth form college using his new name and gender. The school treated her as a girl from the start. She started wearing make-up, very short dresses and short skirts. I said: “I think they are really inappropriate clothes for school.” She is proud that she never wore the same short dress again. But I suffered a lot from it all. I found it hard to say anything without crying or arguing, so I slowly started to say nothing.

We tried family therapy. I found someone who didn’t have a strong opinion on trans issues and I said that’s not what we want to talk about. It was a conflict. We wanted to be able to live together with different opinions. My son was firm, he said there would be no compromise: “I will cut ties with you at some point.”

He is polite when arguing. When he shouts, he comes back with a word salad: A real person. People are assigned a sex at birth. Gender is in your mind.

I believe that being a member of that group at school made him feel important. He was happy to find that he was special and would command respect in this group, that he had an explanation for why he felt uncomfortable. He has always been young, thin and not playing at all. He never wanted to admit that he cared [what others thought] and yet his move to being a standout at school must have felt special.

He did go to the GP. From the age of 17 you can go without telling your parents. And he was put on the waiting list at the adult sex clinic. But the list is five years long, he said. The doctor refused to give hormones on the basis that he did not have enough knowledge, that’s right.

When Harry turned 18, he took what he thought was the next logical step. She went online, without medical attention or a prescription, and ordered her hormones. They were from India or China. We realized what the package was right away and didn’t let him get it. We said this was illegal – however the law seems to be white in this area, probably because it was not a British company. He accused us of stealing. Since he had bought it with the money he got from his Saturday job, he reported us to the police for theft.

Teenagers can buy these hormones online with their own pocket money, especially. They are also not very expensive. There has to be a way to stop it. My daughter, who is currently at university, knows several people who buy these drugs in bulk online and donate them as an act of charity.

My son is definitely taking hormones. I can see the effect on her body because she has big breasts. He still lives here. He’s down for dinner but we don’t talk much. We don’t use his new name and avoid pronouns where he is because we know that will start an argument.

I don’t think he has any regrets. He said to me that he feels a social responsibility to be a pioneer, even though it does not bring him happiness, that he should sacrifice himself for the sake of other people. He has always been a fighter for social justice, even if he doesn’t use it anymore.

Our family life is completely ruined. I find this situation very frustrating. I can’t talk about him from it. I tried. It only seems to make the situation worse.

‘The doctor said my son should try gender surgery’

This summer, after my son Tom and his housemates left for their post-A-level holiday, a package arrived on my doorstep in Norfolk. It was marked as coming from a Hong Kong pharmacy. It stayed in the kitchen.

When Tom came back I asked him about it but he didn’t tell me. I said: “I just signed up for that. “My hope is that it’s not a bad thing.” I was wondering if they were magic mushrooms. I made it clear that I would never sign something like that on my front door again.

Tom took the package to his room and a few weeks later when I passed by, I saw that it had been opened. Tom was not in his room. It hurt me a lot as he had just turned 18 but I needed to know what was in the package. I walked over and realized I was looking at a box of female hormones, oestradiol, and something I had to look up: testosterone suppressant. I felt sick.

He was downstairs playing the piano. I went over and asked him if he wanted to talk about what was in that box. He just screamed. He never gets angry, he never cries. I asked him: “Why don’t you talk to your doctor?” He said he doesn’t want to because the waiting list (for drugs) is long. How do you know if these hormones are real or fake?” I said. “How do you know about the side effects?”

I was very worried and called the doctor myself. “Look, you’re taking these hormones. He doesn’t have a prescription,” I said. “I am very worried. I know you are 18. What can you do?” The doctor sounded very sympathetic. Then he said: “Well, have you ever thought about Gids [the gender identity clinic that closed this year]? Maybe you should try surgery.” I felt angry and helpless. How did we get here?

Tom was always a smart, sensitive child. He got a full scholarship to a boarding school where he could ignore the rules. I put it to him as a teenage boy but he was later diagnosed with ADHD. I think he found the school strong. There was a lot of wealth. But he found his place in the theater and loved it there. He had many friends and hobbies.

But by the time he was 15, confined to his home, his mental health had declined significantly. You can go down the rabbit hole on TikTok or Instagram; like most kids he was on the internet all the time. He was anxious and expressed suicidal thoughts. The police had to come immediately because he was sitting on the window.

• A child under five is among the thousands on the gender clinic waiting list

I am a single parent, my father is not involved. I struggled to get his support – there were also many restrictions during the epidemic. A friend of mine, a retired child psychologist, intervened. We thought it was a general concern. He had received school counseling and if issues about his gender came up I was not told. Since he was 15 years old at the time, I thought someone would have said.

When he was 16, he told me he was gay. During dinner he burst out with it. I said: “Is that all you’re worried about?” Thank you for telling me.” I thought that was it.

His turbulent mental life continued. At the age of 17, during the Christmas holidays, he jumped overboard and broke his ankle. When he left the hospital we took him to the emergency room. The same doctor who met with my son for 20 minutes was the one who later suggested a telephone consultation with me, which would suggest that my son remove his own piece. Just like that. I was surprised, then angry. I have sent a letter of complaint to the General Medical Council.

Tom took the hormones he bought online. Maybe you will find more. He never dressed differently at home, never used different pronouns, never changed his name – as far as I know. He was off work for the summer and staying with friends. We are on WhatsApp. He will go home soon but he will go to university.

I sent Tom links to other conversion stories and said, “Whatever you do, please look at the other side of the conversation.” He sent me the Guardian article by way of reply.

I told him that I love him and I will not leave him. I believe that if my son has truly converted, as long as he has researched all the facts and case studies, he has my blessing. Everyone should live their life without discrimination.

However, my gut feeling is that something more sinister is going on. I am very afraid that he is taking hormones, his brain is still developing. Many people feel strange when entering puberty. Asserting them or telling them they are in the wrong body is child abuse.

The names in this article have been changed.