FtM transgender

a furry

pagan

schizophrenic

In the past 6 months, my teen has indicated to me that he is:Each one of these revelations is treated as serious and important, and as THE TRUTH about who he is as a person. Some of these are more worrisome than others, obviously. The furry and pagan stuff is fine. I was pagan as a teen and young adult, and he has gotten into designing and fabricating costumes for the furry stuff, which is pretty cool. Overall he's an engaged, pleasant kid with friends, decent grades, liked by his teachers, and shows strong interest in his favorite activities (theater, art, video games). His father did pass away suddenly about a year ago. They didn't have a very close relationship, and he doesn't seem to have mourned his father really at all or seem sad about his death.For the FtM stuff, he has a therapist that specializes in gender issues and is being followed by a specialized pediatric gender/ endocrinology practice at a major academic medical center near us. He is mostly socially transitioned (name, pronouns, clothes, haircut, etc.) He is interested in taking cross-sex hormones and says he is very dysphoric, but he has unrealistic expectations for hormones, and often dresses in a more feminine way (headbands & bows, occasional dresses - he has a full wardrobe of boys' clothes, so it isn't a matter of him not having clothing coded to the preferred gender). I'm not a gender essentialist, but that behavior doesn't line up with someone who is claiming extreme dysphoria and distress about being AFAB.The schizophrenia thing came up after he had a scary experience late one night triggered by a scary youtube video. He described himself as being frozen, catatonic, not recognizing himself in the bathroom mirror, feeling like things were unreal, and feeling like there were voices in his head with distinct identities. He calmed down by watching other (non-scary) youtube videos. This is the first time anything like that happened to him. He has taken a bunch of online schizophrenia screeners and decided that's what he has. I have no doubt that it was a frightening experience, but this seems a bit like having a stomach ache, googling it, and deciding you have cancer.At this point it's a new thing every month or so, and it is a little exhausting as a parent. It feels like he wants to be "different" from everyone else, or feels he IS different and is looking for an identity marker which will clearly signify difference. I was similar as a teen, but didn't choose such dramatic markers.How can I avoid negating his feelings and experiences while redirecting him away from some of these more extreme identities? How can I encourage him to embrace his skills and abilities as differentiators rather than adopting these "outsider" identities? Or, alternatively, how do I determine if there is really A Problem that Needs Attention versus regular teen exploration/drama that I can just monitor and let blow over? If you had teens with similar experiences, what did you do and how did that turn out?