Fuckin’ awesome.
Last night, while finishing out a shift on Old!Job, my friend and coworker Tere (she of the vulgar humor and strange euphemisms for the vahooter) sent me a pretty nifty link running on Colorado’s Channel 9 News. The story is about a 3rd-grader who just may be the youngest known transgender that…well, that I can think of off the top of my head. The boy has recently announced that he - now she - will be returning her home school not as a boy, but as a girl. She will wear dresses rather than pants, and ask to be called by a female name and use female pronouns.
Tere was a little concerned, which is understandable; she has a newborn and a two-year-old, and was looking at it from the perspective of a mother trying to explain to her children why one of their classmates might choose to follow such a path at an age when they may be too young to comprehend it. She even said she was worried that her own children might be prompted to follow their classmate’s example, were they old enough to attend school with her.
I found it hard to share her concerns, because I think it’s fuckin’ awesome.
In all truth, I think the child’s decision is a phase. He/she is too young to really be sure and it’s hard to make a decision like that until the hormones start to froth, seethe, and do all those other nifty little things that turn you into a sea of sex-driven stupidity for the rest of your life. What I think is fuckin’ awesome is the reaction of the school district, teachers, the child’s parents, and the parents of the other students. For them to be so openly accepting, accommodating, and willing to educate themselves and each other is absolutely amazing, and it ended my night with a smile.
It’s about damned time we saw something a little uplifting on the GBLTQ front.
ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies, upstairs, downstairs, we all fall TAG!
Listen to DR Streaming Radio
February 8th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Personally, I would think it might be a phase…I would encourage and comfort the child…but no surgery or legal name change until they were 18. Hell, I’d feel uncomfortable watching my child surgically transition until I was sure they weren’t just being a hormonal teenager (or in this case, a hormonal child, pre-teen, whatever a 3rd grader is called). In the case of a couple of my cousins…that would mean they couldn’t be trusted, even in their 30’s.
More than anything, it would be important to make sure the child understood they were loved…because nothing is severe enough to make a parent stop loving their child. Anyone who claims otherwise is a monster.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:04 am
But why does it matter if it’s a “phase” or not? Why not just let the kid wear what he wants to and be the gender she wants to? If she decides later she’s fine being a boy, or changing genders daily/hourly, that’s cool too. I don’t see why it matters so much, or why you have to choose permanently one gender or the other. I certainly don’t want to.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:07 am
How old is a third grader?
February 8th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Third graders are 8/9 years old.
I don’t know that it’s a phase. I have a transgender friend who told me she always knew. She remembers being six or seven and wanting to play “girl” games and being pressured by her father to do “manly” stuff.
As a parent, I probably wouldn’t go so far as to allow the child to transition, but I would definitely let him express himself as he wanted. If it does turn out to be a phase, then it will run it’s course and be over, and if not, then at least the kid will have been allowed to be herself.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Anni, it matters if it’s a “phase” or not if she decides in the third grade that she wants to make it permanent. What happens if she wants to have surgery to completely transition? Maybe she won’t as a 3rd grader, but what if she does in middle school…or high school? What happens if it is a phase and she wakes up one morning when she’s 16 and thinks, “Oh my God, what have I done to my penis?” All I’m saying is that I would support my child, but it would be my responsibility to ensure her safety and security and that she is really sure she wants to forever be my daughter before I would be happy letting her have major surgery to permanently alter her anatomy.
Granted at 18, she wouldn’t need my permission to do as she pleases…but I would hope she would listen to her father and appease my nature to constantly worry about her well being.
And, Sihaya, my brother is 12 in 7th grade…so he was 8 in the 3rd.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am
If they’re 8 years old, the kid probably does know that something’s not right about her. So she does know she’s transgendered. It’s wonderful her parents are so supportive.
She’s going to start a trend though… Kids at that age are influenced reaaally fast.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I agree that you maybe shouldn’t let a child make a permanent decision to change their body at that age (in any way, as I have heard children about that age discussing nose jobs, which weirded me out slightly) but there’s no reason they can’t act how they want.
February 8th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Let me, as a transgender activist and someone who closely works with TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA).
First of all, I know TYFA is involved, and they are the national organization involved with the parents and child in this story. TYFA doesn’t encourage children to be transgender at all, nor do they encourage the parents to transition a child from male to female or female to male — TYFA encourages parents to get therapists involved, and make informed decisions about their children.
If TYFA is involved, the parents of the child are invoved; therapists are involved. Usually parents fight against their children being transgender — no parent dreams of having a transgender child. Decisions to transition children are rare, and are well thought through. It is very unlikely that this is a phase if TYFA is involved — this is a sane organization run by sane parents.
Secondly, currently no one in North America will do SRS on a transgender child younger than 18. Worldwide, no younger than 16. There are drugs that stave off puberty, and that’s what would first be given to the child. The child won’t be given cross-sex hormones until she reaches her mid-teens at the absolute earliest — There is plenty of time to reverse course.
Lastly, when a child is transitioned, the child usually is very persistant in their target sex. For male-to-female children, these are kids that will often try to mutilate their own genitalia because they are very aware that their sex (what’s between their legs) and gender (what’s between their ears) don’t match.
I would recommend watching the video’s from the Barbara Walters special “My Secret Self” to learn about transgender youth. For those who don’t know very much about these kids, it will be incredibly eye-opening.
~~~~~
P.s. — I have a Pam’s House Blend story up on this story here. You may want to become aware of what the religious right thinks of these transyouth, and my piece spells out some recent RR reactions to the concept of transyouth.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Yeah, it’s definitely a good idea to wait to do anything permanent until you’re absolutely and completely sure you know what you’re doing and you have been for at least a few years.
As to whether or not it’s a phase, well, it very well might be. As a child things like gender tend not to matter as much. Not to the child, anyway. However, trannies do tend to know really early on that something’s wrong, even if they don’t have the words to express it (I didn’t know there was a word for it until I was twelve, myself, but I always knew I wasn’t your average girl, at the very least). So, I wouldn’t be at all surprised is this child decides later in life to transition, and I would be equally unsurprised if she decided later that she’s fine with her penis and just wants to play baseball AND dress-up.
Either way, that is pretty amazing that her parents and community were so open to the idea. I mean, my parents are pretty cool, but I don’t know that I could’ve even gotten away with that in the third grade. Lucky little thing, she is. :3
February 9th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Kaine, not trying to be offensive or rude to you at all, but we transfolk need to be aware that our personal experience of being a crossdresser, a genderqueer, or transsexual isn’t the universal experience. For example, there are transsexual people like me who have been relaxed and comfortable about transition at a relaxed pace, but there are other adults that once they figure out they’re transsexaul, feel a need to transition as fast and furiously as possible.
Well, if a kid expresses a need to transition, trust me when I tell you that it’s usually urgent. Please watch this episode of My Secret Self of to see what transgender kids face, and just how much parents resist transition.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:34 am
So…you try not to be offensive or rude by being dismissive and snotty? I didn’t see where Kaine spoke in absolutes, more generalities…which you ridicule and then do yourself.
I don’t think anyone expects there to be one common experience for anyone in any situation. What we can do is speak to our own experiences and talk about what we know. My path to understanding my sexuality and the choices I made about myself are mine and mine alone…but I do have the right to use them when giving advice on the topic. That’s what giving advice is.
February 10th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I read a similar article a few years back about a boy in first grade that wanted to wear a dress to a classmate’s birthday party, and it went on to talk about children who question their gender identity and how their parents react.
Being someone who has always wanted to have kids, I thought about it a lot back then and since then. And, as open as I consider myself to be, if in ten or fifteen years I had a son that wanted to wear a dress to school, there is no way I’d let him. Maybe I’m a bit of a pessimist, but I don’t see the world being safe enough in ten or fifteen years (when I have kids in elementary school) for a child to openly express a different gender identity at such a young age.
On the bright side, the school is doing all the right things to help the kid transition. I don’t pray… so I can only wish the child the best, because things are likely going to be very tough for that family. It’s not a hardship I would wish my offspring to go through.
February 10th, 2008 at 6:09 am
=/
I just hope the kid doesn’t get in trouble at school. Kids are mean. Girls are even worse.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:57 am
…Wait, Autumn. Are you honestly trying to explain to ME what transgender children go through? What it feels like to need to do something about it? How hard it is to live with parents who fight with everything they have against what you know you are? I’d ask, as politely as I can, that you not even go there.
All I’m saying is, by third grade I certainly knew something was wrong, and that seems to be the experience of most transgender people I’ve ever talked to. However, at that time I don’t think I or anyone I know would’ve been able to make any life-changing decisions. It’s hard, at that age, to know what it is you need. And so, I’m not opposed to taking certain, reversible measures with children after things like therapy and in-depth discussion, but, as even you said, permanent decisions shouldn’t and won’t be made until much later. She can decide later how far she wants/needs to go, and in the meantime, she has as long as she needs to figure herself out.
And, no offense or anything, but I’d like it if you didn’t act like you’re more entitled to an opinion than I am on the subject. You know. Just saying.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I think you put that very well, Kaine =)
February 10th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I don’t think this is a “phase.” Behaviors and label identification may fluctuate, but the potential for those behaviors rarely changes. Choosing “female” over “male” is a statement of not only behavior, but how the world interacts with you.
Hormonal fluctuation in puberty won’t eliminate the factors that led to the child’s choice any more than female hormones made David Reimer feel “feminine.”
February 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Tell that to my ten-year-old little brother, Indikaze. He started wearing dresses and trying on his mother’s makeup and behaving as a girl when he was seven, on a pretty consistent basis. I thought he might be gender dysphoric, our father was freaking the hell out, my stepmother couldn’t even be bothered to notice. I fought my father to at least let my little brother continue his “play” at home to see what happened, but Dad strictly forbade it outside the house. It was almost a dirty little secret, as it wasn’t to be discussed with anyone outside the immediate family.
When he was nine, my brother just suddenly got bored with it and stopped. I honestly think it was my influence that caused him to start in the first place, as he was confused by our father’s explanation of why my brother had seen me kissing a boy instead of a girl, plus living with me on a regular basis for several months caused him to pick up on my few more feminine tendencies that the general public rarely sees. He often saw me more as a second father figure than an older brother, and idolized me enough to go to extremes to emulate various things about me. (Don’t get me started on the phase he went through after he saw me pry open the DSL router to fix a simple loose connection, then dive into the tangle of wires to fix the internet setup at the house; he destroyed some pretty expensive equipment trying to mimic me.) Different things can influence children in different ways, especially when they’re raised in a binary world and something enters that world that doesn’t fit in the standard binary definitions.
Eight years old is old enough to know when something isn’t right with one’s self-perception in relation to one’s physical attributes, but it doesn’t change that children are whimsical, open-minded, silly things who’ll do just about anything out of pure, childish curiosity. They’re also easily-influenced and change their minds about major things all the time.
Full-grown adults decide that they’re gender dysphoric and then years later, after hormone therapy and even surgery, change their minds and revert back. So why is it so hard to believe that a child may be going through a phase? I understand defending the choices of transgendered individuals even at that age, but that doesn’t change how fickle kids are. Thinking that it might be a phase based on my own personal experiences (while accepting that it might well not be, although I could tell you stories of other children I’ve worked with who went through similar, shorter phases) doesn’t mean that I don’t fully support what the child’s doing. The important thing is to recognize the child’s choice right now, acknowledge her, support her, even encourage her, but be mature enough to know that she may suddenly change her mind and therefore can be guided, but not allowed to do anything permanent until she’s old enough to understand the consequences and understand exactly what she’s doing and if she’s going to be happy with her choices some thirty years down the road. There’s also the issue of not pressuring her too much with acceptance, as she may well revert back to he in a year or two but will feel as if the big hooplah made over the transitioning phase is a weight forcing him to continue because he doesn’t want to disappoint the people who supported him.
And Autumn, good lord. I appreciate having the perspective of a transwoman here to help balance out things that I just can’t understand as a gay man, but it’s getting a bit out of hand when you come to my site and start condescending to other transfolk and even lecturing them on how they speak and behave. Have a little courtesy and respect others’ right to behave in ways differently from you, okay? Kaine is just as entitled to his thoughts as you are, and you can share your differences of opinion without telling him that he has to change how he voices his opinion.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:08 am
When I was eight I wanted to be a cat. I would walk around on all fours and meow and eat cat food from the cat’s dish, which of course made me sick. I annoyed the hell out of my mother. But it was a sincere desire, that I mostly grew out of. Obviously this is a lot different, but no eight year old knows anything about anything, at least I certainly didn’t. Hell, I still don’t. The only thing most kids know for certain is that they know everything.
Still, I hope the kid’s classmates aren’t total little bastards. Kids are meaner than cracked out pitbulls.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Amanda? Sweetheart? I love you.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I would walk around on all fours and meow and eat cat food from the cat’s dish, which of course made me sick.
I can haz cat fud?
February 11th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Adri. ‘Cause I’m good for stuffs, yeah? *bounces* yay adri love! ~crawls back into hole to die~
Hikaru. I’m not sure Adri would still respect you in the morning…
February 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Not that he did before, Amanda, but he did tell me what little there was disappeared when I spoke in lolcats…
February 15th, 2008 at 5:46 am
I would encourage those of you who are curious about this subject to listen to the Dr. Drew radio interview I did today. You can find it at http://www.1260.am/programming/podcasts/
Select the Dr. Drew show, Feb. 14th, 12:00
There is also a CNN interview at http://www.imatyfa.org that give some information.
Kim Pearson
Executive Director
TransYouth Family Advocates
February 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
When I was five, I wanted to be a cat too. As I grew older, I realized it was impossible. I stopped acting the way that I had. I silently mocked furries and others that shared similar desires, because they weren’t “growing up” and behaving the way they “should be.”
It took me a long time to realize that I really *hadn’t* “grown out” of my desire, that it still existed. I was simply behaving as it left. Behaving that way weakened the desire through cognitive dissonance, but it couldn’t completely eliminate it.
I don’t drink milk from a dish, or rub against peoples’ legs. But I still sometimes act catlike (when only friends are around). I purr when warm and happy, and I curl up on the couch like a cat.
If someone offered me the ability to become a real-life catgirl, no strings attached, I’d take it. That desire is still a part of me, even if I don’t show it. (I’ll admit I’m hardly a representative sample, nor are the people I hang out with who report similar experiences)
The only thing an eight-year-old doesn’t “know” is the impossibility and consequences of their dreams (well, also things derived from metacognition, but we’ll ignore that for now). When they grow up, they learn to abandon those dreams in the face of those consequences. It’s adaptive. It’s “growing up.”
That doesn’t mean that the original dream was a “phase” destined to fade. If it had been raised in an environment where the dream had been possible, it would have stuck around.
Sometimes it sticks around anyway. When that happens, within a person, dreams are stronger than reality. And when reality floods in to crush those dreams, it crushes the dreamer too. That’s the real worry with things like this.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Indikaze: I wanted to be a dragon, when I was a kid. I didn’t grow out of that because I grew up and realized it was impossible while secretly harboring that desire, despite retaining my rather wildly imaginative nature. I just lost interest. Just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to others. Everyone develops down different paths.
Also, by your explanation, other phases such as cutting, depression, and suicidal tendencies, more harmful than cross-dressing or anthropomorphic fantasies, also never really go away and aren’t actually phases, but are a permanently rooted part of someone’s psyche. As someone who made a very deep mistake and attempted to commit suicide during a very brief phase that I quickly pushed away in total disgust…yes, sometimes behavior can be completely abandoned out of apathy or antipathy. That refers to both positives and negatives. Part of life is understanding that we are always changing, whether it’s tastes in food and clothing or deeper-rooted desires. That’s not just growing up, but chemical changes that take place as our bodies mature and age, affecting thought processes, perceptions, preferences, and desires.
There are plenty of things that eight-year-olds don’t know. The brain is hardly matured enough for total self-awareness at age eight; yes, there is rational cognition, but self-analysis and understanding of reactionary impulses are just beginning to bud - and as I said, children are easily influenced without often understanding why; they can and will do things “just because” without any real strong compulsion to continue beyond the point where the appeal begins to wane. I still stand by my assertion that yes, it may be a phase, and yes, the child may grow out of it, but just as likely may not and therefore should be supported, encouraged, and educated about the path that she (or he) could follow if this becomes permanent.
March 15th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I work with these dogs and as far as animal behavior goes, I am a strong believer in nurture and education. I’ve met Jack Russell Terriers that I wouldn’t go in close proximity to once again, but have never had a poor encounter with an American Staffordshire Terrier. If you are talking about their owners- nicely, which is a different story. Human beings are animals as well, and we tend to every have our unique ideas about “moral concepts”.
June 25th, 2010 at 10:51 am
rock on this post was amazing and so are all the little t kids out there who are putting their foot down and telling the world who they really are. These should be the people running our country because the courage, truth and integrity values which these kids possess and inspire us with, are what the US lacks so much. They will make the world a much better place.