I just read this article on the Advocate's website about a parent who accepted her transgendered kid early on. It's heartwarming that the kid wasn't bullied (at least, not yet--fingers crossed for him in middle school). But what really caught my eye was the sentence, "He transitioned at the age of five."
What? My first thought was this: no one knows what he or she wants to do or be at five. Five-year-olds will assert that they are dogs or fire trucks, or that they want to eat only pickles for the rest of their lives. Sometimes they assert such things with startling persistence. Are we supposed to take all these things seriously? At the same time, maybe assertions about sex and gender are more fundamental somehow--more elemental. Maybe by being perceived and treated like a boy from age five, the kid in the story will avoid nasty bouts with depression and gender dysphoria that would have plagued him if he'd transitioned at 25. He'll be able to go through puberty as a boy the first time around. Kids know who they are, this line of thinking goes. And a really big part of me agrees with this. Still, another really big part of me knows that the world is packed with sex divisions and gender norms. From a very young age, I certainly knew that I wasn't like the other girls. I always wanted to play with the boys and wear boys' clothing. When I looked in my parents' closets, it was my father's ties that I coveted (and my mom is by no means a "girly" girl, so it's not like ties were the alternative to dresses and heels). If the mom in this article had been my mom, I probably would have transitioned. Instead, my mom would reassure me that not all girls liked to wear dresses or play with dolls. There were unfortunate restrictions (how I wished I was allowed to shop in the boys' department!), but as best she could, she taught me that there were a lot of different ways to be a girl. I'm positive that her open-mindedness helped me to become the dapper butch I am today. For a lot of reasons, the road was not an easy one. But I am very glad to be a girl; my girl-ness just doesn't look like most other people's. I guess what I'm struggling with in reading this article is a fear that gender nonconformity will be taken for early expressions of trans identity. I think it's super important to accept kids as they are, but how do you do this--and support a kid you think may be trans--while at the same time, leaving wide open the door that your dress-eschewing kid may be a female butch? I worry that labeling gender-nonconforming kids "trans" is another incarnation of affirming gender norms. As you can see, I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this. What do you think, dear readers? Is five years old too young to transition?
15 Comments
Kris
8/16/2012 06:16:14 am
I think "transition" means different things at different stages of our loves. A five year old is not too young to be respected, heard, and to be who they believe themselves to be. My grandson is 8 and believes he is a wizard, not HP type wizard a real wizard. Will he always be wizard, who knows. But I respect the person he knows himself to be and a five year old deserves the same respect. It may be the same for the five year old at age 12, 15, 25 and it may not. The level of respect deserved never changes.
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Makarova
8/16/2012 06:17:50 am
You can't really let a 5-year old "transition" as such as there's nothing you can actually do medically until they hit puberty anyway. So as far as I'm concerned... if your 5-year old wants to be treated as a particular gender there's no reason to not indulge them as this would obviously just make them dysphoric and miserable. And then they have like 10 years to think about what they actually want, plenty of time to make their mind up.
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Ash
8/16/2012 07:42:18 am
I agree that there are a lot of things to consider with this question; however, on a personal level I think I may have benefited from being allowed to "transition" when I was younger. I knew when I was 4 that I was not like other girls and in my mind I wanted to be a boy. I currently identify as a butch woman but I have been contemplating transitioning. Part of my problem now is that I am not sure what aspects of me are truly female or just things that I have forced myself to conform to. If I had been allowed and encouraged to discover who I was when I was younger I wouldn't be struggling so much to figure it out now. I suffered so much depression because I was made fun of for being a tomboy and I never felt comfortable with myself. I was allowed to present as a boy that may have never happened. Tough question though. Lots of things to consider.
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I've been involved in the trans youth community for a while. Everyone is very aware of the differences between being transgender, vs gender non-conforming, gender diverse, or gender fluid, and the possibility of being either - and letting the child decide - is continually emphasized. Those who are transgender and transition are different than those who are left to explore their gender creativity.
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8/16/2012 10:19:32 am
A few random things:
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JD
8/16/2012 12:38:25 pm
Interesting conversation here. I feel better. I naturally drifted toward boy's interests: toy cars, trucks, etc. The toys I wanted the most were the ones pitched to boys. I got along better with boys. For the longest time, they were my best friends and accepted my being a different kind of girl..
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Caughtinyoureyes
8/17/2012 05:14:51 am
We had a boy enter our school in 6th grade. He was definitely prepubescent. He had actually been a girl in elementary school. I was stunned to find out he was transitioning at this place in his life. I was given to understand that his mom thought(was afraid) she(the little girl) she would end up being a lesbian, so she should just transition to a boy. I would have loved to have been on that medical team or just a fly on the wall.
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Kat
8/17/2012 05:19:43 am
I think that in our LGBT communities we have a better (albeit not always perfect) grasp on gender non-conforming v. trans than in the wider straight community (at least better than the wider straight community I experience in Dallas, TX, where even as a soft butch I've had well-intentioned colleagues ask me if I am going to "have the surgery"). And I also agree that to let a kid try on any identity (not just gender identity) s/he would like is a good thing to do for all kids. But what exactly was this mom doing to transition her kid? I think it's great to have a mom who is so supportive, but as a gender non-conforming little girl, I agree with BW that if this had been my mom, I too would have been transitioned, which is not my gender identity.
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Liam
8/17/2012 05:54:02 am
"Transition" doesn't necessarily mean medically. There are different forms. There's the emotional transition, the social transition and finally the medical transition, and the medical stuff doesn't happen until the child starts showing secondary sex characteristics. In the case of a five year old, their parents are probably just allowing him to live as the gender that he likes.
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Caughtinyoureyesswashinhurst
8/17/2012 06:27:17 am
You have brought up some excellent pints here. I don't know if the 11yr. old was eventually gong to seek a medical solution it not.
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Liam
8/18/2012 02:21:33 am
I've noticed that the younger generations are becoming more and more tolerant and accepting of diversity. I'm glad that he's not having to deal with too much bullying. It wasn't that way when I was in school. But this does give me hope for future generations. 8/25/2012 01:20:27 pm
I found you blog to be quite awesome. It's wonderful to not find a blog that repeats tropes, or some of the general transphobia floating around other queer spaces. It's refreshing, and uplifting, and I thank you. I also noticed you blog-rolled a couple people I consider to be awesome trans peoples.
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Womandrogyne
9/6/2012 03:48:59 am
It's good to see this discussed in such a fluid manner - I'm used to seeing this issue much more polarised. Being such a binary-gender-obsessed society, it's very difficult for anyone (let alone a young child) to choose to present in a particular way and not have everyone immediately try to work out what gender that makes them.
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Katie B.
10/29/2012 09:44:11 pm
I know my life would have been a lot easier and probably more productive if I'd been accepted as a girl at age 5, instead of having to wait until adulthood, watching parts of my life break and having to repair them later because of gender dysphoria.
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Cal
11/20/2012 12:28:03 pm
I know this is an older post, but I just found your site today (loving it!) and I'm currently reading through all your posts.
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