# Support for the parent of a gender-questioning child? Please? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 20, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204 "2014-11-20T22:05:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/161 "2016-03-12T11:26:08Z")
> [@OleOneEye](#): > > But what about the times when it really is just a phase? That is why nothing permanent is done until the child is of a legal age of consent. NOTHING is done to a prepubescent child that can not be undone. In fact, the only major hormone related thing considered (to my understanding) is medication to _delay_ puberty, not induce it or direct it down a certain path. > [@OleOneEye](#): > > When you’re 8, that can be a distinction without a difference. Hell, I was pretending that my external female genitalia was a pee-pee and tried urinating standing up over a floor urinal. I’m glad no supportive, well-meaning adult gave me hormones because of this. Again, NO ONE IS GIVING HORMONES TO KIDS. No one. That is NOT what is going on. Again - NO hormones. Sometimes, medications to _prevent_ the body from releasing hormones to induce puberty for a couple years, the OPPOSITE of what you seem to fear. Basically, for an 8 year old it’s changing their wardrobe and what gender pronoun you use to refer to the kid. NO hormones. NO surgery. It’s basically allowing the child to live in the gender role, the child’s body is not altered. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/162 "2016-03-12T13:37:55Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Yeah, I rolled my eyes at that one. Good grief, we’re falling rapidly down the rabbit hole of “kids don’t know their own gender (unless they’re cisgender).” > > I knew I was transgender at age 8. I’ve worked with scores of children with gender identity disorders. Some of them do end up being transgender, some do not. Some fall into a bi-gender, genderqueer, or questioning category. None of them became transgender due to “exposure to media” and none have been pressured by parents into being transgender (it’s almost always the opposite). I don’t know if you’ve noticed this more from where you are, but what I’ve noticed with my daughters friends - particularly her UU church friends - is a refusal to be labeled or conform, that several of them had, that would be outside my comprehension as a teenager. My daughter is pretty darn girly on the outside. High heels, nail polish, musical theatre. She doesn’t have any desire to look like a guy. But she doesn’t see herself as strictly female - she knows she has a more male brain than most girls. In church her youth group has a whole spectrum of kids - from likely to transition (one has, and started around 12) to not willing to explore their feminine/masculine side. They often see their own gender as something unique to them - a combination of male and female characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/163 "2016-03-12T15:34:13Z")
> [@Potestas](#): > > I’m fine with that at say maybe 13 or 14, 10 just seems awfully young for a kid to be thinking about something as weighty as that. A friend mentioned to me once that a few years ago her daughter, then about 9 or 10, asked her what “transgender” meant. My friend was a bit surprised by this question but did her best to provide a definition. Her daughter then paused thoughtfully for a while before saying “I don’t think I’m transgender.” My friend said something like “Well, it’s pretty rare.” Her daughter thought a little more and said “No, I’m definitely a girl. I identify as a girl.” That was apparently that, and the subject didn’t come up again. It didn’t sound to me like thinking about gender identity was a burden for this little girl, or that hearing what “transgender” meant caused her any serious confusion. She reflected upon a new concept for a little while and concluded that her own gender identity was indeed “girl”. Do you think she was too young to know that about herself? ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/164 "2016-03-13T02:52:13Z")
**papergirl** you are getting some great advice here and i think it’s that you both are in therapy to talk things out. I would only have a couple more suggesstions: PFLAG - Parent and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - check to see if there is a local chapter, and, check out your local GLBT center, if there is one. They will have additional resources if any are now missing. Bob ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/165 "2016-03-13T16:54:25Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I don’t know if you’ve noticed this more from where you are, but what I’ve noticed with my daughters friends - particularly her UU church friends - is a refusal to be labeled or conform, that several of them had, that would be outside my comprehension as a teenager. > > My daughter is pretty darn girly on the outside. High heels, nail polish, musical theatre. She doesn’t have any desire to look like a guy. But she doesn’t see herself as strictly female - she knows she has a more male brain than most girls. In church her youth group has a whole spectrum of kids - from likely to transition (one has, and started around 12) to not willing to explore their feminine/masculine side. They often see their own gender as something unique to them - a combination of male and female characteristics. I am seeing it. It’s difficult at first for old people like me, even with my background and study in the subject, to comprehend it. I can’t imagine how most parents and other adults must react to it. But after spending untold hours doing something radical - talking to and listening to the kids - I think I understand it, and I think I can even point to a time when I felt sort of the same way growing up. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/166 "2016-03-13T18:41:01Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > My daughter is pretty darn girly on the outside. High heels, nail polish, musical theatre. She doesn’t have any desire to look like a guy. But she doesn’t see herself as strictly female - she knows she has a more male brain than most girls. In church her youth group has a whole spectrum of kids - from likely to transition (one has, and started around 12) to not willing to explore their feminine/masculine side. They often see their own gender as something unique to them - a combination of male and female characteristics. That doesn’t surprise me at all. It sounds a lot like the modern version of the “tom girl.” And, as homophobia diminishes, I bet there are some boy equivalents, too. I’ve always suspected that a tom girl who grows out of it may have just been experimenting with gender identity. “Why should girls always act this certain way?” “Why can’t I do and like the things boys do?” I just think that our lack of acceptance of the concept meant we didn’t think about it in terms of trans genderism. Heck, I remember going through a phase where I somewhat questioned my masculinity. But I didn’t think I wasn’t a guy. I thought about whether I was an effeminate guy. Only later did I realize I was more (what we would now call) gender conforming than that. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/167 "2016-03-13T18:54:02Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > But she doesn’t see herself as strictly female - she knows she has a more male brain than most girls. What exactly is a “male brain”? Not trying to “gotcha” or anything, but this is where I start getting confused - what’s the divide between being a girl who happens to conform to all male stereotypes, and being a transman? I fully accept all transgender people, but it’s hard for me to reconcile my feminist belief that girls can be anyone they want to be with the idea that there are male and female brains. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/168 "2016-03-13T19:58:05Z")
Back to the OP- why do you think her behavior has anything to do with “questioning her gender”? It sounds like perfectly normal 13-year-old girl behavior. I did all the things you describe when I was her age. Name change, trying to get rid of the breasts, wearing androgenous clothing, even had my head shaved. I didn’t insist people use non-grammatical pronouns. By age 15 I was done with all that. It had nothing to do with questioning gender, it was just trying to figure out this puberty thing, and in part, objecting to society’s suddenly expecting me to “act like a woman” which is a role I have never been able to play. I’m just me, and by the time I hit 15 I was confident enough to just be myself. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/169 "2016-03-13T20:36:47Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > What exactly is a “male brain”? Not trying to “gotcha” or anything, but this is where I start getting confused - what’s the divide between being a girl who happens to conform to all male stereotypes, and being a transman? I fully accept all transgender people, but it’s hard for me to reconcile my feminist belief that girls can be anyone they want to be with the idea that there are male and female brains. That’s kind of **Dangerosa** ’s point… there is no dividing line, it’s a continuum, and not necessarily a line. For a long time, people thought they either A or B, then people felt they were at some particular point in the continuum; now, they’re starting to realize that they shift from one point to another as their lives progress. People want all this to be hard-coded and set in stone, and that’s not how it works. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/170 "2016-03-13T21:59:22Z")
Sometimes I feel like I have a “male brain”. People who get to know me have said the same thing–that I don’t think or act like a woman. But I really don’t know how they or I can possibly know that my brain is “male”, of all things. Really, all we can say with confidence is that I have a **monstro** brain. Which is really all that anyone can say about their brains, right? How does a woman know that her brain is “male” without relying on crude stereotypes, e.g., men are better at math, women are more sociable and emotional? So I kind of share your confusion, **Octarine**. I don’t doubt that people can feel a disconnect from their physical selves. But I don’t quite understand how people are able to identify the disconnect as a gender-specific thing rather than some other kind of thing, especially from an early age. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/171 "2016-03-13T22:43:50Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I’ve always suspected that a tom girl who grows out of it may have just been experimenting with gender identity. “Why should girls always act this certain way?” “Why can’t I do and like the things boys do?” I just think that our lack of acceptance of the concept meant we didn’t think about it in terms of trans genderism. That’s still equating gender identity with certain interests and activities. I was a tomboy that never grew out of it… but I never doubted I was a girl, either. The closest I came to “transgender” was wishing I was a boy so I could do the things I like to do, but I didn’t want to be a boy, I just wanted the same freedom I saw them enjoying and due to age had limited means to express myself. I was and still am quite happy to be a girl. Of course, that sort of thing is why you need a professional involved prior to transition. I think a competent therapist would have figured out pretty quick I had zero desire to have a penis, I just wanted to fly airplanes, take woodshop instead of cooking, and play tag instead of hopscotch. These days, unlike 40 years ago, no one blinks when a girl expresses such interests. Therapist, hell - my own family figured it out pretty quick. I was fortunate that they supported my interests instead of trying to force me into a girly-girl mold. Today as I was shoving some skids of furniture around at work I was wishing for male muscles - not _to be a man_, I just wanted to be _as strong as_ a man while still remaining a woman. (And then a male co-worker pointed out none of the guys were strong enough to do some of the skid-moving unassisted either, as he came over to help me out.) So I’d be cautious at equating gender _interests_ (that is, traditionally associated with a particular gender) with some sort sort of _gender identity_. There might be some overlap, but they aren’t the same thing. Even desiring some aspect of the other gender (like strength) isn’t the same thing as wanting to be the other gender. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/172 "2016-03-13T22:46:52Z")
Its different than the modern version of tomboy. Tomboys were girls like Scout Finch who wore pants more often than skirts and played in the dirt and felt a traditionally girlish girlhood was limited. For these kids its an internal thing. Its that they don’t feel limited - and therefore don’t want the limiting label of “girl” or “boy.” Simultaneously, its an external and political thing - rejection of the label on behalf of others whose non-conformity to the label means discrimination. Its really a complex and interesting thought process - and unlike my experience as a tomboy, its a well thought out process they go through. The kids I’ve talked to are mostly UU teens who have all grown up together in a church that goes beyond accepting into supporting and fighting. Kids who got non-violent resistance as a Sunday school lesson in fourth grade. The vast majority of them, I suspect, will eventually fall into “normative” lives (i.e. what externally is a straight, cis gendered individual, but I think the rejection of the sexuality/gender binary will really change the landscape in the next fifty years. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/173 "2016-03-13T22:58:17Z")
I’m going to take a little sexuality hijack… Recently a friend of mine - who is a bi-activist - posted on Facebook about a study that said some huge percentage of American teens don’t identify as straight or gay. He took this to mean they were all bi. My experience with these kids is that they’d be as offended by that label as any. They consider themselves pansexual - but they don’t mean it the same way I would - I would say that a pansexual person is attracted to men and women, cis and transgendered. They think about it as reserving the right to be attracted to whomever they want. Not that they are, but tomorrow might bring something different - and that identifying as pan, they normalize all flavors of human sexuality, regardless of if they ever do anything than enter into hetero relationships. Again, much more complex and interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/174 "2016-03-13T22:58:58Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > What exactly is a “male brain”? Not trying to “gotcha” or anything, but this is where I start getting confused - what’s the divide between being a girl who happens to conform to all male stereotypes, and being a transman? I fully accept all transgender people, but it’s hard for me to reconcile my feminist belief that girls can be anyone they want to be with the idea that there are male and female brains. Certain traits are more common in men than women and vice versa. When looking at a large population, statistically speaking men will have better spatial skills and better math skills. Women will be better at multi-tasking/dividing attention and social interactions. However, there will also be a fair number of people with the skills of the other gender: women who are math genius, men with incredible people skills. So a woman who has amazing spatial skills, math skills, weakness at interpersonal skills and networking might be said to have a “male brain” (maybe she’s a great engineer). A man who is inept with spatial skills and math might, on the other hand have incredible verbal skills and people/networking skills might be said to have a “female brain”(but almost certainly not in our society, but maybe he’s a great politician anyway). That’s not transgender, though - one can be a person with male genitalia, a ton of stereotypically male traits, and still feel one is or is supposed to be female. And vice versa. It’s like the brain has different components, some of which are labeled “male” or “female” by society but you could have any mix of them. So you could have all your components “female”, but unless the “gender identity” component is female, too, you aren’t a woman (and vice versa for transmen). Which is why transgender people aren’t usually walking caricatures of men or women\*, they’re a mix of such traits, just like everyone else, except the component “gender identity” doesn’t fit the plumbing they were born with. - Some are, of course, just as some cisgender people are walking caricatures. Also, I think in the past in order to get transition therapy transgender people had to _act_ like caricatures - you weren’t allowed to be a transwoman unless you were a girly-girl transwoman, no trans-tomboys need apply but I’m not the expert on the history like Una is so take that as an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/175 "2016-03-13T22:59:24Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > What exactly is a “male brain”? Not trying to “gotcha” or anything, but this is where I start getting confused - what’s the divide between being a girl who happens to conform to all male stereotypes, and being a transman? I fully accept all transgender people, but it’s hard for me to reconcile my feminist belief that girls can be anyone they want to be with the idea that there are male and female brains. Me too. I decided to stop worrying about trying to reconcile it, and just trust them. For some people, it makes sense. It’s very painful for them, so painful that many would rather die than live in a way that feels inauthentic to them. They’re not hurting me or anyone else by living in a way that makes them feels less pain. So…I don’t have to understand it to accept it, and support them and try to make life easier for them. I also suspect that one reason why we have more gender \*questioning \*adolescents these days is the ridiculously restrictive over gendering of clothes, toys and interests in the last 20 years. When I was a kid, there was a lot more gender neutral clothing and everyone could play with lego and blocks and lincoln logs and spirographs and even dolls and trucks were being talked about as things that all kids should be able to play with (“William’s Doll” was one of my favorite songs as a preschooler.) Kids after me were/are more narrowly gender defined than my mid-1970s generation. I don’t think these kids are all transgender (although some of them are). I think they’re reacting to marketing and parenting attempts to shove them into very rigid and narrow gender roles. And good for them. That shit is whack. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/176 "2016-03-14T00:43:54Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I also suspect that one reason why we have more gender \*questioning \*adolescents these days is the ridiculously restrictive over gendering of clothes, toys and interests in the last 20 years. When I was a kid, there was a lot more gender neutral clothing […] I have wondered about this myself. While shopping for a baby shower gift for a friend who was expecting a girl, I saw that the onesies she had registered for were listed as being for boys. They were green and yellow and had cartoon animals like frogs and ducks on them. Not all that long ago I think these would have been considered totally gender neutral. It’s my recollection that yellow in particular was once the standard color for baby shower gifts, decorations, etc., when the sex was unknown. I mentioned this to my friend, and she said that when she was putting together her registry it seemed like anything that wasn’t pink was “for boys”. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/177 "2016-03-14T00:54:40Z")
Back in college, I dated a woman who was about 5’2", skinny as a rail, and dressed fairly androgynously. She was kind of mortified when she found out how much money she could save if she just shopped in the pre-teen boys’ department. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/178 "2016-03-14T02:03:06Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > - Some are, of course, just as some cisgender people are walking caricatures. Also, I think in the past in order to get transition therapy transgender people had to _act_ like caricatures - you weren’t allowed to be a transwoman unless you were a girly-girl transwoman, no trans-tomboys need apply but I’m not the expert on the history like Una is so take that as an opinion. It’s not just in the past. There are still some therapists out there who will force transgender women to wear makeup, a skirt, and heels into counseling sessions; or transmen to grow a beard and wear lots of flannel. Prior to 2010 this was pretty much the norm, in fact. Go back just a few years from that and there were the same standard questions most counselors would ask, and certain answers which were acceptable. It was called “the script” by both transgender persons and the clinicians. You know, like how you can cheat at Rorschach tests by only seeing happy clouds and butterflies? For a long time some psychologists refused to give hormones to lesbian transwomen or gay transmen, because those were not heteronormative “enough”. Even the late great Harry Benjamin was in that camp. The dynamic has changed. In the bad old days of 5 years ago, it was not uncommon for there to be only one therapist in a very large geographic area willing to treat transgender persons - so if that therapist was a strong bi-gender heteronormative gatekeeper, then you had to follow their script or risk losing your opportunity to transition. Nowadays bad counselors are shunned, as folks have not only many more counselors to choose from, but many good counselors will counsel by Skype now (with occasional face-to-face meetings). Kansas City is a rare and very trans-friendly place, as even within this small area there are perhaps a dozen good, certified counselors and therapists with transgender experience. And none of them force stereotypical behavior in their patients. ---
**Author:** ![papergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/179 "2016-03-17T20:22:55Z")
I’m so glad I checked back in and found a conversation still going! Latest update: They have begun to consider “presenting as masculine” next year. I’m not totally sure what this means, and we’re just beginning what I suspect will be a number of talks about the whole idea. I have an appointment to talk to the leader of the gay and trans youth group they attend. I’m hoping to get some more insight from her. So. Maybe my darling “they” will determine at some point to be my darling “he.” At this point, if you saw this child, you would not for one second question whether you’re looking at a male of female. The most “boy” item of clothing they wear is a flannel shirt–over a midriff top, skinny jeans, and pretty boots. Go figure. I’m just hanging in there and trying to be supportive and loving, which is actually easy because I have a great kid. If they decide to go male next year, there are going to be repercussions at school…I don’t know how the show choir director will handle it, and I’m concerned about how their friends will react. Several people upthread have mentioned how this seems to be more common now…I’d agree. My kids attend a very small, small-town school. There are at least 5 kids who identify as transgender (all originally girls who now go by masculine names/pronouns and dress as boys). There are several more kids who have come out as gay, lesbian, or bi. I’m pleased with the school’s response so far, but I don’t know how things will go if they decide to identify as male next year. At this point my response has been “Let’s consider this and talk to our various therapists, because there are a LOT of things that need to be considered beforehand.” Thanks to everyone for your support and ideas. It really means a lot to me and to other parents who may not even be ready to talk about their kids yet. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@FlyingRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204/180 "2016-03-23T20:06:12Z")
Just popped in to note that [John Scalzi was recently asked his views on gender-neutral pronouns](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/03/23/reader-request-week-2016-5-pronouns/) (specifically “they” and “them”) and his response was super-classy all around: > [@](#): > > When someone asks you to refer to them by a particular set of pronouns and you’re reluctant to comply, are you being disrespectful? Yup! Self-identity is important, and refusing to accept someone else’s identity for your own reasons will be taken to mean that you dislike or disagree with their choices about who they are. And this is your right, but it means you’re saying that your choices in this regard are more important than the choices of the person who has to live with their own identity every single moment of their lives. > > Which is a hell of a thing to say. Are you sure you want to say that? And how would you feel if someone made that choice about you? > > …Simply put, a strong person, a person who is good and kind and righteous, does not need to demand that other people have to shoehorn their self-identity to someone else’s expectation. A strong person, a person who is good and kind and righteous, says to the other person “tell me who you are” and accepts the fact of what they’re told. > > Which is not to say I am a strong or good or kind or righteous person. As noted above, I’m as fallible as the next person, imperfect and otherwise still trundling on the karmic wheel of suffering. But I know who I want to be, and who I want to be is not someone who freaks out other people’s gender identity (or their sexuality, or their cultural identity and so on). So I work on not doing those things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/support-for-the-parent-of-a-gender-questioning-child-please/705204.md?page=10)