If the OP were just asking a genuine question, they would strip it of the assumptions they made. Assumptions such as:
[ul]
[li]That the child in question has decided they are transgender, rather than the parents merely exploring what supports exist should this turn out to be their child’s path in life. That the parents are “supportive” seems to be a sticking point for OP, as though perhaps they should shut this down.[/li][li]That the child in question was “guided to this decision.” What evidence is there of this?[/li][li]That when OP was younger (post search reveals that they’re 60, so 50 years ago), there were “hardly any” transgender people, and OP doesn’t think it’s because those who existed were afraid to speak out. No, OP thinks it’s a “flux” [sic].[/li][/ul]
To answer these in order:
[ul]
[li]“Being supportive” of a young child who had expressed gender dysphoria or non-conformity is limited to non-medical support, such as social transitioning. Completely reversible, and may help the child avoid a lot of mental health concerns. Supporting your kids when they’re going through some shit is what good parents do, and good parents seek expert advice on what that looks like. Again, no medical interventions are even possible before puberty. This Daily Beast article may help OP understand better.[/li][li]Psychologists place the awareness of one’s gender between 18 months and 5 years, so it’s no unreasonable that a 3-year-old would be aware of what gender they are. I certainly knew I was a girl by age 3. Mayo Clinic on children and gender identity.[/li][li]The likelihood of the parents “guiding” the child to this is not something I can comment on, or else I’d be making assumptions myself. I can say, I don’t know any parents who would choose this for their kid. It’s not an easy journey.[/li][li]Transgender people were not safe in most places 50 years ago. Not even at many gay bars. The NYT has a timeline that talks about life back then for transgender people (nee transsexuals) and it seems to me that there very likely was a reluctance to come out. I’d say that I’m certain but, again, assumptions.[/li][/ul]
Those who are hung up on the tomboy vs. effeminate boy vs. why can’t he just be a boy who likes to play with dolls? might benefit from reading about the difference between gender identity and gender expression, although I suspect that at least one such poster has zero interest in actually educating themselves.
You’ll want to be very sure that you’re clear on precisely what the kid means by what he says, because children do not think or speak in the same way as adults.
For instance, when my nephew was very young (up to about 5), if you asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d say “a girl”. Did that mean that he was transgender? No. The reason he said that was because he’s the youngest of three, and he was constantly seeing his two older sisters getting to do things that he couldn’t do. It never occurred to him that the reason they got to do those things was because they were older; to him, the relevant difference was that they were girls and he was a boy, and therefore girls got to do fun stuff that boys couldn’t, and therefore he wanted to be a girl so he could do the fun stuff, too.
I would like to agree with you, but I’m concerned that in a thread with a lot of bigotry, what gets you isn’t the bigotry, but people being too harsh when responding to ignorant questions.
I’m talking about the first reply. Ok, maybe the OP wasn’t worded as “tactfully” as it could have been, but it appeared simply out of ignorance (i.e. “lack of knowledge”) and was genuinely asking. The first reply was “I find this pretty offensive.” Well, great. So your immediate response is to assume the worst intentions and put the asker on the defensive. I’m perfectly willing to admit I’m almost completely ignorant of anything about the subject, but that kind of response would discourage me from ever asking anything about it. “How DARE you question anyone!” is not the way you fight ignorance.
This part needs to be repeated. My nephew came out as transgender midway through highschool. Prior to that, he was always the high-strung, anxious kid with lots of problems. Afterwards, that all changed, and he became quite the kick-ass kid, now doing quite well in University.
The problem is that there are sooooo many people these days “JAQing Off”. It’s become near-impossible to tell when it’s an honest inquiry any more, and most people are just tired of trying to figure that out any more.
Fair enough. Some of the responses are a little harsh, but please understand how deeply personal this is for many people here, and be as willing to cut them the same slack that you want them to cut others.
You might also be a little defensive about this. In the first response, “your post is pretty offensive” was a statement, not an attack. The poster gave good answers to the questions, and at the same time counseled the OP on why asking questions in that way should be avoided. There was no “how dare you” stated or implied. If any correction or education about someone’s blind spots is taken as an attack, then maybe the person isn’t really looking to learn.
Look, I kind of get what you’re saying, but it’s not right. Your second paragraph is OK - kids do say they want things for different reasons than an adult would, and their reasons aren’t always well thought out.
The problem is your first sentence. Why do you have to be very clear on what the kid means? Absolutely no one is talking about the situation where one day your 5-year old boy says “I want to be a girl,” and the next day is on to something new. The key characteristics are that the child is consistent, insistent, and persistent.
So given that, why do you have to be clear on what they want? Think this through - let’s say your boy is insistent that he’s a girl. You can be supportive, or you can insist they’re a boy (either actively, or passively by ignoring their desire). Maybe your kid is transgender, and maybe it’s “just a phase.” What’s the downside if you were supportive, and at the end of the process, they decide they aren’t transgender? Maybe you bought some clothes they don’t need any more. Maybe the monogrammed towel with their new name becomes a car rag.
But the upside is that your kid sees that you will accept them as they are, trust them when they tell you something, and believe in them. That is invaluable. And on the flip side, if you refused to believe them when they said they were transgender, they’re not going to look back and thank you for helping them dodge a bullet. All they’re going to remember is that when they were struggling, when they needed support, you weren’t there to help them.
So many people think that if your kid changes their mind, then believing them initially was a mistake. If it involves something irreversible, then maybe it’s worth considering. But in this situation, nothing irreversible is happening. There’s no penalty for going down a road for a while to see if it’s right.
Well, what do we mean by “be supportive”? If you start introducing your son to everyone as your daughter, and he still doesn’t get to do any of the fun things his sister is doing, and meanwhile he never said that he is a girl, because he knows he’s not, he just wants to be, then you’re probably going to just confuse the poor kid.
I’ll just throw my two cents in to say that when I was 3, I had persistent thoughts that I “should’ve been a boy”. So yes, it is possible to know. I spent years afterwards bemoaning internally that I had the worst luck in the world to be born a girl. I didn’t want to be a girl. I wanted to be a boy. However, back then, I had no idea transitioning existed or was a thing (it was only barely). I did know that tomboys existed and that the mantra from my mom was “girls can grow up to do anything they want” so what I ended up doing was trying to do things I wanted to do regardless of gender social norms, which included a lot of rejecting girly things. So at a very young age I knew what I wanted, but saw no way in which to get there.
Overall I have grown into an adult confused with my own gender identity and unable to put a pin on it at all. Thankfully I appear resigned to the fact that I’m stuck with the body I was given, rather than being suicidal about it. I’m sure if I had known about transitioning as a child, my life would have turned out very differently though. I consider it too late for me now. I’m glad that there’s a path now for children who felt like me. I would never stand in the way of a child exploring who they really are.
Do you have kids? This just isn’t how things work. The kid will not be confused.
I’m trying to be polite, but there are people in this thread who have dealt with these exact situations and know they play out. You are clearly not one of them.
I hear what you’re saying, but do you hear what TroutMan is saying about being persistent, insistent and consistent? (Thank you, TroutMan! That’s what I was coming here to post).
I’m my experience as the parent of a transgender young man and going to many meetings and support groups and conferences on the topic, I’ve yet to meet a parent for whom “being supportive” didn’t include rigorous examination of the issue, their kid’s feelings and needs, consultation with professionals and a lot of planning and thought. That’s not at all to say that they don’t exist. But I suspect that they don’t get very far down the road if their kid has a different set of issues.
As you’ve noted, it’s very different for someone to express a wish to be male or female or both or neither and to express that they are male or female or both or neither. Insistent and consistent. In the case of your nephew, too, he stopped expressing that wish. Not persistent.
I have to say again, no one is introducing medical interventions to young children. If a kid who was considered male for his first 3 years spends six months calling himself Cynthia and wearing dresses, then changes his mind and moves on to being obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and never puts on a tutu again…well, what if it? At least he’ll know that his parents gave him the freedom and support to be himself and explore his identity and how he wants to be in the world.
Right, exactly, so you need to be sure you’re clear on what the kid is saying, so you can tell whether they’re being insistent, consistent, and persistent.
It seems to me that a cismale child being referred to as “she” by his parents (who are mistakenly trying to support what they think is a transgendered child) would be exactly as confused, traumatized, or whatever, as a transfemale child would be by being referred to as “he” by her parents.
OK, but…does the kid not speak? Can’t he say, “I’m not a girl!” I’m not trying to give you a hard time, I swear, but your scenario confuses me.
Boy says, “I wish I was a girl” (and does not express that it’s because he has 2 older sisters who get to do fun things. That’s what I got from your earlier post.
So…then what? I guess this is where I’m getting lost. Parents immediately start using female pronouns and referring to him as their daughter without talking more to him about it? That’s the piece that’s missing to me. They would surely have conversations with him regarding what’s behind his feelings before socially transitioning. I mean, that’s just how parenting works, even when the issue isn’t this loaded.
If you ask questions about a fraught, controversial, and highly personal topic that has been the subject of substantial social bigotry, it is kinda on you to be careful how you ask. If you don’t want to do that, fine. But it isn’t hard and it is a minimal social obligation on your part. If it leads to you remaining in ignorance that is too bad, but there are worse things.
What isn’t fair is assuming the worst intentions. But no one did that, obviously.
I don’t understand why it seems that way to you. The child insists they’re a girl, and the parents refer to them as “she”. Then the child decides no, I’m a boy, and the parents refer to them as “he”. Assuming the child understands pronouns, they can understand that identifying as a girl results in “she”, and identifying as a boy results in “he”. Children don’t get confused by this, but they do get very frustrated if adults don’t refer to them as they ask, whether they ask because of a persistent feeling or as a game of “let’s pretend.”
Stop thinking of this as mistakenly trying to support the child. It is not a mistake at all, even if the child changes their mind. Again, it is not a mistake to listen to your child and believe them. This is not a test with right and wrong answers that will be graded at the end.
The reason a transgender kid feels confused or traumatized when referred to by the wrong pronouns is not comparable to what you’re describing. That confusion is created by gender expectations imposed on a kid that don’t fit how they feel. Traumatized feelings are caused by people ignoring their insistence that they are a different gender.
My understanding of the OP was that the grandparents are saying the kid IS transgender. Of course that is more definitive than saying they think the kid might identify as transgender when they’re older! I don’t see why this is even a question.
I don’t know whether this is a bad thing. I guess not, if the kid does turn out to be trans, and possibly not even if they don’t; if all that’s going on is that the grandparents are talking to a bunch of people at a PFLAG group, no harm, no foul. But I do feel kind of weird about the idea of parents / grandparents assigning a label to a kid that THEY understand the meaning and ramifications of and the kid does not – although I suppose this happens in all kinds of other contexts all the time, so who knows? I’m still sorting out what I think about this situation.
Fretful Porpentine, thanks for the response. It’s very reasonable to feel like you’re still sorting things out.
To address one specific thing, there’s not really a practical difference at that age between a parent saying a kid is definitely transgender versus saying they might identify as transgender when they’re older. FWIW, I don’t know any parents who have gone through it that conclusively say “definitely transgender” until much farther along in the process. But even if there are, the actions you take as a parent (and as a kid) are the same either way at this point.
I think what Hilarity meant was that is how SOCIETY sees things. Not that that was her own personal belief. You must admit, it is somewhat true – boys get more shit for doing girly things than the other way around. It’s classic sexism: it’s okay for women to aspire to be masculine, but it’s not okay for men to want to be feminine.
Do tomboys still get shit on? Yes. But I’d say it’s not as bad as what girly boys do.