Transgender kids: Painful quest to be who they are

Gender Identity: A Change in Childhood - This is a video and article from CNN health about transgender children.

Too many times, parents of transgender children are accused of harming their child by encouraging them to live as the opposite gender. As in the case with these lesbian parents, they were accused of trying to make Tammy "like them." Having a transgender child is no easy task. Parents don't want this to happen. They didn't have the child and think "Oh gee, let me force him/her to be the opposite gender." (Though I'm sure there are some abuse cases where this has happened, it isn't what is going on here.)

The transgender child will face hardship in school with other children and even adults. The absolute BEST thing a parent can do is support their child.Too many times I've heard stories of transgender people being disowned or rejected by their parents. Shouldn't we praise those parents who do love their children unconditionally?

"When you talk about that, when you say that 'people know me for me' you are you."

Not surprisingly, the article received some harsh feedback: What fuels transgender backlash?

Professor Diane Everett put it best when she said "We tend as a society to put people into boxes. Someone who is transgender is not only crossing gender boundaries, but also defying them. If people can't relate to you as an either-or, they have a hard time relating to you in their general comfort level."

 My dad is one of those people who seem to think that things concerning the LBGT community are "sick" and "wrong." Love him to death, but he is definitely pro-traditional gender roles and anything that breaks those roles bothers him.

What do you think? Is it more harmful than not for parents to disregard their child's gender identity?

Q&A

Okay, sorry I haven’t gotten back to those of you with questions. I’ve been dealing with a broken car since June. HECTIC! CRAZY! Argh. But enough on that…

Right, so I’m making a separate entry to answer your questions because I feel it’s the best way for everyone to see the replies. Also, I’m unfamiliar with Blogger… bear with me.

Nena:

“I really like how you clarified the terms and used colors to explain them.”

Thanks! I’ve always enjoyed colorful things and they break up the monotony of a long post.

“But that pronoun thing really confused me. I've never heard of asking about preferred pronouns before. Maybe I misunderstood, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Being transgendered means they identify with the “opposite” gender… so why don’t they just adopt the pronoun that corresponds with the gender they identify with, instead of creating new pronouns?”

Being transgender does not mean being the gender opposite one’s birth EVERY time. Some people identify as in between genders or neither gender. That’s why they adopt the new pronouns (which I get how confusing they can be). The reason it’s best to ask about preferred pronoun is to ensure that you do not offend the transperson. Sometimes, it’s obvious that the person is MTF or FTM, but other times (typically with those who are still transitioning) it’s not so clear. I promise you that if you take the time to ask, the person to whom you are speaking with be very grateful. Hope that answers your question. :)

“I met someone last semester and I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a male or female. Instead of choosing one gender, it seemed like he/she just blended them both. Or maybe he/she was trying to be the opposite gender and just didn’t quite reach that goal. Does that classify him/her as transgendered, or do transgendered people usually look like the gender they identify with?”

Funny thing about gender is that it may or may not classify a person as transgender. Some girls dress like boys, especially in today’s society. I have a friend who has always worn guy clothes simply because they fit her body type better, but she is most assuredly female. What classifies someone as transgender is when their mental image of themselves does not match the physical. They feel as though the gender assigned to them at birth is not who they really are.

Jayne H:

“Hi! I think your subject is very interesting. My best friend’s cousin is actually going through the whole FTM process, and was showing me pictures of him/her on facebook.”

Thanks! And that’s awesome! I wish your best friend’s cousin the best!

“Many of my friends are gay, and are mostly females, as well as identify with the other gender. I always call my lesbian friends (even if they look like men) “she” or “her” or whatever, and they prefer to be that way…or at least don’t mind.”

And that’s completely okay, as long as they’re fine with it! :)

“Last night as I was reading some material for one of my classes, the author defaulted to the masculine “he” and it totally caught me off guard and made me uncomfortable.”

Oh yes. In my critical theory class, we just discussed feminist criticism. They mentioned something about how it assumes a male experience in all things.

“Yet I think if I read some crazy pronoun like hizit or hirz or whatever it is I wouldn’t find it exactly pleasant, either.”

To be honest, I find them confusing too. Maybe one day it’ll become the norm. Who knows?

“At any rate, I’m looking forward to your future posts as I’m sure I have much to learn.”

Thanks! I certainly hope I can help.  :)

Francesca:

“Question, why is it, in the lgbt community, the b is kind of left out in all discussions? Like, everyone focuses on gay/lesbian and trans, but just skip over bisexuality, almost treating it like it's not a real sexual orientation by its exclusion. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but it's something I've noticed. Like, trans is so counterculture that it's accepted, if that makes any sense, but bisexuality is accepted in pop culture and gets skipped?”

I kind of agree with you on that. One of the reasons I think there’s issue is that people seem to think if a bisexual person is with someone of the opposite gender, then they are no longer bi… WRONG! You don’t just stop liking women because you’re with a guy or vice versa. It’s rather silly that people seem to forget that. My best friend is bi, so I take a protective stance on it.

And I wish trans was more accepted.

“But either way, still a very cool blog/idea. I've been checking up on it from time to time. Thanks for finally updating! :)”

Thanks for reading! I’ll try to be better at it. There’s a billion things going on right now it seems. :P

NicktheRiot:

“I do have to say, before reading your blog; I may have made the mistake of asking someone about their sex instead of preferred pronoun. I dig it honestly, but it’s a little too mushy and I think I’m open minded enough and comfortable enough to say that from now on that is how I will approach that conversation. You have educated me, and at first I admit I disliked it because I knew I was wrong. […]. I think this blog will be an excellent opportunity for issues to be presented and it to be a place of open-minded people exchanging meaningful information and ideas. Thank you for this blog.”

Oh man. I’m so glad!! That’s really the reason I created this blog. A lot of times, people dislike something simple because they don’t understand it. I’m hoping that through understanding, people will realize that transfolk are people too. Thank you, thank you for your thoughtful comment. It means so much to me!

“P.S. I’d really like to show you the insanity of modern communication theories that are being taught sometime after class.”

I’d love to! Hopefully, after I get my car back, I’ll be able to stick around for a bit after class so we can discuss.

~*~

Please keep the questions coming! I’m writing this blog for the purpose of enlightenment, so if you’d like clarification on anything just let me know! Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and I hope we can keep the discussion going. :)

Who what now?

There seemed to be some confusion about the purpose of my blog. I apologize. Shoot, even I was having trouble finding exactly how to word my intentions. Transgenderism is constantly misunderstood. My aim is to help clarify things and bring transgenders into a positive light. This is probably a huge and maybe somewhat crazy undertaking due to mixed opinions on the subject. All I ask of you is to be polite and understanding. <3

And yes, one day I would like to work with transgendered youth. I mean that as children who are elementary to middle school age.

Two words that are super important to this blog (as they will be used quite frequently) are transgender and cisgender.

Transgender (sometimes shortened to “trans”): someone who identifies with a gender different from the one assigned at birth.

Cisgender (sometimes shortened to “cis”): someone who identifies with the gender assigned at birth.

Oh, and LETTERS! There are a few of those…

LGBT means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (sometimes more letters are added, but I’ll stick with these for simplicity’s sake).

FTM is female to male, a person transitioning from a female to a male.

MTF is male to female, a person transitioning from a male to a female.

Gender isn’t as black and white as male/female. It gets more complicated than that. To use an image familiar to the LGBT, gender is a rainbow. Though male and female are at opposite ends of the spectrum, there are those who are outside that binary or in between it.

Also, an important thing to note… gender identity and sexual preference are NOT congruent. Just because someone’s gender identity is MTF doesn’t mean she likes men exclusively… She could like women and men, just women, or anyone in between!

Which reminds me, pronouns. To cisgendered people this is a simple matter. To transgendered people? Not so much. It is very offensive to ask a trans person “Are you a man or a woman?” A better thing to do would be to ask, “What is your preferred pronoun?”

(source: t-shirt design submitted to threadless.com)

Spivak pronouns, popularised by Michael Spivak in 2006, are used to describe those who aren't comfortable with he/she or the singular "they." The pronouns are ey (subject), em (object), eir (possessive adjective), eirs (possessive pronoun), ey (reflexive). 


Another more popular set of pronouns I've seen is ze, hir, hirs, and hirself. 


Confused? That's okay. It's much, much better to ask a transgendered person about preferred pronoun choice than to assume and accidentally offend or hurt.

Those are the absolute basics. I didn't want to overload you with too much information. As I write more entries, I'll trickle in other definitions and terms. Hopefully this hasn’t been dreadfully boring. Feel free to ask questions! In fact, I encourage it.