It’s long, but go listen to & read NPR’s “Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences“. Then come back for study questions.
One of my favorite shows when I still had cable was the Riches. It’s an interesting drama, but what got me to watch the first two episodes was that it’s got one of my favorite British comedians, Eddie Izzard. Who is a transvestite. (I just spent 45 minutes on YouTube looking for the right clip and boy to I love Eddie Izzard, but I can’t find the part where he talks about being a transvestite:
I’m an action transvestite really, so it’s running, jumping, climbing trees… putting on make-up when you’re up there!
oh, well. This part comes just after it & it’s pretty good, too.) The first time I saw the Riches, I was surprised, since I’d never seen Eddie Izzard in men’s clothing. But they did work transvestism into the plot: his son likes to wear dresses. The mother occasionally tells him that, when they make up a story (according to Wikipedia, they are “Irish Traveller con artists and thieves”), he has to choose: is he a son or a daughter. So I’m not sure if he’s transgender or just transvestite (the son is about 8). If this is Liberal Hollywood’s way of normalizing trans-people, I’m all for it.
This is what immediately came to mind when I heard the article on NPR last night. I have no idea what Izzard’s childhood was like, but my heart breaks for these two children. Or at least for the one in New York. The trouble that Bradley has with pink things, the fact that he stopped playing when they removed his dolls, actually made me cry when I was telling my husband about it. The problem that I see is that Dr. Zucker is locked into the gender dichotomy mind-set. There are two genders: male and female. Men like guns. Women like pink.
I find this problematic on so many levels. And this is exactly what feminism is about. It is about saying “skirts are simply articles of clothing” no one should be forced to wear one if they do not want to and no one should be kept from wearing one if they do.
UPDATE: There’s another article today, about slightly older children who are undergoing hormone suppression. The (woman-born-)sister of one of the children discusses her (trans)sister’s discomfort with puberty. She says that she cannot imagine waking up in a body that was not female and understands the horror that her (trans)sister feels at it happening to her. Their father says that the whole experience has caused him to think about gender, and about life, in a whole new way. Good for him!
4 responses so far ↓
1 xJane // May 8, 2008 at 3:25 pm
in a slightly different note, I would have to say that in the women-born-women debate, women who were raised as girls but may have been born biologically male (perhaps women-born-boys, as opposed to women-born-men) would have a greater claim to stake in the “women-born-women” arena. It still introduces a dichotomy that I’m not comfortable with (you’re either a man or you’re a woman, with no in between).
My coworker mentioned today that his wife thought he was “gee-ay-why” when she met him because of his inclination toward design. I replied that my husband thought I was a man when we met (digitally). And after hearing about the poor girl who is waking up daily finding her body turning into that of a man, I have to wonder how I would feel if I woke up in the other body.
2 Elise // May 8, 2008 at 7:53 pm
We must have been driving home at the same time last night because I heard this too. I had never realized that children so young expressed gender confusion. It’s one thing to like pink or barbies (like the one mom said, she didn’t care if her son played with barbies because it seemed to make him happy and he wasn’t hurting himself or anyone else - good point). But I thought it was really interesting that the little boy would get angry and upset when someone would refer to him as a girl or a daughter and his parents would correct that person by saying he was a boy or a son. He wasn’t upset that someone mistook him for a girl, he was upset that his parents told them the truth!
Growing up in a faith that taught gender was eternal (i.e., you were a girl long before you were here on earth and you’ll be a girl forever) caused me to be very confused the first time I found out some people are born with no sex organs or both sex organs. Of course my first though was “What did God mean for them to be?”
3 Zach // May 9, 2008 at 8:27 am
I totally agree with the second therapist’s approach, though in the interest of saying something more interesting and perhaps conversation-provoking, I would say I agree in a qualified way with one of the other therapist’s comments. Specifically, it seems like “declaring someone transgender” at a very young age is a bad idea for two reasons.
One, it seems to buy into the idea that people have to be one single gender. And two, even if the child really does want to be strongly one or the other, I think s/he should have more time to figure that out. I think biologically speaking you would just want to start any hormonal therapy before puberty.
Which is a far cry from the first therapist’s approach, and only a little different (if at all) from the second’s. I guess what I’m saying is, let the kids play with whatever they want to play with, and maybe encourage them to play with “both” kinds of toys, and then see whether they need to start transitioning later (8? 10?).
4 Lessie // May 9, 2008 at 9:34 am
I think Ehrensaft’s ways of dealing with this are somewhat more child friendly, but like Zach said, I can see why calling a young child transgender from a young age could be problematic. I think that maybe the boys should be encouraged to try a few boy things, but not coerced into it or completely deprived of the things that they find exciting. It’s been interesting to watch my little boy be so gender fluid. He loves soccer, football, trucks etc. But he also likes pink sandles, dancing, my makeup and glittery toys. I try really hard to let him be who he is without labeling him right now.
Leave a Comment