Setting the record straight…
A few weeks ago, I reblogged a post about trans children, and my point got completely lost because I didn’t make it clear enough.
Never intended to imply that children cannot be transgender as young as 3 or 4. Never meant that. Please forgive me for not making that clear.
The post was intended to point out the responsibility of parents to ensure that their toddler is actually trans. I have read several articles from parents of trans children, and my heart breaks just imagining that journey. I cannot imagine actually experiencing it. But I have all the respect in the world for those parents who are open to the idea but also patiently wait to be sure.
Please forgive me if i hurt you with that post.
Thank you for being willing to apologise and change, it’s big of you. If I may, please let me explain the thing that I don’t think you quite understood when you wrote that post (and haven’t redressed in this apology).
You frame making sure they’re trans as the parent saying “But you can be your gender and still do [whatever thing]”, which is part of it for sure; the other part of dealing with potentially trans children, though, is making it clear to them that being trans is an option. The full phrase should be “Boys can have long hair, so if you want to have long hair and still be a boy that’s great! But if you are a girl, that’s great too and we want to help you with that.”
Something we’re taught, as gendernonconforming kids, is to ardently defend ourselves against the claim that we’re not our assigned gender. The only thing worse than being a tomboy is being a boy. So when you tacitly push your child not to ID as a different gender by going “but your gender can have these things!” it can crash into that aspect of socialisation and make them push down their feelings about being another gender because no, everyone’s right, you’re just a boy who likes long hair/a girl who hates dresses.
Not all trans people are super dysphoric. It’s the ones who are often get noticed more as kids because of the severe distress that being misgendered causes, which was the example given to you by other commentators. But even lower-dysphoria trans kids still experience it, though they often don’t have the language to describe who they’re just “a bit uncomfortable all the time”; by telling them that it’s okay to “want to” be another gender, you help give them ways to talk about that discomfort.
I say this because I was one of those kids. I was gender nonconforming, but in a family where it was ok for their little girl to have meltdowns when put in dresses – some girls just don’t like dresses! (it was actually really bad dysphoria, but what 3yo knows that?) To avoid having her picture taken, to the point of actively running away – some kids are just camera shy! (turns out i can’t reconcile my physical self with my gender ID!) To be a wallflower at womens’ events – nerd kids are just bad at socialising! (I knew I wasn’t meant to be there, but could never place why).
It took me until this goddamn year to figure out I was a trans man. Do you know how much struggle I would have been saved if someone – anyone – had told me “hey, it’s cool that you hate dresses, some girls do – but it’s also ok if you’re a boy” when I was a child? Believe me, you cannot imagine.
A final note: a small kid presenting as a different gender for a while and then deciding it doesn’t fit and they were their assigned gender all along? Has no biological repercussions. There may be some social issues, but they will probably arise from the kid being gender nonconforming anyway and they’re the fault of other intolerant people; you should absolutely not be denying kids the option of being trans “in order to protect them from bullying”, as it has negligible benefit and huge risks if the kid is actually trans. It’s not your job to “make sure” a child is trans, it’s your job to believe what they tell you about their gender.
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