How Do You Know if Youre a Transgender

Information technology's a troubling fact: Anti-transgender parents can damage their children — potentially for life. A lot of research shows that if parents or families reject, mistreat, or otherwise mishandle a child due to the child's gender identity, they can significantly increment the risks of the kid acting out, developing mental health issues, and attempting suicide. So how tin can a parent make sure that they get this right?

I reached out to Diane Ehrensaft, a developmental psychologist who works closely with trans kids and author of the insightful The Gender Creative Child, to go answers to some of the questions parents might accept.

In curt, Ehrensaft put forward a very consistent theme: Parents should pay very shut attending to persistent cues from their children, take those cues seriously, and non try to forcefully modify the direction a child seems to be going in. So if a kid is consistently showing signs that their gender identity or expression does not friction match the gender that was assigned to them at birth, parents should accept that seriously, and allow the child alive based on their clearly and persistently expressed identity. And to the extent a parent tin can go this wrong, information technology'south by acting as well rigidly and trying to strength a child into acting similar someone they're just not.

What follows is my chat with Ehrensaft, edited for length and clarity.

How to tell if a child is transgender: pay attention, and accept the cues seriously — without policing gender

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German Lopez: How can parents realize if their child is transgender?

Diane Ehrensaft: Like other parts of parenting, go along your eyes open and listen. Kids will send out pretty potent smoke signals that they're working out something almost gender. The parents may non exist able to know that the child is transgender right away.

Unfortunately, we don't accept a blood test, which everybody wishes we did to be crystal clear. Nosotros can but get a cross-section of a kid and where that child is at the moment.

Here's what we look for:

If a child says something like the statement, "y'all have it incorrect; I'm not the gender you lot remember I am" or "why did God get it incorrect?" or "tin I go dorsum in your tummy and come out with the right parts?" you want to pay attending to those signals.

If a child is insistent, consistent, and persistent on that bulletin or related messages, we desire to pay attention to it. So it's not just one point in time, but over many points in fourth dimension. Information technology keeps coming back to the aforementioned affair.

"If a child says something similar … 'Can I go dorsum in your tum and come up out with the right parts?' you want to pay attention to those signals"

If a child, specially a young child, is really excited about their body parts, and says "Tin can I grow one?" or "Can I cut this one off?" there'southward frequently a signal of a real unhappiness with the torso that you have and that marks you as a boy or a girl in the culture.

Lots of kids these days similar to play with toys that were labeled for the other gender. That's not uncommon. We know Target took down gender-segregated toys. We know something's going on in the culture. So there's a lot of kids — boys who want to play with dolls, girls who want to play with trucks, etc.

The child who'south transgender often volition go beyond play to what I telephone call "serious business." They're non but, for example, wanting to try out their sister'south princess dress and pretend to be a princess for a twenty-four hours. They do that, besides. Merely they may — as someone who'southward [designated equally] a boy who says, "I'm a girl" — go and steal their sister's full dress, regular girl clothes, so they tin clothes to tell people, "Hey, this is who I am. I'k not a fairy princess. But I'1000 a daughter who wants to go to school dressed like this." And so yous look for play every bit "serious business."

It's non fool-proof, simply those are good signs.

At that place are things parents should do if they realize a child is transgender. But generally, they should be accepting.

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GL: Allow'southward say some parents recall their child is trans. What should they practise then?

DE: In terms of the mental wellness field, I will quote Dickens: It's the all-time of times, it's the worst of times.

If they can find a well-trained, gender-affirmative professional person to help them think about it, that'southward a good way to go, because it'south hard to do this on your own. Some people do it with support groups. Some people practise it past connecting with other people online. Some people merely accept it within their own bones to exist able to read the tea leaves and know what to do nigh it.

But given the journeying ahead, if you can find someone like a pediatrician that y'all go to from time to time for check-ups, merely who'due south a mental health professional, sensitive to gender issues, [and] who can just be part of your team to retrieve well-nigh it and offer their expertise, that's a good stride.

"If they can detect a well-trained, gender-affirmative professional to assist them think well-nigh it, that'southward a good way to go"

What a parent can do is to watch out for being a police officeholder of gender. That harms kids, and it gives them bad letters. Then if you say, "You tin't do that, considering boys aren't immune to," that'southward a real hurting on your kid, and that can have some dissentious effects.

If you say something a picayune different — "You know, love, where we live people don't understand this, so nosotros might do this just at home, but until we aid the people out there to empathise it, we might just exit it at home" — it's still a bit of a mixed message, but it says to the child that "the problem is non with you, the problem is the town we live in, so we're going to create safe spaces for you." The hope there is the kid doesn't take it in equally "I'thou weird" but that this world has a lot of learning to do.

But the first affair y'all want to exercise, like with any other sense of identity, is instill pride in the child, rather than shame.

Javier Zarracina/Vox

GL: I imagine that a lot of parents are unfortunately not going to accept access to very good mental wellness professionals for all sorts of reasons — geography, insurance, or whatnot. And then what are some of the common tips and guidance you would give to those parents, who recollect their kids are trans?

DE: The first thing — and this is the motto you can put on your wall — is around children's gender, information technology'southward not for us to say, but for them to tell, and to give them the opportunity to say what'southward going on with them. And listen.

The second is that all of us, every bit parents and people walking down the street, have what I call gender ghosts and gender angels.

The gender ghosts are all of the letters that we got in the fashion we live — such as our religious beliefs — that tell us that there'southward something incorrect if a child is either gender nonconforming or transgender, or that makes yous feel uncomfortable or weird about it. Yous can't sweep the gender ghost under the rug, because they're there. So you have to take them out and have a look at them. And if you're parents, you ever should be questioning yourselves: "Are any of these beliefs harming my child?"

Virtually parents love their children and believe that they're supporting their children. But what they offer may not sometimes be good for the kid. And that'southward where gender ghosts come in: You may feel like yous're supporting your kid past saying "don't be ridiculous, boys don't wear dresses" [by] showing them how to be a boy in the culture, but at the same time you're giving them a very negative message about who they are.

"If yous're parents, you ever should be questioning yourselves: 'Are any of these beliefs harming my kid?'"

This, quite bluntly, is why we such loftier levels of anxiety, low, social withdrawal, acting out at school — this kind of mutual misery among gender nonconforming kids who are getting messages similar that. Those are our gender ghosts speaking.

And so nosotros want to bring them out to the light of day and put them at war with what I call our gender angels. Those are the parts of us — and I think they're either at that place or can be harvested and fertilized — which open up up our optics to gender expansiveness, to the notion of gender variety, to the notion that not following the rules does not hateful yous're sick or have a disease or that it's pathological, but that it's creative. That'south why I call information technology the gender-creative child in the book. And information technology's only who these children are.

So we have who these children are. I practice believe that when we accept people around gender ghosts and gender angels, we have a cognitive racket moment. The gender ghosts are telling you, "This is incorrect," "This goes against the principles of my faith," etc. On the other side of that comes, "But I dearest my child very much. And I can either change those beliefs or hurt my kid." Then what I come across over and over once again amidst the parents I know is dearest conquers all — that sadly in that location are certain families where information technology does not happen, but happily there are families where their child profoundly changes them, and brings out the gender angels and poofs away their gender ghosts.

The next thing is that no affair where you are, you tin notice other parents. Fortunately, we have the internet. And there are at present and then many organizations that have chatrooms or places where parents can set up a [e-mail] listserv with each other. And it has been a wonderful change for parents to not feel isolated in their experiences. And in the United States, there are now conferences all over the country where people can meet other parents, come across professionals, have the children meet each other — and even doing that in one case a year can brand a tremendous difference.

Children tin realize that they're transgender at a very young historic period. Or they might not — and notwithstanding be transgender.

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GL: When should you look a child to be more than comfortable and confident in their identity, so you know it's maybe a certain matter?

DE: Since yous need to know that they're persistent and consistent over time, obviously you need time. Information technology tin't exist one point in fourth dimension. This is the virtually complicated thing nigh parenting a gender-artistic child.

It could pop up at any fourth dimension. There's no ane boilerplate. There are a subgroup of kids where you most likely know by the time they're in preschool. And they volition then define early on, and they won't switch. Then you lot could know in the commencement year of life if you have your optics open. You might demand more fourth dimension to really get it in focus. But I'm having a number of parents who are now coming to talk to me about their iii 3-year-olds, where they already got it [that] they accept a transgender 3-year-quondam.

Now, everybody gets a little nervous nearly that. "How could a 3-yr-old know their gender?" But for kids who are non transgender, nosotros should expect them to know their gender by age three. In our culture, nosotros wait most kids to know if they line upwards in the boys' line or the girls' line. Simply we don't give the same latitude to transgender children. And because I don't recall many of us understand that gender doesn't belong between their legs, simply between their ears — it'due south their heed and their brain. And then even among the littlest ones, their minds are already fabricated upwardly.

"In our culture, we expect almost kids to know if they line upward in the boys' line or the girls' line. But we don't give the same breadth to transgender children."

But in that location are other kids for which it may not prove up until they hit puberty. Often puberty is a point in which the trunk starts to alter [and] all of a sudden it rises upwards, whatever was lying quietly and dormant, and they'll go, "Whoa, wait a 2nd, this feels and then wrong, and I'yard miserable."

Now, a lot of kids are miserable through puberty. Nosotros know that. Whatsoever one of united states could probably tell a tale.

Just this is a different kind of misery. So if you're not transgender, if you imagine that yous woke up one morning time and your nose was turning into an elephant trunk, and you lot are going to accept to alive that way for the rest of your life, that'due south how it feels. Unless you lot would like to have an elephant trunk, but let's assume y'all wouldn't.

Kids are ofttimes traumatized, and that's a moment where they may say for the first time, "Well, yous know what? I'm not a boy. I'thousand a girl. And I'm freaked out." And parents will ofttimes at that point exist really confused, because they'll say, "But they weren't that way when they were toddlers. I never saw an clue of this." And that doesn't mean it's not true.

Gender is a lifelong procedure. And information technology'due south non necessarily fixed at a time, although for many of united states of america we're stable by age five. That'southward the challenge for parents: It could show upward at any point, and you'll accept to start from that point on. Is it really persistent and consistent? Is information technology stable? Is information technology actually a solution to something else, or not nearly gender at all? Tricky questions.

While parents should exist willing to help their kids live their identities, they need to look for consistency

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GL: I'm sure a lot of parents would worry, specially with a 3-year-old, that they would start treating the kid differently — like letting the kid transition — and it might turn out that the child was just gender nonconforming or going through what some people would telephone call a phase. How practice you residual out that business organisation?

DE: By not going besides fast. Yous raise a very important point: that, indeed, you don't want to jump to a conclusion by 1 bespeak in time.

Now, I know that in developmental psychology, we have phases, [and] kids go through phases. So the mutual response from a pediatrician when a parent says, "My footling girl doesn't ever desire to wearable a apparel," is that she'due south just going through a stage. That's a possibility, but information technology's quite unlikely.

So what nosotros want to do is give it some time to see whether this isn't a wink in the pan. Just don't give information technology too much fourth dimension, because so you have a miserable child.

"What we want to exercise is requite it some time to see whether this isn't a flash in the pan. But don't give information technology as well much time, because then yous have a miserable child."

Nosotros practise have some parents, particularly with all of the coverage of transgender children, who are too hot to attempt. They come with their faux gender angels, claiming, "We are progressive. We will back up our kid. Nosotros believe in transgender children. And and then we'll let our child to transition from male child to girl." And and so you lot meet the child and they're like, "Whoa, no, no, I'1000 simply saying I want to endeavor this out."

Here'southward what we have to assistance u.s. with that: what I phone call the ex-post-facto exam. And it's a pretty good one. It'due south not universally accurate. But if you got it correct and you heed to the child, and you heard what they have to say, and what y'all heard is that they're non the child y'all think they are, and if you allow them live total time in the gender they say they are, they get happier — not only a little scrap happier, but it's also a remarkable transformation. And so the ex-post-facto test says, "I got information technology correct. I accept a much happier, healthier child at present that I finally listened and let them exist who they are."

If they're not happy, and their misery goes up, you go, "Oh, peradventure nosotros should become await at that." It doesn't necessarily mean that they're non transgender. It may mean that they're going to a school that treats them terribly everyday, so there are things that are hurting them in the globe. So you desire to pay attention to what's going in that location.

But you lot expect for a happiness quotient. I come across it as a professional. But I also hear it from parents who say, "Wow, I wish we listened earlier. I didn't realize. But I now have a different view."

To the extent trans people suffer unduly from mental health issues, it's due to bigotry

Transgender people protest North Carolina'due south anti-LGBTQ police.

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GL: For a lot of people, there's a lot of confusion in what the medical and scientific fields say nearly this. For example, I've seen some members of Congress cite gender dysphoria and the fact information technology'due south listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as proof — and these are their words, not mine — that trans people are mentally ill and disordered. Simply based on what y'all're proverb and what other medical professionals and trans people have told me, to the extent some trans people accept astringent dysphoria — and non all trans people exercise — it should be treated by letting them transition without bigotry, non attempt to change their identity. Is that right?

DE: Yeah. Absolutely.

I would start by saying that there are some of us who are nevertheless fighting to go any mention of gender out of the DSM for the exact reasons you lot just said: It pathologizes children around something that is non pathological.

At that place are parallels to homosexuality. Nosotros got it out of the book, and now we have marriage equality years later, which I recall is relevant to recognizing one'due south multifariousness rather than pathology around sexual identity.

So a lot of people need an teaching.

"We desire to assistance them get their gender in order — to help them live in their truthful gender cocky, their gender identity"

Fifty-fifty with the [gender dysphoria] diagnosis, that simply means that someone is having an upset until they go their gender in order. And nosotros want to help them become their gender in order — to help them live in their true gender cocky, their gender identity. And that should be the goal for any child and adults likewise.

If at that place's any pathology, it lies in the culture, not in the child.

The merely difficulty for some is they exercise get upset well-nigh how their trunk is showing up. That'south not just around the culture out at that place — although when the culture says penis equals boy and vagina equals girl, and no 1 with a penis tin can be a girl, that seriously upsets people. Only still, there might be an upset about your body.

So I think the i thing we do see that is inside the child who has a brain that's saying I have XX chromosomes only I'thou a male child is that they accept trunk mismatch sometimes, and it makes them unhappy, no affair how accepting everybody is.

Merely if there'due south any misery, it's probably because people aren't beingness immune to live their lives based on who they are.

It's not just a social construct or biological. Gender identity is influenced by all sorts of variables.

GL: With some people, particularly those skeptical of everything that we're discussing, one source of confusion I've seen is that, on one hand, experts are telling them that gender is a social construct, but, on the other hand, experts are saying that gender identity is something inherent in kids that they might realize as immature equally iii, 4, or v years old. There's merely a lot of confusion about those 2 concepts. So how practise you lot explain it to people?

DE: Here's how I explain the whole notion of gender: It'southward not completely unrelated to culture, nor is information technology only a social construct. That'due south why I use the concept of a gender web — that every person's gender is spinning together nature, nurture, and culture. And so we take to wait at all three components, simply there is a strong internal — and we can put it in nature, we tin put information technology in nurture.

Merely gender is not just shaped by the exterior, considering otherwise we could spin these transgender kids into existence cisgender [not trans]. And we tin can't; that would merely make them go underground. And so there is a ramble, biological component that reasons people'south gender, simply it's not the just stream coming in.

So nosotros accept to consider all three: nature, nurture, and culture.

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GL: So on the one hand yous do accept these roles that people wait of sure genders, and those are the social constructs. Only on the other manus people inherently identify in certain ways, based on how they think of themselves, their bodies, and all of that. And all of these factors come together to influence somebody's gender identity.

DE: Exactly. And I would say to this twenty-four hour period, for why it is, it's still a mystery. We know a lot and we're learning a lot more about the "what is information technology?" merely non and then much the "why" of it.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11853060/transgender-children-parents