There was a good article about this in the Atlantic last year: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-a-child-says-shes-trans/561749/
My understanding is that there are definitely some kids who really feel they are a “wrong” gender, but with the growing acceptance and visibility of this issue some people rush into gender-changing as a misguided “treatment” for generalized depression and other mental illnesses.
@romanigypsyeyes I’m curious about what is normally meant by “queer” and how you understand this. I’m a straight woman but I also will be just fine in a man’s body, and I have many mental traits which are traditionally considered masculine. However, I never felt a need to label myself anything else than a woman. In fact, I enjoy presenting myself as a counterexample when somebody makes a rash generalizing statement about women.
I am close friends with the mom and she is very open with me about his behavior/happiness and the stresses this issue is putting on her own mental health. She reaches out to me when she needs to talk.
My opinion about the son’s mental health also stems from the interactions I have directly with him. My role is to support my friend when she feels like venting, and generally to do normal friend things (have lunch, commiserate about the college process and general life details) with her.
And, FWIW, I posted my musings on this thread precisely because I would never ask intrusive questions of my friend or suggest I know anything about the clinical details of her child’s diagnoses.
One of the things that bothers me about some out trans women is their statements about how they feel and what they do now that they are able to express their true gender: they wear makeup and dresses and they can act frail and weak and indecisive and coy, and they want male help for any physical task. And I think to myself, that’s what you think being a woman is? I don’t do any of those things. What am I, chopped livah?
@“Cardinal Fang” This is one thing that bothers me in the trans culture (as well as gay pride parades I might add). Heavy makeup, overtly sexual clothing, generally representing yourself as a sex object first and foremost. Choosing and celebrating your gender and/or sexuality - fine with me. Making it seem only about sex - I don’t like this and I don’t think it helps the cause.
“One of the things that bothers me about some out trans women is their statements about how they feel and what they do now that they are able to express their true gender: they wear makeup and dresses and they can act frail and weak and indecisive and coy, and they want male help for any physical task. And I think to myself, that’s what you think being a woman is? I don’t do any of those things. What am I, chopped livah?”
I personally know one young person who has been transitioning from male to female and who is definitely embracing super hyper-femininity. On the one hand, I can get it , but I’ll admit I have some of the same misgivings as you, @“Cardinal Fang” . I’m a feminist and I certainly do not fall in the girly girl spectrum of womanhood (never have, never will).
However, note that those who present the most exaggerated stereotypes are the ones who get remembered by those who otherwise have little (known) contact with that group, even though those presenting the most exaggerated stereotypes may not necessarily be representative of all members of that group.
Interestingly, I recently heard a podcast about strength training (barbells) & the hosts argued that simply developing in the uterus as male was enough to put one at a physical advantage in competitive sports. Meaning, even before puberty hormones kick in, there are physical advantages for people developing as male in uterine, advantages in the skeleton & musculature & response to training that make things very complicated.
@ucbalumnus Exactly, this was my point about not helping the cause. There are other types of not helping the cause, e.g. being seriously offended by somebody using a wrong pronoun without ill intent. A vocal minority creates an impression. I’m afraid I’m too old to understand the deal with pronouns anyway.
This is one of the many things I dislike about Caitlin Jenner - her obsession with makeup/fashion. Although to be honest, I can’t stand the Kardashians either…
“I’m afraid I’m too old to understand the deal with pronouns anyway.”
If it matters to other people, is important to them and makes them feel more comfortable, I’m willing to try to remember to use them. It really doesn’t hurt me or impact me to do so.
Being born XY and going through puberty is an advantage for a lot of sports, even if you subsequently take estrogen, simply because it means you are taller than you would have been had you been born XX. In basketball, hockey, swimming, soccer, volleyball, and many other sports, those extra three inches make a big difference. It’s naive to think that if trans women are allowed in international sport, totalitarian countries won’t create trans women for the purpose of victory. And it’s also naive to think that in the US, some few elite male athletes won’t transition just to win. Some people really really really really want to win and will do anything to win.
I would be willing to bet that most of us have come into contact with a transgender individual and not realized it because the person just looks like a “typical” man or woman and not one who falls into an extreme illustration of a stereotype. Perhaps that is actually the rule and not the exception.
As I understand the puberty blockers, they are reversible and have the important benefit of preventing some of the characteristics that cause the transgender person to be bullied or made fun of later-for example, the very tall trans woman with really big hands, ears, feet, etc. that make acceptance of their transition difficult for others (which in turn makes the transition difficult for the transgender individual).
When a person goes through all they must to make a transition and they are still bullied, laughed at, shamed, shunned by family, or otherwise discriminated against, it doesn’t come as a surprise that their lives don’t become magically perfect. They are still not accepted, so I am not surprised when these people go on to commit suicide or experience extreme depression or unhappiness.
Thats an interesting difference. Trans men seem to acquire the characteristics of average men, and not seek to participate in hypermasculine muscle body building contests or strength tests, so they seem to fit in. Trans women seem much more likely to follow a caricature of a 1950s style pinup girl comically obsessed with makeup and frilly clothes, so that sets them apart from average women.
Anecdote is not the singular of data. Certainly not every trans woman looks like a drag queen. Two writers that come to mind are Jennifer Finney Boylan, who is a columnist for the NY Times, and travel writer Jan Morris.
Quite true. As many different variations as people, I expect. Tho Ms. Boylan’s obsession with getting picked up in a bar, in her recent column, struck me as very retro.
However, other people need to realize that a few highly visible stereotypes do not necessarily define the entire group. For example, when LGB was much less socially accepted, it is likely that many people would only see LGB people in terms of the obvious stereotypes, rather than ordinary people they encounter in their daily lives who are more likely to be encountered now as “known LGB” because they no longer hide that fact in a more accepting environment now.
Other stereotypes can also be formed through small samples. For example, if a high school as only three Asian students out of a class of 500, but all three are among the top academic students in the school, that can exaggerate a stereotype.
Yes, some transgender people may act in ways that exaggerate sexuality. But that only defines a stereotype in the mind of a viewer who has little other contact with transgender people. Compare with those cisgender people who act in ways that exaggerate sexuality – they are much less likely to be seen as a group-defining stereotype because most people know plenty of other cisgender people who are not that way.
I guess I really don’t understand the whole gender construct. I live in a female body, and I’ve always been perfectly content with that, but (like @romanigypsyeyes) I feel that if I had grown up in a male body, I would probably be just as content. I’m a person, not a gender stereotype. But I am all for people doing what pleases them in this regard, even though I can’t comprehend it. I do think that some of the gender issues of the younger set are this generation’s way of expressing youthful confusion and anxiety, which were expressed differently by other generations.
But these people don’t feel that way. That’s the whole thing-they are NOT content in the body they have- they feel absolutely that they are living in the wrong body.
I find it all quite confusing at times, but that’s because I’m fairly uneducated about it, even after having read two books trying to understand it all. I think your attitude is the correct one-admitting you don’t get it, but erring on the side of tolerance. Many people who don’t get it seem to think that the fact that they don’t understand it automatically means it shouldn’t be tolerated, that it is inherently bad, or that these people can’t actually feel the way they do, or that they are delusional and should be shut down.
This is an interesting conversation, and as a parent of a cherished and transgender child, I appreciate the respect and sincerity of (most of) these comments. I’d like to add the suggestion that we try to wean ourselves off of the idea and the terminology of “the opposite gender.” Many of the posters here are asserting that they/we don’t feel it’s necessary to transition or get upset about entering puberty or being categorized as the other or opposite gender. These statements support the idea that gender is fluid, that it’s a continuum. But the language of OTHER gender or OPPOSITE gender stands in opposition to the fluidity that many people experience and/or want to accept. A brilliant transgender theorist named Alok V. Menon says, “I wasn’t born in the wrong body; I was born in the wrong society.”
We can help improve some aspects of this punitive society by improving our language, and speaking about gender in a way that is not so intensely binary. To speak of two opposite and rigidly-defined genders is not necessary, and it’s not actually accurate. I suspect that some of the emotional pain of gender dysphoria—and possibly some of the chemical and surgical risks of medical transitions—could be reduced by a social transition away from defining and policing gender in such rigid ways.
I’d like to live in a world where people who wanted gender fluidity would feel like they could achieve it without hormone therapy (HRT) or top or bottom surgery. Those treatments are drastic and can have bad side effects. But if someone reasonably thinks HRT and/or surgical transition is the only way to harmonize their body with their brain, who am I to disagree.