What Readers Really Think About Gender

Any American should agree with your quotation “Trans people have rights to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and equality under the law, same as anyone else, and ought to be treated with respect and dignity.” And despite social-media storms, most of them do.

I do.

My only problems with the current push, if you will, are twofold. First, as an older woman who has lived both sides of before and after Title IX, to have biological men competing in women’s sports is the very definition of unfair. Second, I am concerned that a female child who is a “tomboy” is perhaps being told by activists (in schools or online) that she is probably a boy. I am concerned that a boy who enjoys ballet might be told, in the same way, that he is probably a girl. Will we lose the Mikhail Baryshnikovs of the world? Will we lose the Billie Jean Kings of the world? The list of such people could go on and on. It’s okay to be a boyish kind of girl or a girlish kind of boy. But with the very loud voices that the activists of today’s world have, my biggest concern is that we are not letting men and women, boys and girls, just BE, just be who they are. It’s all okay. It’s okay to just be who you are; you probably are not born the wrong gender.

That is very rare.

I work with young children at a preschool that works very hard at being inclusive of all genders. I’m a nascent senior. I’m often known to use the term guys in mixed-gender settings, and I think that guys (in the plural sense only) is morphing into something useful and inclusive. I’m working on switching to using folks as a sign of solidarity, though.

Sometimes our gender-sensitivity training does make me want to roll my eyes. Explaining to a toddler working at toileting that some boys have vaginas and some girls have penises is not something they are focused on––learning how to manage one’s own plumbing to avoid making a mess is challenging enough. The struggles of a transgender boy to access the appropriate bathroom don’t yet resonate for those who are still sitting side by side in an all-gender bathroom. That said, the parents who are using they/them pronouns for their young child might be giving them a respite from conforming to gender rules. And having kind and attentive teachers who aren’t cis gives them additional positive role models to look up to. All toddlers I’ve been privileged to teach have loved sequins, sparkles, tutus, and firefighter hats, and all those young humans ought to be able to explore every aspect of themselves without judgment.

. . .Can humans learn to value the diversity that is probably our greatest strength as a social species before we create our own demise? I hope so!

If gender is only true if it is self-defined, and societal norms are constraining, why should anyone aspire to transition from one undefinable and nonexistent gender category to a different one? How do they know the identity they are wanting to take on is real? Doesn’t transitioning simply affirm the male-female binary from the other direction?

I figured it was just a matter of time before this topic came up, so I have kept my Trans Dad hat ready. I am the father of a 10-year-old transgender son. He has identified as a boy since he was 4 or 5. In many ways, he’s the prototypical example of a gender-incongruent kid. To quote from some in the medical community, he has been “persistent, insistent, and consistent” in this identification. Before he even knew what the word transgender was, he would describe himself in one way or another as having “a boy brain and girl body.” In no time in the past five to six years has this wavered in even the slightest.

I think there is a feeling in some circles that parents of trans kids see their biologically female child play with a truck three times and rush to change pronouns, throw away dresses, and cover all pink paint with blue. For us, this was not even remotely the case. As our son’s identity began to express itself, we were confused, uncertain, and, to be perfectly honest, a little frightened. Our son began refusing anything remotely “girly” about the time he was 4-and-a-half. He began demanding short haircuts, boyish clothes, and mostly boyish toys.

Of course, my wife and I rushed to change his name and pronouns, began wearing We’re proud of our trans boy! T-shirts, secured spots for him on Pride parade floats, and booked his medical-intervention appointments––at least that’s what many people in America seem to think, as if we’re all quick to fast-track our gender-curious kids to trans identities. How do people who believe such things operate in the world being so divorced from reality? We had no idea what to do. Somewhat guiltily, I will admit that we didn’t fully accept (or maybe want to accept) the reality of our son. We weren’t cruel or entirely unsupportive. But we clung to the idea that it was merely a phase. That he was just playing with roles.

In pre-K, he was starting to ask for male pronouns. We nodded and brushed it off. In parent-teacher conferences during the autumn of kindergarten, his teachers again told us this, as well as about him asking to use the boys’ restroom. We replied that we were fine with that in school if that’s what he preferred but we still used she/her at home and planned to continue doing so. “We just want to see where it goes,” we said.

At the request for short haircuts, we avoided “boy” cuts, trying first a bob, and then a shorter bob. Our son would come home from those appointments sullen and sometimes angry, because he had been pretty clear on his desire (a short, boy-style cut) and we had opted for a short, girl-style cut. We were hoping it might be enough, and frankly hoping he would get over it and everything would go back to “normal.” We did roughly the same thing with clothes. He’d want to shop in the boys’ section at Target; we would keep trying to steer him to the girls’. Books too; we were always sneaking in empowered-girl books, thinking maybe he just had developed some weird, bad impressions of women and girls. He would dutifully put them on his shelf and never take them out.

We persisted in using female pronouns at home and referring to him as our daughter and our other son’s sister … even when he was referring to himself as a brother. In short, we did loads of non-gender-affirming things. If you would have asked us then if we thought it was a phase and that he’d “change back,” we would have dutifully done what liberals in a progressive city do: assured you that wasn’t true and that we loved and supported our child. And we would have been lying; while we of course loved and supported our child, we hoped this whole “I’m a boy in a girl’s body” thing would fade away.

We feared telling our families and potentially facing their rejection and judgment, their possible assumptions that our time in “liberal Madison” had something to do with our child being transgender. We feared we would cause harm by labeling our child too soon. We let our fears hinder us from being the parents our child needed. We were wrong.

I share this to underscore how complex this process is. Because there does seem to be the idea that parents of trans kids aren’t making an effort to “make” their kid conform their gender to their biological sex, that we are just rushing headlong into embracing our child’s trans identity. That there aren’t transgender kids, just over-indulgent progressive parents using their child as a political totem. Or, from the other political extreme, that if we have any doubts or fears or missteps, that we are anti-trans bigots pushing our children toward certain suicide. None of those ideas are true. That this is a deeply difficult thing to process doesn’t seem to occur to some people.

My wife and I finally came to terms with our son's gender identity three years ago when he was seven-and-a-half. Our son was getting increasingly sullen, angry, and defiant. He was unhappy in general, but also angry with us. Even through that winter, we still danced around his gender identity as the cause, as we didn’t want to accept that it was true. We still wanted to believe we had a daughter, not another son. To let go of that idea felt like the equivalent of losing a child. But by that spring it was simply impossible to ignore. We had a conversation and made an appointment with his pediatrician, telling her all we had seen and heard. She confirmed what we had tried to avoid accepting: Our son exhibited all the signs of being transgender.

That was the day we changed our perspective. We went home and told him we were going to start using his preferred pronouns. We compromised on a nickname. He had been named after my wife’s grandmother, and we explained that it was important to carry that on in some capacity, and he accepted a shortened, gender-neutral (and pretty coolly unique) name to go by that used his birth name as a jumping off point. His brother struggled a little with the change, but quickly adapted. And what happened? The sullenness, defiance, and anger disappeared. Our beautiful, buoyant, zany child sprang back out, bigger and better than ever. He switched from Girl to Boy Scouts and thrived.

In the three years since, he has given us not even a tiny glimpse of any of this not being utterly and totally true. He has thrived at his public school—kids are incredibly accepting of things when allowed to be—and at home. His extended family has embraced his identity (some more easily than others). He is as great a kid as anyone could ask for.

I know that there will be people who, were they to read this, would say or think Yeah, sure … he’s only that way because you indulged it and his teachers and school indoctrinated him. To which I’d reply, it could possibly look that way from the outside, if all the evidence you have is one dad’s personal account. But what the people who say those sorts of things don’t see is the daily, lived experience of my kid. A lived experience that reaffirms constantly the truth of who he is. My son is a boy with a girl’s body. I don't understand how that happened, I don’t know how that works, but I know it’s true.

This acceptance doesn’t make the coming years any easier or less terrifying. We can see puberty on the horizon, getting closer every day. We know the huge, terrifying decisions that are coming. We are terrified of making the wrong decision, of doing something that might irreversibly alter or hurt our child. We know that the science, while not as in doubt as opponents want people to believe, has areas of uncertainty. But we need the ability to make the best choices for our kid based on the best medical understanding that exists. And to have the ability to do that suddenly cast into doubt, alongside the possibility of being accused of abuse on top of things, is terrifying and infuriating.

The idea of medical intervention is frightening. But it’s not simply thrown around, at least not in our case. We’ve already had a preliminary meeting with a pediatrician specializing in gender care. Did we leave with a bag of puberty blockers and testosterone vials? Of course not. There is a process we will have to go through to get our insurance company to even cover puberty blockers. As for hormones, that can’t happen until he’s at least 15. And it’s important to remember something else: None of these interventions are required. Many trans kids and adults opt for a range of options, from no medical interventions at all to a full package of interventions. Some start, then stop. It’s all a choice, one parents and kids and doctors need to have the freedom to make.

You may have noticed that earlier I referred to my son as gender incongruent rather than gender dysphoric. That’s not just me being cute with language. I didn’t refer to him as dysphoric, because he isn’t. He’s a super-happy, well-adjusted kid. Why? Because of the support he receives from his family, his friends, and others in his life. There is no dissonance for him because he’s allowed to be who he is. But dysphoria is always lurking out there, whether in the creeping specter of puberty or just the often-unaccepting outside world, and with it the potential for crippling anxiety, depression, and even suicide.

Are there risks to medical interventions? Of course. But the health risks of dysphoria are real too. Given that, it’s still in our best interests as parents to trust the opinions of major medical organizations like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the various doctors and therapists our child has seen. We don’t have the luxury of latching on to individual critical voices. The stakes for us are just too high. That doesn’t mean research shouldn’t continue and that critical voices shouldn’t provide a dose of healthy skepticism; that is a critical part of the scientific process. But until it becomes clear that the consensus on gender-affirming care has changed, we will trust the current consensus.

A lot of people struggle with accepting that being transgender is real. It’s counterintuitive. I really do get that. As I said, I don’t understand why my son is who he is. But it’s true. Be skeptical and ask questions. But also know that this is not a fantasy. It is not something made up. Not a phase. It’s real, and the kids and adults experiencing it are real too. They are not making it up. They are not deluded. They are not freaks.

They are human beings. And so are their families.

If there is a recognized incongruity between what a trans person’s brain feels and what sex their body is, there would seem to be at least two logical responses: Either modify the person’s brain to accept the body that they have or modify the body to conform to what the person’s brain thinks they are. Why, then, is there opposition to any suggestion that you can treat the brain to “correct” gender dysphoria?

Creating new gender categories, with divergent lists of characteristics and atomized response requirements, is onerous. I don’t think schools should be enforcing strict gender stereotypes or that they should be guiding kids to identify with new categories, and certainly not secretly or against the desires of the parents. Especially at the lower grades, kids need to be learning about what makes us a collective and the rules that make us a cohesive and functioning society. Focusing on gender conformity/expression elevates and centralizes it—it reinforces “me” over “us,” prioritizes adopting an identity group over belonging to a society, and suggests forcing society to conform to individual preferences over conforming one’s behavior to societal mores.