NPR - transgender children

[wordplay]

Last night on All Things Considered there was what I thought was a very interesting story about transgendered children and therapeutic approaches to helping them; it's the first part of a two-part series, and the second part will air tonight.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was terrified that he was going to be deaf. It was the late 90s and I was spending a lot of time with Deaf people and sign linguists and there was a lot of discussion of the way that hearing parents' decisions to pursue cochlear implant technology for their deaf children was decimating and completely changing the Deaf community and culture. As my pregnancy neurosis of choice, I worried about how I would handle this, how I'd hold it together. It was daunting as hell to consider what it would be like to give birth to a deaf child and have to decide his place in the world very very early, to decide for him whether he would be a part of a subculture in which I had no place, no voice, no stake or understanding. I worried about what people I cared about would think of me based on the decision. It was this whole entire nexus of anxiety, so many things that scared me coming together in one thing I could lie in bed and worry about when my son's kicking kept me awake late into the night.

If I were having a baby right now, I think gender identity might be my neurosis of choice, for many of the same reasons. Just from listening to that show, I honestly can't tell you how I would respond - my gut tells me I'd be more likely to react like Jonah's parents, but when you think seriously about what it means to help your child embrace a life in which he will constantly be a difficult fit, in which there will be painful puberty and possible medical procedures and... yeah.

Parenting is so hard core, man. It's hearts and flowers and breakfast-in-bed season in America, but my own experience has been so much more intense than all that soft focus kitsch and claptrap.

Comments

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I mean, the thing about Jonah's parents approach is that, you know, if they do raise that kid gendered as a girl, and then puberty hits and he's suddenly feeling more conscious and comfortable in a male skin, then that's a HELL of a job, too, and I can't even imagine how that works out. That's part of why I'm just really stuck on this, because four year olds want all kinds of things and from where I sit, it's hard to know the right way to respond to that, you know?

Really, really tricky. No judgment on this one way or the other, because everybody's just trying to muddle through and you do what seems right at the time and just hope it works out in the end, but it's part of why I'm just inherently more cautious about all that.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

It just seems to me that it's at least worth trying with a kid like Jonah to teach him/her that being a boy doesn't mean you can't do "girl stuff" rather than liking girl stuff means you're a girl. But I admit to total lack of understanding of the whole transgender thing, no matter how many MTFs and FTMs I know. I just don't get the idea of a male soul in a female body (or vice versa) because I don't understand gender of the soul at all...

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

and then puberty hits and he's suddenly feeling more conscious and comfortable in a male skin, then that's a HELL of a job, too
Oh, definitely. Puberty's already so hard -- I imagine it's way worse if your body is changing even further away from what you think it's supposed to look like.

As a parent, my other concern would be -- even if you were absolutely sure that drastic surgical measures were the right thing for your child, my understanding of gender reassignment surgery is that it's not that great yet (especially for FTMs -- my knowledge of this comes entirely from a couple Discovery Channel shows I watched about this, and I remember one person vividly describing the difference as "easier to build a hole than a pole") and I would be v. concerned about dramatic measures that might not even get you the intended results. Also, this is in fantasy land where such things are affordable. (Actually, for years and years the city [my dad's employer and until 2008 our insurance providers] insurance covered gender reassignment surgery, until about... five years ago? a police officer HAD it, and the city went, that cost HOW much? and dropped it from their policy, after covering the officer's costs.)

And yeah, my rage about pink vs. blue isn't directed at those specific parents (though I am inclined to judge the Toronto shrink fairly harshly) so much as at society in general.