As I was driving in the rain this afternoon, it suddenly occurred to me why I was bothered by this article [link from Dawn] about parents who are letting their five-year-old son live as a girl (it 's funny, because I didn't even realize the article bothered me until I realized why it bothered me). The child wants to be a girl, prefers girl's clothes, plays with girl's toys, is friends with girls, etc. So they now call him Nicole instead of Nicholas, let him be a girl, and want to enroll him in kindergarten next year as a girl. Which is fine. What is not so fine, in my opinion, is letting the Village Voice write an article about it.
I don't know much about transgender identity. It seems quite possible that the child truly is transgendered and will always want to be a girl, and, if all goes well, will eventually transition and become female. In which case parental support will make the process much easier than it is for many people, and that's great. On the other hand, it also seems possible that the child is going through some kind of intense stage and will eventually become a gay man or maybe even leave the whole thing behind him. After all, we are talking about a five year old, and if you think about people you knew when they were five, they are the same in some ways and they change in some ways. Even so, given the apparent supportiveness of the parents, my guess is that if the child ends up going in a different direction, the parents will continue to be supportive, and everything will be ok.
Still, I don't know what the child gains by being written about in the Village Voice. If you read the article, you'll see that the case (weird word, I know, but they seem to be gearing up for a fight with the local school system, in which case it will become a case) has been taken up by an adult transgender activist who wants to use the child as an example and persuaded the parents to participate in the article. And here my hackles rise. Is it really safe, physically or emotionally, to put this kid out in front of the world as an example? Does it really benefit the kid? Or does the kid become a pawn for the cause?
Then I question myself and ask how I would feel about parents of a disabled kid--say, a kid with that disease where you can't go in the sun, or a kid with no legs--who were telling their child's story to get equal treatment for her. I think I'd feel ok. So maybe I'm showing my own prejudice. Except that a kid with the sun disease or no legs is going to get sympathy, not ridicule or blame or condemnation. A kid with the sun disease or no legs who grows up and reads the story is, I would guess, going to appreciate her parents' efforts on her behalf. And it's quite possible that the transgender kid will too. Except maybe not. And that maybe not would make me wonder if it was worth it.
Edited to add: OK, now I'm doubting myself some more. What about Ryan White? Would I have used the above rationale to argue that he should have kept quiet about having AIDS, because certainly saying that you had AIDS back then laid you open to ridicule, blame, and condemnation. But his AIDS was not going to change, which is different. And part of talking about him having AIDS was making it clear that AIDS did not always have to do with sex and homosexuality. Whereas there is no way to talk about this kid's situation without entering the realm of gender and sexuality which is inherently vexed in our society today. I don't know. I just feel really uncomfortable with parents exposing a kid, especially in such a vexed realm, when the kid is too young to have a say.
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3 comments:
I had a problem with that article too, and I don't think it's just about exposing the kid to ridicule. I think, instead, it's about, as you say, making the kid be representative of a cause that *may or may not* be the right cause. A kid without legs, a child with AIDS--those are known conditions that are not going to change. Whereas whether or not this child is transgendered is not something, I think, that it's possible to "know" at this point.
I think by and large the parents are doing the right thing backing the kid, and that as you say, if the child turns out not to be transgendered, they'll probably support that as well (and if s/he does, then I assume they'll support *that*). And I suppose there's a case to be made that yes, being transgendered is something that *shouldn't* be stigmatized, and that therefore having this article out there is something that should be as neutral as, say, an article about a kid winning a softball trophy. But like you, I do have a problem with putting a five year old in the position of representing a "cause" that the kid isn't, him/herself, old enough to really articulate or negotiate, I don't think.
Health problems like AIDS or a disability are way different -- and as I scan bitchphd's comment I'll steal her phraseology of "known conditions that are not going to change."
And actually I'll just stop there and say "what she said." Except I'll go further and say that I feel even more strongly that a five-year-old is simply too young for ALL of this -- regardless of whether he does grow up to be transgendered, which is a very real issue to me -- and qualifies, in my opinion, as abusive.
Well, to argue the other side, I think part of what the article does is open up debates about transgenderism, a relatively unexplored dimension of gender. If we accept that, per their own words, many homosexual people feel that they knew their own sexuality as early as five, then what does that mean for gender variations? Can we start thinking about gender awareness in those early years and what that might mean?
But then also, yeah, Ryan White was old enough to know what making his story public was going to mean, so in that way, it was more "fair game."
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