Commissioned by All About Trans, a project working to promote positive portrayals of trans people ran by charity On Road, Transparent Love is an exhibition open at the BFI Flare Festival.
The festival, which is dedicated to vibrant viewings of LGBTI cinema, runs 21 to 31 March, with the exhibition inside.
Photos: Amanda Searle
Transgender people are trans. This is not about dresses or who you are sexually attracted to.
Peter McGuire tells us what he learned about transgender kids when researching them for the Irish Times. Go to the twitter-thread for links to the original articles.
Dr. Jason Rafferty og HealthyChildren.org has a good take on the American Academy of Pediatrics‘ newly published policy on how to treat gender variant children.
Here’s what parents can do:
When your child discloses his or her identity to you, respond in an affirming, supportive way. Understand that although gender identity is not able to be changed, it often is revealed over time as people discover more about themselves.
Accept and love your child as they are. Try to understand what they are feeling and experiencing. Even if there are disagreements, they will need your support and validation to develop into healthy teens and adults.
Stand up for your child when he or she is mistreated. Do not minimize the social pressure or bullying your child may be facing. See How You Can Help Your Child Avoid & Address Bullying.
Make it clear that slurs or jokes based on gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation are not tolerated. Express your disapproval of these types of jokes or slurs when you encounter them in the community or media.
Be on the look out for danger signs that may indicate a need for mental health support such as anxiety, insecurity, depression, low self-esteem, and any emotional problems in your child and others who may not have a source of support otherwise
Connect your child with LGBTQ organizations, resources, and events. It is important for them to know they are not alone.
Celebrate diversity in all forms. Provide access to a variety of books, movies, and materials—including those that positively represent gender diverse individuals. Point out LGBTQ celebrities and role models who stand up for the LGBTQ community, and people in general who demonstrate bravery in the face of social stigma.
Support your child’s self-expression. Engage in conversations with them around their choices of clothing, jewelry, hairstyle, friends, and room decorations.
Reach out for education, resources, and support if you feel the need to deepen your own understanding of LGBTQ youth experiences. See Support Resources for Families of Gender Diverse Youth.
Illustration photo by RawPixel.
Here’s another take on the pseudo-science of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (which is now actively used by transphobes to invalidate transgender kids and youth).
Florence Ashley writes:
Instead of asking whether rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a new type of gender dysphoria, we should ask what factors underpin the “Parent of a ROGD [rapid-onset gender dysphoria] Kid” epidemic. Presented with a wealth of online anti-trans groups, parents who have trouble accepting that their child is transgender are able to congregate, leading to the impression of a new type of gender dysphoria. By positing the existence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, parents are able to maintain a façade of trans acceptance while maintaining that their child isn’t trans and that gender-affirmative care is abuse.
If people bring up “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in a discussion, show them this article.
See also:
Photo: Ranta Images
Amanda Jette Knox gives a good summary of The American Academy of Pediatrics views on transgender kids over at twitter.
Amanda Jette Knox is married to a transgender woman. She has four kids, one of them transgender. You will find her web site here.
Amanda and her transgender daughter Alexis. (Photo from blog)
Alyson Schafer has written a piece on how to race happy transgender children. She writes:
As with every child, the most important building block for their psychological health is to feel loved, valued, and to have a sense of belonging and acceptance. Those feelings come from parents and the child’s nuclear family.
Parents can demonstrate this unconditional love to their children by allowing the child to be self-directed, and by supporting them in however they wish to dress and play. The more they feel unconditional love, the more confident they will feel in expressing their authentic self.
TERFs and transphobes pretend they care for “science” when they try to stop transgender kids from exploring and expressing their own gender.
Whenever you meet these arguments kindly remind these activists that scientists accept the reality of gender dysphoria in kids, as well as the benefits of health care.
The Lancet is – as the Wikipedia puts it – “among the world’s oldest, most prestigious, and best known general medical journals”.
Here’s some paragraphs from their latest article on the care for transgender children.
The number of children and adolescents seeking support for gender dysphoria—the distress caused by incongruence between gender identity and sex assigned at birth—has soared in recent years. On June 18, the first guidelines focusing solely on the care of transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents were published by the Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service, Melbourne, Australia. Initiated to advocate for legal reform in Australia, where until recently anyone younger than 18 years needed to obtain legal permission to access hormone treatment, the guidelines outline a framework for provision of respectful, gender-affirming care of transgender and gender diverse children and adolescents.
Based on empirical evidence, clinician consensus, and results of non-randomised and observational studies, the guidelines were developed in consultation with multidisciplinary experts, support groups, and transgender children and adolescents, and their families. The guidelines stand apart from existing recommendations by suggesting that social transition—the process by which a person changes their gender expression to more closely match their gender identity, for example, by changing one’s name, hairstyle, or clothing—should be led by the child. They also move away from the idea that access to hormone treatment should be based on chronological age, instead suggesting that the transition to treatment should depend on an individual’s ability to make informed decisions, duration of puberty suppression, any coexisting health issues, and the level of family support. Gaps in the evidence remain, however, and further research on development of gender identity and long-term outcomes after treatment is needed.
Spurred on by increasing acceptance of transgender individuals in society (and normalisation of the right for anyone to question their gender identity), the number of young people seeking support is likely to increase further. Children and adolescents with gender dysphoria often experience stigma, bullying, and abuse, resulting in high rates of mental illness, including depression, anxiety, and self-harm. But with supportive, gender-affirming management—as laid out by the Australian guidelines—these consequences can be minimised.
Some of you may have read Jesse Singal’s article about transgender people in The Atlantic. Singal presents a narrative where female to male transgender people are confused and misled. Since some gender variant people find peace with their assigned gender, the story implies, others could too.
If you are trans, I am sure some transphobes will show it to you, your friends or your family. The misgendering in The Atlantic’s promo tweet (above) gives them all they need.
“Liberals” who try to undermine the legitimacy of transgender identities can actually do more harm than binary conservatives. Singal makes use of the fact that there is a spectrum of gender identities to imply that the ones who truly need help transitioning, may not be who they think they are.
Anti-trans “liberals” like Singal will often argue that since life is complex, messy and fluid (which is true), means that trans kids cannot be trusted when they tell you who they are (which is not true).
If a young person continuously and persistently – and over a long period of time – tells you that they are a girl, a boy or some shade of non-binary, you’d better believe them.
Andrea James has written an excellent analysis of the text over at Boing Boing, which gives you the ideological and political context.
I am also taking the liberty of republishing a twitter thread written by Booker Mendes. It gives you the main arguments for why the narrative presented by Singal is so dangerous.
See also trans philosopher and activist Julia Serano’s twitter thread about Jesse Singal’s history of anti-trans activism.
Serano also has an article that gives an overview over the transgender children debate. Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation.
Finally, Zack Ford of Think Progress has a good comment here.
Anette Pryce gives a good overview of the main arguments against TERFs and other transphobic activists in these articles:
The Transgender Trend Resource Pack for Schools is the latest and most substantive attempt by the TT founder to promote an agenda which attempts to discredit the experience of transgender children as a ‘trend’. While we would prefer to ignore this document, rather than risk giving it underserved credence simply through its discussion, the document has already been widely distributed, and has found its way into schools. This document has already had a negative impact on children and families with transgender and gender-diverse children and we fear that if left unchecked, this will be magnified.
In October 2017, a wide range of organisations in the UK, including NHS England, NHS Scotland, the British Psychoanalytic Council, the UK Council for Psychotherapy, the Royal College of General Practitioners amongst others, signed up to Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK (Version 2).
