How to Know if You Are Trans?

It's a troubling fact: Anti-transgender parents can impairment their children — potentially for life. A lot of research shows that if parents or families turn down, mistreat, or otherwise mishandle a child due to the child's gender identity, they can significantly increase the risks of the kid acting out, developing mental health issues, and attempting suicide. Then how can a parent make sure that they get this right?

I reached out to Diane Ehrensaft, a developmental psychologist who works closely with trans kids and author of the insightful The Gender Creative Child, to get answers to some of the questions parents might have.

In short, Ehrensaft put frontward a very consequent theme: Parents should pay very close attending to persistent cues from their children, take those cues seriously, and not endeavor to forcefully alter the direction a child seems to be going in. So if a child is consistently showing signs that their gender identity or expression does not match the gender that was assigned to them at birth, parents should take that seriously, and let the kid alive based on their conspicuously and persistently expressed identity. And to the extent a parent can get this wrong, it's by acting too rigidly and trying to force a child into acting like someone they're simply not.

What follows is my conversation with Ehrensaft, edited for length and clarity.

How to tell if a child is transgender: pay attending, and take the cues seriously — without policing gender

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German Lopez: How tin parents realize if their child is transgender?

Diane Ehrensaft: Like other parts of parenting, keep your eyes open up and listen. Kids will transport out pretty strong smoke signals that they're working out something about gender. The parents may not be able to know that the child is transgender right away.

Unfortunately, we don't have a blood test, which everybody wishes we did to exist crystal clear. We can only become a cross-section of a child and where that kid is at the moment.

Here's what nosotros look for:

If a child says something like the statement, "y'all accept it wrong; I'm not the gender you think I am" or "why did God get information technology incorrect?" or "can I go dorsum in your breadbasket and come out with the correct parts?" you desire to pay attention to those signals.

If a child is insistent, consistent, and persistent on that message or related messages, we want to pay attention to it. So information technology's not just ane point in time, but over many points in time. It keeps coming back to the aforementioned matter.

"If a child says something like … 'Tin I go back in your tummy and come out with the right parts?' you lot want to pay attention to those signals"

If a child, specially a young child, is really excited about their body parts, and says "Can I grow ane?" or "Tin can I cutting this one off?" there's often a signal of a real unhappiness with the torso that you lot accept and that marks you as a male child or a girl in the culture.

Lots of kids these days like to play with toys that were labeled for the other gender. That's not uncommon. Nosotros know Target took down gender-segregated toys. We know something'due south going on in the civilization. So at that place's a lot of kids — boys who desire to play with dolls, girls who want to play with trucks, etc.

The kid who's transgender oft will become beyond play to what I phone call "serious concern." They're not just, for example, wanting to attempt out their sis's princess wearing apparel and pretend to be a princess for a mean solar day. They do that, too. But they may — as someone who's [designated as] a boy who says, "I'thousand a daughter" — go and steal their sister's full clothes, regular girl wearing apparel, so they can apparel to tell people, "Hey, this is who I am. I'grand not a fairy princess. Merely I'chiliad a girl who wants to go to schoolhouse dressed like this." So you lot await for play equally "serious business."

It's not fool-proof, but those are good signs.

There are things parents should practice if they realize a child is transgender. But mostly, they should be accepting.

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GL: Let's say some parents recall their kid is trans. What should they do then?

DE: In terms of the mental health field, I will quote Dickens: It's the best of times, it's the worst of times.

If they can find a well-trained, gender-affirmative professional to help them think about it, that's a good manner to go, because information technology's hard to practise this on your own. Some people do it with back up groups. Some people do it past connecting with other people online. Some people merely have information technology within their own bones to be able to read the tea leaves and know what to do about information technology.

But given the journey ahead, if you lot can discover someone like a pediatrician that you go to from time to time for check-ups, but who's a mental health professional, sensitive to gender issues, [and] who can simply be part of your team to think about it and offer their expertise, that's a good stride.

"If they can find a well-trained, gender-affirmative professional to assistance them think about it, that's a good way to go"

What a parent can do is to sentinel out for beingness a police officeholder of gender. That harms kids, and information technology gives them bad messages. So if you lot say, "You tin't do that, because boys aren't allowed to," that's a existent pain on your child, and that can have some damaging effects.

If you lot say something a fiddling different — "You know, honey, where we live people don't understand this, so nosotros might practise this just at home, but until we assist the people out there to sympathize it, we might only leave it at dwelling house" — it's still a bit of a mixed message, simply it says to the child that "the problem is not with you, the trouble is the town we alive in, and so we're going to create prophylactic spaces for you." The hope there is the kid doesn't take it in as "I'm weird" but that this world has a lot of learning to do.

But the offset thing yous want to practice, like with whatever other sense of identity, is instill pride in the child, rather than shame.

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GL: I imagine that a lot of parents are unfortunately not going to have admission to very good mental health professionals for all sorts of reasons — geography, insurance, or whatnot. So what are some of the common tips and guidance y'all would give to those parents, who recall their kids are trans?

DE: The first thing — and this is the motto you lot can put on your wall — is around children's gender, it's not for u.s. to say, merely for them to tell, and to give them the opportunity to say what's going on with them. And listen.

The second is that all of us, every bit parents and people walking down the street, have what I phone call gender ghosts and gender angels.

The gender ghosts are all of the messages that we got in the way we live — such as our religious beliefs — that tell us that in that location's something wrong if a child is either gender nonconforming or transgender, or that makes y'all experience uncomfortable or weird about it. Y'all can't sweep the gender ghost nether the carpeting, because they're there. So you have to take them out and have a look at them. And if y'all're parents, you always should be questioning yourselves: "Are any of these beliefs harming my child?"

Most parents love their children and believe that they're supporting their children. But what they offering may not sometimes be good for the kid. And that's where gender ghosts come in: You may experience similar you're supporting your child by saying "don't be ridiculous, boys don't wear dresses" [past] showing them how to be a male child in the culture, but at the same time you're giving them a very negative message virtually who they are.

"If you're parents, you ever should exist questioning yourselves: 'Are any of these beliefs harming my child?'"

This, quite frankly, is why nosotros such loftier levels of anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, acting out at school — this kind of mutual misery amongst gender nonconforming kids who are getting messages like that. Those are our gender ghosts speaking.

So nosotros want to bring them out to the light of twenty-four hours and put them at war with what I call our gender angels. Those are the parts of united states — and I think they're either at that place or can exist harvested and fertilized — which open our eyes to gender expansiveness, to the notion of gender diversity, to the notion that non following the rules does not hateful yous're ill or have a disease or that information technology's pathological, only that it's creative. That's why I telephone call it the gender-creative kid in the book. And it'due south just who these children are.

And so we accept who these children are. I exercise believe that when we take people around gender ghosts and gender angels, we have a cerebral dissonance moment. The gender ghosts are telling you, "This is wrong," "This goes confronting the principles of my faith," etc. On the other side of that comes, "But I love my kid very much. And I can either change those beliefs or injure my kid." So what I come across over and over again among the parents I know is honey conquers all — that sadly there are certain families where it does not happen, but happily there are families where their kid profoundly changes them, and brings out the gender angels and poofs abroad their gender ghosts.

The next thing is that no affair where you are, you can find other parents. Fortunately, we have the internet. And there are now and then many organizations that have chatrooms or places where parents can set up a [email] listserv with each other. And it has been a wonderful modify for parents to non feel isolated in their experiences. And in the Us, there are at present conferences all over the country where people can meet other parents, meet professionals, have the children run across each other — and fifty-fifty doing that once a year can make a tremendous difference.

Children can realize that they're transgender at a very young historic period. Or they might not — and still be transgender.

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GL: When should yous await a child to exist more comfortable and confident in their identity, and so you know it'south perhaps a sure affair?

DE: Since you need to know that they're persistent and consequent over time, plainly you need time. It can't exist one point in time. This is the nigh complicated thing about parenting a gender-creative kid.

It could popular up at whatsoever fourth dimension. There'due south no i boilerplate. There are a subgroup of kids where you nearly probable know by the time they're in preschool. And they will so define early on, and they won't switch. So yous could know in the outset twelvemonth of life if you have your eyes open up. You might need more fourth dimension to really get it in focus. But I'grand having a number of parents who are now coming to talk to me almost their three 3-year-olds, where they already got it [that] they have a transgender 3-year-old.

Now, everybody gets a little nervous nearly that. "How could a 3-year-onetime know their gender?" But for kids who are not transgender, we should expect them to know their gender by historic period three. In our civilization, nosotros expect about kids to know if they line up in the boys' line or the girls' line. Just we don't give the same latitude to transgender children. And because I don't think many of u.s. understand that gender doesn't vest between their legs, but betwixt their ears — it's their listen and their brain. So fifty-fifty among the littlest ones, their minds are already fabricated up.

"In our culture, we expect most kids to know if they line up in the boys' line or the girls' line. But we don't give the same breadth to transgender children."

But there are other kids for which it may not show upward until they hit puberty. Often puberty is a point in which the body starts to change [and] all of a sudden information technology rises upwards, whatever was lying quietly and dormant, and they'll go, "Whoa, wait a second, this feels so incorrect, and I'm miserable."

Now, a lot of kids are miserable through puberty. We know that. Whatsoever ane of us could probably tell a tale.

But this is a dissimilar kind of misery. So if yous're non transgender, if you imagine that y'all woke up one morning and your olfactory organ was turning into an elephant torso, and you are going to have to live that fashion for the rest of your life, that'due south how information technology feels. Unless yous would like to accept an elephant trunk, just let's assume y'all wouldn't.

Kids are often traumatized, and that's a moment where they may say for the kickoff time, "Well, you know what? I'm not a boy. I'm a girl. And I'm freaked out." And parents will ofttimes at that point be really confused, because they'll say, "Simply they weren't that way when they were toddlers. I never saw an inkling of this." And that doesn't mean it's not true.

Gender is a lifelong process. And it's not necessarily fixed at a time, although for many of us we're stable by historic period 5. That's the challenge for parents: It could evidence up at whatsoever point, and you'll have to start from that point on. Is it actually persistent and consequent? Is it stable? Is it really a solution to something else, or not about gender at all? Tricky questions.

While parents should be willing to assistance their kids live their identities, they need to await for consistency

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GL: I'm certain a lot of parents would worry, especially with a 3-year-old, that they would start treating the child differently — like letting the kid transition — and information technology might turn out that the child was just gender nonconforming or going through what some people would call a phase. How practice you balance out that concern?

DE: Past not going too fast. You lot enhance a very of import point: that, indeed, you don't desire to jump to a determination by one point in fourth dimension.

Now, I know that in developmental psychology, we take phases, [and] kids become through phases. So the common response from a pediatrician when a parent says, "My little girl doesn't ever want to habiliment a dress," is that she's just going through a stage. That's a possibility, only it'south quite unlikely.

So what we want to exercise is give it some time to see whether this isn't a flash in the pan. But don't give it too much fourth dimension, because so you accept a miserable kid.

"What nosotros want to do is requite it some fourth dimension to see whether this isn't a flash in the pan. But don't give it too much time, because then yous have a miserable child."

We do have some parents, particularly with all of the coverage of transgender children, who are too hot to try. They come with their false gender angels, claiming, "Nosotros are progressive. Nosotros will support our child. Nosotros believe in transgender children. And so we'll allow our kid to transition from boy to girl." And and then yous meet the kid and they're like, "Whoa, no, no, I'one thousand just saying I desire to try this out."

Here's what we have to help us with that: what I telephone call the ex-post-facto examination. And it's a pretty good one. It's not universally accurate. But if y'all got it right and you listen to the kid, and you heard what they accept to say, and what you heard is that they're not the kid you think they are, and if you let them live full time in the gender they say they are, they get happier — not only a little bit happier, just it's also a remarkable transformation. So the ex-mail-facto examination says, "I got it right. I accept a much happier, healthier child now that I finally listened and let them be who they are."

If they're non happy, and their misery goes up, you go, "Oh, perhaps we should go await at that." It doesn't necessarily mean that they're not transgender. It may mean that they're going to a school that treats them terribly everyday, so there are things that are hurting them in the world. So you want to pay attention to what'southward going at that place.

Only yous look for a happiness quotient. I encounter it equally a professional person. Only I too hear information technology from parents who say, "Wow, I wish we listened earlier. I didn't realize. But I now have a different view."

To the extent trans people suffer disproportionately from mental health issues, it's due to bigotry

Transgender people protestation North Carolina's anti-LGBTQ constabulary.

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GL: For a lot of people, there's a lot of defoliation in what the medical and scientific fields say virtually this. For example, I've seen some members of Congress cite gender dysphoria and the fact it'south listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as proof — and these are their words, not mine — that trans people are mentally ill and disordered. But based on what you're saying and what other medical professionals and trans people take told me, to the extent some trans people accept severe dysphoria — and not all trans people do — it should be treated by letting them transition without discrimination, non try to change their identity. Is that correct?

DE: Yeah. Absolutely.

I would start by maxim that there are some of usa who are nonetheless fighting to get any mention of gender out of the DSM for the exact reasons you lot merely said: Information technology pathologizes children around something that is non pathological.

There are parallels to homosexuality. We got it out of the volume, and now we have marriage equality years later, which I remember is relevant to recognizing one'south diversity rather than pathology around sexual identity.

And so a lot of people demand an education.

"We desire to help them go their gender in social club — to help them live in their truthful gender self, their gender identity"

Fifty-fifty with the [gender dysphoria] diagnosis, that just means that someone is having an upset until they get their gender in club. And nosotros want to help them get their gender in order — to help them live in their true gender self, their gender identity. And that should be the goal for any child and adults likewise.

If there's whatever pathology, it lies in the civilisation, not in the child.

The merely difficulty for some is they practise get upset about how their torso is showing up. That's non just around the culture out in that location — although when the culture says penis equals male child and vagina equals girl, and no one with a penis can be a girl, that seriously upsets people. Simply still, at that place might be an upset nearly your torso.

So I call back the one thing we do see that is inside the child who has a encephalon that'south saying I have 20 chromosomes but I'thou a boy is that they have body mismatch sometimes, and it makes them unhappy, no thing how accepting everybody is.

But if in that location's any misery, it's probably considering people aren't being allowed to alive their lives based on who they are.

Information technology'southward not just a social construct or biological. Gender identity is influenced by all sorts of variables.

GL: With some people, especially those skeptical of everything that we're discussing, ane source of defoliation I've seen is that, on 1 paw, experts are telling them that gender is a social construct, simply, on the other paw, experts are saying that gender identity is something inherent in kids that they might realize equally young as 3, 4, or 5 years quondam. There'southward just a lot of confusion about those two concepts. So how do you lot explain it to people?

DE: Hither's how I explain the whole notion of gender: It's not completely unrelated to culture, nor is it but a social construct. That's why I use the concept of a gender web — that every person's gender is spinning together nature, nurture, and culture. So we have to look at all 3 components, but at that place is a strong internal — and nosotros tin can put it in nature, nosotros can put it in nurture.

Simply gender is not just shaped by the outside, considering otherwise nosotros could spin these transgender kids into being cisgender [not trans]. And nosotros can't; that would merely make them go underground. So there is a ramble, biological component that reasons people's gender, but it's not the only stream coming in.

And so we have to consider all iii: nature, nurture, and civilisation.

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GL: So on the one hand you do have these roles that people await of certain genders, and those are the social constructs. Just on the other paw people inherently place in certain ways, based on how they think of themselves, their bodies, and all of that. And all of these factors come up together to influence somebody'southward gender identity.

DE: Exactly. And I would say to this day, for why it is, it'south still a mystery. Nosotros know a lot and we're learning a lot more than virtually the "what is it?" only not then much the "why" of information technology.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11853060/transgender-children-parents

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