Articles about books about gender non-conforming children..

[Caultron]

...It is Saints Simon and Jude school in Phoenix, AZ.

Yes, that's the location I suspected as well. It's a parochial Catholic school here.

I'd love to know how this photo came about. I suppose it was a gag for something but what, and how do you talk Catholic school administrators, parents, and students into such a thing?

I mean, it'd be great for schools to have one skirted uniform for both girls and boys but I doubt that's going to happen any time soon (or did happen recently).

[skirted_in_SF]

. . . The logo on the shirts is the same. The one that is highly visible becomes to blurry when enlarged. So I google image searched and found the author's photobucket account. A picture from that account led me to the origins of the logo.

It is Saints Simon and Jude school in Phoenix, AZ.

Get any job offers from three letter agencies yet?

[Caultron]

...I google image searched and found the author's photobucket account. A picture from that account led me to the origins of the logo.

It is Saints Simon and Jude school in Phoenix, AZ.

What's the URL of the photobucket account? And are there any other related photos?

[allen476]

What's the URL of the photobucket account? And are there any other related photos?

It is the schools photobucket account.

http://s1131.photobucket.com/user/ssj2012/albums/

There are no other related photos that I saw.

[ethelthefrog]

I'm sorry to get uppity, but I'm going to suggest that some of you have no idea what you're talking about...

The Mirror article (not that the Mirror is useful for anything other than occasions when the toilet roll has run out) that Sinned cites is probably a bit sensationalistic, but the psychologist quoted is entirely sensible. A child's gender will usually settle down at around age 2, as they discover that the world around them divides people into genders, that there appear to be two of them, and that the child themself has a gender. Of course, the way the baby is sexed at birth is a bit simplistic. We see a penis and say "it's a boy"; we see a vulva and say "it's a girl". Neither of these observations reveals very much about a person's underlying genetics or their true self. As a human, I am defined by my inner being, not my body shape and not my genetics. This inner being has a strong and enduring sense of self, which includes the notion of my maleness. Being a man doesn't define me any more than having a man-shaped body defines me. Where adults fail is in forcing externals onto children. By and large, the children already know who they are in themselves. The challenge comes in convincing the adults around them to listen.

As an example, look at the movie Dead Poets Society, in which our protagonist wants to be an actor. His rather overbearing father decides that this desire is foolish and that his child is going to be a doctor. Unable to see any way to live his own authentic life, the son kills himself. The only difference between this movie and the life of a transgender child is that the issue is the child's gender, not his or her future acting career. Forcing a child to fill a role that they do not fit is harmful to the child and, ultimately, harmful to the people doing the forcing, regardless of whether the issue at stake is gender, career, lover, or whatever.

But, "Boys are rubbish"? Where did that come from.

Something's off the rails somewhere. That mentality is not healthy at all.

Little girls are, near-universally of that opinion. They differentiate themselves from little boys (and are encouraged to do so by adults, gendered marketting and society in general). On the other side of the playground, little boys hold a similar opinion of little girls. If you asked a cisgendered (ie. not transgendered) little girl if she wanted to be a boy, she'd probably reply in the same way. The fact that this particular little girl has a penis is not relevant to the discussion.

Why is society so obsessed with the genital configuration of minors, anyway? I'm teaching my kids that their private parts are private, as are the private parts of other people. The clue is in the name.

The problem here is the restrictions imposed on children by the rigid expectations of increasingly restrictive gender roles. I see that in this case the gender police and the "transgender therapy" industry are already moving in. The sex-change mafia can not be too far behind determined to (literally) take their "pound of flesh".

As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as the sex-change mafia. I agree that gender roles are becoming (bizarrely) more restrictive with time, but to deny that transgender children exist is to deny a large and growing body of evidence. In addition, to deny that gender nonconforming children exist is also to deny a large and growing body of evidence. As parents, it is our duty to nurture our children, not to hammer them into roles that they do not fit. I also draw a distinction between transgender children and gender-nonconforming children: the former are gender conforming (albeit to a gender that doesn't match their body shape); the latter do not see themselves as fitting comfortably in either of the rather restrictive gender boxes that society provides us with.

As parents in particular, and as society in general, we must make more room for gender expression. By far, the highest suicide rate in teenagers is among the (combined) gender-nonconforming and transgender groups. These are the people who have been squeezed into a box that doesn't fit for so long that they take their own lives as the only way to escape the pain, or, they express themselves as who they are, and the bullying and victimisation that results in causes them to seek that same escape.

As men in skirts, we are at the forefront of challenging society's notion of gender and gender-appropriate expression. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to learn about the surprisingly complex (and distinct) areas of sex, gender and sexuality.


Rant over. Normal service will resume shortly.

Paul

[crfriend]

But, "Boys are rubbish"? Where did that come from.

Something's off the rails somewhere. That mentality is not healthy at all.

Little girls are, near-universally of that opinion. They differentiate themselves from little boys (and are encouraged to do so by adults, gendered marketting and society in general). On the other side of the playground, little boys hold a similar opinion of little girls. If you asked a cisgendered (ie. not transgendered) little girl if she wanted to be a boy, she'd probably reply in the same way. The fact that this particular little girl has a penis is not relevant to the discussion.

The meta-question here is, "If misogyny is to be reviled and rejected, why is misandry not just accepted but sometimes encouraged?" Is teamwork not important? Unless understanding is fostered from the outset things can get toxic pretty darned quickly.

Why is society so obsessed with the genital configuration of minors, anyway? I'm teaching my kids that their private parts are private, as are the private parts of other people. The clue is in the name.

Put simplistically, it's the easiest way to do an initial classification; however, other than that, it's a rather meaningless one.

What I'm beginning to get torqued off about is the increasing marginalization of boys to the point where they're being actively put at a comparative disadvantage to the girls. This is plain flat ethically wrong and the fruits of it are going to come back later on and bite society in the backside, probably in the form of a rise in violent crime. Encourage boys to be macho and violent and then place them at a structural disadvantage... That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[ethelthefrog]

I think it is very easy to get stuck on single issues, where the only solution (that I can see) is intersectionality.

You raise a good point, Carl, about us raising our boys to be macho, then denying them an outlet for the monsters we create. The key, I think, is not to raise macho boys in the first place. It's fine to be male, to be sweaty, to be strong, and all those other things. It is not fine to use that stereotypical maleness to dominate anyone, male, female or other.

The problem with education is that a) it takes a long time and b) not everyone likes their kids learning different things to what they learnt long ago.

From my experience, girls and boys no longer hate each other by the age of ten, and are more than willing to cooperate as they get older. A six year old girl not liking boys that much isn't news (and is probably to be expected, as most transgender children have to fight quite hard against being shoved into the wrong box).

[ethelthefrog]

This whole area is a somewhat disturbing because we normally don't think of pre-teens as being sexual, let alone non-mainstream sexual. It makes me wonder sometimes how much of it is deep-seated and real, and how much is slight tendencies magnified by some psychologist or over-supportive parent. But it's been coming up often enough and widely enough that I suppose it is real, at lease some cases.

A child being gender nonconforming has absolutely nothing to do with them being sexual. It's about who they are as boys, girls or other. Evidence suggests that there is no way to make a child be transgender or gender-nonconforming. With that in mind, there is no such thing as an over-supportive parent. What is different these days is that parents are less willing to ram their kids into a mould that matches the label on their birth certificate at all costs. With this development, more and more gender nonconforming kids are coming out and finding a voice for themselves.

[Caultron]

A child being gender nonconforming has absolutely nothing to do with them being sexual. It's about who they are as boys, girls or other.

The difference between girls and boys is their sex. Substitute the word "gender" if you like. That's the context I was thinking in.

Evidence suggests that there is no way to make a child be transgender or gender-nonconforming. With that in mind, there is no such thing as an over-supportive parent. What is different these days is that parents are less willing to ram their kids into a mould that matches the label on their birth certificate at all costs. With this development, more and more gender nonconforming kids are coming out and finding a voice for themselves.

Nothing is ever 100% or 0% especially when it comes to humans. So while some children are more attracted to supposedly opposite-sex roles, behaviors, fashions, and so forth than others, parents and other outside influences can certainly sway them to some extent. Heredity and environment both count. The bell-shaped curve rules.

On any one issue parents can certainly be under-supportive or over supportive. Promoting a minor whim into a major campaign would be over-supportive and ignoring a major character trait would be under-supportive. It's a fine line that all parents face, and not just in fashion.

[ethelthefrog]

Current convention points to the word "sex" to describe the physical body, whereas "gender" points to the psychological make up of the person who inhabits that body. As you say, humans are never completely black or white, and there is variation between us all.

A gender nonconforming child is one whose gender expression doesn't fully match the sex of their body, and covers behaviour from boys who prefer skirts to full-on transgender people whose gender largely or completely conforms to the opposite sex of their body. At least 80% of gender nonconforming kids end up comfortable with the sex of their bodies, some will be transgender, some of those will seek medical intervention to help the sex of their bodies align better with the gender of their mind.

Sorry to get into lecture mode: I've done more research in this field than I ever thought possible...

Paul

[Tor]

Evidence suggests that there is no way to make a child be transgender or gender-nonconforming.

In my research I've come across articles saying that gender non-conformism is linked with high hormone levels opposite the biological sex of the fetus during pregnancy. I've also once come across a(n anecdotal online) report from someone who was born and lived happily as a man, but ended up with an orchiectomy (it wasn't specified, but the implication was unintentional damage to the area was the cause). After an unpleasant experience with testosterone replacement he lived comfortably as a eunuch until osteoporosis became an issue. Having had a bad experience with testosterone replacement he went with estrogen, and developed female characteristics. Since then, he has had a sex change operation, and now is living happily as a woman. She still remains convinced that either had castration not occurred, or if testosterone replacement had gone better, she would still be happy as a man.

There is also evidence that some chemicals in common use do cause sex change in some animals (I can recall amphibians right now) and some believe this is one cause of the current apparent uptrend in gender non-conformism. I'm not entirely certain how much of the brain wiring remains plastic on this sort of thing after the early years, but I believe it is likely a great deal more than modern medicine allows for. This should not be taken as any endorsement of any sort of forcible efforts to change a child's gender nonconformism, which abuse can only cause more damage than it can solve in problems.

[Caultron]

But skirts aren't biologically male or female. They're just scraps of fabric sewn into a certain pattern. The various patterns have sociological associations with one sex or the other but those associations are mental (and at least partially learned) rather than physical.

[Tor]

But skirts aren't biologically male or female. They're just scraps of fabric sewn into a certain pattern. The various patterns have sociological associations with one sex or the other but those associations are mental (and at least partially learned) rather than physical.

Indeed. I believe this is where some (but by no means all) of the apparent "gender non-conformism" is coming from. Having been reading Lloyd DeMause's work lately, the very change (improvement) in childcare standards to more supportive patterns he describes would give confidence to children to want to wear what they like without regard to the conventions of society. In a world still dominated by people raised in older patterns, they look and see gender non-conformism where such may not exist, and possibly create it where there was but a disregard for conventions with no biological basis.

[Caultron]

Raising a child inevitably involves trying to imprint the child with the parent's values. After all, what parent tries to implant their children with the opposite of their own values?

But again, nothing is ever 100%. (And yes, I get the contradiction.) Parent's can't raise children to be carbon copies of either themselves or the people they wish they were. Some battles you can't win, and some traits, emotions, and values you can't change as much as you might prefer. So in some areas, parents have to let their children be themselves and either support them or at least not interfere.

The trick, of course, lies in choosing the best strategy for each situation at each point in time.

[Dottie]

Well this from today's British Daily Telegraph
Meet Romeo, the five-year-old boy banned from play group for wearing princess dresses

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... esses.html


Good for Mum , I say . The same attitude that my Mother had