[Mister Bent]

Should We Introduce Children to the Concept of Transgender People?

Should we introduce children to the concept of transgender people? The answer is yes according to an article published in the December 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed Graduate Journal of Social Science.

The article by Natacha Kennedy and Mark Hellen, entitled "Transgender Children: More Than a Theoretical Challenge," was developed from a paper presented at the November 2009 conference "Transgender Studies & Theories: Building Up the Field in a Nordic Context" held at Linkoping University in Sweden.

Critics will cry that introducing all children to the concept of transgender people will cause children to "become transgender." But the authors found that schooling has little impact on gender identity development in children. In fact, children who develop a transgender identity seem to do so in spite of often unwitting but nevertheless pervasive efforts by schools to enforce gender conformity.

Read the rest of the article here.

I found this data particularly interesting when applied to my own childhood:

The authors found that roughly three-quarters of transgender people were aware of being transgender before leaving elementary school, and there was "an average delay of 7.5 years between becoming aware of one's transgender or gender variant nature, and learning any words with which to describe it." This means "many transgender children go through most, if not all, of their time in compulsory education knowing their gender identity is different from that expected of them."

Because there were no words, and no one to help me understand, I knew only how to try to fit into the box family, school, the world-at-large kept trying to cram me. I would have lived a very different life had the knowledge and resources been different.

On the strength of this finding, the authors argue:

If a school system tried to coerce any other group of individuals to become people they are not, to regard an inner core of their identities as illegitimate, and prevent them from expressing their identities freely, particularly from a very young age, it would be characterized as barbaric. ... The [resulting] internalization of self-hatred, guilt, self-doubt and low self-esteem in childhood affects transgender people throughout their lives. Any education system, or indeed society, which allows this state of affairs to continue is neither fully inclusive nor fully humane.

It's incredibly faulty logic on the part of the critics who would argue that "introducing all children to the concept of transgender people will cause children to "become transgender."' If that were so, the children of transgendered parents would themselves be transgendered.