TRANSGENDER CHILDREN

Transgender Children



Transgender Children

Introduction

Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender expression and/or identity do not match with what is normatively expected of the biological sex with which they were born. This includes a variety of gender identities and experiences such as female-to-male transsexuals, male-to-female transsexuals, intersexed people, cross dressers, drag kings and drag queens, gender queers, femmes and butches, and many others. Not everyone who identifies as transgendered has lived and lives in their transgender identity all the time. Furthermore, though trans-gender as a term includes a variety of gender identities, it is also a contested term that some people may choose not to identify with once they have changed their biological sex, or transitioned, from the gender that they were born into. As a result, parenting experiences and parenting issues vary widely among different transgender people and their families.

Perceptions in Society and Family

Transgender families face discrimination due to social ignorance of the existence of transgender families, physical and verbal discrimination and harassment, and the denial of civil liberties. Transgendered parents also often face discrimination in areas of custody issues and adoption, since transgendered people are often seen by the courts as being “unfit” parents due to their transgender identity. What little research exists on transgender families has not yet turned up evidence that having a transgendered parent(s) negatively affects a child, nor has it been demonstrated that it has any impact on children's gender and sexual identity in later life. While Canadian courts have ruled in favor of some transgender parents, there is currently no protection in Canadian law for trans-gendered individuals and their families.

Some transgendered people choose to transition from one gender to another permanently through a variety of surgical and nonsurgical methods. However, not all transgendered parents choose to transition, and some may do so temporarily for brief periods of time. Parents that do transition face the challenge of how and when to tell their children. Further, parents who transition after they already have children also face the added obstacle of adapting to new parental and romantic arrangements post transition (American Psychological Association, 2000).

"Prevention is better for a lifetime of suffering"

The issue of hormone treatments and early transition for children and pre-teens and transgendered debate is worth asking. Doctors and LGBT question the best approach. Is this a good thing to start so early a transition? It seems extremely difficult for a child-e that age to know who he/ she is, that he /she wants to become, what he / she wants in life. However, in the case of Josie and the other children in the stories below, the need is so serious and important that they seem willing to go through all the difficulties of this transition (Cohen, 2000).

"Prevention is better than a lifetime of suffering," says psychiatrist Jack Drescher New York, member of the American Psychiatric Association's Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. Opinion increasingly shared by experts on transgender in children, for whom a support before puberty may be ...