Transgender Second Grader

[euphoriatheory]

Wow, BigV, that's a very astute assessment. Kudos.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Kids at that age have very clear ideas about whether they're a boy or a girl in my experience.

Just because they've been told what the are ,and how what they are should act, at that age. There's no way a second grader can comprehend what being one or the other is going to entail.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Just because they've been told what the are ,and how what they are should act, at that age. There's no way a second grader can comprehend what being one or the other is going to entail.

The implication here - as I read it - is that you can change a kids sexual orientation for the time being, simply by telling him or her how to act.

Kids at that age know a lot more about their sexual orientation than some give them credit for. It's just that at that age, it's not appropriate socially or biologically for those feelings to be acted upon, even though they certainly are in some cases.

[Aliantha]

OK, I've been thinking about posting this but couldn't remember the boys name till now which was somehow important to me.

When I was kid of about 7 or 8, we had some neighbours move in up the road from us and they had a couple of kids, but the one closest to my age was a boy named Hudson. He used to come to our place each day after school (as most of the other local kids did), but he didn't play rough games in the yard with the boys. He preferred to play with my barbie dolls by himself. I wasn't interested in them, and in the end I gave a heap of them to him to take home. I didn't think anything bad about it at the time. I kind of thought it was weird that he didn't want to play the same games as the other kids, but it didn't bother me, or the other kids as far as I know. Hudson was just a bit different.

Apparently he turned out to be a gay cross dresser and it really didn't surprise me. I think my gaydar must have been tuned in already at that age. I don't think there was anything unusual about me though. All the kids knew something was different. Mum definitely did cause she told us we should be nice to Husdon and make sure the other kids were too. So we did.

The point is, kids know stuff.

[xoxoxoBruce]

In the second grade there is no sexual orientation, there's just kids.

[DanaC]

I disagree Bruce. There have been plenty of studies showing that kids have very refined sense of what is 'boy' behaviour and what is 'girl' behaviour. It manifests in the choices they make regarding which toys to play with (from as early as 3 yrs old boys will have a tendency to choose toys with particular properties and girls likewise: eg. in one study children were asked to choose a toy to play with. The choice was between a traditionally 'female' type toy, ie a doll, which was made out of hard materials in colours that were harsh and clashing such as black and red, or a 'boy's toy, that was in soft pastel colours, such as a gun. The boys went for the toy with male properties in terms of colour and shape, rather than content and the girls likewise. This suggests an instinctive, rather than societally formed choice.) Other studies were done whereby male teachers acted in a particular way and female teachers acted in a different way and the children were observed to see which they followed. The boys generally favoured the way the man was acting, and the girls favoured the way the woman was acting. These were very young children, but they had a clear perception of whether they were male or female and followed the role model that most closely associated with that.

[Clodfobble]

The boys went for the toy with male properties in terms of colour and shape, rather than content and the girls likewise. This suggests an instinctive, rather than societally formed choice.

I don't buy that conclusion in the slightest. Society tells girls they should play with dolls, but society doesn't tell girls their things should be pink? I think it's interesting the girls chose based on the color rather than the fact that it was a gun, but I don't think you can make the claim at all that this means pink is somehow "instinctive." Hundreds of years ago pink was societally a boys' color because it was agressively vibrant, while blue was a girls' color because it was more demure.

That said, I do believe there is an instinctive understanding of what one likes--and typically, those do fall along the traditional gender expectations. We have stereotypes for a reason. My son has shown a very distinct preference for toy cars since he was six months old. But that doesn't make him a boy, just like wanting to wear dresses doesn't make this kid a girl.

I agree with you and monster that this kid should be allowed to act however he wants to act. But I agree with Bruce that the adults (by which I really mean his parents; even if they didn't want to comply the school's hands are pretty much tied by the threat of a discrimination suit) are trying too hard to be accomodating. It is a medical fact that he is not a girl, he is a boy who likes to wear dresses. I was a big ol' tomboy, who wore dirty t-shirts and played rough games and had almost exclusively male friends until puberty--and while it occurred to my mother that I might end up being a lesbian, no one ever encouraged the idea that I was male, because I wasn't. The girls in my school thought I was a little strange, to be sure, but I am quite certain the boys would have rejected me too had I suddenly started claiming I was one. And that is ultimately my problem with this whole situation: it is not going to accomplish what the little boy wants. His peers are not going to simply pretend he is a girl, even if the teachers manage to keep the bullying to a minimum. You can't make the other kids believe something they know isn't true, and they are going to reject him. The parents ought to be wise enough to see that, and while there is a time and place for letting kids learn their own lessons the hard way, I think in a situation this psychologically delicate they should be helping him choose the path that will ultimately have the least traumatizing outcome for him.

[Aliantha]

Clod, what I get from your post is that you think the boy's parents should just tell him to dress like a boy because it'll be easier for him (and everyone else). Am I reading it correctly?

[Clodfobble]

No. I'm saying the boy should dress however he wants. He can wear a dress--or a girls' top with embroidered jeans, or whatever--just like a girl can wear pants and a ratty t-shirt.

He should, however, continue to use the same name the students have already called him for over a year, use the boys' bathroom, and allow the teachers to refer to him as "he."

[Aliantha]

Why not the unisex bathroom? After all, he does seem to be a bit of a mix right now.

[Clodfobble]

Because it will serve to isolate him further from the other kids in the class. I suppose if it's unobtrusive it won't matter one way or the other, but in most elementary schools the bathrooms are connected to the actual classrooms, and if this kid has to go out the main door and down the hall to some other location, it will stigmatize him more than just going in the boys' bathroom with the dress he already has on. Everyone's already going to know him as 'that boy who wears dresses' anyway, so no one will think there is a girl in the boys' bathroom.

[Aliantha]

I thought someone posted earlier in this thread that most of the bathrooms attached to classrooms were unisex.

Why can't he hold on till morning tea or lunch anyway? By the third grade that shouldn't be too much to ask.

We don't have toilets attached to our classrooms here. There are toilet blocks which are generally well away from classrooms and eating areas.

[BigV]

Two things,

The bathrooms meant for the students at our kids' schools were down the hall from all the classes, not attached to the classroom. Are you saying, Clodfobble, that there are two bathrooms attached to each classroom, in the schools you're talking about? Because if it's single bathroom, then both boys and girls use it, in turn, don't they?

And the second thing, UNIsex bathroom? Ahem, shouldn't this be MULTIsex bathroom, for the one that doesn't have a SINGLE sex sign on the door? Arent' the little boys' room and the little girls' room examples of UNIsex bathrooms?

We have one bathroom at home. What sex is it I wonder?

[Clodfobble]

I have no idea what the bathrooms at this school are like, other than the article indicates that there are separate boys' and girls' bathrooms that are in general use by his class, and a few unisex* bathrooms do exist in another part of the school--presumably farther away--and the child in question will specifically go to use those whenever he needs to go.

In the two elementary schools I attended, as well as two others I have been inside as an adult, classrooms are connected in pairs (usually both the same grade) by a short hallway between them, which is not the main hallway of the school. Within this connecting hallway are two doors leading to bathrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. I've also seen private places like preschools and daycares use this floorplan. Maybe that's just standard building procedure in Texas, I don't know. By the time you get to junior high, the bathrooms are higher-capacity and accessible from the main hallway, like in any public place.


*As for the definition of unisex, well, it is what it is. The Latin roots may not make the most sense, but very little in English makes sense anyway...

[binky]

Originally Posted by R2D3

Yes. Fucketh thou, thee fuckiest fuck fuck of the Kingdom of Fucktitude.

I've seen you. You're like many others, cry because you're wealthy, tell the world what is right, yet you don't contribute to helping anyone, you don't lend a hand, you don't do much but wallow in your sadness over what you could have done if you had used your powers for good instead of evil.

A boring lot.

And yet, you keep showing up ??