Transgender Second Grader

[xoxoxoBruce]

Colorado.

The issue of being transgender usually pops up with students in high school. However, a 2nd grade biological boy wants to dress as a girl and be addressed with a girl's name.


"As a public school system, our calling is to educate all kids no matter where they come from, what their background is, beliefs, values, it doesn't matter," said Whei Wong, Douglas County Schools spokesperson.

Wong says the staff at one of Douglas County's schools is preparing to accommodate the student and answer questions other students might have. In order to protect the child as much as possible, 9NEWS has chosen not to reveal his school or other names that might identify the child.

"I see this as being a very difficult situation to explain to my daughter to explain why someone would not want to be the gender they were born with," said Dave M.

His daughter will be in the same class as the student.

The student had attended this same school in years prior, but had left to go to classes in another district for about two years. The transgender student will be returning to what is the child's home school. Dave M. thinks classmates will recognize the change.

"I do think that there's going to be an acknowledgement that 'Why are you in a dress this year when you were in pants last year?'" said Dave M.

Wong says teachers are planning to address the student by name instead of using he or she. The child will not use the regular boys or girls bathroom. Instead, two unisex bathrooms in the building will be made available. The school is handing out packets to parents who have questions. The packets contain information about people who are transgender.

"I think it is unusual," said Wong. "It's something we haven't had discussions about before. It's something that we haven't maybe really had to think about before, but now we will."

Family Therapist Larry Curry hopes the child and the child's parents are seeing a counselor just to be safe.

"I am very concerned because with the guidelines in place, this is a very early age," said Curry. "I don't know too many parents who are equipped to answer that kind of question or deal with it without some other support."

Kim Pearson says the family is getting support. She is the executive director of a national organization called TransYouth Family Advocates. The group has been working with the family and Douglas County Schools.

"Initially there was a lot of resistance," said Pearson. "Now, their position is they want this child to be safe in their school."

Pearson says their group is working with an increasing number of families nationwide who have elementary age transgender kids.

"We know that families are more comfortable talking about this," she said. "There was no place for parents to go."

Pearson says children as young as 5 years old are realizing their true gender identity and her group wants to help parents who may be resisting the acceptance of this.

"Parents are likely to think this it's a phase, but how long do phases last?" said Pearson. "With these kids, it's something that's very consistent."

That thought is not comforting to Dave M., who believes his daughter is not ready to think about the issue of being transgender.

"I don't think a (2nd) grader does have the rationale to decide this life-altering choice," said Dave M.

He is also unhappy with the way the school is handling this. The district has been preparing for the child's return to this school for months. Dave M. thinks other parents should have been made aware of this sooner.

"I just find it ironic that they can dictate the dress style of children to make sure they don't wear inappropriate clothing, but they have no controls in place for someone wearing transgender clothing," said Dave M.

Curry says parents like Dave M. should not bring the issue up to their students until they ask. However, he says parents should be ready to answer tough questions from the student's fellow third graders.

"I think reassuring them and letting them know that they'll be alright. Their classmate is alright," said Curry. "This is something their classmate has chosen to do. It is not contagious."

Pearson says the most important thing is to make sure the transgender student does not become the target of bullying or verbal abuse which can lead to suicide.

"These children are at high-risk," said Pearson. "Our number one goal is to keep kids safe."

Wong says mental health professionals will be available if students, staff, or parents have any concerns at all. She says the district views this as just another diversity issue and hopes everyone can accept and respect the student's wishes.

"Our staff has been briefed and trained to look for concerns," said Wong.

The family of the transgender student did not want to comment.

I've provided the link as well as the entire article, for those that won't link.

I'm confused by;

The student had attended this same school in years prior, but had left to go to classes in another district for about two years. The transgender student will be returning to what is the child's home school.

, but that aside, I find it hard to believe the parents and school would let a second grader make them jump through these hoops.

[Clodfobble]

However, he says parents should be ready to answer tough questions from the student's fellow third graders.

Sounds like the kid went there for kindergarten, left in the middle of first grade, stayed away for second grade, and is now planning on coming back for the start of third grade. Maybe they even sent him off to another school for awhile with the specific hope that the other kids would "forget" him and make the switch easier.

What I don't really understand is the need to change his name--his name is his name, it doesn't make him a boy or a girl. To me it would seem that keeping his name would be more of a statement of 'this is who I really am." Seems to me kids would have an easier time with "John likes to wear dresses" than pretending there's someone "new" in the class.

[monster]

What hoops? Children are not inferior beings. It should hardly be an issue in these days of "sexual equality". No one has a problem with a girl wearing pants to school, do they? It's not like the kid's having his tackle chopped off.

So they're letting him/her use a different bathroom. And they've warned teachers. They would also warn teachers if the kid had AIDS or was recently bereaved, and give them guidelines as to how handle any awkward situations that may arise from these issues.

The only difference here is it's harder for the other parents to ignore the questions of their children about the world around them. Good. Dave M. needs to learn to face up to the responsibility of being a parent and all the tricky questions that brings. Blaming the subject of the question just emphasises his incompetance. If it wasn't this question, it would be another. How does he answer the questions about why the Amish dress funny and why the Downs syndrome kids "look funny"?

Admittedly my kids go to a school where we'd barely notice if a kid changed gender, but you can't demand that a child denies how they feel because it makes you uncomfortable. Parents who cannot handle it should look at alternate private education where they can surround themselves with only hand selected model examples of citizens. or home school like the rest of the freaks who can't handle the real word and should never have had children (note, not saying that all homeschooler fit that profile, but many people who do fit that profile, homeschool (and probably shouldn't))

I think I should stop now.

[monster]

Clodfobble, it's not unusual for kids to want to change their names or be known by a nickname.

[TheMercenary]

Sorry guys, but someone needs to take a hard look at those parents. Someone tell me that this kid is not going to be punching bag for the bullies of the world. This is unsafe. Are they going to let him use the little girls bathroom as well? How about wearing the dress into the little boys room? Something is not right.

[Clodfobble]

True, but I can also tell you from experience that if the kids don't want to call you that there's very little you can do about it. Nicknames require social buy-in unless you have really never met the group of people before.

If he wanted a fresh start, why didn't the family just make one switch, and be the new person at the new school?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Are they going to let him use the little girls bathroom as well? How about wearing the dress into the little boys room? Something is not right.

RTFA

[TheMercenary]

Sorry, I don't know what that means.

[Clodfobble]

Read The Fucking Article

Which is to say, the answer to your questions is right there in the first post.

[DanaC]

Sorry guys, but someone needs to take a hard look at those parents. Someone tell me that this kid is not going to be punching bag for the bullies of the world.

The child obviously has a very clear idea of how he/she wishes to express him/herself. I can't see that this is the parents' 'fault' in some way. It's not unknown for a child to have these kind of gender identity issues at such a young age, and frankly I get the impression the parents are handling it in about as open minded and fair way as is possible. Would you prefer that they enforce their own concept of his/her gender identity onto their child in order to help him/her fit in to school? Those days, hopefully, have gone, along with taking young children who've shown proclivities towards homosexuality to the psychiatrist for a 'cure'.

In terms of the child ending up as a punching bag for bullies....you can send a child who seemingly is absolutely just like all the other children in their cohort to school, and their classmates find something abotu them that's 'different'. It might be something as small as the way they walk, or a slight astigmatism in their eye....you could send a child with glasses to school, braces on their teeth, freckles or eczema, or a little extra weight on their belly and all these things could make them a punchbag at school. There may be no definable reason that you or I could isolate. They could just have the misfortune to come to the attention of the wrong kid at the wrong time and be marked out for the rest of their school years as prime target no.1.

[Cloud]

I really don't know what to think about this. I do believe that genuinely transgendered people know from an early age, but I think if I were the parents, I would not encourage public disclosure at this stage.

[R2D3]

The number of children born "intersexual" and the subsequent decision of a doctor to perform surgery (for aesthetic or social purposes) to "assign" a gender is much higher than many would ever know. This can lead to gender confusion, as you can guess; some kids notice it earlier especially in these days of much more openness about gender issues.
I don't find the article or issue all that surprising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A843176

[euphoriatheory]

A similar thing actually just happened at a junior high school near where I live. I was taking a class on U.S. "Social Policy" at the time, and we talked about the issue... how the school was dealing with it by sending a letter to all the parents explaining what was going on and offering pointers on how parents could talk to their kids about it.

Personally, I think it's great that the schools are being accomodating. Maybe some parents don't want their children exposed to things that they consider "abnormal," but the reality of the situation is that there is no safe place on earth where you can control 100% of a child's environment. (If you want to try that, homeschool. I was homeschooled by two working parents, it can be done. Course, I don't exactly thank them for it.)

The one thing that concerns me in cases like this is that 2nd graders seem a little young to fully understand the ramifications of changing gender... If you don't know anything about sex yet, are you really equipped to make that decision? Maybe this kid IS, maybe he'll never regret it.... or maybe in 6 or 7 years, he'll just realize he's gay and maybe likes to cross-dress, and not that he considers himself female.

[Aliantha]

Kids at that age don't understand the biological reasons for different genders other than that girls become mummies and boys become daddies. They're only just starting to be aware and ask for reasons why girls and boys have different bits - particularly if they only have same sex siblings and the parents aren't the sort to parade around the house naked etc.

I don't see why the children will ask anymore questions than, 'why does little johnny want to wear a dress?' and if a parent can simply tell the child quite calmly, 'because little johnny feels more comfortable in a dress', it probably wont go much further than, 'that's weird'. Of course, some parents might like to remind their child how they like to play dress ups etc, and that Johnny used to do that too but then realized he wanted to wear dresses more often...or something like that.

I really don't think it's a tough issue at all other than for the close minded. There are kids in most schools these days with same sex parents. Maybe other parents can avoid that issue, but if your kid happens to be friends with one of those kids, it become unavoidable very quickly. I know because it happened to our family. The kids certainly didn't seem to care though.

All these types of gender issues are fairly easy to explain to children if you can simply put aside your own predjudices.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by R2D3

The number of children born "intersexual" and the subsequent decision of a doctor to perform surgery (for aesthetic or social purposes) to "assign" a gender is much higher than many would ever know. This can lead to gender confusion, as you can guess; some kids notice it earlier especially in these days of much more openness about gender issues.
I don't find the article or issue all that surprising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A843176

Yet, a person who has had an arbitrary decision made regarding their gender, without even the possibility of their consent, will be treated as some kind of oddball, if, at the time of their dawning awareness of this predicament, they notice that the doctors chose the wrong gender.

I don't know if that's the case here, but the numbers are really quite high, for something that almost nobody acknowledges as a factor.