The revolutionary truth about kids and gender identity

[Music]

are you a mommy

or a daddy the little boy called to me

one day when i went to pick my youngest

son up

from the daycare playground he looked up

at me curious

waiting for my answer but before i

answered him i thought about

how many times in my life i’ve been

asked that essential question

are you a boy or a girl sometimes it’s

actually been more of an accusation

meant to make me feel shamed for having

an androgynous or ambiguous gender

presentation

sometimes the question’s been hurled at

me with menace

meant to make me feel unsafe because

i’ve made someone else feel

uncomfortable

say in a public restroom but often

in my role as a pediatrician and as a

parent it’s been asked with curiosity

without judgment a child’s genuine

attempt

to put me into the categories known to

them now

this little guy was probably about three

or four years old and i could tell by

his tone that he was asking out of

curiosity

he genuinely wanted to know which of the

two adult categories known to him

did i fit into was i a mommy or a daddy

you see i look quite a bit like a daddy

but

i sound an awful lot like a mommy

so i bent down and i said to him you

know what

i’m not a mommy or a daddy

i’m a mapa a mapa he said

what’s that well i explained amapa is

like

a mommy and a daddy both oh

okay he said so then

what’s your favorite dinosaur

and what it took this little guy seconds

to accept

it often takes grown-ups a lot longer to

unlearn and realize

that more exists among human beings

than can be answered with the simple

question are you a boy or a girl

are you a man or a woman are you a mommy

or a daddy what i’m here to talk to you

about today

as a pediatrician who specializes in

caring for transgender and gender

diverse kids

as a parent with three young kids of my

own

and as a person who identifies as both

queer and gender diverse

is how kids understand both simple and

complex

ideas of gender identity and where the

journey that many young

transgender and gender diverse kids are

on today will ultimately lead

all of us so let’s start with how

kids understand gender identity well

from the age of about two

kids can understand gender differences

now this is mostly based on physical

characteristics and anatomy as they

sort and put people into categories boys

and girls mommies and daddies

kids at two are actually very good at

putting things into categories and

they’re very concrete and binary

thinkers so this is a fun and easy task

for them as they move into age three and

four

they then begin to figure out where they

fit they’ve seen the categories and

they’re turning the lens

inward to discover where they fit in the

categories that have been explained to

them

most of which are boy and girl now

they often develop more sophisticated

understanding

of physical characteristics and anatomy

around this time and they’re often not

shy about sharing their discoveries with

us they may

exclaim i’m a girl and i have a vagina

and that may happen in the

pediatrician’s office or in the checkout

line at the grocery store

they have figured out their place in the

world and they are claiming it

it shouldn’t surprise you then that some

transgender kids

are also claiming their identities as

young as three and four years old

they know the categories they know how

they should feel inside

based on their anatomy and they also

know that the way that they see

themselves doesn’t line up with other

people’s expectations

from as young as some kids can talk

they’re explaining to their parents the

truth about their identities

now as kids move beyond into the age of

four and five

they’re starting to figure out gender

role or what does it

mean to be a boy or a girl this is when

kids are understanding how they should

act

based on their gender identities and

they’re learning about concepts like

boys toys and girls toys for the first

time which

even if we don’t teach it to them all it

takes is one trip to target to figure

out which toys belong to who

and so they’re first figuring out what

do they like they’re trying on

different ways of dressing different

costumes they’re doing pretend and

imaginary play they’re

playing with different types of toys

they’re figuring out first what they

like

and then is it okay or not and this can

actually be a hard time for all kids

not just kids who are transgender and

gender diverse as they first figure out

what they love

and then they figure out might they be

punished in big or small ways

for being themselves now i mentioned

earlier that i’m a parent

and i have three boys or rather i have

three kids

six six and four who were assigned male

at birth and continue to identify as

boys

and when our kids were growing up we

tried to expand their gender categories

just a little bit so instead of saying

to them these are boy parts

and these are girl parts we taught them

that

most boys have penises and most girls

have vaginas just to leave open the

possibility that

biology isn’t destiny and that how

someone feels inside or their gender

identity

may not line up with expectations based

on anatomy

they actually adapted quite quickly to

this and i remember the day that one of

my sons came up to me and he said

moppa i’m a most boy

i thought tell me just a little bit more

about that

well he said you know how most boys have

penises but some boys don’t

i’m a boy that has a penis i’m a most

boy

fair enough i thought and yet

despite our attempt to expand gender

categories a little bit for my kids and

despite them growing up with a parent

who goes by the name of mapa and who

identifies as non-binary

my own kids still brought these gender

expectations home with them

i remember one day when my son theo he’s

the beaming smiling child here in the

blue princess dress

i remember when he came home from

daycare one day with that exact dress in

his backpack

and he said to me mapa i don’t want to

bring this dress for show and tell

anymore

now you can tell by this picture how

much theo loves that dress and he used

to love dressing up in costume and i

could tell it made him feel a little bit

sad so i said theo

tell me why well he explained

one of my friends and one of my teachers

told me that boys don’t wear dresses oh

i said okay well theo do you

remember when we talked about that

clothes are for everyone

and toys are for everyone in our family

you can wear whatever clothes you want

in our family it’s okay for boys to wear

dresses

now in some families boys might not get

to wear dresses

but those aren’t the rules in our house

and that’s not the rules in our family

i know he said i just don’t want to

anymore

and you know what he never did

and not only did he never bring that

princess dress for show and tell anymore

he really stopped dressing up and

playing princess after that

and was it because at four and a half he

was ready to be done

dressing up as a princess and playing

pretend maybe

or was it because he was worried that if

he brought that dress

back to show-and-tell again and violated

the rules of being a boy

that he might be punished for that maybe

i’ll never know the answer to that for

sure but what we do know

is that by the time most kids are six

and seven years old

they are conforming inter-traditional

gender roles what i mean by that is that

girls are becoming more feminine boys

are becoming more masculine

they’re starting to conform their

hairstyles the way they dress

the toys they play with their peer

groups to what society expects of them

based on their gender identities now

is this because naturally boys and girls

are different

or is this because our society has very

strict expectations of how boys and

girls should act

based on their identities the research

would tell us that it’s probably some of

both

and honestly we’ll probably never know

the answer to that question for sure

but here’s one thing that we do know

what we do know

is that kids who violate our

expectations around gender

are punished for doing so what we know

is that 80 of transgender and gender

diverse kids

experience harassment in schools in fact

we know that the number one reason that

kids are bullied in school

is for gender non-conforming dress or

behavior

those girls who are too masculine or

boys who are too feminine

regardless of their underlying sexual

orientation or gender identity

we know that up to 60 of transgender

kids

are rejected by their parents

and that the disruption of this

fundamental attachment has devastating

consequences for their self-esteem

one of those consequences being that in

some studies trans and gender diverse

kids are eight to nine times more likely

to try to take their own life

and we also know that the world is

changing we know

that in 2016 in the state of minnesota

when we asked 9th and 11th graders to

describe their gender identities to us

that 2.8 percent of them or nearly three

percent

identified as transgender and gender

non-conforming

that’s close to three times what we’ve

previously found in adult studies

we also know that we’re hearing new

words and new language to describe

gender identity all the time

mostly from the young people in our

lives words like gender queer

gender expansive gender fluid non-binary

bigender agender and on and on

we know that kids today are discovering

their gender identities now more than

ever

and they’re finding new language and new

models to share those identities with us

ah so you’re thinking i get it

this is a trend this is a fad this is

cool this is the next new thing

and my kid and the kid in my kids class

and the neighbor kid

and actually maybe even you dr gephard

you’re part of this new wave this cool

trend of being transgender and gender

diverse

hold that thought for just a second

let’s go back to those two and three and

four-year-olds you know the ones i was

telling you about early on the ones who

are learning about gender categories and

they’re grabbing at words and language

for the first time to describe that to

others

do you know what else those kids are

learning how to do do you know what else

they love to do they are learning

how to color and they in fact

love to color and what if when our two

and three and four-year-olds were

learning how to color

what if we reached into our pocket and

we pulled out

two crayons pink and blue

and we said draw us a picture of who you

are

draw us all who you imagine yourself to

be but we’d like you to do it

with just one crayon pink or blue

no i’m sorry you actually can’t choose

both you have to pick

one pink or blue

imagine all the pictures we would never

see imagine all the vividness and color

that kids could imagine themselves to be

and that they see reflected back to them

in the world

imagine all that we would miss

and now imagine if we handed them this

imagine if we handed them a box of 64

crayons

and instead of saying pick one we said

pick as many as you would like show us

who you are tell us all the stories

pick one for a while that’s your

favorite and then pick another one and

then go back

to your original favorite if you

can imagine it then you can draw it

it is my foundational belief that we all

know who we are from a very young age

including the truest expression of our

gender identity

and we actually spend most of our lives

searching for

the words and the tools and the safety

and the agency to share ourselves

with the world queer author and activist

leslie feinberg said

gender is the poetry we write with the

language

we are taught gender

is the poetry we write with the language

we are taught

if we give kids the language if we open

the box of crayons for us

they will tell us who they are

so no i don’t think that this is a trend

or a fad i think that this

is the revealing of a truth a truth

that has always existed and kids can’t

draw the truth of themselves with just

one crayon child advocate marian wright

edelman said

kids cannot become that which they

cannot see

and kids today are seeing more and more

lgbtq folks people like me

people like the actors and actresses on

this screen

more than ever before we are giving them

a bigger box of crayons and they are

actually drawing for us more imaginative

pictures

of what it means to be a boy or a girl

or something in between

than many of us can ever remember

and so what is our job as parents as

pediatricians as aunts uncles

grandparents

friends neighbors teachers

our job is to listen our job

is to ask interesting questions and then

listen for the answer who are you

what do you like what makes you

feel like you and when kids begin to

show themselves to us

we support them without steering we

reveal our own gender identities we ask

and share names and pronouns

we give them all the examples of what it

means to be a boy or a girl or

transgender or something in between

what i’ve learned in my role as a

pediatrician for the last 15 years and

as a pediatrician who specializes in the

care of transgender and gender diverse

kids is that

these kids don’t need me to figure them

out

they need me to listen to really listen

and to help them amplify the voice

that’s inside them

they don’t actually need me to diagnose

them they need me to help them

be heard and when these kids begin to

show themselves to us

when they start down that brave journey

of self-discovery

we remind them that they are beautiful

and strong and resilient

and most importantly we love them

we fully and fiercely and wholeheartedly

love them and

if we do this our kids will draw for us

the most beautiful pictures of who they

are they will write for us

the beautiful poetry of their identities

and in doing this

they will expand the world of gender and

not just for them

but for all of us because how many of us

were given just two crayons to choose

from but longed for a bigger box

how many of us were never given the

right tools or language to describe our

own identities

you see in loving and supporting

transgender and gender diverse kids

we’re not only helping them

be more free and true versions of

themselves

we’re helping all of us have the

language we need

to discover ourselves leslie feinberg

also said my right to be me

is tied with a thousand threads to your

right

to be you because after all

we all deserve a bigger box of crayons

thank you