When Parents First Discover Their Child’s Gender Fluidity
We’ve compiled excerpts published the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which may be especially relevant for parents who first notice/learn that their (pre teen, early teen) child’s gender identity is in ‘flux.’ Links to the full texts are included.
From “Transgender Non-Conforming Youth: One Experience of Many”
By Athena Edmonds, writer and advocate for LGBTQ Youth, currently serving on the Board of Greater Boston PFLAG and on the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth.
My fourth child is a transgender boy, and I love him. At 2 he climbed up on the kitchen counter when his dad and I were doing the dishes.
“I am so angry at you,” he said.
“Why?” we asked, confused.
“I should’ve been born a boy,” he answered.
He refused to toilet train until we bought him boxers. Desperate for him to toilet train so he could start preschool at 3, we did. We were dismayed to see him freeze when he was asked to use pink scissors or line up with the girls in PE, and mortified to overhear other parents ask each other, “What kind of parents would name a boy Samantha?”
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Parenting a transgender child is a long, difficult journey, and not one that any parent would choose. For a million dollars, we would not have blocked our three older children’s puberty even for one month! But for Sam, we felt we had no choice.
Recent research is on our side. The first longitudinal study of transgender children, “Young Adult Psychological Outcome after Puberty Suppression and Gender Reassignment,” found that treated transgender youth are at least as mentally healthy as the general population. And in fact our son today is a happy, well-adjusted, and popular eighth grader.
From “What Is Gender Dysphoria?”
Here, APA presents the clinical definition of “gender dysphoria,” outlines the criterion for diagnosis, treatment & care recommendations, and the challenges and complications that may ensue. The following excerpts were selected based on references to possible diagnoses in children.
Some people who are transgender will experience “gender dysphoria,” which refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. Though gender dysphoria often begins in childhood, some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later.
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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)1 defines gender dysphoria in children as a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, lasting at least 6 months, as manifested by at least six of the following (one of which must be the first criterion):
- A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
- In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
- A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
- A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
- A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
- In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
- A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
- A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender