Transkids

So, this article was posted at the What is Gender forums regarding kids who are transgendered. Long story short, one of the doctor believes in teaching kids to accept their biological gender, the other encourages parents to let their children dress according to how they feel.

And I have no idea how I feel about it all. My main concern is that the kids would be bullied for dressing opposite of their biological sex. These children were mtf, and God knows how quickly little kids like to pick on “boys” who fall short of any masculinity. But then, I've also heard that, because girls are allowed to be more masculine then boys, ftm transkids have it easier.

Bull Shit.

I've spent the past six-ish years in tuba sections composed almost entirely of guys. And I'm accepted- now, because I keep up with any drinking, cursing, or sleeping around that comes up. But band was shit when I first switched, because the guys in my high school tuba section absolutely did not want a girl on their turf. I went through some lovely hazing and hardening before I was accepted, because I was crossing a gender line. At least I wasn't a “boy” showing up to school in a dress.

So, I think parents have to weigh the social safety of their children vs. them being happy in public all the time. Around home is different. It's hard to say that's my opinion, since I have plenty of personal conflicts, especially when I remember that I'm still bitter about my mother's refusal to buy me boys' underwear in the third grade. Of course, now that she buys me boxers, I feel a small victory, but I still can't decide if my mother made the right choice or not. Gender presentation makes you more comfortable in your own skin, but can also label you as an easy target.

Hormone blockers are an entirely different matter. I absolutely hated puberty and fought the special changes every step of the way in the worst ways I could have. For instance, drastically losing weight by not eating/exercising constantly not only gives you a little muscle (at first, before everything melts away), it also cuts back on the boob growth and causes amenorrhea! Eventually, I turned myself around enough to become a good little girl again- though I think that switching from clarinet to tuba immediately afterwards helped make up for the surprise boob growth spurt and reemergence of the period. Had I been self-aware enough to consciously realize why I was doing this, and then brave enough to admit it to my parents, I think I would have taken hormone blockers until I was sure. Maybe. And then, I don't know what I'd do.

Because to be honest, some days I like having boobs. They get me out of tickets. They balance out my belly. They feel good. And I've never really had a problem with the downstairs, just the monthly expulsion.

If I could go back, I might like to try hormone blockers and testosterone, just to see how I'd turn out. But I'm too in the middle right now to be sure. Plus, just as there are some people who are totally sure “My gender is this but my body is that,” there are others (like me) who are in the middle or, more often than not. Maybe my friends are right. Maybe I'm just getting ready to come out to myself. But in a way, I worry that all of this- the medicalization of being transgender, the hormones, all of it- is all tied to the emphasis placed on “passing” as the opposite sex, because if you don't pass, if you fall short of one gender or the other, you're something new. You're threatening the rules of
Manichean genders, and thus, you simply must be threatening everyone that follows those rules. Right?