The mother of a transgender girl sobbed in federal court Wednesday as she contemplated having to move away from her Navy officer husband to get health care for her 12-year-old if Florida’s ban on gender dysphoria treatments for minors is allowed to take affect.
The woman, who testified as Jane Doe to protect the identity of her child, said her daughter went from being anxious and upset to a thriving, happy straight-A student after being allowed to live as a girl about eight years ago, a decision she made with her husband after multiple visits to their family’s doctor.
But as the girl approaches puberty, she fears she will start turning into a boy. Without treatment, she and her family will be devasted, the mother said.
This ban is abhorrent, but uhhh yeah 4-5? I can remember when I was that old. I was in preschool/kindergarten. I could barely read. I cried because my best friend wouldn’t let me take his star wars toy outside in the dirt. I thought if I pushed too hard when I pooped my balls might fall out.
I was fucking stupid and would have gone along with whatever my parents told me to do. I literally had no concept of myself yet. At that age we are purely taking in the world, our parents want and try to control what goes in.
We begin forming our gender identity fairly young, and at 2-3, we do have a relatively simple grasp on gender, and broad concepts are pretty easy to understand. A child that asks you to call them a boy or a girl instead of their assigned birth gender isn’t even particularly strange! Children explore their identities in a lot of ways, from nicknames to the way they dress and act and play.
I have a 6-year old cousin who is adamant that she is a girl with some solid reasoning behind it, and she was never told any of it. She came up with it herself! I think you underestimate children, and maybe you underestimate yourself, too.
4-5 is when gender or social identity comes in really strongly and a surprising number of kids show their dysphoria for the first time. Its actually not limited to gender, a lot of a child’s first independent personality really begins to shine through at that age. Kids decide what name they want to be known by, what things they personally like and dislike, favorite color and food. All is subject to growth but this will often be the first set of preferences to set and stay that way for a prolonged time.
I’ve personally seen two kids begin their gender transitioning around 5. Demanding to be called a different name, insisting on a different pronoun, choosing more gendered clothing. Some parents choose to just let the kid do what makes them happy and go with it.
Were you old enough to be bothered if someone pretended your gender was the opposite of what felt it was? What about if everyone did that? That’s what trans people have to deal with. You don’t have to have an academic understanding of a problem to be hurt by it, or to be treated for it.
You’re also implicitly buying into the narrative that parents, doctors, and therapists are conspiring to trick kids into believing they’re trans when they’re not. What kind of monsters do you think those people are, and what do you think they’d be getting out of it?
Yes, you could barely read at 4-5, but you already had a sense of identity. The fact that this kid has consistently identified as a girl from literally the moment gender identity develops is pretty strong evidence that she’s not just pretending to make the adults happy.
My wife first told her mother she was a girl at age 5. Her mother freaked out, told her she was going to hell, took her to church groups, and made her pray it out until she lied and said she was a boy now. She transitioned anyway in her 20s, and her mother and her no longer talk.
Trans kids are not pretending to be trans. Kids know their own gender, and it is both consistent and persistent. They only ever pretend to be cis.