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Gender Studies Coming to a High School Near You
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The Art of Not Knowing
Photo by wili_hybrid.
There is little more dreadful for a parent than unintentionally hurting one's own child. There is little more traumatic for a child than having something they dearly want taken away from them. A Toronto psychologist is under fire for recommending controversial treatments which some believe cause just that.
A heartbreaking NPR documentary released this week tells the story of two families struggling with the gender identities of their children. "Bradley" is a young Toronto boy under the care of CAMH head psychologist Dr. Ken Zucker, while Jonah lives on the U.S. West Coast, and has been studied by Dr. Diane Ehrensaft. Both children were born biological males but are likely transgendered, yet the message being sent by the children's therapists couldn't be more different—Jonah is being allowed to live as a little girl in accordance with his wishes, whereas Bradley is being forced to reject everything even remotely feminine in an attempt to suppress his impulses.
Transgendered people have a gender conflict between brain and body—the characteristic "trapped in the body of another"—and some may even feel that their gender isn't a binary male or female, but falls on a continuum between the sexes. It's an oversimplification, but transmen and transwomen tend to feel much more comfortable when living a closer approximation to how they feel inside, even if it potentially subjects them to ignorance, ridicule, and violence from society at large. With transkids, who require adults to make decisions for them, questions arise of how to treat gender conflict at such an early age, or even if it requires treatment at all.
Bradley's mother had noticed his attraction to all things feminine beginning at the age of 2½. The tipping point came one day when, under the care of a sitter, he returned home bleeding from the playground, having been attacked by two 10-year-old boys for playing with a Barbie doll. His mother was referred to Dr. Ken Zucker, a controversial "reparative" therapist who has extensively worked with transgendered kids and who subsequently evaluated Bradley over a few months, resulting in a clinical diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder.
Dr. Zucker's suggested treatment for GID is problematic and harsh: Bradley, now almost six, would not only be denied access to girls' toys or be allowed to pretend he was female, but wouldn't even be allowed to play with girls. His favourite toys were dolls, which his mother was instructed to confiscate. When he drew rainbow-coloured pictures of princesses, he was told to draw boys instead. Dr. Zucker warned Bradley's mother that her son would be rejected by both male and female peer groups as he grew older if he wasn't made to feel comfortable with his born biological gender.
The ultimate goal, both by Dr. Zucker and Bradley's family, is obviously well-meaning: to help prevent the boy from becoming a societal outcast. The side effects, however, are that the individual is taught to fear his or her feelings, and that he or she must fight against what comes naturally, seemingly at the expense of that child's happiness and to the benefit of everyone else's comfort. Which then raises the question of what society finds more alarming—a kid who wishes to live quietly as the opposite gender, or 10-year-olds dishing out bloody street justice in a playground? Given the choice between the two, most parents would likely prefer their child to be the violent playground thug.
Meanwhile, Jonah was exhibiting many of the same interests as Bradley, finding much more interest in everything feminine, and self-identifying as a girl. Jonah's family was just as torn as Bradley's, daunted and terrified by their son's behaviour, with no parenting frame of reference to tackle this challenge. Enter gender specialist Dr. Diana Ehrensaft, who has treated about sixty families with transkids and doesn't see gender conflict as a negative dysfunction. Ehrensaft believes that if Jonah isn't exhibiting anxiety or depression, there is currently no need for therapy, and that coercive treatment can be ineffective and counterproductive in the same way that she believes reparative therapy is damaging for homosexuals (the American Psychiatric Association, among other credible organizations, feels that conversion therapies for gay people are unethical, and that homosexuality is merely a variant of human behaviour, not a pathology).
Jonah is now known as Jona, and is referred to by her parents in the feminine pronoun. Her parents say she is comfortable, happy, and flourishing.
Ehrensaft also doesn't take a transgender diagnosis lightly, saying that it must be done very, very carefully, but that intergendered children are sometimes a naturally-ocurring reality and exactly what that means is highly variable. Dr. Zucker disagrees, believing a child's desire to live as the opposite biological sex to be akin to a Black child believing himself to be White—in other words, a treatable mental dysmorphia. With about eighty kids on the assessment waiting list for his Toronto clinic, Zucker obviously isn't the only one who feels that gender conflict is a potentially curable disorder.
Unsurprisingly, Bradley's therapy seems to be failing. When male toys were substituted for his Barbies and Polly Pockets, he chose not to play at all. According to his mother, he's withdrawn and emotional, and finding it difficult to resist girls' toys and especially the colour pink. Zucker's view is that it could be even tougher for Bradley to live in society as the opposite gender than it might be for him to attempt to continue life as a male. Status quo, boy rules, girl rules.
Granted, nobody is claiming that life for an openly transgendered person is easy. Discrimination in the job market is rampant, and the transgendered are an easy target of mockery, spectacle, sexual fetish, and alienation, and are also frequent victims of violence. Yet, gender identity is so ingrained and important that transgendered people are often willing to accept this fallout in order to have parity between mind and body.
Many experts are now beginning to believe that allowing this identity to form early in a supportive environment could dodge much of the societal anxiety that comes with an intergendered identity. People like Zucker think it merely creates more transgendered people where there otherwise wouldn't be as many, and because society doesn't readily accept it, it's a peg that therefore must be tamped down as soon as possible. This dangerous view also effectively normalizes the aforementioned schoolyard bullying, whilst demonizing gender-dissonant toys and innocent role play. If impulses can't be smothered or denied, ostracism, mockery, and violence ultimately become part of the "treatment."
A child exhibiting transgendered characteristics is obviously a tough challenge, and well-intentioned parents are torn between multiple ideologies and disparate research. In addition, parents might have an inconclusively defined understanding between which behaviour could indicate transgenderism and which is just the normal flux of a growing, curious mind.
The urge to protect one's child from the challenges of society are strong, but so is the hope for that child's happiness and positive self-esteem. As in the NPR broadcast, however, two different treatments have two different results: one is resulting in a thriving child and a redefined understanding for her family; the other fosters a withering boy who doesn't want to be a boy, living a confused, tortured childhood. Which seems healthier?
Middle photos by Marc Lostracco; bottom photo by fffriendly.
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I'm reminded of the story of a child called X.
I find it hard to believe that anyone in this day and age could think like Dr. Zucker. Poor Bradley.
Thanks so much for posting it. I heard the documentary yesterday, and it broke my heart. Everyone needs to give it a listen.
A boy with many feminine traits is still a boy, in my opinion it's going too far for his parents to label Jonah as a girl.
Svend: It's not that he has feminine traits as much as that he doesn't "feel" like a boy in any respect—his brain and body don't match. I personally imagine it's similar to if I was forced to live my life as a woman, when absolutely nothing in me even remotely feels like one. I can't even imagine how alienating and confusing that must be, and I fully believe that gender identity is what your brain tells you it is, even if it doesn't match one's biological sex. And that there really isn't anything wrong with that, is there?
Obviously, it's not easy for most of us to reconcile pronouns and match up what we see with our eyes with what we are told by a transperson, but I also don't think it's up to us to make that distinction if we're not living it. To deny that to a transperson seems to me to be nothing more than meanspiritedness.
Speaking as an individual who has recently reconciled my transgender identity, I know full well the repercussions of not being able to identify as one gender or the other.
What people need to realize is that terms like gay/bi/straight much like the term male and female are just general labels that try to easily identify and classify people. I live life now as both male and female and feel that I can be whomever I want to be, and I do not have to choose a gender. I am just me, and I have the acceptance of my friends and family. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to fit in and be accepted into society as a male and also be able to go out and pass as a female. For trans people who do not meet that "passable" bench mark, life/society and people are not so kind.
you don't wake up one day and say 'hmmm i'm bored I think i'm gunna do DRAG.' I can't speak about others- - but for me, I always felt from as far back as I can remember that there was a girl inside of me also.
SVEND: Just as you ALWAYS knew you were male - - I ALWAYS felt that I was more than my gender- - it's not something you CHOOSE. - - So I can sit here and feel sorry for myself or I can do something about it and live my life to the fullest with what God has given me. This is a blessing for me, not a curse. I'm glad you actually are trying to understand.
I don't understand how it is that Dr. Ken Zucker is allowed to be the "Psychologist-in-Chief and Head of the Gender Identity Service in the Child, Youth, and Family Program" at CAMH? According to the CAMH website he's also a Professor at the University of Toronto.
Frankly, I view his methods as discriminitory and akin to the "ex-gay" movement, certainly not appropriate for "Canada's leading addiction and mental health teaching hospital." Nor should he be teaching his methods at U of T?
From what I gather from comments made by Dr. Ehrensaft in the documentary, Dr. Zucker's school of thought is the norm rather than the exception, probably in the same way that homosexuality was deemed pathologic in the past. My main problem with his theories are that they focus on suppressing identity in order to live comfortably in society, rather than asking society to accommodate some new definitions and realities. Like reparative therapy for gay people, it's a lengthy, unencouraging, traumatic attempt to change something that is essentially harmless.
It's like trying to eliminate left-handedness. For what? Why bother? When someone says, "I'm left handed," the rest of us don't say, "No, I'm sorry, you're not."
Reparative therapists often speak about the lonely, depressed, suicidal lives led by their subjects, yet seem to ignore how the cause of these feelings could be instead rooted in the type of treatment itself—and the attitudes that come with it. Ehrensaft mentions how, in her experience, people who go through this type of therapy come out of it psychologically worse than when they went in.
Transgendered children are understandably an especially private, sensitive issue since parents have to deal with both the drive to to the best by your child, coupled with the fear that they are living in a hostile world. I have an aversion to Dr. Zucker's techniques because it tells anxious, terrified parents, "there is something wrong with your child, and here's how we can treat it" rather than, "this is who your child is, and here's how to help her understand herself."
For those interested in another person's experiences with gender transition (and identifying along a continuum), check out Torontoist's interview with Meryn Cadell from last year.
Dianalee, we're ALL more than our gender - I just thought it was going too far for the parents to simply label their child as a girl when he physically isn't.
Just allow him to be a feminine or gentle boy, keep the undefined grey areas in life.
Svend,
You can't "allow" someone to be something they don't want to be. Jona doesn't want to be a boy. There are very distinct things that go along with being a boy - as you and I both know, as we are men - that have nothing to do with plumbing and everything to do with behaviour. Learned, born with behaviour - not the point. The point is, that there is more stuff to do with being a boy than the equipment you use to pee [as obviously, you aren't using it for anything else yet].
Think about it this way. What if every commenter from now on that ever referred to you as "Savanna" [the closest feminization of your name I could figure], and as a female pronoun? As in, 'oh that Savanna, her naivetee is so endearing; she must really get a lot of looks at Pride'. Now expand that, to consider how you would feel if everybody you know did that. Told you to use the women's bathroom. Clucked when you showed up at work without makeup, and disapproved of your shoes, and whispered and giggled about your hair. If the entire world around you kept insisting you demonstrate "female" characteristics, wouldn't you be upset if someone suggested you merely be allowed to be a masculine woman?
I understand what Svend is saying and I also understand what Andrew's position is. Both are very valid points of view depending on where you stand and your own experience in life. I think however we need to look at it through the position of the child. This position may not be fully developed at thier young age and may change as they go on their journey to discover who they are.
I would probably be living my life right now as a woman if I had come out at that early age however things happen in life that change your course and position. I met the man of my dreams who loves me for my boy side and when I thought I would lose him when I discovered my girl side, he accepted me unconditionally. He saved my life and lets me explore who I need to be in either gender.
To question your gender identity in the face of a mainstream world that slots people into two rigid categories and knowing full well anything outside this dichotomy is seen as a freakshow to some people is hard enough.
I had a close friend who when I first started on my journey of self realization insisted ( and to this day still does) that I was just "dressing up to meet up with straight men" and that I was not a "true" transexual because by his definition, a transexual is someone who must "cry themselves to sleep praying to God they would wake up a woman" that you must go through with the surgery and hormones and live "full time" as a woman...anything less is an insult to what "true transexuals" experience.
Who cares about labels? Is my experience any more or less relevant? of course not, it's just different. But that is a conclusion I came to.
Well it turns out that the person who was crying themselves to sleep at night was indeed my friend. He chose to embrace his masculine side and suppress these feelings and I chose to embrace both sides of me. These are the roads we have taken for better or worse. Who is more the transexual? A masculine guy who cries himself to sleep wishing to be a full time female or someone who chooses to explore both genders and not choose one? If I HAD picked a gender, I would have felt trapped in either one-- thank God for small miracles. As long as you are happy, why should it really matter?
I'm really happy we're talking about this.
So why do schoolyard kids have such strong ideas about gender performance? It's ingrained in them by their predominately heterosexual parents. I've seen it happen again and again at friends houses when I was a kid, Mothers scolding their sons for saying some comment or using some word she thought sounded 'gay'.
My own parents were very open, as I imagine many are, but the venom in the schoolyard is taught by Mom and Dad, make no mistake.
We should start counseling potential parents about gender rights and the possibility that they could have a transgendered or homosexual child. We should show them how to treat these kids with respect, the same respect the other children are afforded. It should be a chapter in every parent's handbook.
I can't believe that the UofT would have someone like that. The history of CAMH does point in that direction, but you'd think that a university who has such a big SDS department wouldn't also have a prof like this...
Svend:
Please "get it".. no one is labeling this child a girl except the child. No one is "telling" this child anything. The child is telling the adults. She's a girl. The child is applying the label. Maybe we should believe the child.
I was one such child, who was shoved back into the gender box. 48 years later, several suicide attempts, a shattered marriage, stumbling career, and worse of all, two estranged children later, I've finally stepped into the role I should have been in all along. This "reparative therapy" is insane.
I'm really glad this is being talked about too, Robin. While far from perfect, gay rights have come a long way in this country, but trans rights are still way way behind. It is the new "front line" in the battle for queer peoples' human rights, dignity, and equality.
Dr Zucker's reparative therapies anger and sadden me, but more than anything they frighten me. Most of the transfolk I know have all been fortunate to have been spared the nightmare of reparative therapies thanks to their supportive parents and families. I'm heartsick to think of how many other Bradleys there probably are out there.
None of us are free until all of us are free
Thank you for this insightful and clear article. I believe that this is much like the "Conversion therapies" used against gays and lesbians, and a time when being gay was in the DSM-IV as a mental disorder.
I have been relieved to see that for the most part people reading this article do seem to understand that gender is what takes place within someone or as some people put it, gender is what takes place between your ears, sex is what takes place between your legs.
If a child SELF Identifies as a girl even tho his family raised him to be a boy, I believe the parents should get in touch with Trans Youth, Family and Advoates (TYFA) at http://www.imatyfa.org/ and speak with other parents experiencing the same thing. Get a wide view of what is possible and how you can best support your child. To me that is simply to let the child self determine and support them in that. Blessed by Jonah's parents for letting her be herself.
I have no argument with the idea of allowing the child to be a feminine or gentle boy. I'm not so big on pushing that idea, though. I see it as really not much better than pushing the child to be a 'typical boy' because of the physical anatomy - or for that matter, pushing the child toward being/becoming a girl based on the 'feminine' behavior.
The parents aren't labeling the child as a girl. They're allowing the child to label herself as one. That makes a big difference to me.
There's a great autobiography by David Reimer called As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl, which outlined how he was born male and a twin, but based upon bizarre advice from the medical community, was raised as a girl following a botched circumcision that destroyed his penis (Reimer killed himself in 2004).
What was most memorable to me is how he tells what it was like to feel totally male, but how traumatic it was to be forced to wear dresses, grow his hair, and call himself female, despite all of his natural impulses. I can imagine that it's the same in reverse for most transgendered people, and that no amount of "pushing" in the opposite direction is going to make that identity go away.
I agree with Robin Sharp how parents don't even seem to consider that their child could be trangendered/gay/whatever, and are therefore completely panicked and unprepared when that realization dawns on them—especially when religion is involved. And, like many things, a lot of people are more worried about what other people are going to think of their family rather than providing the much more crucial support and acceptance for their child, and demanding it from others. So, so, so much unnecessary hurt out there.
Some people seem to think that "allowing" one's child to live as a chosen gender is a decision these parents take lightly. Parents who have taken this incredibly complicated step are undoubtedly terrified, but incredibly brave. I'll bet we'll see how right they were when these kids grow into adults, and that the families will be so much stronger because of it.
"We should start counseling potential parents about gender rights and the possibility that they could have a transgendered or homosexual child. We should show them how to treat these kids with respect, the same respect the other children are afforded. It should be a chapter in every parent's handbook."
A delicately worded, and carefully parsed, chapter. There are people who are calm and dignified about it, but nonetheless have religious beliefs that condemn sexualities that are not hetero, and any kind of alteration of one's body from the "gender" one was born into, to another. And then there are raving lunatics about it. But them I'm relatively happy to not listen to - although I think we should pay attention to their numbers and who does listen to them.
I think the way around it is to indicate that Canadian law, and generally Canadian mores, accept NO discrimination against people on the basis of their sexuality [save for illegal acts, and some distinction should be made, even in a parenting handbook] or on their gender; and that people who choose to define their gender, and take action to alter their body or presentation so as to conform to social preconceptions of what signifies that gender, cannot and should not be discriminated against. Parents should be advised that they may believe it is wrong, but that our laws are very specific about these issues and until legislation changes, they should bring their children up to recognize this. Ignorance, after all, is no excuse.
I find this hard to believe.
Many thousands of us, round the world, suffered the horrors of a 'corrective' Zucker-style approach to our birthright intergender, and carry the awful mental scars to this day, to prove it. Two inappropriate corrective genital surgeries 'to male', umpteen aversion and 'corrective' therapies ... yes, I remember it all, if only now in my worst nightmares. But that was in the '50's and '60's, the far distant, 'bad days' past ... I thought those terrible, damning days in the history of psychiatry were now long over ??
In my own case, horrors such as these cost me the first 39 years of my life ... I ran screaming away from the entire medical profession at the first opportunity, and only re-assigned my social gender and medical sex, finally, after decades spent educating myself to the same standard as the doctors who had been maltreating me for so many years, so that I could achieve all I needed to achieve without their involvement.
Now 55, and 16 wonderful years post social gender re-assignment,I cannot but urge any parents dealing with a child obviously born intergendered to get them away from any 'corrective' psychiatric approach as quickly as possible. What you are doing, in mental terms, is trying to turn your girl child into a 'boy', or vice versa, merely to suit the requirements of a society that doesn't recognise birthright intersex, whether physical or psychological, in any form. To try to change your intergendered child mentally from a girl into a 'boy', or vice versa, means your child losing their entire persona - the whole person they are, by birthright; in fact, worse, their being conditioned by a psychiatrist to abhor the person they really are; and becoming someone completely different; something they're not mentally instinctively equipped, to be, by birthright, and never can be. Is that really what you want ? A desperately maladjusted, socially inadequate child, suffering constant mental anguish and needing lifelong psychiatric support; just so that they can conform to the requirements of society, based on their innapropriately-formed birthright gentalia that society will never see ?
A happpy, healthy, well-adjusted child in the other gender, medically gender re-assigned before the damage of puberty can cost them years of pain and medical treatment to have to correct, would seem a far better option ?
So-called reparative treatments, such as that being used on Bradley, just result in misery for the child. Children are much stronger than we often give them credit for, and with reasonable luck Bradley will survive it even though the suicide rate is very high for transgender children. It is highly likely Bradley will disown his or her parents when reaching adulthood. Such a waste, such an awful waste.
Please all consider signing the petition calling for Dr. Zucker's dismissal and closure of the unit he runs.
The petition is at http://www.petitiononline.com/hrights/petition.html
and is available in French and Spanish too