Until recently, many children who did not conform to gender norms in their clothing or behavior had been subjected to psychoanalysis and behavior modification.
But as advocates gain ground for what they call gender-identity rights, evidenced most recently by New York City's decision to let people alter the sex listed on their birth certificates, a major change is taking place among schools and families. Children as young as five who display predispositions to dress like the opposite sex are being supported in their choice by a growing number of young parents, educators and mental health professionals.
Doctors, some of them from the top pediatric hospitals, have begun to advise families to let these children be "who they are" to foster a sense of security and self-esteem. They are motivated, in part, by the high incidence of depression, suicidal feelings and self-mutilation that has been common in past generations of transgender children. Legal trends suggest that schools are now required to respect parents' decisions.
PHOTOS: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Cassandra Reese, a first-grade teacher outside Boston, recalled that fellow teachers were unnerved when a first-grade boy showed up in a skirt. "They said 'this is not normal' and 'it's the parents' fault,"' Reese said. "They didn't see children as sophisticated enough to verbalize their feelings."
As these children head into adolescence, some parents are even choosing to medically block puberty to buy time for them to figure out who they are.
While these children are still relatively rare, child health professionals say the number of referrals is rising across the nation. Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have laws explicitly protecting the rights of transgender students, and some schools are engaged in a steep learning curve to dismantle gender stereotypes.
Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have laws explicitly protecting the rights of transgender students, and some schools are engaged in a steep learning curve to dismantle gender stereotypes.
The prospect of cross-dressing kindergartners has sparked a deep philosophical divide among professionals over how best to counsel families.
Is it healthier for families and schools to follow the child's lead, or to spare children potential humiliation and isolation by steering them toward accepting their biological gender until they are older?
Both sides in the debate underscore their concern for the profound vulnerability of such youngsters, symbolized by occurrences like the brutal murder in Newark, California, in 2002 of Gwen Araujo, a transgender teenager born as Eddie.
"Parents now are looking for advice on how to make life reasonable for their kids — whether to allow cross-dressing in public, and how to protect them from the savagery of other children," said Herbert Schreier, a psychiatrist with Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland.
But Kenneth Zucker, a psychologist and head of the gender-identity service at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, disagrees with the "free to be" approach.
Over the past 30 years, Zucker has treated about 500 preadolescent children who were gender variant. In his studies, 80 percent of the children between three and 12 grow out of the behavior, but 15 percent to 20 percent continue to be distressed about their gender and may ultimately change their sex.
Zucker said his goal was to "help these kids be more content in their biological gender" until they are older and can determine their sexual identity.
One of the most controversial issues concerns the use of "blockers," hormones used to delay the onset of puberty in cases where it could be psychologically devastating (for instance, a girl who identifies as a boy might slice her wrists when she gets her period). Some doctors disapprove of blockers, arguing that only at puberty does an individual fully appreciate their gender identity.
Catherine Tuerk, a nurse-psychotherapist at the children's hospital in Washington and the mother of a gender-variant child in the 1970s, says parents are still left to find their own way. She recalls how therapists urged her to steer her son into psychoanalysis and "hypermasculine activities" like karate. She said she and her husband became "gender cops."
"It was always 'you're not kicking the ball hard enough,"' she said.
Tuerk's son, now 30, is gay and has two children, and her own thinking has evolved since she was a young parent. "People are beginning to understand this seems to be something that happens," she said. "But there was a whole lifetime of feeling we could never leave him alone."
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not