Gender Different Youth

Gender Different Youth
March 16, 2008

"Your Children are not Your Children"

They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

© Kahlil Gibran, 1923, 1973.


There have been a number of violent deaths involving gender different youth in the news recently and another story about a child in Colorado who is attending school as who she knows herself to be. I have mentioned elsewhere in my Blog that there will likely come a day when those who transition gender later in life will become a rarity and those who transition gender before puberty will become the norm. There are parents who feel the need to impose themselves, their ability to control, their dreams, their wishes in life upon their children as expectations and never really allow their children to discover who they really are and allow them to fully develop their in-born gifts. The poem above illustrates a bit of wisdom about children from a different place and time, regardless, these words still hold true to this day and should be words parents should consider when relating to their children gender different or not.

It seems gender different children suffer from great difficulties in their daily lives simply trying to just be who they really are. They face, ridicule, harassment from their peers and parents, at times various forms of physical violence and even death as a result of physical violence or suicide. It is no surprise that gender different youth have a very high suicide rate due to the difficulties in life. Their lives grow increasingly more difficult if their parents fail to support who they simply need to be, and not who they are expected to be. Many children feel the need please their parents, which puts very difficult stressed on children to meet their parent’s demands or expectations. For those gender different youth that are fortunately well supported by their parents, they have the best chance to find happiness in life, and well knowing they have the love and support of their parents and their parents will always be there from them. The lives of gender different youth who don’t have good support from their parents or disapproval or become dis-owned many times end up on the streets living the street culture and often find a path into sex work as a means of food and shelter, it’s a matter of survival for these kids.

It is time for parents to accept the fact their children can be born gender different and there are ways to help their gender different children to grow up as who they are meant to be and develop all the gifts they were born with to share with the society and culture they live in.

I attended the 3rd Annual Transgender Leadership Summit this weekend. It was wonderful to meet and chat with long time friends in the gender community and meeting some new faces too. The times when the topic of gender different youth came up in casual conversation, the conversation became more serious and those I spoke with share their experiences of helping gender different youth. It still amazes me to hear how these gender different youth have the courage to simply be “out” before their teens and the challenges they face living this way. Social conformity is and can be a very cruel thing, yet, these youth feel so compelled to simply be who they need to be and are honest about living this way. Their parents should be given an award for supporting their children to this degree.

While the social aspects of gender different youth are just one of the man challenges they face, the prospect of puberty is a much more daunting one. Delaying puberty required medical intervention, a procedure that is stepping in the world of unknown for the vast majority of health care providers. Doctors like Norman Spack, M.D were ridiculed by his fellow colleges when he initially dove into the world of treating gender different children with sex hormone blockers and cross sex hormone therapy. About one year later, that same group of colleges asked Dr. Norman Spack to help write protocols for the hormonal management of gender different children.

There was a time when it was believed gender variance in children is a passing phase and in time, their minds, heart and soul will grow into their physical bodies, some do, but many don’t. It is time for the health care profession to come to a realization that gender different youth are very capable of deciding what they need regarding medical intervention. While parents are legally responsible for the health and welfare of their children, denying medical procedures that can make a HUGE difference in the lives of these gender different children can easily cause more harm to then over time. Medical intervention to delay puberty in gender different youth is no longer considered medical quackery, medical experimentation or ineffective. It has been proven to make a very significant difference in the lives of gender different children.

Here is an article that appeared in the SF Chronicle a while ago
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/27/MNGL2KQ8H41.DTL

And a good video about trans Youth, “Out Of The Shadows”
http://www.transactiveonline.org/