For the past few months, I am asked almost daily about the new sex education curriculum introduced by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and how it is going to affect sexual orientation and gender identity in young children. There is not much research on this topic, most relevant is a six year study of 12000 adolescents conducted by Dr. Ross O'Hara from the University of Missouri. This study found that adolescents with early exposure to sexual content "start having sex at younger ages, have more sexual partners, and are less likely to use condoms with casual sexual partners”. I am not aware of any independent academic research regarding the effects of early sex education on gender identity and sexual orientation, so I don't want to speculate on this topic. This article is an attempt to help parents deal with gender identity issues.
Dr. Tali Shenfield, PhD, CPsych
Let’s start with two scenarios for you to think about. First, your young 12 year-old daughter refuses to wear a dress or wear anything with lace or frills. All she wants to do is wear jeans, cut her hair short and work on the car with her dad. She keeps on saying how much she wants to be a boy. Your young son of the same age on the other hand loves everything frilly and cute. He loves the color pink and says ‘oohh’ a lot. His favorite sport is figure skating and he loves to talk about fashion and shopping. He says that he really feels like a girl.
Which scenario causes you to feel the most discomfort?
At least in the US, Canada and Western Europe, the stereotypes of what we consider masculinity and femininity have shifted significantly in the last 50 years. As women have gained rights and freedoms approaching near-equality they have also gained far more latitude in what we would consider to be stereotypical ‘feminine’ expression. Girls can be girls and be boys. Our young sons do not have nearly as much latitude.
This means that when a relative or family member observes with concern that our son is acting kinda girly, we will tend to be far more distressed than if the same comment were made about a daughter. We will be more likely to think that we need to make a major decision about our son’s future than our daughter’s. We will feel that we need to be more defensive as well.
When parents recognize gender ‘confusion’ in their child, and particularly a male child, they will typically feel that they need to make a huge and unchangeable decision for that child. On one end of the spectrum, parents may decide that their child’s desire to be of the opposite gender is a psychological disorder that requires corrective actions. Therapy sessions are set up to find out what is wrong. Activities and access to resources is tightly managed to keep a child away from the influences that are confusing and corrupting the child. The aim in this case is to fix what is wrong.
On the other end of the spectrum are the parents who believe that when their boy says that he is really a girl in the wrong body that the only right thing to do is to help him make the transition. This is a journey that also includes psychotherapy but this time aimed at assisting to make the transition. Drug treatments and gender realignment surgeries are also presented as options.
Somewhere however between these two extremes is a middle road that while more ambiguous may be far more satisfying in the near and distant future for both you and your child. It can simply be summed up this way. Let you child be whatever he or she is going to be without any dramatic interventions. There is no need to do anything except surrounding your child with a safe and supportive environment. There are several reasons why this will ultimately be the best solution.
First, gender dysphoria, the identification with the opposite gender, is far more common than we might suppose. It is also far more common in children than adults. This means that the vast majority of children out grow their desire to be of the opposite sex. Given time, most instances of gender dysphoria resolve themselves.
Second, it may be our own cultural biases towards extreme and rigid definitions of gender that may be more of the problem than our child’s actual behavior. We carry with us assumptions about what it means to be a boy or what it means to be a girl that can be the biggest barrier to raising our gender dysphoric children. As observed earlier, those assumptions have a much broader range of options for girls than for boys. Increasingly, psychologists and society in general, are recognizing that gender can be something we can view on a continuum rather than as an either/or. We may be raising a thoughtful, tender, sensitive young man rather than a burly football player. What’s wrong with that? We may be raising a courageous young marine rather than someone who loves romance novels. What’s wrong with that? If we can accept our children as whom they are, then we may find that we really don’t need to make any extreme decisions.
We of course do not live in a world filled with people who always share our beliefs. This means that as parents who want their child to be whoever he or she wants to be, we will need to be more vigilant in protecting and supporting our child from prejudice and bullying. One of the most effective defenses is to work with our child to build up his or her self-esteem about who they are and the choices that they are making. Helping a child feel good about themselves is one of the most important tasks of a parent with a child with gender dysphoria.
It also means that for children with profound and sustained gender identity issues that we provide them with some additional support. Gender dysphoric children often experience, whether due to cause or effect, a fair amount of depression and anxiety. When this is the case, it is a good idea to reach out to a psychotherapist who shares your ‘middle ground’ approach to guide your child through a confusing time in their life. Anti-depressants may also be part of this solution.
Whatever the case, whether a child outgrows their gender dysphoria or ultimately goes through gender realignment or something in between, it is our love and acceptance that is most important. If we can avoid making extreme decisions that pigeon-hole our child into a path we have set out for them and instead let them find their own path, then we will be doing the very best for our child.
Image Credit: www.flickr.com/photos/purplesherbet/10232179443
