"I think I swallowed a girl"

I read this article in today's SF Chronicle (I don't normally get it, but I got a copy from some friends).

The article is about how many parents and schools are becoming more aware of gender variance in children, and are being supportive instead of trying to force them to conform to "appropriate" gender behavior. Generally the article is positive about this trend, although it has that slightly forced "neutral" (i.e.: emotionally dead) voice that really annoys me.

While I am excited at any positive mainstream mass media coverage of gender variance, I did notice that the article still reveals some slightly misguided attitudes about gender variant kids.

First off, a quibble about the title and tagline for the article, "When is it OK for boys to be girls, and girls to be boys? Many kids want to look and act like the other sex. For some, it's a phase; for others, it's not. Parents and schools are adjusting." Reinforcement of the gender binary much?

There's also this (I love the quote at the end, so I quoted the whole paragraph):

For some children, it's a passing phase. Some grow up to be heterosexual, some gay. Some children insist they are the opposite sex although they might have a hard time explaining it. One nurse therapist said a boy once told her, "I think I swallowed a girl."

There's an implied conflation of gender variance with non-straight sexual orientation. Now, I'm personally of the opinion that homosexuality and bisexuality are themselves aspects of gender, and that the tone of some gay/lesbian denials of the linking of sexuality and gender-variance are somewhat transphobic (and often, in the case of gay men, femme-phobic as well). However, I don't think that's the analysis here.

Yeah, I'm a picky bitch. But you knew that already.

Other than these quibbles, the article is really good. The web version also has some good resources following the article.

I particularly liked a bit in the middle about the dangers of trying to enforce gender roles. However, the message is diluted somewhat by the "mainstream medical health professionals are not unified" bit. Sans explanation. Are we to believe that Warren Throckmorton*, quoted later, who supports ex-gay therapy, is a "mainstream medical health professional"? It's unclear:

Their common message is not to try to change who these kids are, though mainstream mental health professionals are not unified. Some believe such feelings can and should be extinguished through therapy; others believe that can destroy children's self-esteem.

"If you are forced to be something you don't want to be as a kid, you are miserable," said Carla Odiaga of Boston, the consultant hired at Park Day.

Odiaga speaks from a decade of experience counseling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens who she says are scarred by early memories -- a daughter forced to dress like a girl or a son whose dad hit him when he refused to play sports.

In the worst cases, children pushed by parents and picked on by peers grow depressed, suicidal or physically ill, said Caitlin Ryan, a clinical social worker at San Francisco State University who is conducting a long-term survey of gay youths and their families. She said many adolescents she talked to were picked on from kindergarten age -- long before they knew their sexual identity -- for looking or acting "too feminine" or "too butch."

*Throckmorton's bio on his website mentions that he is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Grove City College, but neglects to mention that this is a private Christian college. It is also the Grove City College that was so opposed to gender equality that it litigated a Title IX case all the way to the Supreme Court. For a rather more full-disclosure version of the bio for Warren Throckmorton, one really needs to go over to Ex-gay Watch.

I have one more snarky response I need to get off my chest, in response to this quote from Andrea Lafferty, the ED of the Traditional Values Coalition:

"If you talk to your typical person across America, they would be appalled," she said. "God made us male and female, and God makes no mistakes. To teach a child at an early age self-hatred, and that's what this gender variance is, is very sad."

God makes no mistakes, eh? So all those homosexuals and other sexual "deviants" that the TVC wants to discriminate against are... what, exactly? God's Special Political Puzzle? God's Fundraiser for the Religious Right? What's the plan, Andrea?

More generally, it annoys and dismays me that right wing crazies are appropriating the language of progressive communities. "God makes no mistakes" and "self-hatred" are our buzzwords, damn it.

On the topic of gender inappropriate behavior, do people remember Ferdinand the Bull? I read this as a child and loved it, although it doesn't move me as much as Are You My Mother? (abandonment fear trumps sissy-identification any day). One of my friends, who is middle aged, also remembers reading it when he was a child. It's a really old book!