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• What defines a girl or a boy?

  Writing about transgendered kids is tough. If you believe sex is biologically set by chromosomes and organs, then even considering the whole notion is silly. If you believe that gender identity is entirely socially constructed, it's hard to understand why some kids raised in households without rigid gender roles—boys allowed to dress up and not like sports, etc.—still develop passionate, intense desires to be the other gender. (Me, I'm thinking hormones. Pesky things.) The stories in the recent article on transgendered kids in the Minneapolis CityPages should certainly give pause to anyone who thinks these kids are having passing phases that their parents could easily deflect. But as whenever we talk about what it means to "feel" like one gender or the other, the article ends up giving credence to conventional gender stereotypes and binaries along the way. Read More... Posted Mar 11 2009, 08:30 AM by Miriam Axel-Lute with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: gender, transgender, puberty, stereotypes, dress up, boys and girls, gender identity disorder, Axel-Lute

• When Your Girl Is a Boy (Or Vice Versa)

  We've all known (or been) boys obsessed with princesses and makeup or tomboys who would rather wipe an axle with a dress than wear it. Most of us who were raised with Free to Be You and Me and feminist moms (and even a bunch of us who weren't) go out of our way to let our non-gender-stereotype conforming kids explore whatever interests they want and express themselves as they see fit. This is hard enough, given other parents' need to constantly harp on about what boys and girls do and like in front of our kids (something I've ranted about here). But what about when it's not enough? Read More... Posted Sep 21 2008, 07:15 PM by Miriam Axel-Lute with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: gender, transgender, puberty, stereotypes, dress up, boys and girls, gender identity disorder

• Should Parents Delay Puberty for Transgender Children?

  In the aftermath of media hype about pregnant transgender man Thomas Beattie—much of which threatened to return the “freak” label to the trans community—NPR has run a fascinating story that explains gender identity disorder from the viewpoint of a family living through it. According to Danielle and Robert (last names were omitted), from the time their son was two-years-old, he insisted on dressing like a girl. Read More... Posted May 15 2008, 02:00 PM by Hannah Tennant-Moore with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: gender, transgender, testosterone, puberty, NPR, pregnant man, thomas beattie, transition, gender identity disorder, transgender children, estrogen, "is transgender real", biological gender