A lot of replies have used phrases such as "let children be children." In my experience, this phrase is often a coded message saying that childhood is somehow separate from the real world, and untouched by the inequities and diversity of the world.
That idea is problematic. We cannot see a child without acknowledging their environment and funds of knowledge. Humans of all ages are social beings, and the workings of our communities, states, countries are connected to childhood as much as to adults. If children are trying to define and identify gender, that is a normal part of child development. So is coming to understand that we each have a racial affiliation, one or more cultures, one or more languages, a family of some type, cultural or religious beliefs and even privilege.
There is no reason to deny mindful explorations of any of these things. Identity and how these connect to daily life are very specific things that absolutely effect each individual's life. To deny any child's desire to learn about the diversity of identity, especially if they are identifying as a minority group, is a social injustice.
Original Message:
Sent: 12-18-2021 07:13 AM
From: Vince Halcomb
Subject: Transgender Expression in 3 Year Olds?
This has been a very good thread for information. Nicole raised a great question and there have been a lot of great ideas. I am glad that it worked out well with what Nicole tried after reading the recommended book. Having said all of this, I still feel that we need to approach this very sensitive area with care and caution for all of the children. We need to listen to the child that is exploring their gender identity, and should give them space to do so. At the same time, we should also work with the parents as best as possible and ensure that we come to some sort of agreement on how to handle the situation. My personal take on getting to that point would be to get a counselor or therapist involved in helping to sort through those waters. Lastly, we need to make sure that we are doing all of this without taking any chances of confusing all of the other children. We need to respect how they feel regarding this and allow them to have their feelings without trying to guide them in a certain direction. Part of my research has found that a lot of places are using the "Genderbread Person" as part of the curriculum and are stressing gender as more of a spectrum or nominal variable. As an adult, this is still very confusing to me, so I can only imagine what it does to children early in their development. Whether you feel this is a human rights, civil rights, or social justice item that needs to be addressed, us adults are the ones that should iron it out and allow the children to just be children.
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Vince Halcomb
Substitute
Washington County Head Start
Funkstown MD
Original Message:
Sent: 12-17-2021 11:15 PM
From: Joanie Calem
Subject: Transgender Expression in 3 Year Olds?
Encian thank you so much for being able to articulate what you experienced as a child. We teachers need to hear these real life experiences in order to make changes of course, but also to understand just how much children absorb, even when we think that they are too young to verbalize something....we are communicating all of the time...so we can be more intentional about what it is we are communicating.
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Joanie Calem
Music and Inclusion Specialist
Sing Along
Columbus, OH
Original Message:
Sent: 12-16-2021 11:33 PM
From: Encian Pastel
Subject: Transgender Expression in 3 Year Olds?
Nicole, I'm so impressed that within the 8 days since you first posted, you were able to acquire and read the Supporting Gender Diversity book, learn from it, and put what you learned into action, and then report back to all of us on the thread! It inspires me as a teacher and program co-director that you were able to seek out the help you needed and follow up on it, and exhilarates me as a co-author of that book to read about it being actually useful in a real-life scenario. Slowing down, making space and time for listening to happen, listening in a way where we're open to being changed by what we hear, collaborating in reciprocal relationships with parents, listening to children express themselves and communicate in their "hundred languages," respecting children as co-creators of knowledge, valuing children as knowledgeable community members, and with this age group especially, staying in the present... you beautifully integrated each of these key points in your response to this situation.
I'd like to add my voice to this thread as well as another key point.
Like many others, I was a child who was never given any language from the adults I trusted that described or even hinted at who I was. Like so many others, I was taught--mostly through observation and social relations--that there are only two genders; that my gender was determined by my body parts and could never change; and that my gender dictates the range of emotions, behaviors and social roles available to me, including who I will be attracted to. These messages were not "taught" to me via a lesson plan. They were part of the social fabric in which I first became a person. Also part of that social fabric was a taboo of silence, shame, and humiliation surrounding anything to do with people who challenged or just didn't fit neatly into that equation. From this social fabric, I learned that I was a girl, that I had zero agency in the matter, and that if I ever felt any discomfort with any of the parts of what "being a girl" entails, I should definitely hide that as deeply as possible so that I wouldn't attract any of the shame and humiliation surrounding the taboo. I was told that girls can "be anything," while at the same time I also learned, without being told, that girls can certainly not be too masculine, especially in ways related to physical appearance, gesture, tone of voice, mannerisms, word choice, etc, and that the reason had vaguely to do with other taboo subjects, like body parts and sex (in the sense of sexuality). Of course I never mentioned any of this discomfort to anyone around me, even to those I loved and trusted with my life. I was also an extremely "cautious" child temperamentally, and like the child in your post, would have been horrified if any announcements about me were made at school (or really, in front of any other people). I liked playing boy or genderless characters in fantasy play, but I had no sense that this had any transferability to "real" life.
Was I a "transgender child"? "Transgender" is a term with a lot of meanings. In the sense of many of those meanings -- which reference other abstract, adult concepts -- no, I wasn't. In many senses, I did not become "transgender" until I decided to claim that specific word as one that fit me well enough and would be a useful way to communicate about myself. Before that, I was-- what? I was walking around with a map that didn't fit the world I was looking at. In Piaget's framework, I was living in a constant state of disequilibrium connected to the very core of who I was, since the beginning of my memory, until my early twenties. I was finally able to toss out the map and make a new one once I had the opportunity to learn about the existence of trans and other gender expansive people in a positive, non-shaming light, and a community of people with whom I felt safe to explore my own gender. So much of what constitutes each of my identities has no meaning except in relation to other people. In order to find words for myself that felt right, I needed people to actually try using those words on me, and I needed to know that they would listen if I wanted to try other words for a while. I needed to do this with people from whom I would not feel an undertone of anxiety or tension at the same time as they were trying to support me. I was extremely fortunate to have this community in a collective house I lived in, in multiple partners, and with other queer friends, and thus I was able to become a person who was able to express my core sense of myself more of the time.
Children need adults who can work through our own anxieties when we are not in their presence in order to fully show up for them when we are. Adults who are brave enough to recognize the limits of our own experience and consciously seek out a variety of first-hand stories from people whose experiences differ from ours and from the cultural norm. Children need adults who can recognize that we all have biases, absorbed through the social fabric since our early years and over generations, that we're bringing into our interactions, families and programs; and they need adults who can create or participate in communities of learning to practice uncovering these biases and intervene in their impact and replication.
To anyone considering how to "add" curriculum around gender or other social identities, I would recommend starting by setting out to notice the way these topics are already being taught in the program. They are always being taught, even if the message is "that is something we don't talk about." As we educate ourselves and give ourselves permission to trust children and their family members, the curriculum emerges, diffused, starting in our interactions and deepening relationships.
I also want to offer a few resources -- in addition to Supporting Gender Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms, we have posted a bunch of free resources on the Gender Justice in Early Childhood website, including an infosheet with an "Ages and Stages" chart that may interest those on this thread asking for research citations about gender and young children, who might not be ready to dive into a book. (Highlights: research confirms that children have started categorizing people by gender by the time they are 12 months old, and have developed stereotypes informed by cultural messages about gender by the time they are four.)
You'll also find a digital comic book version of our second, more academic book, about how trans and gender expansive children are routinely wronged and how to right those wrongs ("Radically Listening to Transgender Children: The Comic"); a "Loaded Language" chart with inclusive, less harmful alternatives to commonly used phrases, a classroom audit tool that is also offered in the book, and handouts about what to seek (and avoid) in gender-expansive children's literature:
https://www.genderjusticeinearlychildhood.com/resources
Note to anyone reading this thread who is currently using our "Loaded Language" chart or "Early Childhood Gender Expansiveness" Infosheet: these resources have both been recently updated, including changing some language that felt icky to some of us and other trans people, so if you are working off an old version, please switch to the new versions!
<3
Encian
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Encian Pastel
Children's Community Center, Gender Justice in Early Childhood, Bay Area Childcare Collective
Richmond CA
Original Message:
Sent: 12-08-2021 10:32 AM
From: Nicole Fravel
Subject: Transgender Expression in 3 Year Olds?
Can someone direct me toward research on young children and gender? I have the following situation:
Two days ago, parents sent the following email "We have been asking the kids each day what they would like their pronoun to be that day. -ian has been requesting she/her almost everyday for a couple weeks now. Today -ian even actually requested that we talk with you and her about letting you know the pronoun she would like to use.
At dropoff tomorrow, can we have -ian let you know what their pronoun is?"
I agreed, of course. This three year old child has been with us since July (when they turned 3) and has never expressed anything about gender at preschool. It is possible that is has either never come up (We are an outdoor forest school, and we don't do any gender-based discussion/activities.) or that because the child is incredibly quiet and shy can be more expressive at home than at school. It is also my understanding that developmentally, 3 year olds don't think of identity as fixed. They may believe they can be a boy today and turn into a girl tomorrow -- or for that matter, turn into a turtle.
At dropoff, I asked the child if there was something important they wanted to tell me. "It's cold." The child's mom prompted them, "Remember what we talked about at breakfast -- about your pronouns." So the child turned to me and said, "oh, yeah, I ate yogurt for breakfast." I encouraged the child to talk to me at any time, or to my co-teacher. Mom picked up the child with a hug and said, "Go be your true self."
During our morning circle, the child's older sister (age 4) announced that "-ian now wants to be -ia." While the distinction between feminine/masculine endings in names is certainly not 3 year old knowledge, we asked and the child confirmed the new name. We have a community where we respect what people want to be called. Later in the day, another child came up to my co-teacher and (in front of the child in question) said, "--- says -ian is her sister now, but he's a boy!" My co-teacher said that out of kindness to everyone we should respect what they are saying.
The day felt entirely wrong. Whether this is a developmental phase or (especially if) the child is transgender, we think the child should have agency. Right now, it seems like everything that is happening is being decided by adults and not the child. In their absolutely understandable desire to support their child, we feel that the parents may have "jumped the gun" and be creating trauma. This is a painfully shy child who already has difficulty connecting and making friends. We don't feel like they want to be a "public spectacle." What we want is the best way to support the child, the parents and an approach in the classroom that engages the other children as allies.
Are there articles we can point the parents to? Articles that would help us navigate in the classroom? How do we begin a discussion with the parents? (For reference, the parents are heterosexual and cisgender, as am I. My co-teacher identifies as queer and cisgender.) I am mostly interested in research, but if you have personal experience with a similar situation and want to let us know how you handled it, that could be helpful as well.
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Nicole Fravel
Owner
wildwood nature school
Portland OR
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