CLARA TORSTENSSON

Walking a mile in someone's else shoes
Born in the wrong body

According to Unicef 353 000 children are born every single day. Immediately we are categorized into to two different kinds of groups, boys or girls. The child must also behave like the sex they were given and form their whole lifestyle after that. The parents are supposed to raise their daughters to play with Barbies, dress in skirts and be emotional, cute and shy unlike the sons that should play with cars, dress in pants and be rough, strong and blatant. What if the parents finds out that their child does not want to be recognized with the sex they were born to be? What if the child instead more relates to the other sex? What if their little son wants to dress in dresses instead? Should the parents just let them or is it more complicated than that?

By study a documentary and different facts I want to be able to understand what is like to be a parent when your child tells you that they don’t belong in their own body. What does it take for the parent to understand that the children really mean what they say and how do they know that it is not only something that will pass over? My main question for this essay is therefore:

·         How do we know that transgender is not only a phase?

 “Real Life: Transgender Children” is a documentary about four different children, Jossi, Kayla, Bailey and Chris, they have in common that they all feel like they were born with the wrong sex. Jossi for example was born as a boy, but according to him that is not the right fact, instead Josef was absolutely sure of that he was a girl. Josefs parents did for a long time force him to be a boy and also behave like one. One day they found him with a knife in his hand – ready to cut his penis of. That incident changed it all for the family, Josef became from that day and for the future - Jossi. Josesfs mother explains about her guilt feelings she has because she did not take Jossis problems serious at first. Everybody in the family is now convinced over the fact the Jossi is a girl and will always be. Jossi is not comfortable with that she might have to go thru a surgery to completely be the sex Jossi wants so and therefore do the family lets the question rest for a couple of more years.

Chris is a teenage boy who loves to play basket, however has not that always been the case. Chris was born to be a girl named Julia. Chris father always wanted sons but ended up with two daughters instead. When Chris goes thru the transformation and he actually becomes a son instead of a daughter the father did not felt happy at all, instead the father does not want any contact with his new son.

Kaylas parents did at first only thought that their son was homosexual, his mum did not thought that homosexuality was something strange because her brother and some other family members had the same orientation. But her son did not just stop with liking the same sex, he started to dress in skirts and pink. Now Kayla is absolutely sure that she wants to use female hormones to complete her life.

Bailey was born to be a girl even though he never felt as one. When the interviewer asks Bailey how he can be so sure that this is not only a phase she answerers following “I’ve been living like this for five years or for years and I don’t like even have girl thoughts. I feel like a boy, I think about sports and football…” Baileys mother did first force him to wear dresses but now she does support his decision she lets him be who he truly indeed wants to.

The website Wikipedia says following about what transgender means: “Transgender is the state of one's gender identity or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, etc; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them.” Therefore must not transgender mean that people have to change their whole sex by surgery, it just means that the person does not identify with the gender they was born as.

An increase of transgender children has already the psychologists and psychiatrists established, but now children with a transgender sex discovers in lower ages. These children can find their solution in having hormones, but the way to get those medicines is far. In America a child must be diagnosed by a doctor with gender dysposia and that is not possible before the child has been visiting a doctor for many years and the child must also be in the early teenager, in spite of that there is now need of an approval in court, of course must the parents confirm. The first hormones that the child will have are hormone blockers, the medicines block the natural hormones that the child will develop in the puberty as oestrogen or testosterone. To then move on it is possible to have hormones of the desired sex, if the child and parents wants to move on. A sex change by an operation can also been made however is not possible in younger ages.

The government in Scotland is right now developing a new law that will make it possible for children to have a third sex. Countries as Australia and Germany have already established a similar law. It is important to develop a new law because people with a transgender sex do not have any kind of legally rights in the society. The future for the transgender people seems to be taken serious in these countries.

After reading all these facts I want to reach some conclusion for this essay, my main question was following: How do we know that transgender is not only a phase? I believe that this question can be answered very various dependently which child we are discussing. By watching the documentary I do think that all these four children is making the right decision by go thru the transformation and for them is not a phase, but I defiantly think that the ambient and the circumstances the he have been thru have played roll. One example is Chris that had a dad that would replace him with a son if it was possible when Chris was born as a daughter. I do believe that is an affecting factor to the decision of become a boy, he wanted to please his dad.

I think it is important that the transgender children should talk with a competent person in the area as a psychologist or a doctor like they do it in America, because while you have been done the surgery is not possible to take it back and it is consequently really important for the society to take responsibility for this children and to help them correctly, like they do in Scotland, Australia and Germany.

What does actually do make me concerned by the documentary is that this children think that they have to choose if they want to be boy or a girl so concrete and the social consequences of that. They section the different sex into two separate groups that are not the same as all, a girl can for example not like sports and a boy can not love pink. Their pictures of boys and girls are very stereotyped and forces children to be someone they do not want to be. I do think that we have to dispute the picture of what a man and a woman are. Why do we have to be so different in our society and how it does therefore affect our children? Gender is a social construction and we are not born so different, the differences are something we do develop on our own. Why do we hold on to this ancient behavior? When Bailey explains that he does not have any “girl thoughts” it shows us that he is a part of this structure.

Why does the sex play such a big roll, can we not just let people be who they truly are without have this strict rolls must we have a surgery to make it possible? Perhaps it is the society that has to change and not the children.  

My references

Internet

BBC NEWS. Campaign calls for legal recognition of third gender. Access 2015-01-28.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-29850756

Taylor, Lin. SBS. Transgender kids: Is it ‘just a phase’? Access 2015-02-10.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/17/transgender-kids-it-just-phase

Wikipedia. Transgender. Access 2015-02-12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender

Youtube. Real life: Transgender children. Access 2015-01-15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0BmtInLGt8