While the issue of bathroom policing may have found its unfortunate cultural moment as a wedge issue for the right (they’re really running out of ideas at this point), the topic isn’t new.
In fact, the subject made national headlines when 6-year-old transgender child Coy Mathis and her Colorado family brought a civil rights discrimination case against her school district and fought for her rights to use the girl’s bathroom. The district had previously told Coy she had to use the boy’s room.
The case was argued in 2013 and the family won, and it’s considered a landmark case.
Now Coy’s story is the subject of a new documentary called Growing Up Coy.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Director Eric Juhola and producer Jeremy Stulberg show audiences what it was like for Coy to develop her personality and identity against the grain of expectations, and the obstacles and media frenzy her parents faced all in the name of doing right by their child.
The film will world premiere at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York on June 16 at IFC Center and June 17 at Film Society of Lincoln Center and on the east coast at Frameline40 on June 25 at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. More dates to be announced on the film’s Facebook page.
Catch the trailer below:
DMRX
I’ve followed this story for years. I’m still not sure how I feel about letting a child, especially pre-puberty, decide this for themselves.
Thoughts on this from anyone else? And please… Don’t be rude or snarky. I really am just trying to understand this better.
AtticusBennett
@DMRX: I know a few parents whose children have expressed, at a very young age, that they don’t feel they are the gender they’ve been *told* they are. What the parents have done is allow that child to express the gender they feel – not the gender most-often associated with that biological sex.
its’ not as if the parents are putting their pre-pubescent kids on hormones – it’s gender-expression.
i knew i was gay before puberty took hold. these kids are very aware of how they feel about their gender, and what Doesn’t Feel Correct. the best thing is to allow the kids the freedom to explore and discover for themselves.
MacAdvisor
@DMRX:
I think this is a difficult issue with many subtle and exceptions. I am not sure there are good general rules to apply. In that situation, I think the choice, unless there is some strong reason to intervene, should be left to the child, the parents, and the child’s doctors. This is a deeply personal decision and I don’t think society at large should have much of a voice here.
Mandrake
I don’t think any child should be “expressing” their preferred gender until they’re legal age and out of school. Knowing you’re a gay male at a young age is not the same as taking on a different gender identity at the age of 6 or 12 or 15. The verbal and physical abuse these kids would suffer is far worse than if they waited till being out of school.
AtticusBennett
@Mandrake: your statement is incorrect – none of my transgender friends, the people who actually go through this, would agree with you.
the solution is not for transgender kids to hide and deny themselves the freedom to be who they are, because bullies will abuse them. the solution is for all of us to work harder to educate people, at a young age, about the realities of gender, and sex, and who transgender people are.
as i said previously, i know parents whose children are transgender, and very aware that their gender is not the same as the one associated with their biological sex.
these kids are not being bullied in their elementary schools – kids are remarkable adaptable to the reality you present them with: if you don’t teach kids to hate, they won’t hate the kid that’s Different. their classmates know and understand that their friend is transgender. and don’t take issue with it.
it’s never too soon to be self-confident in who you are. the solution is education and support, not telling kids to stifle and suppress themselves.
notcisjustmale
Gender is nothing more than an enforced system of oppression benefiting straight men. A little boy who is free to play with dolls is still a little boy. A little boy free to wear a dress or a tiara is still a little boy.
blankman
@DMRX: She’s simply deciding that she’s a girl. Nothing more.
Fact is that children self-identify by gender at a very young age (as early as two or three) long before the concept of sex even enters the picture.
When did you know you were a boy? (I’m assuming you’re male. If not, when did you know you were a girl? I’d expect earlier than six.
Think about it, if Coy isn’t old enough to know that she’s a girl the same has to be said about all the other children her age. The girl that sits in the next row? Too young to know. The boy that sits behind her? Too young to know. And so forth.
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
@notcisjustmale: Not really. Us gay one’s think this garbage is ridiculous too. You have a crossdressing fetish. You are not women.
blankman
@Mandrake: Children are a lot more accepting than you think. Her classmates just regard her as another girl. It’s the adults that have problems.
As for waiting till they’re of legal age there’s a couple of problems. First is that fully 40% of homeless youths are members of the LGBT community. Some were thrown out and some left on their own because the situation was intolerable. Second, almost half of all transgendered teens attempt suicide. That’s compared to roughly 4% for all teens. However if those same transgendered teens (i) have accepting and supportive parents, (ii) aren’t subject to transphobic bullying and discrimination and (iii) have ID that corresponds to the gender they present as the suicide rate drops to near normal.
Then we have the physical question – all young children are doing is being allowed to live as their preferred gender. No medical treatment of any sort. Later, hormone blockers can be administered to delay puberty – these are widely used in cases of precocious puberty and the effects are completely reversible. This gives the child (and parents and doctors) years to decide if they want to proceed. But absent those hormone blockers you end up with a girl with a beard, Adams Apple, and deep voice of a boy with breasts and a period. Cross sex hormones won’t be administered till later and surgery can’t be performed before age 18 in any case.
Note that if the child does go thru puberty the required surgery is far more drastic – a girl transitioning to a boy has to have his breasts removed and so forth.
kathykicak
@Mandrake: @AtticusBennett: I agree with you. I knew by age 4 but repressed it all my life and I still got bullied in school on top of hating myself. Bullying while affirming myself is better than bullying while hiding myself. Then as I grew out of my teen there seemed no good time to come out. I coped through a marriage and three children before I hadn’t the strength to continue the lie and left a lot of collateral damage along the way. The blessing of three children is priceless and impossible to regret. But support and courage to live authentically at an early age would of been better for everyone else.
n900mixalot
Kindergarten is not the time and place to be waving flags and fighting rules kids don’t like, it’s about learning how to live with others and to understand and respect rules. This is ridiculous.
Should that child be subjected to teasing and ridicule or bullying? No absolutely not, no child should, especially for something they can’t change. But this child will never respect the body HE has and was born, or potentially any other body he gets, if he’s permitted and encouraged to hate it at such a young age just because he feels the way he does about it now.
I told my mother I WAS a girl when I was little. Did she take what I was saying literally? No, she helped me and guided me toward a healthy respect for the body and feelings I had at the time, and said that how I felt may or may not change but for the time being, I had the body I had and I should learn to love it. And I did. And still do.
Kids aren’t pawns that should be used to fight someone else’s battle. They have their own development to worry about, and this kiddo should be encouraged to embrace the positive aspects of what he has, and to learn about what his feelings mean, how society will challenge that, and how to rise above the negativity he will face. Once he does that independently and proudly, he can proudly wear the “She” pronoun.
junk4sts
I agree with everyone who says this is a hard topic with no easy answer. I think it’s a family decision to allow their child to cross dress until it affects many others, then it starts to seem much more complicated.
I would not be a supporter of this parenting decision, but don’t feel that it’s my place to say it’s wrong for this family.
So long as the family and the child are truly willing to live with the remifications of this decision, who’s to say if it’s right or wrong.
I do think 5 is too young to make this decision, I think a loving parent should note how strong this trans desire is in their child and give it time to play out and be sure it’s not just little kid stubborness. A 5 year old can’t possibly understand all the consequences of a decision like this, and evidence says that even an 18 years old is not the best decision maker in the world.
So yes, this a kind of minefield that no one should enter lightly.
At any rate, I don’t think supporting the genetically assigned gender of a child can be looked at as a bad thing. Supporting the gender that matches the genetics supports whole self thinking, an idea that we are not separate from our bodies.
Daniel-Reader
There are adults – especially sanctimonious religiosity types – who don’t believe gay people who say they have known since they were little they are who they are, so not surprising there are those who don’t believe trans folk as if they are not aware of their own truth. Haters gonna hate. You can’t convince people who think the world is 6,000 years old that the world is not as simplistic as their fairy tale written by long-since dead people wishes it to be.