The “Signs”
Parents are often expected to have all the answers. If your child has expressed being trans or nonbinary, it makes perfect sense if you are feeling scared, confused, or uninformed. In an effort to asuage your worries you may have come across articles that contain lists like “10 Signs Your Kid Is Transgender” or “How To Tell If Your Child Might Be Trans”. While these lists may provide a fleeting sense of comfort, what if your child doesn’t demonstrate these signs and still tells you they are trans? Now what?
These lists often speak to the part of parents that are afraid and desperately want reliable answers. When we feel out of our depth, we look for certainty. These lists of behaviors must be taken in context and not over-analyzed. No single behavior or combination of behaviors make someone trans; these lists are solely a compilation of behavioral trends that tend to overlap in trans children. There is an expansive variation of childhood behaviors - some of them fleeting and silly, and others reflective of larger truths, and it’s often very difficult to tell them apart. You are not the first parent who struggled in identifying this distinction. As a pediatrician and unsuspecting parent to a trans daughter, Dr. Hassouri writes, “I did not know that 50% or more of transgender people do not present until the start of puberty or later, and that 50% or more have not had the typical signs one associates with being transgender.” (Hassouri, 2019).
“Ok, but what are the signs?”
Here is a compilation of feelings, traits, and behaviors that clinicians and parents often report their trans child exhibiting:
Wanting to pee in a way that is different than what you’d expect
Engaging in dress up more seriously than for play
Referring to themself as a different gender
Choosing to play characters in video games/pretend play that differ from their gender assigned at birth
Lack of interest in activities that are conventionally related to their assigned gender
Resistance to getting or wanting haircuts
Avoidance of dress clothes and more gendered garments
Disliking their name
Frustration with their genitals or refusal to use the bathroom
Extreme self-consciousness about being seen
Difficulty with or dislike of bathing/showering/personal hygiene
Positive reaction when people get confused over their gender
Reporting wanting a “do-over” or to wake up as a different gender
Happier when allowed to experiment with their gender
Upon reflection, this list may remind you of your trans child, or maybe your cisgender child, or even yourself! While these are commonly documented behavioral and emotional patterns in trans children, they are not to be used as a tool to prove (or disprove) one’s trans identity. Each child's gender evolution charts a new path, so we cannot expect that a specific combination of behaviors points to some unequivocal truth. Some children as young as preschool unwaveringly proclaim that they are a particular gender, while others may not show a single one of the aforementioned signs - and are not any less trans.
“I just want to be sure, you know?”
Of course you do! I would love to be able to provide you with a sense of relief from this fear of uncertainty but it is so human. It could be fruitful to ask yourself what would it be like to stay with this feeling of uncertainty? What would it be like to resist the urge to reduce your child to behaviors on a checklist, but rather trust them for who they tell you they are? This is certainly a parenting challenge - but not one that you can’t overcome. Your fear will naturally lead you toward resistance and denial but you can keep coming back to the fact that you love your child and what a gift it is that they have trusted you with truly knowing them.
“What can I do to support my kid?”
Here are 10 things I’d recommend:
Encourage opportunities to experiment and explore!
Check your assumptions! Kids are watching, listening, and learning all the time!
Teach kids that gender is a spectrum and not a binary: there are boys, girls, people who are both, and people who are neither.
Raise them to see individuals for who they are, not who they are expected to be based on their pronouns.
Pay close attention to the things you’ve been socialized to say like “man up”, “boys don’t cry”, “be more ladylike”, “you throw like a girl!”
Normalize the use of “they” pronouns. Introduce it just as they are taught “he” and “she.”
Use gender neutral terms like “friends,” “guests,” or “everyone” instead of “boys and girls.”
Move away from “the little boy’s/girl’s room” to gender neutral terms like “bathroom/potty.”
Teach them that activities, toys, clothes, and jobs don’t have genders!
Tell them stories and introduce them to people that open their minds instead of narrowing them.
Always remember, your child is still the same child you’ve always known, and you can love them just the same.
