There was a news article on a local Philadelphia station about a 6 year old boy who attends an elementary school is Philadelphia and has begun wearing dresses to school. He feels very strongly, and has for a while, that he is a girl. His parents are supporting his transgendered feelings. The school says it is a personal matter and one that will not become involved in. The parents of his classmates are mixed in whether they would allow their children to do what the 6 year old is but most agreed they saw no problem with them being able to explain to their children why a male classmate is now wearing female clothing.
Are this 6-year old's parents "jumping the gun" or simply saving their son years of misery until he finally is able to express his feminity? Will his male body going through puberty bring about other changes in his feelings? These are all questions that will be answered as this boy gets older. However, our book say gender constancy, a person's understanding that he or she is male or female, will not change and appears to develop at age 3 or even earlier.
If the studies in our book by Dubois, Serbin and Derbyshire (1998), Warm (2000) and Levy (1998) are correct than it appears this family is on the cutting edge of gender awareness and how to deal with a situation which can cause young people untold heartache.
4 comments:
Dori: WOW! Now thats tough. I see where it says that gender constancy can develop around age 3, but wow...I don't know if i would allow my 6 year old child to cross dress in the opposite sexes clothes. The child must be confused to some great extent, and I'm also surprised the school is allowing it, and I;m sure the other kids are wondering whats going on and asking alot of questions.
That is a very interesting story. I am surprised that the parents are so progressive. According to Wood, page 183, those who grow up outside of conventional gender roles are often thrust into social isolation as society sees no middle ground in the binary pairings. These parents seem to be far advanced. Did the news piece mention how they are equipping their child to deal with negative reactions from others?
As a parent of a child who so is so convicted about being a "girl", this would be a tough one. I would think that they would have considered ongoing therapy at least for the sake of dealing with the societal issues and reactions from peers as Jennifer mentioned. It definitely would be hard to decide between being true to oneself or being trapped inside a body that did not feel as it belonged to them.
There is however, mention in our text that "although the first few years are important in shaping gender, they are not absolute determinants of our gender across the life span." It goes on to say that our understanding of gender and of our personal gender identity change over time as we develop personally and as we interact with diverse people who embody alternative versions of masculinity and femininity. It will be interesting to see how this boy's story develops over time.
Interesting how cross dressing seems to be a bigger deals for boys than girls. We dress little girls in jeans, t-shirts, even baseball hats, but, dressing little boys in clothes identified in our society as "little girl" clothes creates a much bigger discussion.
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