It Takes A Village To Bully A Transgender Kindergartner

[icymist]

When Dave and Hannah Edwards were lucky enough to win the lottery to enroll their child at Nova Classical Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, they were excited about the charter school’s small classrooms, the kind teacher they’d met, and the special attention their kid would receive. What they didn’t anticipate was an entire community rising up against their family as they became the latest victims of an anti-transgender backlash sweeping the country.

Over the course of the school year, the kindergartner would transition from a gender non-conforming boy to a transgender girl. At every step of the way, the Edwards sought accommodation from Nova to help protect her from bullying and make sure her classmates understood who she was, and at every step of the way, a growing force of anti-transgender parents shut them down, creating a public spectacle and only increasing the harassment their daughter experienced.

The Edwards have since pulled their daughter from the charter school and enrolled her in a different public school where she is a happy and healthy little girl. But they have also filed a complaint against Nova for the way she was treated in hopes of protecting other trans kids from enduring the same treatment. “Now that we’ve had to move and now that we’ve had this potential harm that’s been inflicted on our family,” Dave told ThinkProgress, “we’re invested in making sure this doesn’t happen to any kid again.”

Indeed, it is Dave and Hannah who probably experienced the most harassment. The story of what they endured over the past year mirrors a tactic social conservatives have used to isolate and attack transgender kids and their supportive parents in other schools. Because of the way Nova’s unique ambivalence dragged out and documented the process, there is ample evidence to demonstrate how ignorance and intolerance fueled the fear that forced the Edwards to leave the Nova community and file their complaint.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/04/22/3771366/dave-hannah-edwards-transgender-kindergartner/?utm_content=buffer2b5a8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[rusty quoin]

1. I read this story, but as a parent, I would not have chosen to make my child a girl.

That was the parent's choice, not the child. I cannot figure out the story.

I welcome you all to correct me. I would never have stopped my boys from playing with dolls, but I would never labeled them at the same time at so young of age.

[TygrBright]

2. Some people KNOW, at a very young age, that the body they're in is not shaped correctly for them.

Loving parents respect that knowledge.

There are things human beings know about themselves.

When a culture makes it important to suppress that knowledge, it rarely ends well for anyone concerned.

I have known loving parents who tried to make their child conform to what the culture expected of someone with their physiological gender, because they feared "blue monkey" syndrome- the hell that non-conforming kids experience.

And set that child up for much future pain thereby.

Children don't know much about the world. They don't necessarily know much about other people. They don't know about so many things.

But they often know things about themselves that have nothing to do with what the world and the culture they live in expects of them.

This youngster knew she's a girl.

Born with male genitalia.

Why is that not worthy of respect?

Her parents clearly respect her.

Getting a frightened, small-minded community of conformists to respect her will be a lifetime's struggle, but I'm so glad she has parents who will be there for her.

sadly,
Bright

[rusty quoin]

4. Thank you for that.

I know I can learn more, and what you wrote makes me think more.

[SheilaT]

3. I had a conversation a few days ago with a woman

whose 9 year old is a transgendered male. I hope I have the terminology right. This person was born with a female body, but identifies as a male, so if I've said it wrong two sentences ago, I do want to be corrected.

All of this women's children do not fit into the "normal" mold. I'll refrain from revealing all of the details, but I was struck mostly by her honesty in telling me this (we were conversing in the bar of the hotel of the conference we were both attending) as well as here simple acceptance of what her children were like. Wow.

I have two kids, and the fact that one has Asperger's, and they both have Alopecia Areata (hair loss, and they both have the most extreme form, Alopecia Areata Universalis) is trivial compared to her journey.

I think I want to say that the vast range of human experience and identity is such that we all need to look beyond simple dichotomies or identities, and understand that we all are very complex human beings.

[Old Union Guy]

5. The parents are using the child as a political prop.

They are unfit parents and should go to prison.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. IMO Misses the Child by viewing the forrest

I am struck by the Child quickly being shifted from Gender Non-Conforming at the start of school to being Trans only a month or two later. This strikes me as more of a case of a Gender non-conforming child (and parents) thinking it's simpler to live as a TransGirl than to live as an actual gender non-conforming boy. Being forced to make a binary choice when one is analogue has to be no better than being forced into the wrong binary. Wish the world would back off arguing about societies reaction and focus on what the details and needs of this child actually are. Understanding all of that might make the path forward much clearer to everyone.

[icymist]

7. I find it truly amazing about how many arm-chair psychologists there are.

People who don't know this child, nor the parents, nor have observed the situation but proceed to explain how this couldn't possibly be so because of their personal bias. It is well documented that transgender children know so from an early age.(1) There also seems to be a lot of blame being passed to the parents, despite the two being college educated, but still I read comments saying that they are pushing their own agenda and don't have the best interest of the child in mind. I believe such caring and loving parents would read everything they could get their hands on before making the decision to allow their child to be themselves.(2) The school itself carries a lot of the blame for a hostile environment by allowing every Dick, Jane, or Joe to comment on the matter, thus the institution making a non decision.(read the article in the OP) A lot of their views are shaped by a declaration of sex by a doctor or midwife at the birth of the child.(3) Once the doctor or midwife's decision is typed onto a birth certificate, that declaration is 'chiseled in stone' and very hard to change, if at all.(4) Doctors are sometimes wrong in their determination of sex in infants born with ambiguous genitalia.(5) My best advice for everyone is to become informed as this seems to be a subject that will be in the political spectrum for now. I have found a very good read on this subject in a book called Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History.(6) In this book edited by Gilbert Herdt, you will find that transgender is in every culture and time period along with actual case studies in it's pages.
(1) http://kuow.org/post/when-do-kids-know-they-re-transgender-younger-youd-think
(2) http://www.hrc.org/resources/transgender-children-youth-ask-the-expert-is-my-child-transgender
(3) http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/06/26/infant_gender_assignment_unnecessary_and_potentially_harmful.html
(4) http://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/transgender/changing-birth-certificate-sex-designations
(5) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/intersex-children-pose-ethical-dilemma-doctors-parents-genital/story?id=13153068
(6) http://www.amazon.com/Third-Sex-Gender-Dimorphism-Culture/dp/0942299825