Oh shush. He is weird.
I want to share this story with the world, I think it is important. Always start with a list so we don't forget where we're going eh?
1. When It Started
2. Dr. Google
3. The Later Identities of the Weird Child
4. ADHD and Autism prevalence in Dysphoria
When It Started
I remember the day. We were walking along the riverside with my two sons and their two friends. I suppose it started as a game, an offering of an identity - do you want to be *this* thing? Yes. He did. But it was not a game to him. After that walk it was all day, every day. Never a break. We had tears and tantrums and total despair over body parts he did not have and I will happily admit that I created a prosthesis to alleviate his suffering. There were name changes and referential instructions that we all had to abide by. There were accessories and make up and I permitted it all. Then I saw the documentary on transgender kids by the great Louis Theroux and thought to myself "Holy shit. What the actual fuck is going on?"
Dr Google
Some of the wording of the diagnostic criteria have been changed a bit for the sake of the blog. Hopefully that'll make sense later on but for now just let that slide. If I, as a parent, had taken this new dysphoric suffering seriously enough to consider medical intervention, this is what I would have looked for. I'll talk through the criteria and which of them he would meet to qualify for treatment. My comments will be in bold. Which is going to make typing this bit a total bitch.
Diagnosis
In children, dysphoria diagnosis involves at least six of the following and an associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months. My kid's dysphoria went on for 8 months.
- A strong desire to be of the other thing or an insistence that one is the other thing absolutely. Big tick here. Consistent, insistent and persistent identification for the whole 8 months.
- A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other thing Big tick here too. Luckily this wasn't too expensive an aspect but the clothing and accessories requested were all bought and worn daily throughout the 8 month period of dysphoria.
- A strong preference for other-thing roles in make-believe play or fantasy play It is vital to note that the dysphoric identity was absolutely NOT a game in itself, but children play and whenever playing was going on the role taken was in line with the dysphoria although occasionally under a different forename.
- A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other thing another big tick here. All day, every day. It was fucking exhausting.
- A strong preference for playmates of the other thing Not so much of a tick here because this wasn't an available option only because we don't have a lot of friends ha!
- A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned thing Yep.
- A strong dislike of one’s anatomy The weeping agony of wanting a different body and not having parts that the other had was devastating to watch. I made a prosthesis and he wore it ALL THE TIME. At first I wouldn't let him wear it in the bath but eventually gave in. A lot of the time the prosthesis was the only thing he wore. He still wears it from time to time. I made it really comfy. Mum skills.
- A strong desire for the physical characteristics that match one’s experienced thing Same as above.
For children, behaviours may start between ages 2 and 4, yep. He was 3 when it started and 4 when it stopped
Atypical behaviour is common among young children and may be part of normal development. Trust me, this was beyond atypical. His development has been physically and neurologically atypical in most ways.
Children who meet the criteria for dysphoria may or may not continue to experience it into adolescence and adulthood. If it returns in adolescence I will definitely be finding a therapist. I won't let him grow up to be *that* guy. Ew.
Some research shows that children who had more intense symptoms and distress, who were more persistent, insistent and consistent (my italics) in their statements and behaviours, and who used more declarative statements (“I am an x” rather than “I want to be an x”) were more likely to become dysphoric adults Well yeah, that is why I say you must understand this was not a game to him. Not at all. It was a genuine identity belief and it was hard for him to live with.
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So the more insane-minded among you may be thinking why, as a responsible and loving parent, was I willing to make him a prosthesis and engage with his chosen identity for the duration of the dysphoria? Why did I not take him to a gender-reassignment clinic and get him the puberty blockers and onto the surgical waiting list that he was going to CLEARLY go on to need?
I'll tell you why.
Because the boy did not believe he was a girl. The boy believed he was a dog.
The Later Identities of the Weird Child
Full disclosure, so the original "game" that birthed this identity crisis on that fateful walk was because he was on reins because he is INSANE and would definitely jump into the river if we didn't hold him back.
His friend held the reins and asked if he wanted to be a dog. He did. And that was that for 8 months.
He was called Sizzles and would ONLY be referred to as such.
His weeping was for lack of a tail so I made him one on an elastic waistband and he wore it and nothing else for the whole period of dysphoria.
He had a dog-suit but preferred to be naked. He shat in the garden. When outdoors, the reins would no longer suffice and I had to buy a proper lead. I refused to put a collar on him but he wore a necklace and the lead was attached to the hangy hook on his coat.
I was not able to take his tail off him to wash it so eventually I just let him wear it in the bath and we blow-dried it afterwards.
When he played he was always a dog but sometimes had a different name like Rover or Buster - he sometimes played at being a girl-dog but it was always made clear that he was only PLAYING at being a girl-dog. He was IN FACT a boy dog.
Fair enough babe.
He didn't insist on playing with dog friends because we don't have any friends with dogs, but when other kids came round he would insist on playing with them as a dog, they were allowed to be dogs too or else cats or children.
One of the major up-sides to this period was that he was very trainable as a dog and would pretty much do anything for an imaginary sausage (his dog-identity was clearly based on Sizzles from Charlie and Lola) so that made a lot of our life very easy. He also took quite vehemently to a real sausage heavy diet that persists to this day.
He did require regular walks and games of fetch, but he would also sit on command which was nice.
Sometimes I miss Sizzles.
When I watched the Louis Theroux documentary my "omfg" reaction was to how seriously parents wish to pathologise their children into easy-to-label-boxes.
Maybe if Sizzles had been a female identity I wouldn't have dealt with it the same way. I'll never know.
One day he announced over breakfast on being referred to by his preferred name that "Sizzles had run away to play in the park" and that was the end of it.
For another couple of months he was a different dog called Buster but that was much less consistent, persistent and insistent, although still very much an identity statement and not a game.
Then Buster just sort of vanished.
Both reappear every now and again but not for long periods. Since Sizzles left and the Buster phase petered out we have had several other much less long-lived but just as insistent identities from the child:
Ava is pretty notable because she is a girl. He claimed for a while that he was half boy and half girl and on girl days he was called Ava.
Shadow, who is a hedgehog.
Every now and again he's a guinea pig.
He has no real solid ideas about gender conventions, he misgenders pretty much everyone because as far as he is aware, boys have a penis and girls have a vagina and since he can't see what junk they have who the fuck can tell what pronouns someone should use?
I'm down with that.
I don't get offended when he refers to me as "he" or the dog as "she".
Although he has seen the dog self-pleasuring enough times that you'd think he'd have noticed the winkle by now.
No points for observation on that front.
ADHD and Autism prevalence in Dysphoria
I've read in a bunch of places, here's one
that there is possibly-probably a higher prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders amongst those who identify as not-the-gender-you'd-think-from-looking-at-their-junk. This is pretty unsurprising and uninteresting but I'll eke out the couple of points I can from it.
Biological sex is almost entirely binary. We can't deny it. For the most part (around 99% of the time) babies are born with genitals dictated by their XX or XY chromosomes. Exceptions are called "intersex" and are WAY more common than you'd think, but plenty of intersex people never know they're intersex until they get tested for other things like delayed puberty or infertility. Intersex and Transgender are not the same thing. One is a biological state and one is a mental state.
So ok, biology is a thing and if you're going to get all angsty about that feel free, I won't engage with that.
But gender is not the same thing as sex. Gender is social.
At birth, sex characteristics are noted on a birth certificate for medical reasons.
Nappies are changed differently for girls and boys (I did a blog about that before), boys can have issues with their winkles and girls can have issues with growing tiny boobs and having baby-periods (for real, weird eh?) and if some of the wankjuice they put in the water supply starts making male babies grow an extra toe or some shit we need to note these things statistically.
If you're a doctor, biological sex is a salient fact about a baby in your care.
When a parent has a baby and is told it's a girl though, what happens next is the problem.
The baby is put in a pink babygro, a pink hat, a pink blanket and pink balloons.
People handle her delicately and tell her she will grow up to be beautiful.
When told it's a boy the baby is put in a 'gro covered with trucks and cars, a blue blanket and blue balloons.
People handle the baby more roughly and his strength is noted "what a grip the lil guy has!"
Will he be clever and become a doctor? Will he be an adventurer and discover new lands? Will he fight and run and climb and build? Of course. Because he's a boy.
Oddly, you don't need a penis for any of that.
This gendering socialisation of children is forced down their throats (pants?) by schools, parents, advertising, tv, toys, toy shops, books, clothes, literally everything they have access to.
When a boy wears shiny pink shoes he is told incessantly "THEY ARE GIRL SHOES!"
Well exactly.
Girl-shoes don't come with a penis holder so where are you going to put your...oh no wait.
If you don't think this is FUCKING EVERYWHERE then open your eyes.
I don't even need to give examples because you only have to go into a toy department, clothing department, kids club, school or if you cba to go out (and fair play to you for that) just turn on the tv and find a kids channel.
Look at what boys are taught to be and what girls are taught to be. Look at the connotations of pinkifying girls and what girls are made to wear.
Look at how difficult it is to run and climb and jump wearing sparkly tutus and sandals instead of jeans and t shirts.
Look at how boys are treated if they don't conform to your expectations of them.
In Mcdonalds, I saw a kid ask for a balloon "for his cousin" (yeah right). He was asked "is it a boy or a girl?" WHY WOULD THAT MATTER?? If the kid was going to do something genital with the balloon they really shouldn't be allowed it. When I asked why he needed to know he said
"so I know what colour they want"
"well then ask what colour they want, why do you need to know if they have a penis or a vagina?"
The staff member walked away.
I left a shitty review on the facebook page.
That'll learn'em.
Mcwankers.
I was with Ava that day so on the edge of a trigger-rage already. Plus the last kid had got a red balloon so the whole thing made no fucking sense anyway.
Thing is with autistic people, like me and my weird child, that kind of socialisation doesn't work on us. My sisters waaaaay got into the whole barbie thing. I did not. I didn't really get into anything much, but I loved Thomas with my lil bro and then quickly moved into anarchic comedy because our screentime wasn't supervised properly.
Autistic people don't care about social conventions and that is all gender is.
So where lots of people think we autistic types are weirdo freakazoids with no social skills, maybe you wanna look at yourselves and at what these social norms are actually teaching kids.
Because on the gender front, it isn't a good lesson and the autistic non-conformists are actually more objectively correct.
Kids is kids. Unless you are a paedo or a doctor, you don't need what junk they have.
Toys is toys. If a toy is genitally operated, it is not suitable for children.
Clothes is clothes. Until puberty and often beyond, male and female bodies do not require different cuts of clothing. Girls do not need to wear shorter shorts so you can see their legs. Do not need to wear skirts so you can see their underwear if they are active. Do not need to have indented waists to create more adult looking feminine bodies. That is fucking gross.
Exceptions to this rule are: bollock protective cups for sport or dance and leotards which are cut differently so as to be comfortable around the crotch. But there is no reason why the wide-cut crotch leotards should only come in black, red and blue and it pisses me off that my weirdo can't have the shiny pink fish leotard that he wants in case it crushes his tiny balls.
But, says the world THOSE ARE ONLY FOR GIRLS!!
Ah hah!, says the autistic kid, a rule! I shall follow it without exception!
Therefore I am a girl.
Gender dysphoria in autistic people is a damaging label for an excellent refusal (or inability) to conform to a damaging set of social values.
Teach kids that they are not defined by their genitals.
They are not girls or boys in society they are just people.
Their doctors need to know what junk they have but it's no one else's business.
They do not need to advertise their genitals to the world through their clothing and behaviour.
Their preferences and roles are not dictated by their genitals.
There is nothing wrong with their bodies, the world is wrong, not them.
Sex is biological.
Gender is a fantasy.
It is not real and it damages and limits all of us in different ways.
My child could have been damaged, abused and sterilised if he had become Ava that day instead of Sizzles.
Think about that.
Great piece of writing. I think the role of 'being' different identities in childhood is fascinating. I had a kid who was everyone from William Buckland the palaentologist to Count Olaf from the Series of Unfortunate Events. Some identities lasted days, some weeks, some months.
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