My piece in Slate about this year’s Camp I Am for gender non-conforming kids and their families has been submitted; don’t know when it will appear, but I’ll post and tweet about it when it’s on-line. It was a great weekend. Oscar was great in the fashion and talent shows. The zip-line experience was wild. The families were all great.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi-
I read your article on Slate and thought it was wonderful. How I wish someplace like Camp I Am had existed when I was a child. My best to you and your family. I look froward to visiting your blog and hopefully reading more articles in Slate.
Hugs…Joni Mari
I read your slate piece. I didn’t read all the comments, but I read enough to get a bit cross. I really loved the piece, although I too will admit to cringing at the use of the word ‘normal’ (but, hey! That’s what IS ‘normal’ today… which is the problem).
I am cis-gendered and midly queer, but my social world is not gender-binary or heteronormative. I, too, dream of a world where the lines are more porous, where being who you are doesn’t mean finding a label and sticking to it, where kids can be what they need to be and not have to hide behind socially acceptable codes… unless they want to. Thanks for sticking your neck out in maintstream media!
Hi, I read your article on Slate and I thought it was a wonderful article. I was somewhat surprised with the level of criticism people had about the language, but I think what matters is your attitude and your acceptance and love for your child. I think that language is very very important to people in the transgender community, but this language can actually get in the way of really communicating. I can’t believe that after the progress that has been made in the past 20-30 years, that people are complaining that you didn’t use the exact specific correct word, rather than focusing on how wonderful it is that you, and people like you have contributed towards making these kids healthy and happy in who they are. People like you are actually making a difference and I don’t think that choosing the exact perfect words to make everybody happy (is that even possible?) should be the focus.
I read the piece, and enough of the comments to get pissed off, so then I stopped. I thought it was a lovely piece and I’m really glad there are accepting parents out there letting their children figure themselves out. I personally think the focus on words is a little stupid- it should be the people we focus on- is it a boy, a girl? No its Sharon. (The name a friend of mine has chosen for after the surgery.) Maybe there should be a third pronoun, simple like he or she, not derogatory, but until then…
I liked a lot of the article. The one thing that really bothered me was the bit where Leela was called “he/she.” I understand from reading the blog that you worry about people on the outside looking in rushing to say someone is trans when that person may just be a femme boy.
(Which, I hasten to add, is not necessarily the same thing as a *gay* boy. It’s possible for a guy to have a very feminine gender expression and like women, or for a woman to be very butch and like men. But since people expect these folks to be gay because gender expressions like those are often found in gay people and are more accepted in queer communities, it’s a lot harder for these people to be visible.)
I also understand that you have a personal reason for this worry — that you assumed Oscar was a girl and were startled to discover that he’s not.
But I think it’s very disrespectful to call Leela “he/she.” She does have a gender, and even if she discovers that social transition isn’t right for her, that won’t necessarily be because she identifies as both. I think it’s a lot more respectful to call her what she wants to be called — Leela and she — and change that if she says it’s not so. Because what if she is sure? (Doesn’t she need to be for social transition to make sense in the first place?) If she is, why should an accepting person (and despite being really bugged by this I get the strong impression you are one) set some high bar by which she has to prove she is who she says she is?
Many of our kids invent terms like this to describe themselves, and as frequently abandon them; the editor inserted that, but I didn’t remove it, so I bear responsibility. I don’t like it either. I’m not used to struggling with editors over content, and I think I made a mistake to not fight harder for some wording and the title, which I hate.
I hear what you’re saying, and am sorry to have hurt anyones feelings by letting the edit slip by.
i read your article on slate and made it here. i was one of those commenting on the language used in the piece and read up from the bottom (in order to read them somewhat chronologically) – so i didn’t get to your responses until i’d already commented on several things.
i do think language is important, and i did cringe at “normal” in the article and “normals” in one of your responses… *however* i feel the need to tell you that i am not remotely criticizing you as a parent or as a person. i am not calling you a transphobe. i am simply offering a point of view about the importance of language in shaping cultural consciousness.
i am glad that places like camp i am exist, and i am glad that parents like you exist.
I am the person whose comments on the Slate message board you specifically objected to. You are free to casually dismiss me as “knee jerk” if you wish, but I fully stand by my comments.
I believe that you mean well, but words become thoughts and thoughts become actions. That is why, as I wrote on Slate, “Words matter. Words matter a great deal.”
Bedford,
No problem! Thanks very much for listening, and thanks for writing the article.
My son in conversations with his counselor created the terms ‘heshe and ‘shehe’ to describe middle genders where one or the other gender was dominant, and the other a lesser but vital part of the identity.
You can’t know that of course.
You stand by the idea that I don’t get it and don’t know my son, when I use his own words and his own terminology to describe him…?
I am relating an experience that isn’t born in the wrong body, and isn’t ‘it’s just a phase,’ and isn’t ‘we should beat it out of them,’ and you continually willfully paint me as someone who doesn’t get that trans is real, that people are born in the wrong bodies. I get that, and, I know it is a terrible thing that I would talk about my own son and my own family where it turns out at that moment that that he isn’t born in the wrong body and that isn’t the story I’m telling.
‘Born in the wrong body’ is the only story a supportive liberal is supposed to be able to tell.
I know our visibility blurs the issues and makes it harder for trans people to explain to the world why they do what they do and be what they are. Why should my kid be allowed to wear a skirt if he DOESN’T claim to be born in the wrong body? How dare he deconstruct the gender binary and trivialize your cause. Unfortunately for you, though, my son exists and I am talking about him and kids like him in ways that both the children and the families of those children are perfectly comfortable with.
This makes me a bad guy, an enabler of transgender murder, and a bad parent, I know.
You have not addressed a single comment to the fact that our children, not yet or perhaps ever trans and not cis, do exist, that we are supporting them and acknowledging them at considerable risk to our own relationships, subjecting ourselves to peer scorn and derision. As well as your own.
I wish you luck in a world made perfect by your attacks on all those who use language in a way that is offensive to you, though. Good luck with that. It’s the kind of thing that makes most people really warm up to the cause, I know.
Considering the purpose of this site, to support transgender children, I’m honestly surprised at the number of people who do not seem to understand the impact that words have. The reactions to criticism of the Slate article have focused on everything except the issues that I and others raised.
I’m not going to rehash all the points except to say these two things. First, the frivolous tone of the article positions transgender feelings as being about nothing more than glam and glitter. It feeds a public that already tends to dramatize (and fetishize) trans people, especially trans women. Until the public stops sensationalizing trans people and begins to take our issues seriously then the struggle being fought by trans people and by the parents of trans children will not be won.
Second, words matter. The very fact that so much of the discussion has been about the poor word choice in the article proves the point. Words can empower and words can diminish. Words can teach understanding and words can breed contempt. This isn’t political correctness, its common sense. If the public thinks that it is OK to call trans children “girly boys”, how do you expect them to ever take trans issues seriously?
I have great respect for any parent who stands up for the right of their child to be themselves. I also know that as long as society marginalizes trans people we will all be fighting an uphill battle. Say what you wish on an individual blog, but when you publish in Slate, you need to remember that, like it or not, you are an ambassador to the cisgender world.
I’ve made the points I wanted to make and I don’t want to drag everyone here into a circular debate. I am, however, open to any conversation about how we can make the world a better place for all gender-variant people.
Frivolous tone? Are you a moron? Its NOT just about glam & glitter. If you look past the sparkly things its very simply about a parent being grateful all these children have a place to BE THEMSELVES. And if that means dressing up in a tutu and heels & prancing down a stage so be it. The point is the trans-children suddenly have like-minded contemporaries & the parents and siblings are around people who understand what they go through. Those moments of not being outcasts or questioned are what matters, not the words. Its the intent.