Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #263 A Transgender Question

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#263 A Transgender Question · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers now. And if our children can know that
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  Speaker 2: no matter what, no matter what they do, no matter
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  Speaker 2: who they are, they'll be loved, they'll have the confidence
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  Speaker 2: to make decisions in their lives. And now here's the
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  Speaker 2: stars of our show, My mum and dad. Good Night.
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  Speaker 3: It's doctor Justin Colson and the author of a bunch
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  Speaker 3: of books about helping to make your family happier. I'm
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  Speaker 3: here with Kylie, my wife, co host and mum to
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  Speaker 3: our six baby girls who aren't quite such baby girls anymore. Kylie,
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  Speaker 3: We've had a really tricky question come through via podcasts
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  Speaker 3: at happy Families dot com dot au. Before we talk
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  Speaker 3: about this question, a warning at the commencement of our
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  Speaker 3: podcast that while the content in this conversation is not explicit,
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  Speaker 3: we are going to be discussing mature themes and parents
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  Speaker 3: should use their discretion as to whether children should be
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  Speaker 3: listening to this one or not. So, what's the question?
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  Speaker 2: My fourteen year old daughter says she's transgender and wants
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  Speaker 2: to change her name to a boy's name and to
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  Speaker 2: be referred to as he and him whilst the whole
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  Speaker 2: transgender label is a shock for us. She has always
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  Speaker 2: identified with boys, friends, sports, haircut and clothing, which we
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  Speaker 2: have supported since she was nine years old. We are
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  Speaker 2: struggling with the label trans changing of name and pronouns.
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  Speaker 2: We have noticed that she has become depressed when we
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  Speaker 2: call her by her female name, and there has been
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  Speaker 2: self harming by scratching herself. She sends me things about
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  Speaker 2: protrans but I would like to read about both sides
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  Speaker 2: before making a decision. I am hoping that you can
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  Speaker 2: suggest some reading material which will help us navigate through
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  Speaker 2: this so that we can make informed decisions. Any other
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  Speaker 2: advice would also be appreciated.
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  Speaker 3: Well, what a question, and thank you so much to
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  Speaker 3: the person who will keep anonymous who has sent this
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  Speaker 3: question through to us. Podcasts at happy Families dot com
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  Speaker 3: dot Every Tuesday, we'll be answering one of your questions.
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  Speaker 3: Let's start with a couple of words. It's confusing and complicated.
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  Speaker 3: I think that any parent who's going through this situation
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  Speaker 3: is going to be feeling really confused. And it kind
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  Speaker 3: of makes sense because if we just look at the
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  Speaker 3: heart of what's going on here, you have a child,
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  Speaker 3: you give them a name based on their sexual organs
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  Speaker 3: and based on the gender that you anticipate that they
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  Speaker 3: will identify with, and then you raise them until they're
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  Speaker 3: fourteen years old, and then they turn around. And what
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  Speaker 3: this mum's saying in her email very much is we
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  Speaker 3: are struggling with the label trands and the changing of
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  Speaker 3: name and pronouns. How do you go from calling her
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  Speaker 3: to him? How do you go from calling your child
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  Speaker 3: the name that you've always known them as, the name
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  Speaker 3: that you've got this connection and this history with, to
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  Speaker 3: a name that maybe doesn't mean anything to you and
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  Speaker 3: even feels like it's I'm sure for some parents it's
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  Speaker 3: an affront, it's an offense. This is who you are,
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  Speaker 3: and now you're telling me that you're not who I've
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  Speaker 3: always thought you are, very confusing for a parent. First
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  Speaker 3: things that I think any parent needs to be aware
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  Speaker 3: of when it comes to this particular issue are in
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  Speaker 3: recent years, i'd seen the last decade or so, there's
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  Speaker 3: been a significant upswing in the Western world, at least
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  Speaker 3: of teenage girls who are arguing that they're transgender and
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  Speaker 3: wanting to shift from female to male. There's a genuine
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  Speaker 3: shift there. In fact, if we look at the statistics
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  Speaker 3: around this, and it's fascinating to look at it. Historically,
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  Speaker 3: about point one percent of the population have felt that
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  Speaker 3: they've been born with the wrong sex organs. So there's
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  Speaker 3: a difference between sex and gender. Sex is the organs
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  Speaker 3: that you've got, and gender is what you feel you are.
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  Speaker 3: So I've been born with male anatomy and I actually
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  Speaker 3: feel like I'm a male and you for female, you
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  Speaker 3: are a natal female. That's how you feel that. About
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  Speaker 3: point zero one percent of the population doesn't have that experience.
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  Speaker 3: In terms of actual numbers, that's about one in ten thousand.
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  Speaker 3: About one in ten thousand people are born and feel
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  Speaker 3: at some point in their life, hang on, I was
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  Speaker 3: given the wrong sex organs.
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  Speaker 2: So how reliable are those numbers?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're pretty well.
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  Speaker 2: Actually.
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  Speaker 3: In the DSM five, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical
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  Speaker 3: Manual for psychologists and psychiatrists, it's like the word that
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  Speaker 3: we always use is it's the bible for people in
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  Speaker 3: the mental health care professions, the expected incidents of what
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  Speaker 3: they call gender dysphoria is point zero zero five to
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  Speaker 3: point zero one four for natal males and point zero
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  Speaker 3: zero two to point zero zero three for natal females,
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  Speaker 3: So that's well under the one in ten thousand that
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  Speaker 3: I mentioned. I don't have OSSIE data, by the way,
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  Speaker 3: but in the US recently around two percent of school
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  Speaker 3: attending teens are now identifying as trans and it's higher
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  Speaker 3: again in the UK, and three quarters of those who
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  Speaker 3: are being referred to treatment a female who are wanting
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  Speaker 3: to transition to male. So this is something that has
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  Speaker 3: really changed in the most recent decade. Second thing to
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  Speaker 3: highlight because of this, there's a whole lot of confusion.
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  Speaker 3: There's a big conversation going on it and even in
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  Speaker 3: professional fields, not just with parents and in families. There's
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  Speaker 3: just a lot of confusion about this topic as the
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  Speaker 3: best way forward. And this mum in her EMIL has
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  Speaker 3: made it really clear every time I fail to use
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  Speaker 3: the right pronouns. Every time I'm not addressing my now
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  Speaker 3: son as a hymn and calling him by his name,
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  Speaker 3: even though I've known him for the last fourteen years
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  Speaker 3: as her with a female name. What she does, or
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  Speaker 3: what he does, is move into a self harm mode,
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  Speaker 3: which by the way, is usually what females do. It's
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  Speaker 3: not a male thing. So even though this girl is
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  Speaker 3: identifying now as a boy, he is still behaving in
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  Speaker 3: a crisis in a more female oriented way. Historically, girls
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  Speaker 3: are much more likely to self harm than boys in
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  Speaker 3: that way. The third thing, and this is the provocative
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  Speaker 3: thing that I'm going to say, and it's not going
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  Speaker 3: to be received well by everybody, but I have to
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  Speaker 3: acknowledge it because it's the reality. We've got a medical
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  Speaker 3: and a psychological industry that have moved to a I
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  Speaker 3: would say a one hundred percent affirmation model. In other words,
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  Speaker 3: when somebody and a teenager walks in the door and says,
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  Speaker 3: I have been born a girl, but now I feel
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  Speaker 3: like I'm a boy, it's completely agreed with and affirmed,
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  Speaker 3: and it's often that that person then is able to
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  Speaker 3: progress quite quickly onto a program of medicalization that is
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  Speaker 3: very often reversible.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting, as we're talking, I'm thinking about we have
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  Speaker 2: one of our children was a part of a social
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  Speaker 2: group that was definitely experimenting and questioning their sexuality in
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  Speaker 2: significant ways. And one friend in particular, literally over the
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  Speaker 2: last three or four years, has gone from being bisexual
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  Speaker 2: to asexual to now recognizing that she's actually heterosexual.
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  Speaker 3: She was gaining there for a little while as well,
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  Speaker 3: I specifically remember that conversation.
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  Speaker 2: At the very beginning, right, that's right, and then she
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  Speaker 2: went through the other stages. And the reality is, and
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  Speaker 2: I think that her parents in some way have done
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  Speaker 2: a wonderful job and just allowed her to kind of
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  Speaker 2: work through that process. And as we've said, over four years,
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  Speaker 2: she has identified with different stages. But if she had
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  Speaker 2: made a decision as a thirteen or fourteen year old
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  Speaker 2: child and made permanent changes, she wouldn't have the luxury
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  Speaker 2: of being able to experiment to work out where she
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  Speaker 2: actually sits in the world.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that really nails what my great concern is,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's this mum who's sent us this email, or
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  Speaker 3: whether it's talking about the topic more generally. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: there's a couple of things in this particular email that
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  Speaker 3: we need to come back to in a sec but
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  Speaker 3: when we're speaking about this idea generally, the wait and
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  Speaker 3: see approach seems to be better. People say that gender
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  Speaker 3: is fluid. That's fairly well agreed on now, but that
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  Speaker 3: means that we're going to express our gender in different
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  Speaker 3: ways for different reasons at different times in our life.
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  Speaker 3: And that example that you've given of one of our
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  Speaker 3: kids Friends is the perfect example of that. She's gone
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  Speaker 3: through all of these stages. And when we go with
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  Speaker 3: the one hundred percent affirmation model, we actually deny the
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  Speaker 3: reality that gender is fluid. We're saying that a fourteen
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  Speaker 3: year old has identified what gender they are and it
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  Speaker 3: is not fluid, it is fixed, and we need to
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  Speaker 3: take medical reparations. We need to medicalize, we need to operationalize,
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  Speaker 3: we need to do things right now to make sure
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  Speaker 3: that they are affirmed in their identity. And that's where
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  Speaker 3: my concern is. I don't have a problem with acknowledging
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  Speaker 3: in fact, that's really important.
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  Speaker 2: I don't have.
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  Speaker 3: Any I don't have an anti transgender agenda. That's not
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  Speaker 3: who I am. I'm advocating for something else. I'm advocating
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  Speaker 3: for a wait and see approach. And I know at
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  Speaker 3: this point I'm probably sounding like I'm really against this
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  Speaker 3: mum doing something I'm not. I'm just highlighting the complexity
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  Speaker 3: and the importance of not going with a one hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent affirmation response. So let's take a break. It's been
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  Speaker 3: a fairly heavy conversation so far, and we'll talk about
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  Speaker 3: how this mum can help her daughter who wants to
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  Speaker 3: transition to being a son through a really tricky period.
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  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to feel bad or in trouble, and domes of discipline
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: as a webinar to help parents set limits with love,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: compassion and humanity. Find it now at happyfamilies dot com,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: dot au slash shop.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
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  Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers now, and today we
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: are dealing with probably one of the most complex and
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: complicated challenges that parents are dealing with today, specifically helping
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  Speaker 2: our teenagers navigate this space of sexual identity.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so a mum has written in and wants some
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  Speaker 3: help with her fourteen year old who is saying that
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  Speaker 3: she's transgender. I think we need to talk about what
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  Speaker 3: this mum needs to do so that we can help
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  Speaker 3: her out here. And the first thing that I would
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  Speaker 3: actually say is that we talked about this at the
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  Speaker 3: outset of the podcast. We've kind of got this outcome
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  Speaker 3: in mind of what our child is going to be,
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  Speaker 3: and we need to let go of that and recognize
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: that each child will choose their own path and it's
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  Speaker 3: not our job to choose that path for them. However,
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  Speaker 3: there is a very clear and important, loving and compassionate
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: process that we need to walk through with our child
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  Speaker 3: so that we can find an outcome. Whatever the outcome
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  Speaker 3: ends up being completely detached from the outcome, but a
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  Speaker 3: process to get us to the outcome. Unfortunately, what often
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  Speaker 3: happens in these situations is that the parent says, Hey,
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  Speaker 3: I'm the parent. You don't know what you're talking about.
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  Speaker 3: You're thirteen, you're fourteen, you're fifteen, all of you've got
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  Speaker 3: your whole life in front of you. I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: decide on the outcome right now. You are a girl,
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  Speaker 3: you're born a girl. Stop being so silly, and they'll
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  Speaker 3: try to shut it down. What happens when we step
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  Speaker 3: in with psychological control or even behavior or control, that's
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  Speaker 3: where the self harm comes in. That's where the problems occur.
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  Speaker 3: That's why anybody who is more liberal leaning in this
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  Speaker 3: argument will say, you've got to be affirming because otherwise
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  Speaker 3: they're going to take their lives, because in extreme cases
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  Speaker 3: they do.
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  Speaker 2: So what is the answer.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think that there is an answer. I know
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  Speaker 3: that there are some guidelines that I can point this
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  Speaker 3: mum too, and any parent who's got a child who's
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  Speaker 3: struggling with this. But there isn't an outcome. There isn't
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  Speaker 3: an answer that I can say, this is what you've
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  Speaker 3: got to do. So let me share a couple.
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  Speaker 2: Of God only we had a manual that cave us
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  Speaker 2: or the answer.
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  Speaker 3: This one's magnified so much because there's so much emotion
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  Speaker 3: behind it, and there's so much identity behind it. It
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  Speaker 3: is a complex and challenging issue. So first of all,
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  Speaker 3: let's acknowledge that transgender identities exist. They always have, they
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  Speaker 3: always will. And it may be that your child actually
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  Speaker 3: is transgender and will need to transition from being female
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  Speaker 3: to male. It's a very small percentage of the population historically,
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  Speaker 3: but it may be that your daughter is going to
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  Speaker 3: become your son and that is the way she should
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  Speaker 3: have been born. We just need to acknowledge that. At
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  Speaker 3: the outset, it's confusing, it's not what most it's what
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  Speaker 3: we would call a non normative gender situation. But that
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  Speaker 3: doesn't mean that it can't happen, because we've got we've
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  Speaker 3: got hundreds of years of history of this happening in
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  Speaker 3: very small numbers throughout the population. The second thing, though,
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  Speaker 3: I think, is we just would have a conversation with
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  Speaker 3: our child where we say, I'm really stuck, and this
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  Speaker 3: is why you've always been this person to me, and
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  Speaker 3: now you're telling me that you're not. And it's perfectly
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  Speaker 3: reasonable with such a complex and challenging situation for a
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  Speaker 3: parent to think through this with their child and to
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  Speaker 3: identify the wrestle to grapple with it, not with it,
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  Speaker 3: not to grapple with their child, but to grapple with
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  Speaker 3: the issue and try to figure it out.
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  Speaker 2: And I think the.
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  Speaker 3: Other thing that parents really want to do is say
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  Speaker 3: to their child. Sometimes situations like this evolve over time,
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  Speaker 3: and in some cases a person will choose to become
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  Speaker 3: the opposite gender to the one that they've been born with,
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  Speaker 3: and in other cases they don't. But we just need
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  Speaker 3: to let time do what time will do. Some people evolve.
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  Speaker 3: They're attracted to males, then they're attracted to females, and
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  Speaker 3: then they're back to males again, and some like both.
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  Speaker 3: The one thing that I'd be really strongly discouraging is
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: any medical intervention. So if you've got a daughter who
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: wants to do some practice chest binding, breast binding, that's
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  Speaker 3: not going to be nearly as harmful. There are still
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  Speaker 3: some harms to it, but it's not nearly as harmful
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  Speaker 3: as going and taking testosterone and boosting testosterone levels that
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  Speaker 3: creates irreversible damage, or going undergoing some kind of surgery
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  Speaker 3: that creates irreversible damage and that disallows the natural process
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  Speaker 3: of evolution of gender identity to occur. So I guess
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  Speaker 3: what I'd really be saying is we want to be
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  Speaker 3: really gentle. We want to highlight that it's confusing. We
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: want to recognize that we don't know what the answers
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  Speaker 3: are and we don't know what the outcome will be.
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  Speaker 3: But as a parent, you need to be gentle. You
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: need to be honest, You need to process it together,
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  Speaker 3: and you need to remember how hard this is for
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  Speaker 3: your child. I mean, it is massive, and the closer
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  Speaker 3: you are to them, the harder it's likely to be
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  Speaker 3: for them and for you.
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  Speaker 2: Those couple of words love you, no matter what, they
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  Speaker 2: mean everything, They mean everything. And if our children can
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  Speaker 2: know that no matter what, no matter what they do,
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  Speaker 2: no matter who they are, they'll be loved, they'll have
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: the confidence to make decisions in their lives.
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  Speaker 3: Tough conversation really appreciate the email. If you have questions
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: that you'd like to ask us, you can email podcasts
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: at happy families dot com dot AU. I sure hope
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: that's been helpful. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: If you'd like more info about making your family happier,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: you can get it at happy families dot com dot
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: a