‘Deep down where the music plays’: How parents account for childhood gender variance

Abstract

Parents of gender variant children routinely negotiate their child's gender with social institutions, from schools to churches to neighborhood associations. These interactions require that parent develop narratives about why their particular child violates gender norms. In this paper, I argue that over the last century, there has been a proliferation within biomedicine, psychiatry and popular culture of the ways in which we can “know” gender; and as a result, ever more emotional work is required to account for the “self” that inhabits the gendered body. This analysis of the work parents of gender variant children do to explain their children to others demonstrates that these identities require a distinctly modern form of accounting. With that call to articulate the self comes an attendant proliferation of the ways in which gender can be regulated; yet, despite much sociological evidence that medicine, psychology and spirituality are often mechanisms for social control, they also provide ready tools for exploring, facilitating and embracing the multiplicity and plasticity of contemporary gender identities.

The Experiences of Sexual Minority Mothers with Trans* Children

“…Sexual minority parents also exist in a society that renders queer parenting in general subject to especially intense scrutiny (Lev, ). Perhaps not surprising, then, was the finding that others blamed some of our queer participants for their children being trans*, similar to previously reported accounts (Hill & Menvielle, ; Lev, ; Meadow, ; Rahilly, ; Sansfaçon et al, ). In addition to causing distress for parents, blame reactions reify cisnormativity by suggesting that trans* identities are wrong, shameful, and unnatural.…”

“…As such, we wanted to know how these participants both challenged and were influenced by internalized heteronormativity and, more specifically, cisnormativity in their everyday lives. Our findings echo those found in case studies of lesbian mothers with trans* children (Lev, ; Saeger, ) and larger studies of primarily heterosexual parents with trans* children (Hill & Menvielle, ; Meadow, ; Rahilly, ; Sansfaçon et al, ). The findings also build on these previous studies by offering new insights.…”

“…Another lesbian mother worried others would view her child's “masculinity” as a result of her and her partner's efforts to turn their child into a “butch lesbian” (p. 254). A single, gay father in Meadow's () study of 49 primary caregivers (nine were gay or lesbian) of trans* children aged 4 to 18 years faced the repercussions of others' prejudicial thinking; after learning or assuming that the father was gay, a physician attributed the child's trans* identity to sexual abuse and called Child Protective Services. The one same‐sex couple highlighted in Sansfaçon et al's () work with 14 parents of trans* children between the ages of 4 and 20 also said that others attributed the child's gender variance to their sexual orientation.…”

Rejecting, reframing, and reintroducing: trans people's strategic engagement with the medicalisation of gender dysphoria

“…As discussed earlier, however, medicalisation does not have a unidirectional impact and has the potential to operate as an empowering as well as a constraining force in everyday life. Many scholars have shown that the medical model restricts trans people in legal, social and medical settings while simultaneously providing avenues to gender‐affirming care (Burke , Butler , Koenig , Meadow , , Romeo , Spade , ). The double‐edged effects of trans diagnosis arise most noticeably in the form of gatekeeping, or the use of the medical model and associated diagnostic standards as a normative accountability structure (Johnson , ) that empowers trans people who fit its criteria and constrains those who do not.…”

Gender independent kids: A paradigm shift in approaches to gender non-conforming children

“…These are the kids who may go on to transition to a new gender role. In Meadow's (2011) study of parents of gender non-conforming children, a mother asks her daughter Willow (who was once her son): ''How do you know you're a girl?'' to which Willow answered: ''I know, because I feel it deep down where the music plays'' (p. 740).…”