northeast - out! northeast magazine

life...
gender identity
trans
exclusion
Transgender children
represent one of the most
marginalised groups in the
UK. Yet there are as many
trans children in our schools
as there are children of
Jamaican heritage.
Most spend their childhoods
fearfully hiding their feelings
of gender variance from
their parents, teachers
and their peers. The brutal
consequences of this include
low self-esteem, self-harm,
social exclusion, underachievement
at school
and wasted lives - where
around half of all trans
children actively consider
suicide.
by natacha kennedy
Having previously worked as a primary
school teacher, Natacha now lecturers at
Goldsmiths College, London. She has just
returned from Tokyo where she presented
her research on transgender children.
Natacha has been transgender for
as long as she can remember.
20
natachakennedy@hotmail.co.uk
It may come as a surprise to many
that transgender children exist at
all. Yet my own research 1 suggests
that children realise they are trans
before they are 8 years old - most
commonly at 5 years. Certainly,
around 80% of trans children know
they are trans before they leave
primary school. And 90-95% of
those do not tell anyone.
Even at such a young age, trans
kids keep their gender variance
a secret, because to do anything
outside what is socially expected
is to invite ridicule, derision and
social exclusion - especially for
transgirls, who know themselves
to be female but have been
assigned a male gender at birth.
It quickly becomes obvious that
to do anything outside what
is normally accepted as ‘male’
behaviour is to invite trouble.
The slightest hint of ‘feminine’
behaviour, presentation or
preference is considered
unacceptable, not just by other
kids but often by their own
parents and staff in schools.
For transboys it’s a different story.
They can get away with so much
‘masculine’ behaviour, and still
be considered girls. Which often
makes convincing people later that
they are trans, a problem.
One transman (assigned female at
birth) told me how, being brought
up on a farm, he was able to
do pretty much what he liked,
including riding horses, driving
northeast / issue 29 / outnortheast.com
tractors and climbing trees. This
behaviour was allowed to continue
until his parents realised that he
‘meant it’, then pressure to be
girly ensued.
It is not only the social pressure
to conform which damages
transgender children - and the
adults they become. They are
extremely isolated, with feelings
that they’re the ‘only ones’. They
start to believe there is something
wrong with them and suppress
their true identities. Their school
work suffers. Low self-esteem
develops. All of which often leads
to mental health problems in
adulthood.
Often, transgirls force themselves
to be more masculine, as they
internalize transphobia and
become self-haters. One US
study 2 showed how maleto-female
transsexuals were
over-represented in the military
- choosing dangerous jobs like
marines, fighter pilots, paratroopers
and divers in an attempt to
escape from themselves.
In the UK today, trans children
generally have two options. They
can ‘come out’ and risk being
bullied out of school - and in many
cases, forced out of their own
homes by domestic violence. Or
they can cower fearful in their
closets, not daring to express
how they are to anyone. These
two default positions, either out
and not in school, or invisible and
suffering in silence, are simply
not acceptable.
Schools need to realise that trans
children make up at least 1% of
the school population - but they
normally do not identify themselves
to anyone. It is time the education
system started to support these
children, because on top of
everything else, they are not being
given equal access to education.
A secondary school with 1500
children will have at least 15 trans
kids. Making provision for this,
involves giving all children access
to a vocabulary which includes
trans people. And letting trans
kids know that they are not alone,
nor are they freaks and that they
should be proud of who they are.
Part of the problem is that
diversity training for schools
around lgbt issues tends to focus
on the lgb and neglect the t. And
because being transgender is
often mistakenly considered as
relating to sexuality - and thus
not relevant to primary school
children - it doesn’t take place
until secondary school.
Diversity training should begin
in primary schools and include
training for teachers around trans
issues as a matter of urgency.
Because as things stand at
present, some of our children
are being severely harmed. n
1. Kennedy & Hellen (2010) Transgender
Children: More than a Theoretical Challenge.
Graduate Journal of Social Science. Vol 7.2 pp
25-43
2. Brown, G (1988) Transsexuals in the
Military: Flight into Hypermasculinity. Archives
of Sexual Behaviour 17.6 pp 527-537