Mummy’s on the transgender spot
Congratulations to Janet Jackson who has given birth to a baby boy at the age of 50! At least now she can pop her breast out in public for a genuine reason.
Last week, while I was making myself a cup of tea, my eightyear-old came into the kitchen and asked, “Mummy, what does being transgender mean?” in the same calm way he might have asked me what was for dinner.
“Where did you hear about that?” I demanded, a little bit too defensively.
“Oh, it’s just that my friend told me that his sister is one,” he said. “What is it?”
How times have changed. My kids ask me questions I would never have dared asked my parents when I was their age. Even now, I can’t quite bring myself to say the word “sex” in front of my mum – and I’m 46.
In my mind I had plotted a timeline to address such subjects with Zac. I felt 11 would be the right sort of age to start with the “birds and the bees” followed by more challenging topics addressed in a chronological order.
But kids have a way of forcing you to throw plans and timetables out of the window.
It’s not that I didn’t want to talk about what “transgender” means, I just didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
I looked embarrassed and felt stupid and longed for the phone to ring to get me off the hook. But it never rings when you need it to, does it?
So I stumbled through the conversation then raced off in search of expert advice.
It was with open arms that I embraced CJ Atkinson’s new book Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity? Because what I want
most for my children is that they grow up to be happy, healthy and open-minded. And that means I have to be prepared to tackle the subjects that would have been taboo when I was growing up.
Thirty years ago in many parts of Britain, if you came out as gay, you’d almost certainly have been verbally abused and probably physically attacked. Today the UK is leading the way as one of the few countries in the world to have legalised gay marriage.
But opinion here is still divided. The likes of Ann Widdecombe and Lord Tebbit have already come out to describe CJ Atkinson’s book as “nonsense” and “damaging”.
And that demonstrates perfectly the deep-rooted transphobic views clung to by so many otherwise intelligent people. Why can’t they put themselves in other people’s shoes?
Admittedly this is easy for me because I have a very close friend who is transgender. I know for a fact she would have loved to have had a book like this when she was growing up, rather than be forced to live the wrong life, suffering alone in silence until adulthood, only to start all over again.
So I want all the advice I can get from experts to help me be a better mother. We benefitted enormously from a course we did when we adopted our daughter Amara, now five. It gave us an insight into the mind of a child who’d been abandoned and the skills we needed to deal with questions she was sure to pose – such as: “Mummy, did I come out of your tummy?”
I knew exactly how to reply without upsetting or confusing her. And because I could communicate using the right words, it gave her confidence about who she was and how she came into our lives.
I want my children to know that if they ever felt they needed to say, “I’m not happy with my gender” they could come and talk to us and feel accepted and know they would be helped, cared for and always loved.
What would you do in that situation?