My grandchild went from Ruben to Ruby
As debate rages over transgender rights, Anna Bianchi explains what it feels like to be grandmother to an eight-year-old who has socially transitioned to a different gender
Butterfly, a miniseries about a transgender child and their family, began on ITV last Sunday. As yet, I haven’t watched it – and I will be careful about choosing when I do. The programme is fiction; the situation in my family is not. Three years ago I wrote an article for this newspaper about my grandchild Ruben who, at five, had been declaring a female identity for more than 18 months. We were immersed in confusion, and the growing complexity of a situation we were totally unprepared for.
It’s now rare for a day to go by without a public figure commenting on the “transgender debate”. Occasionally a contribution is thoughtful and well-informed, but more frequently opinions are dogmatic and underscored by the commentator’s lazy attitude to their own privilege.
It is very easy to have an opinion on these matters when a direct experience of them is absent. Not so easy when a small child sobs in your arms because they’re distraught that hair will grow on their face one day. From little more than a toddler, we experienced Ruben protesting about wearing certain clothes, having his hair cut short and being called a boy. In every self-portrait he drew, a little girl smiled back at us off the page. As a family, we had been plunged into white water and we scrabbled to find a raft.
Slowly, we have developed strategies to chart a course. Most significantly, we learnt to map every decision that we made against two primary criteria; if it maintained Ruben’s overall wellbeing and, importantly, how likely our internalised bias and prejudice might sabotage this goal.
Looking back I recall Ruben’s parents deliberating at length about whether to buy the shiny “girls” sandals that Ruben desired, rather than the navy blue ones on offer.
I, too, felt conflicted about what they should do. Undoubtedly I wanted to protect Ruben from any negative reactions. I also wanted to avoid feeling socially uncomfortable should the shiny sandals be bought and worn, as indeed they were.
But what exactly was I threatened by? When the realisation dawned on me that buying girls’ footwear for a “boy” child was somehow outrageous, it stopped me in my tracks. What exactly was the danger? Why did it feel so frightening? And where did the voice in my head, the one that policed my reactions so rigidly, come from?
I realised I had an embedded fear of societal disapproval. Nothing else could explain why I struggled to choose pink material over blue, even when I knew my grandchild would only wear these pyjamas in the privacy of his home. So I made a decision to step down from being the all-knowing adult and to open myself up to experience instead.
Since then, we have crossed many thresholds including, at six, Ruben fully transitioning, socially, to Ruby. The school has worked closely with us and, generally, Ruby’s peers accepted the change – although one day, when I collected her, she told me: “Nanny, a boy kept picking on me today.”
I held her hand and asked: “What about, darling?”
“He says I’m not allowed to wear a dress. That I’m a boy.”
“And what did you do?”
“I didn’t say anything and then I looked away.”
“And how were you feeling?” “Sad. Really sad, Nanny.” Ruby’s words pulsated in my heart as we walked along together. I told her: “Grown-ups and children can be afraid or angry when someone is different from them. Then they can be unkind, which is horrible, so what happened isn’t really about you sweetheart. I’ll tell Mummy and Daddy about it and we’ll all work it out together.”
The next day my daughter talked to Ruby’s teacher about the playground altercation and, that
evening, she helped Ruby to practise assertive responses and body language to use when being challenged. But I can testify, with much gratitude, that people in Ruby’s world and across our two extended families have been accepting of her. Indeed it was one of Ruby’s greatgrandmothers who, on embracing her after transition remarked to my sonin-law, “It’s good to see her so happy now, isn’t it, love?”
Today, Ruby is a popular, happy child and a voracious reader who is fascinated by the natural world. As her grandmother, I cannot escape feelings of anxiety and, sometimes, fear, because I know that my grandchild is on the path less travelled. I never lose sight of this. I can’t afford to. The social comfort of “normal” is not afforded to Ruby, so validation is often highly conditional.
The approval of society is also not a given for any of the people in Ruby’s family. For us, the conversation about any sort of medical intervention has begun, though it is a quiet one. Ruby is eight, she is not 18. Protecting her childhood is an imperative to us, alongside scanning the skyline for changes we need to be aware of, be they social, emotional, physical or psychological. Our affirming care for Ruby involves much waiting, watching and listening. It is care that takes into account nature, nurture, culture and the impact time has on a child’s development and decision-making capacities; care that seeks to understand what children tell us about their gender in words, actions, thoughts, feelings and relationships. Care that requires a great deal of courage, and the willingness to live with anxiety almost every day.
There are many hundreds of young children in the UK who do not fit neatly into one of the two gender boxes. Their intention is not to make anyone angry, hoodwink the adults around them, or to upset the status quo. But their existence scrambles the social order we have all internalised as “natural” and this often provokes reactive and complex feelings.
Gemma, my daughter’s friend, discovered this to her detriment before Ruby had transitioned. She had bought Ruben “Elsa and Anna” dolls from the film Frozen, and they were delivered to her work address. Her colleagues criticised her choice of gift as harmful to Ruben because it “encouraged him”. The criticism Gemma was subject to was so heavy-handed that she spent a tearful afternoon feeling somehow culpable. Gemma’s work colleagues clearly felt entitled to harangue her at length but not out of any concern for Ruben. The real reason was their unexamined prejudice.
But I know, first hand, how hard it is to acknowledge problematic feelings in oneself such as fear, confusion, embarrassment, resentment or even disgust on occasions. None of these emotions make for easy travelling companions. But these feelings can get acted out, sometimes with terrible consequences. And the screen these emotions get projected on to invariably includes a child’s face.
We experienced this close up about a year or so after Ruby transitioned. She had been taking horse-riding lessons and all the staff at the stables were accepting and sensitive towards her. One day the lead instructor called my son-in-law and daughter because another parent had been trying to ascertain whose group the “trans kid” was in. This parent was at odds with the riding school about a separate issue to do with her own child, yet Ruby became the target of her venom.
She was threatening to “go to the papers” about her. But to go to the papers about what? The riding school acted appropriately and a letter was sent to her. But not before we understood that a transphobic stranger was prepared to use our child as cannon fodder in her own war.
Hyper-vigilance is now a state I have become familiar with. Ruby, at eight, does not know that swirling above her head, opinions are vociferously voiced and positions have polarised around issues such as “women only” spaces, medical gatekeeping, gender self-declaration legislation, the pathologising of children and socialised male privilege. The trenches in this battlefield are deep and many casualties, on all sides, rage and suffer.
My responsibility is to stay the course and allow Ruby to become who she is. As a family we know there is no one single path to gender affirmation. So we continue to listen, learn, watch, wait and give her all the space she needs to be herself in. This is the stage we are at now, mindful that puberty is on the horizon, though not panicked by it. Right now, my granddaughter is secure, and security is a precious commodity in the human psyche.
I recently stayed overnight at Ruby’s house and, as we cuddled up together, this knowing came home to me in a precious way. I had just put the light out and lain down next to Ruby’s warm little body. She put her hand on my cheek and whispered: “Nanny, when I’m with you I feel really safe.” I wrapped my fingers around hers, took a breath, and replied into the darkness, “It’s Nanny’s job to keep you safe, my darling.” And so it is.
Some names have been changed
I cannot escape feelings of anxiety and, sometimes fear, because I know that my grandchild is on the path less travelled