Parents to share custody of youth
The future of a transgender child will be in the hands of the child’s parents. The only problem is that the parents don’t seem to agree on much.
The parents of the 7-year-old have been locked in a bitter, public feud that sparked outrage among transgender advocates and Texas politicians alike. Anne Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger have been at odds about how to care for their male-born child, whom Georgulas claims to be transgender. Younger disagrees.
Raising a child after a divorce or annulment is already difficult, but co-parenting a transgender or gender-diverse child in different households with dissimilar beliefs raises its own issues, experts say.
Judge Kim Cooks on Thursday awarded joint custody to Georgulas and Younger. The mother had previously been given sole conservatorship.
The case has attracted criticism from conservative Republican politicians in Texas, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz. Rep. Chip Roy raised concerns about “forced” medical treatments for “so-called gender dysphoria on young children.”
These concerns are a tad misguided, experts say.
Predicting whether a prepubescent child will grow up to be transgender is difficult, said Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and psychiatrist.
“I think one of the challenges with this case is that it sort of makes it black and white,” the Brown University assistant professor said. “Are we going to predict if this child wants hormones? The reality is we can’t.”
Most medical and psychological professionals agree that affirming children is the best approach for children with gender dysphoria, said Paul Mitrani, clinical director and child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute in New York.
Affirming means that parents can address such children by their preferred pronoun or name, ask them questions about their gender assertions and engage them in conversations about their interests and gender expressions in affirming.
“Affirming is just saying, ‘This is who you are right now,’ ” Mitrani said. “You’re not trying to push them one way or another.”
Parents have a role in making sure their children feel safe to be themselves, but how children express their gender with one parent over the other isn’t an indicator of the child’s transgender identity, according to experts.
If Younger’s child is acting like and preferring to be a boy, the child could be conforming to the father’s expectations and adapting in a way that diminishes stress, Mitrani said.
Younger has said that the child behaves as a boy and wants to be treated as male when not around the mother, the Fort Worth StarTelegram reported.
Although much concern has surrounded the medical care of the 7-year-old, the likelihood that the child will deal with any serious medical decisions is low at the moment, Mitrani said.