Let’s listen to the truth kids are sharing

In his recent letter to the Sun, Douglas Thompson displayed a complete misunderstanding of many issues related to gender and sexual identity in children. First, these children are not responding to a fad or a passing fancy such as being a mermaid. As far as my reading takes me, children recognize their own correct gender, and even their sexual preferences, at a very young age. The trans people I know say the same. Members of the broader LBTGQ+ community also report this. So whose “truth” should we listen to? I suggest we listen to those who have or had the experience!

Parents are not “trying to convince” their children to be one gender or another. No, I take that back: some parents try to convince their children that their own felt experience is wrong. Those parents are lying to their kids!

Let’s all read or listen to more of the experiences of actual LGBTQ+ children and adults. They tell us the truth. And let’s give up ignorance and bias toward those whose truth is larger than, or just different from our own.

Do you really want to eliminate confusion in children and teens? Tell them the full truth: there are more than two genders; people of one given sex may be sexually attracted to a person of a different sex, of the same sex, or not attracted to anyone in a sexual way. Tell them the full truth: some people recognize from a very young age that their physical body doesn’t correspond to what they know about themselves. This is not merely a crisis of adolescence. Tell them the full truth: our society is afraid of ambiguity. There are people who will accept you for who you are according to what you tell them. But there are others who choose to see the world only in binaries, only in categories of two: man, woman; light, dark; wet, dry; girl, boy. And the sad thing is, they often attach different values to one of each pair.

And that is the truth that hurts us all.