It Makes Sense

When you think about how our brains are more alike to our true gender than our birth gender it makes sense that maybe for gender non-conforming or non-binary people that they may have a different brain structure.

Almond panel discusses gender beyond the binary
Los Altos Town Crier
Written by Jane Ridgeway
Published: 03 May 2017

Local families, along with Los Altos School District faculty and staff, attended a panel at Almond School last week addressing how adults can support transgender and gender nonconforming youth.

Much of the discussion centered on transgender children, who identify with a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth. But Almond’s school psychologist Kristi Clouser also emphasized that creating a safe, supportive environment benefits a wide range of kids – from the boy who wants to grow his hair out to the girl who prefers sports gear to pink frills.

“This is about all children, all parents,” Clouser said.

When panelist and Egan Junior High School seventh-grader Cade Maw came out as transgender while a sixth-grader at Almond, his school community performed a dance to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” – a song that incorporates themes of acceptance of minorities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Yes, we are born this way and it is not out of the range of possibility that gender non-conforming children that they are born that way. Nature has infinity possibilities and it is always trying different combinations so we have to stop our black and white thinking and think in a beautiful combinations of the colors of the spectrum.

“We spend far more time forcing our kids to be cis(gender) and straight,” Johnston [Maureen Johnston, a marriage and family therapist who works with gender nonconforming kids and adults] said. “That tremendous amount of pressure is not going to be alleviated by bringing up new terms. It’s just not going to happen.”

According to Clouser, social support is one of the most powerful nonmedical interventions for helping create good outcomes for transgender kids.

So stop trying to force trans people into boxes!