We recently disseminated the circular of the director of a school asking families to clothe a primary school boy who "as of Monday would be a girl". In this case it is the parents of a Biscayan girl who have decided to take a big step to accompany your five year old daughter who does not feel identified with the sex she was born with.
They wrote a letter to the other parents of the school their daughter attends telling his story, asking for respect and being called from now on by the name he has chosen and not by the one they recognize, they assigned him by mistake. Child transsexuality still has many prejudices, so the support of the child's family and the closest environment such as school is key to contributing to the acceptance of transgender children.
The parents start the letter like this:
"We write to you and you because our daughter, whom you know, is a companion of your son or daughter. No, we have not confused: the girl. We were wrong in his day, five years and a month ago, when we thought he was a boy, we named him Jon (fictitious name) and we transferred his brother's clothes, and not his sister's ...
They continue explaining that they knew from an early age, practically since the girl began to speak: “Despite being born with a penis, his first sentence was“ ni neska naiz ”(I am a girl).
"We would not know exactly when, if a year, a year and a half or two years, but very soon we saw, knew and understood that our son, as we called him then (and as we have been calling him until a few days ago), was a girl. A girl with a penis, it's true. Neither the first nor the last. But a girl. "
And they continue to express that she has guided them and that they they have simply accompanied her naturally and creating a space where he felt safe:
"How could we not be mistaken if we assign his sex only by looking at his genitals!""She has marked the times. Her times. She has decided what to do in each moment. We have limited ourselves to accompany her, to clothe her ...
At first, she only manifested as a girl when she felt protected, in comfort spaces (our house, her grandparents' house ... or on vacation, where nobody knew if she was a boy, a girl, from Zornotza or from Sevastopol ...).
The next step led her to dress as what she feels and as what she is, a girl, on those occasions when she, an observer, had detected that people dressed in a way ... special ...
If we had met this August, you would have seen our daughter in an orange bikini, a white dress or a pink skirt. What we want to explain with these examples is that automatically became a girl at the precise moment she felt safe from 'what will they say', as soon as she felt accompanied by people who already knew her' secret '.
A "decision you have taken freely and happily"
They ask the rest of the parents of the ikastola (school) attended by her daughter to respect the girl's decision and to be treated as what it is, a girl. With this they pretend that the parents speak with their respective children to create a climate of tolerance and respect towards their companion.
"We are not in a position to demand anything from you, let alone in what concerns the education of your sons and daughters. Nor do we ask for understanding, although we would lie if we said we would not be grateful. Yes we dare to encourage you to respect the decision that he has freely and happily adopted since, from now on, call him by his name, and treat him as what he is and what he wants to be, a normal and happy person. "
Parents who have done nothing but support their daughter with sensitivity in a process that should not be easy. I think they are a great example of courage, both they and their daughter, and that gestures like this contribute to raise awareness about child transsexuality. Soon letters may not be needed to ask for the understanding of others.
Transsexuality in young children
What most attracts attention in these cases is the age so early at which the first signs of transsexuality begin to occur.
According to Juana Martínez Tudela, a specialist in Clinical Psychology of the Gender Identity Unit of the Carlos Haya Hospital in Malaga, behaviors and manifestations may appear at five years of age or even earlier. Some experts indicate that signals can appear at two or three years, since it is the age at which they begin to develop their sexual identity.
