Let Kids Be Kids

'Trans children': the latest incarnation of homophobia

I once had a very flamboyant coworker who loved to tell people:

You hear this kind of thing from gay men and lesbians all the time—that they ‘always knew’ they were gay. These people aren’t exactly lying; they’re just misremembering the past. What they mean to say is that looking back with hindsight, they can see signs in their childhood that they were headed in the direction of being a gay adult.

But no one can say they were a 'gay kid’, because there is no such thing as a ‘gay kid’, any more than there are ‘heterosexual kids’. There are just children, who are not thinking about sex and sexuality—and shouldn’t be. Children do not experience romantic or sexual attraction. They’re just children. 

No one ever asks straight people “When did you first know you were straight?” If we did, the answer would likely be “I always was!” accompanied by a puzzled expression. Because heterosexual is accepted as the default. But this is not exactly true either. To repeat: children do not experience romantic or sexual attraction. Straight people ‘realize’ they are straight the same way gay people realize they are gay: when they are of age to start experiencing such attraction.

When people talk about ‘gay kids’, what they are really saying is they are noticing boys exhibiting behavior that is stereotypically associated with girls, and girls exhibiting behavior stereotypically associated with boys. We call this ‘gender-nonconforming behavior’. Gender-nonconforming behavior often (but not always) predicts homosexuality in the child’s future as an adult. 

Lately, adults have been noticing gender-nonconformity in children and declaring them ‘trans kids’. 

But there are no such thing as ‘trans kids’ either. Again, they are children. Children are constantly learning about the world and themselves. They play, imagine, and experiment with new ideas constantly. Some ideas stick around for a while; some fade away. Kids’ interests and behavior could be passing fancies, and sometimes they could be clues to their future personalities as adults. But there are no ‘sure things’.

The idea of allowing kids to be ‘their true selves’ is itself a misguided and misconceived concept. Because children are a work in progress.

The current trend of gender identity ideology tells children their bodies don’t matter and that they can choose their gender. Most adults cannot explain the distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, so how can we expect children to know the difference?

So a boy who likes ‘girl things’ decides he IS a girl. BECAUSE HE WAS TOLD THIS IS POSSIBLE. A girl who likes ‘boy things’ decides she IS a boy. BECAUSE SHE WAS TOLD THIS IS POSSIBLE.

…the adults exclaim, armed with this new ‘evidence’, proudly embracing their child’s new ‘identity’. 

But as previously noted, children do not experience sexual attraction. So a gender-nonconforming child cannot explain to adults:

Children do not have this wisdom and foresight. 

But adults should.

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If you witness a gender-nonconforming child and it is easier/preferable/more reassuring for you to say ‘clearly this girl was born in the wrong body! She’s really a boy inside!’ than to believe she will someday grow up to be a lesbian, you are probably homophobic. 

And if you believe it is better to give a child life-altering drugs and send her on a pathway to body modification surgeries to ‘change’ her from a girl to a ‘boy’ RATHER THAN letting her grow up and figure out slowly—as we all did—who she is,  you are definitely homophobic.

[A note on the comics: This is literally the first time I’ve drawn anything in YEARS! I attempted to use my iPencil/iPad to draw but it just didn’t feel natural. So I drew and lettered by hand, like in the ol’ days, and then used ibisPaint X to add color. You can see all my super-gay comic strips from the early 2000’s here.]