Pink Morning

"The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." -John Milton


Today I came across a fascinating, heartbreaking article on the NPR website. It profiles two young boys dealing with gender identity issues and the brave, well-intentioned set of parents trying to make sense of it all. One of the boys is under the care of a psychologist, Dr. Ken Zucker, who views transgenderism as a disorder that needs simple "correcting". The other boy is treated by psychologist and gender expert Diane Ehrensaft, who looks at the issue as a non-issue: her client suffers from no disorder, thereby making any effort to change him a moot point. Her theory, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is to just let the kid be a kid. Give him freedom to experiment and explore and live and learn. Trying to brainwash and control his very feelings is dangerous and very, very wrong.

Sadly, this brainwash and control is something Dr. Zucker advocates. He advises his patient's parents to control everything, everything, the boy comes in contact with. His theory, so flawed and damaging I would call it abusive, is to surround the kid with only "boy things". The most heartbreaking part of the story for me was when the mother noted that her child has learned to lead "a double life....I'm still quite certain he is with the girls all the time at school, and so he knows to behave one way at school, and then when he comes home, there's a different set of expectations." The poor kid is also terrorized now by the color pink. Just glimpsing the color can set off his natural rage at having to stifle who he really is.

For all our attempts to define ourselves a "civilized people", it's cases like this that prove we're far from it. While Ehrensaft's patient has thrived, Zucker's has grown withdrawn and depressed. What the world is telling him, in a blatant, cold-hearted manner, is that it's not OK to be who you are. Conform, conform, conform. Bend yourself to the will, comfort levels, and expectations of those around you. You have a disorder. And it's all your fault.

Man, this child's parents should immediately start looking for second jobs and take a loan out against their house, because they're going to need the cashola for therapy bills. While the other kid grows up to be a happy, healthy, well-adjusted, self-assured human being (male, female, or whatever route he should choose to take), theirs will be so entrenched in keeping straight the personae of his double life that he won't have time to even THINK about happiness.

All this led me to examine my own childhood, and my own preferences in colors, toys, and clothes. It should come as no surprise that I was mesmerized by high heels, nail polish, and the glamorous divas of the ABC soaps. But I equally loved riding my Big Wheel, digging in the dirt, and having snowball fights. The pastimes I relished most, however, were truly genderless. The bulk of my childhood was spent playing with stuffed animals (yes, a lot of little boys do this), reading, writing stories, and coloring. Above all else, though, I loved acting. Falling into the most outlandish reaches of my imagination, I would play-act and pantomime all sorts of scenes and characters, and I loved every minute of it. I never liked pink or any Easter-y pastel colors; in fact, I never gave a lot of thought to any colors and was always hard-pressed to pick a favorite when asked. I never wanted to wear an evening gown and was just fine with my dungarees. If my parents handed me a baseball bat, I would've reacted with the same disinterest had they handed me a Barbie purse.

But I, of course, was not born with transgenderism. There was balance in the boy- and girl-stuff in which I was interested. My parents had the great good sense to let me explore and enjoy my childhood. Though I've no doubt they hoped for a butch little bruiser of a kid who was an ace baseball player and star of the football team, they didn't say much to divert me from the less gender-defined things to which I gravitated. Sure, they discouraged some of them at first (how many 7-year-olds know all the actors' names on "One Life to Live"?), but in the end, they just let it be. And that was a tremendous gift.

My only hope is that Dr. Zucker's patient receives this same gift. I hope his parents, after hearing their story on NPR, are inspired to objectively investigate what the so-called "treatment" is doing to their child. Would they rather have a depressed, suicidal kid than a vibrantly alive one -- just because he might happen to prefer diamonds to dirt-bikes? There is nothing wrong with their child. The only thing wrong or unnatural or immoral is a society that forces him -- or any of us -- to be something we are not.