Transgender Children

[Shana A]

Blake Owen Middleton, Jr.
Transgender teen

Transgender Children
Posted: 01/27/2012 4:41 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-owen-middleton-jr/transgender-children_b_1237143.html

This week I would like to tell you about a movie I watched at the Berkshire Museum that has to do with confusion about ones gender. It is a French independent film called Tomboy. It is about a 10-year-old who moves to a new town and begins presenting as a boy named Mikael. He meets a lot of new friends and a girl who is interested in him. But once Mikael's mother discovers what he's been doing, she tells his friends and they start to bully him.

Throughout the movie, it is unclear whether Mikael/Laure is a transgender boy or just a girl who is androgynous or confused about gender. But either way, it made me feel very sad to see the way Mikael's former friends treated him once they found out his secret. It reminded me very much of another transgender film called Boys Don't Cry. But unlike Brandon Teena, a real life young adult transman, Mikael was just a little kid. Although he was a fictional character, I felt a deep sympathy for him.