I have seen so many videos relating to TG folks but this one really touch me, I cried, for the kid, and for you and me.... for those who did not have supporting parents....

enjoy !

I wish I had had parents like Ryland's....

I was just reading an article about them on Yahoo News. 

Then I accidentally saw some incredibly disgusting and hateful comments at the end.  I sincerely hope that was not a representative sample of humanity.

I have a bad habit of reading those kinds of comments. I wish I didn't. There seems to be a deep hatred for trans kids parents in some circles. OTOH, with 4 million views (which I doubt is actually the true number), most people are not watching and sharing because it's so terrible. I doubt something goes that seriously viral for that sort of reason.


--Jay

It's great that this story is getting such exposure.

Though I'm troubled by the claim that "most children realize their true gender between 3 to 5 years of age". I question that statistic. It came without citation and furthers the misconception that transgender people know from a very young age. This makes it hard to be taken seriously for the large number of trans people who discover their gender later in life.

Quote from: suzifrommd on June 03, 2014, 07:03:52 AM
It's great that this story is getting such exposure.

Though I'm troubled by the claim that "most children realize their true gender between 3 to 5 years of age". I question that statistic. It came without citation and furthers the misconception that transgender people know from a very young age. This makes it hard to be taken seriously for the large number of trans people who discover their gender later in life.

Yes, I agree Suzi, but I think the video is REALLY geared to trans kids. THe big problem there is that parents etc so, so and so is too young to know this.

--Jay

I do think most kids know their gender young.  I also think that for others, they know but dont' really think about it. I've heard of many trans people finding the big uh oh when puberty hit and it wasn't the puberty they envisioned, like they thought it would all sort out later and found out they were wrong.  I knew I was male, but society said I was just a tomboy.  I'm not stupid and could see my parts matched my sisters and not the boy I saw when I was age 4 and realized hey, I'm different than that boy! I really didn't think about it too much; I just thought I was weird for thinking I was a boy, wishing I was a boy, etc.  I was mad they wouldn't let me into the boy scouts, who were doing far cooler things than whatever-the-crap was we were doing in girl scouts.  I did NOT fit in there.  I stuffed my pants; I used the boys/mens room if I knew I wouldnt' get caught, etc.  But even if I screamed I was a boy at the top of my lungs, my parents wouldn't have listened; this was the 60s and I was a tomboy, period, end of discussion.  I do think others fall in the grayer zone and don't quite figure it out until later.  Heck, I didn't realize what I'd felt all along had a name and a cure!  And it can be confusing as heck. Ryland seems precocious; I see a lot of my son in him and if my son had been trans, I could see him declaring it loudly and frequently until I got the message that he was not who I thought he was.

While the parent in me and the stealth me cringes a little that he is out for the world to see on the internet and can now never be stealth, it also serves to show the world that trans people aren't just adults who decide on a whim to become the opposite gender, and all of the mean slurs they throw at trans women specifically; that it has nothing to do with sex or perversion, but is innate and EVEN CHILDREN can be diagnosed with it.

I sent the family an email in support. The hate comments on Yahoo at least have been disabled.

I think the "out to the world" thing was accidental. The video was shown at the Harvey Milk Diversity breakfast, which in the LGBT world seems like a small event (compared to say Philly Trans Health or Gender Odyssey). The parents and Ryland made a brief statement (Ryland's is a the very end). People talked them into putting the video on youtube and two days later it had 350,000 hits (now close to 5,000,000). I think the family wanted to "come out" with their story, but had no idea how out that was!

I agree with Suzi in that I don't think there is a single trans narrative, but it is true that *some* people do know their gender in early childhood. While others don't really know, perhaps don't think about it til much later, even into adulthood. In my own case, I did know. But then again I didn't do anything til (much) later. But as I said, I think the idea was to help other parents. I think it's important, because now people do know it is possible to be a "trans kid". We have so many kids locally we actually have a play group for them. The kids play and the parents can talk. The kids are doing stuff like coming out to their 4th grade classes, getting accepted into the correct gender sports, and using the restroom. AFAIK, life is still going on.

--Jay