Iowa mom advocates for son who loves tutus
Editor's note: The Des Moines Register generally does not use unnamed sources in stories. However, we have withheld or changed some names in this story to help shield them from harassment.
The 5-year-old boy prefers his hair long, his fingernails polished and his closet full of skirts and dresses. He has been more feminine than masculine for as long as his mother can remember, gravitating to princesses and American Girl merchandise rather than princes and toy soldiers.
Tom doesn't mind being mistaken for a girl. In fact, he has asked his mother, Patricia Smith, if he can be one when he grows up. She said yes, but doesn't know what that will mean — if it will involve a sex change operation or living as a transgender person. All she knows is that she will, with his doctor's backing, support her son to express his identity as he experiences it — not force him to squeeze into a box he doesn't fit.
Tom is a gender-nonconforming child in a generally gender-conforming society. "When he needs new clothes, we go to the girls' aisle," said Smith, who has a background in child development and works as a family navigator for special-needs children.
Iowa civil rights law prevents discrimination based on gender identity — defined as "a gender-related identity of a person, regardless of the person's assigned sex at birth" in educational institutions (excluding religious institutions). The Iowa Safe Schools Law also requires schools to have policies against harassment and bullying of students by school employees and other students.
Research finds that a person's gender identity results from a combination of factors, including biology. The website GenderSpectrum.org says "pathologies" associated with a child's gender "diversity" most often result from negative reactions by others rather than from within the child.
The first time Tom wore a tutu to his preschool, he got teased. Kids asked if he was a boy or a girl. He came home sad, so Smith spoke to his teacher, Jordan Nedved, at Charlie Brown's Daycare and Preschool in Mason City. This was Nedved's first experience with a gender-nonconforming child, so she researched how other families have handled it. Nedved concluded, "It really can be harmful if you tell the kids, 'You can't do that, you can't express yourself.' They really did know from an early age."
Nedved read her class a children's book called "Jacob's New Dress," which Smith had brought in, and engaged them in conversation about wearing the clothes that feel comfortable to them. She explained that she and some other teachers like wearing pants, though at one time those were considered men's clothes. Since then, she says the other kids have been fine and Tom seems happy and is interacting well.
But not everyone has been on board with the approach. A private speech therapist who had been working with Tom on his speech delays and pronunciation told his mother that Tom's female attributes were getting in the way of his speech. She also said if he wasn't required to be "more masculine," he'd be made fun of growing up. She suggested they cut his hair, take away his "girl" toys and tell him to "talk like a big boy."
Smith told the speech therapist she could use "boy" toys with Tom at speech sessions if that helped, but the therapist insisted everyone at his child care and elsewhere needed to "reinforce the masculine side of him."
"She additionally had me speak with an occupational therapist within this company," said Smith, "who went on to tell me my son is the way he is because I did not give him clear boundaries as he has grown up."
Smith found a different speech therapist. "I think she was working off her own agenda," she said of the first. As for her son being made fun of, she says, "It's something that he's going to have to deal with, but every child seems to have to deal with some bullying. As long as we're proactive and get the school on board, we're OK."
The Iowa Senate this week passed a bill that would, if signed into law, prevent mental health professionals from trying to convert gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people on the assumption their sexual orientation or gender identity were a choice. Its passage could protect people like Tom, who clearly didn't choose his gender identity, from falling into the hands of practitioners fraudulently claiming they can make him more masculine. But the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-dominated House.
As a parent, Smith already had some of the tools to understand how best to work with her child. "I knew better than to accept what they (the therapists) were suggesting for my son," she says. "But it worries me there are families out there who are told these things and have no idea how detrimental these changes could be for their child." So she's trying to start a monthly support group to help parents understand their gender-nonconforming children. (For information, email: Littlerainbowsiowa@gmail.com)
Iowa rates "good" overall for transgender rights while New York, by contrast, got a bad rating from the National Center for Lesbian Rights. That's a credit to the Iowa lawmakers who have passed the proper protections, and the activists and educators who have guided them. But laws are just the first step. There is still work to be done to ensure our schools and other institutions don't unwittingly harm children like Tom in their most impressionable years, but embrace and support them to be who they are.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa mom advocates for son who loves tutus
