True Tea: Your questions, my brutal honesty.
Hey guys, it’s Kat, and it’s time for your daily dose of True Tea. Today I am drinking, once again, lemonade and iced tea by Golden Peak, an amazing, classy brand that’s extremely expensive and that I am positive you could not afford, darling.
Anyways, let me know what’s in your mug in the comment box below, and let’s just jump right into today’s question: “Kat, when and how should parents initiate conversations concerning transgender issues with their children? Thank you, Sara.”
So, I like this question because it’s one that I’m going to be answering very organically because it’s something I think about every so often, and this is going to be my most organic answer ever.
First of all, I want to say that I think that a lot of times we have a tendency to, as a society, shelter children a little bit too much.
What I mean by that is a lot of times we will say things like, “Oh, they’re not ready. They’re not ready, they can’t possibly understand.” But children are very, very observant. Children are amazing. Children are so honest.
I wrote a children’s theater play in high school, and kids will let you know what they liked and what they don’t like. They are so honest, and they are so brutal, and sometimes it hurts.
But it’s great because they’re young and they have that degree of honesty that I think a lot of adults, we learn not to have anymore. So I want to start it with that because I think that a lot of times when it comes to gender, people don’t realize that as adults, we impose these ideas about gender onto children.
I remember when I was a child, very, very young. I used to go to private Christian school. Me, a private school girl (laughs). I used to go to private Christian school, and I remember, I have this distinct memory of when we would play tag, it was boys against girls all the time. Boys against girls, boys against girls, and I was always on the girls team. Always. I think that they understood that I wasn’t like them, but at the same time, they knew that something about me said that I was like them.
I remember a girl being like, “You’re basically a girl, so you can be on my team.” I feel like children understand these things in a lot of ways a little bit better than adults do. I think that kids are a little bit more open to things than we realize.
And so, while I don’t have kids – I do children’s media, but I don’t have kids – I feel like you shouldn’t necessarily feel afraid to discuss these things. I don’t feel like you should because trans people exist. I can tell you right now that there’s so much more trans visibility now than ever. We’ve always been around, but there’s so much of it now.
I know so many people from my high school that have transitioned, which is really fascinating to me because I was “The Trans Person” from my school, but now there’s like three or four.
I know that in ten years it’s going to be so much more, so I feel like educating your children young is a good idea. If anything, to help de-program some of the more harmful aspects and ideas about gender roles.
I’ve always been a huge fan of gender-neutral parenting, allowing your kid to basically say, “This is how I want to feel today. This is how I want to do. This is what I want to wear,” and allowing them to do it.
Of course, you don’t want your kid to be harassed, but I think, personally, slapping your kid’s hand all the time and telling them “No, no, no, no, no” can have an effect that I know you don’t intend on them having, but it can have a really negative effect. I know, for me personally, I was affected by that and still resent my parents to this day because of it.
I feel that’s basically what I have to say. Give kids more credit than we give them. I think the kids deserve a lot more credit than we give them.
I’m not a parent so I almost feel like I can’t necessarily answer, but my general answer is I don’t think it’s too young. I think the kids are going to be more aware about this and you’re probably going to be shocked about how aware they are of these things.
Also, children are so smart today, they have so much more access to information than I did when I was a kid. Kids are smart. Either they’re going to learn it on their own or you’re going to teach them. You can decide which one.
On that note, I think that’s my True Tea for the day. If you like this mug, you can get this mug and so much more in my Society6 store. The link is always in the description box below.
If you guys want my True Tea, feel free to send me an e-mail to [email protected]. You can also send a short, but concise video to me as well, and I will put it in the video.
Anywho, on that note, as usual, always remember and never forget that you are beautiful and you are loved. Bye.
If you like this video, support me on Patreon to get access to exclusive blogs.
