During a visit to lobby legislators on transgender issues, Senator Carden Summers ® knelt down and told a child he would protect her. When he learned she was trans, he backed away.
On Feb. 6, a group of families met to lobby senators on issues affecting the local transgender community in Georgia. One mother, Lena Kotler, decided to take her two children with her to give the topic a human face. While waiting to meet with Democratic Sen. Kim Jackson, who they had heard was a big supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, another senator passed by — Republican Sen. Carden Summers, the primary sponsor of the state’s bathroom ban bill. Little did he know that one of the children he would be interacting with, Aleix, 8 years old, was a transgender child.
According to Kotler and other families who were present, the senator stopped to say hello. That’s when Kotler spoke to Senator Summers about how she was there with her kids to “talk to legislators about keeping her kids safe.” Although she did not mention that one of her children was trans, they were present with LGBTQ+ signage - something the Senator apparently missed when he knelt down in front of Aleix and said, according to Kotler, “Well you know, we’re working on that and I’m going to protect kids like you.”
Kotler then replied, “Yeah - Alex is trans, and she wants to be safe at school, she wants to go to the bathroom and be safe.”
That is when, according to multiple witnesses, Sen. Summers stood up and fumbled his words, repeating, “I mean, yeah, I’m going to make sure she’s safe by going to the right bathroom,” continuing to use the correct pronouns for Aleix. When asked if he would make her go to a boy’s bathroom, he then allegedly backed away, saying, “You’re attacking me,” turned around, and walked off quickly.
Well, in some sense they know what they are supposed to be correlated with their physiology, but “gender identity” is a bit much, and it would be a mistake for someone to close the door on that question so early in life. Now I understand “but we use gendeered pronouns on 5 year olds, so obviously it’s not open ended”, and it’s not ideal that there is a default, but ultimately, that kid is way too young to commit to that position. There’s a whole lot of mental and physical development coming their way and they should be encouraged to keep an open mind, either way.
Once again, I will point out that people only have these concerns when somebody is trans, not when they’re cis.
Also, do you think that a parent who is accepting of their kid being trans is going to be intolerant if the kid changes their mind? Of course not. No one is locking this kid into their gender identity; that’s the entire frickin’ point of the trans movement.
Your ‘concerns’ are either extremely misguided or a shield for transphobia, so you should probably knock it off.
But aren’t some people concerned about folks oppressively pushing cisgender on their kids? Rightfully so, too.
I don’t think the parents would be intolerant, I’m saying an eight year old may not have the maturity to recoginze, particularly if the parents made a huge production it of backing their coming out. For the same reason an 8 year old might be uncomfortable admitting they are trans, they may be uncomfortable after declaring trans to walk that back. Hell, I knew people who only felt comfortable admitting that wasn’t their life after all choice until college, because they were afraid of losing the social dynamic they constructed by walking back such a huge thing. I also knew people who clinged hard to “normal” until later, so it cuts both ways. My goal as a parent has been to make it clear that I will be supportive, but either choice should be “boring” and subject to change. Saying that to a currently cisgender child can change their mind and declare trans is likely considered progressive, but to make it clear that a trans person can change their mind would be transphobic.
There’s no easy answer, I think so much of the world is pointlessly gendered (interests and activities that are arbitrarily divided by apparent happenstance of genitals). I wish it wasn’t the core of identity, that something as stupidly fundamental as pronouns didn’t have to be decided based on acceptance or rejection of your default physiology.
Now… I am trans so this is my supposition and based on my discussions to cis people about the cis experience but I think there’s somethings that we actually assume about cis people.
While some cis people seem to have a very solid gender identity that is in line with the tran experience of gender euphoria that seems actually kind of rare. I think a majority of cisness is actually defined by a lack of strong feelings about their body and their experience of gender. Their assumption of gender is simply the path of least resistance. Their experimentation when they have it is out of curiosity but it doesn’t really resonate.
Do you think you would be upset at a foundational level if you woke up tomorrow in the body of the opposite sex and everyone had always known you as that way? Aside from maybe an uncomfortable adjustment of role and some interest in experiencing something different would you think that you would be terribly bothered? These sentiments can sometimes be construed as being a non-binary sort of thing - but the more I discuss the topic intimately with cis people to try and understand their experience the more that feels like the difference and particular advantage being cis represents. If you do not experience the pull and certainty of euphoria or dysphoria informing your cultural and biological needs that could be because what defines the majority of cis people is a fluidity and adaptability because of a near complete lack of preference rather than a preference that specifically matches a sex phenotype. Meanwhile transness can almost be defined as a surplus and rigidity of preference so we find ourselves trying to explain something like why we can’t easily force ourselves to choke down food we detest to someone who maybe doesn’t even experience taste.
A trans gender identity isn’t exactly always subtly experienced. A correct gendering when you don’t expect it might literally make your week. Disgust at your own body can make you run past the bathroom mirror so you don’t have to look. It’s not so much an “keep an open mind” kind of deal. You get a pack of stimuli like something entirely independent has a shock and reward system hardwired into your brain and you don’t really control how you feel about it. When you talk about worrying about fluidity I think you are kind of concerned from the cis standpoint where being nebulous in gender is quite natural. From a trans community perspective we know we are on a journey where we are essentially learning the nature of the internal reward system. Our genders are reflections of that and we generally want to ditch whatever isn’t working and update our coping mechanisms to account for changes or if we realize we didn’t actually fully understand the exact nature of the trigger that was setting us off and can change our tactics accordingly to maximize functionality and happiness.
To further the parable a kid might after years of hating olives so much they spit them out whenever they eat them decide to try them again to see if their tastes have changed… but it’s not on parents to keep putting olives on the kids plate for them to “keep options open” when the kid can basically decide at any point to just reach across a the table and get their own olives if they want them. Maybe the kid knows they don’t like olives because whenever they accidentally eat one it still tastes bad.
If someone keeps trying to hand you something you know you don’t like and you keep having to passively or actively reject it… it can be really annoying and you generally stop wanting to be around that person.