Keywords:
allies, parenting, safe space
allies, parenting, safe space
*When Tara contacted Dawn to ask her if she approved of the way Tara used her words in a chapter in Tara’s book, Teaching Gender and Sexuality at School, out in early 2019, Dawn gave Tara an update of how her family was doing. Since her interview in November 2016, Dawn has gained full custody of her children. Her daughters have switched schools, and the new school accepts her younger daughter as trans. Dawn says it was a non-issue for the school. Dawn’s younger daughter uses her chosen name and the girls' washroom at school. None of the other children know she’s trans. Overall, Dawn says, school is a much safer place now for both her daughters.
Transcript
Dawn: I’m not trying to speak for the experience of trans people either. This is through my observation of being an ally to my child, which is probably the closest you can get to experiencing something yourself. But it’s not, I’m not, I don’t identify as trans, so I can’t say that this is the way it is for all trans people. I’m just talking about what I’ve observed in my kid.
And I think that’s the biggest complaint that I have about the school, like the school just keeps saying “Oh your kids are fine. They’re happy at school.” And if I try to say that they’re actually not, there’s a lot of things, they have anxiety, they’re worried about this, there’s this bullying. And the school is just like everything is fine. And I’m like, but if you want to see that everything’s fine, that’s what you’re going to see, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is, that everything always is fine. There has to be a deeper level sometimes. People are only going to show things when they feel safe. I guess that’s pretty much... you have to be the one that makes the safe space, not them. It’s not the child’s responsibility to educate the adults on what is needed to make this space safe. The adults have to do that work themselves, because the kids don’t have a choice. They don’t have a choice about which parent they’re living with, they don’t have a choice about going to school, they don’t have really a choice about which health professionals they’re going to see, so the adults have to take the responsibility for doing the work, and not make the kids be the educator. Your trans child shouldn’t be explaining to an adult what being trans is. That’s why we have Google, and the internet and books. It’s not that hard to read some stuff. Like let the kids be them, let them be kids.
Transcript
Dawn: I’m not trying to speak for the experience of trans people either. This is through my observation of being an ally to my child, which is probably the closest you can get to experiencing something yourself. But it’s not, I’m not, I don’t identify as trans, so I can’t say that this is the way it is for all trans people. I’m just talking about what I’ve observed in my kid.
And I think that’s the biggest complaint that I have about the school, like the school just keeps saying “Oh your kids are fine. They’re happy at school.” And if I try to say that they’re actually not, there’s a lot of things, they have anxiety, they’re worried about this, there’s this bullying. And the school is just like everything is fine. And I’m like, but if you want to see that everything’s fine, that’s what you’re going to see, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is, that everything always is fine. There has to be a deeper level sometimes. People are only going to show things when they feel safe. I guess that’s pretty much... you have to be the one that makes the safe space, not them. It’s not the child’s responsibility to educate the adults on what is needed to make this space safe. The adults have to do that work themselves, because the kids don’t have a choice. They don’t have a choice about which parent they’re living with, they don’t have a choice about going to school, they don’t have really a choice about which health professionals they’re going to see, so the adults have to take the responsibility for doing the work, and not make the kids be the educator. Your trans child shouldn’t be explaining to an adult what being trans is. That’s why we have Google, and the internet and books. It’s not that hard to read some stuff. Like let the kids be them, let them be kids.