WORKSHOP 4: GENDER IDENTITY

A Word to the FacilitatorsGender identity is so deeply ingrained into the way people in our culture understand themselves, their friends and family that they are often unaware of the depth of their assumptions about gender. This workshop is designed to invite conversation and introspection first into participants’ understanding of their own gender, and then into their assumptions as well as the explicit and implicit values they teach their children about gender.

Expect participants to exhibit a range of understanding around gender, from seeing gender as a simple dichotomy to being comfortable with a range of gender identities. Whether or not parents have children who identify as transgender or transsexual, everyone has a gender identity and lives in a highly gendered culture. Parents play a critical role in guiding children and teenagers to a place of thoughtful critique and understanding of gender issues and acceptance of the gender diversity. Regardless of the depth of the participants’ grasp of these issues as they enter the workshop, the activities and discussion questions will foster greater understanding and improved ability to discuss these topics with their children..

Goals To understand the cultural and biological issues at play in gender identity and

gender expression, and the cultural assumptions about biological sex. To feel comfortable integrating these topics into conversations with their

teenagers.

Learning ObjectivesAfter completing this session, participants will be able to:

Define gender roles, assignment, and identity. Identify the ways that gender is influenced by biology and culture. Introduce and engage in conversation with their youth on these issues. Increased understanding of the importance of accepting their teens regardless of

their expressed gender or gender identity.

Recommended Multimedia Resources http://www.uua.org/lgbtq/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRcPXtqdKjE (TEDx Talk Understanding

the Complexities of Gender with Sam Killermann) https://www.genderspectrum.org/ (Particularly the section on parenting

considerations: https://www.genderspectrum.org/child-family/parenting)

Workshop at a GlanceReentry (5 minutes)Putting it in context (15 minutes)

From the youth (20 minutes)Genderbread Parenting (35 minutes)In real life (10 minutes)Wrap-up (5 minutes)

WORKSHOP PLAN

Reentry (5 minutes)Until all participants are familiar with everyone’s name, ask participants to say their names and then complete the following sentence prompt:

“I identify my gender as ________, and I prefer the pronoun ________.”

Opening reading: TBD

Putting it in context (15 minutes)

Materials for Activity Newsprint Markers

Preparation for Activity Write the following at the top of two pieces of newsprint, leaving room for

brainstorming beneath the definitions:o Gender: a psychological aspect of a person’s understanding of themselves

and other people. It is often derived from societal expectations about the characteristics of people of specific genders.

o Sex: a biological aspect of a person’s body and is generally assigned at birth.

Hang the newsprint on the wall

Description of Activity

Tell the participants that today you will be talking about gender identity. As a starting point, it is important to understand the difference between gender and sex. Direct their attention to the newsprint and read the definitions of gender and sex.

Ask participants to brainstorm examples of gender and then brainstorm examples of sex. Correct examples of gender include clothing, hairstyles, jobs, hobbies, the gender of their friend groups, etc. All of these should be choices or actions that people make or do. Correct examples of sex include chromosomes, genitalia, hormonal balance, breasts, depth of voice etc. All of these should be biological aspects of a person’s body. If a participant offers an example that belongs in the other category, note that verbally, write it on the correct newsprint, and continue with the activity.

After the brainstorming session, note that two additional words will be important to this workshop: transgender, which refers to a person whose gender identity is not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth, and cisgender, which refers to a person whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. These concepts can be confusing to people learning about them for the first time, so spend some time talking about them if participants have questions.

Ask if anyone knows of examples of transgender people or characters in the media. Current examples as of the writing of this curriculum include the actress Laverne Cox, who plays a transwoman character on Orange Is The New Black, and Unique Adams, a transwoman character on Glee played by a cisgender actor named Alex Newell.

Mention to participants that just because someone feels like their gender doesn’t fit into the sex they were assigned at birth doesn’t mean that they identify as transgender. The author of the opening reading, for example, doesn’t feel strongly associated with either man or woman. Sometimes people who don’t identify strong as transgender or cisgender identify as gender queer or gender non-conforming, but not always. There are many ways that people identify their gender. The recommended multimedia resources provide an in-depth look at what gender means to many different people.

Lead a short discussion with the following questions: What might be some of the unique challenges that someone who is

transgender would face during adolescence? How might someone who identifies as gender queer or gender non-

conforming feel different from people who identify as both transgender and cisgender?

From the youth (20 minutes)

Materials for Activity Two copies of Leader Resource 4: From the Youth Reading

Below is a conversation that took place on the message boards on Scarleteen.com between a youth who was questioning their gender identity and the Scarleteen volunteers. The entire conversation is very long, so it’s been shortened here and explanatory text is included in italics. If you are interested in the entire conversation, you can see it here: http://www.scarleteen.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/25/t/000537.html

Tell the participants that you will be reading a longer piece this time, a conversation that took place on Scarleteen.com message boards. Explain that these message boards are moderated very closely by adult volunteers, and this conversation takes place over several days between a teenager and a series of adult volunteers (who have been

condensed into one voice for simplicity). Ask for one volunteer to read the teen or the Scarleteen volunteer part.

After the reading, point out to participants that the mother gave a very supportive response to her teen, saying she loved and was even proud of the teen for coming out. This is, in many ways, the best of the best for how parents can react to a youth coming out. Then lead a short discussion with the following questions:

Given the mother’s supportive response to her teen coming out, why do you think the teen continued to struggle to talk with their mother?

How do you think you would react if you asked your teen if they were engaging in physical harm or considering suicide and they did not answer?

What role do you think the Scarleteen volunteers played in this series of events?

Genderbread Parenting (35 minutes)

Materials for Activity Copies of Handout 3: The Genderbread Persons Newsprint Markers

Preparation for Activity Make copies of Handout 3: The Genderbread Persons. While the handouts are

included in color, they may be printed in black and white. If you print in black and white, use a brightly colored marker to go over the X’s on the continuums to make them more evident. The X’s on the diagrams indicate a potential person’s gender identity. Each example is unique and designed to encourage different responses from the participants.

Write the following questions on a piece of newsprint:o Do you think your teenager identifies primarily as a cisgender boy or a girl

or in another way, such as transgender or gender queer?o Given their gender identity, expression, biological sex, and sexual

orientation, what kind(s) of special parenting support might your teenager need?

o Is it easy or difficult for you to understand what it might feel like to be a teenager who identifies as transgender, gender queer, or gender non-conforming?

Draw the Genderbread Person on a sheet of newsprint (just the person and the words pointing to parts of the person, not the entire diagram) and hang it on the wall.

Description of Activity

Tell the participants that you will be continuing to discuss gender as it applies to parenting. Explain that a model of gender identity called the Genderbread Person allows people to specify how they identify their gender identity, gender expression, biological

sex, and sexual attraction. Using your drawing of the Genderbread Person, explain how the words on the graphic relate to your earlier conversation about gender and sex.

Ask participants to quickly list two to three personal attributes that fall into each of the categories listed on the graphic:

Gender identity (woman-ness and man-ness) Gender expression (masculine and feminine) Biological sex (female-ness and male-ness) Attracted to (men/males/masculinity and women/females/femininity)

Ask the participants to pair off, preferably with a participant who is not their co-parent. Give each set of participants one of the Genderbread Person examples. If you have more than four pairs, you may have some sets of parents using the same example. If you have an uneven number of participants, you may join one of them as part of a pair.

Tell the pairs to consider themselves co-parents of a fifteen year old who identifies in the ways described on their Genderbread Person handout. Ask them to consider and discuss the questions on the newsprint you prepared before the workshop.

After five to ten minutes, ask for one or two volunteer pairs to introduce their Genderbread teens and the answers they came to during their discussions. More pairs may share if you have time.

Lead a discussion with the following questions: How can you begin conversations about gender with your children? Why are those conversations important? How important is it for a parent to understand their children’s gender identity? Is gender a common point of conversation in your family? Why is it important to discuss gender even if everyone in a family appears to be

cisgender?

In real life (10 minutes)

Materials for Activity Newsprint (if brainstorming) Markers (if brainstorming) Copies of Leader Resource 5: Workshop 4 In Real Life (if using)

Preparation for Activity Prepare copies of the Script in Leader Resource 5: Workshop 4 In Real Life (if

using)

Description of ActivityParents will gain confidence in their conversational skills if they gradually move from brainstorming, to scripted role play, to improvisation over the course of the workshop

series. In this workshop, you may lead the group in brainstorming, as you have in earlier workshops, or you can use the script that follows.

Using the scripts allows two people to engage and interact with the scenarios rather than all participants interacting as a group. The scripted portions provide the first few interactions between the parent and the teens. They suggest words participants may find useful in beginning their conversations.

This activity could take up the majority of the session time, so be sure to let parents know you can’t let it run too long. The goal is for the participants to be able to engage in a few minutes of potential real-life conversations and increase their skill level every time you get together.

1. Select Scenario A, B, or C. They have increasing levels of intensity, so choose the one your participants appear to be prepared to discuss in a group.

a. Your 12 year-old daughter prefers to wear shorts and t-shirts and strongly dislikes anything that suggests femininity. Your family has a wedding coming up, and the invitation made it very clear that this would be a formal affair. Approach the issue with your daughter.

b. Your 13-year-old son has many friends who are girls. Your son's friends include him when they are painting their fingernails and toenails, but your son always removes the fingernail polish before he goes back to school. At the grocery store one day, he asks if you will buy him his own nail polish.

c. When your daughter was five, she wanted to be a fighter pilot when she grew up and wore a bomber jacket all the time. When she was twelve she told you that she was a lesbian. Your child is now fourteen and wants to use a male nickname and be referred to as "him." How do you respond to this request?

2. Present the scenario and let the participants know whether they will be brainstorming responses or working from the scripts. If brainstorming, proceed as in the prior workshops.

3. If working with the scripts, ask for two volunteers for the chosen scenario and give them their scripts. Ask them to begin the conversation with the scripts and then continue the conversation on their own. Let them know that the rest of the group can help them brainstorm how to continue the conversation past their scripts if they get stuck.

4. After the conversation has been allowed to continue for a few minutes, thank the volunteers and ask them to sit down.

Discuss with the following questions: What were ways that the conversation, as the volunteers engaged in it, supportive

of a healthy parent/child relationship? (Do not ask for critique of the volunteers’ conversation.)

Did the scenario and associated conversation feel realistic?

Wrap-up (5 minutes)

Invite participants to join hands in a circle and to consider and share the single most important take-away message they learned from today’s session.

Closing reading:Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

- by Kahlil Gibran*

* Permission pending

LEADER RESOURCE 4: FROM THE YOUTH READING

A Scarleteen.com user posted to their message boards that they wanted to tell their parents – and particularly their mother – that they were questioning their gender identity. They were worried, and said “I think one of my biggest concerns is suddenly I'm a big deal, and a point of attention. once they know they know and even if they don't say anything they will think things....even if they aren't judging me I will feel like they are....I don't know if I could live like that. and what if they disown me...or kick me out or something?”

The volunteers on Scarleteen offered the teenager support, acknowledging their feelings and encouraging them to consider possible hardships that coming out as transgender might bring, but also the benefits of being out. What follows are snipits of the conversation that came next:

Teen: So...um...I decided to email her.Because I got too scared she might try and text me back.And then I spent the rest of the day scared in my room.She came home and acts like nothing happened.But she kinda also acted like she wanted to talk to me.I have no idea if she saw it or not...I guess I'll know tomorrow

Teen: SHE SAW! "Don’t know if your phone is on but, I just wanted to say that what you sent me today was INCREDIBLY brave and to say the I love you! No MATTER WHAT!”I'm freaking out I guess it's good but...oh god...deep breathes

Scaleteen volunteer: That's a pretty positive response to get! I realize that sharing anything this huge and personal with someone, especially a parent, might feel really overwhelming right now, but I'm glad your mom was so supportive. =) 

Thanks for the update. And keep breathing!

Teen: I...don't really know what to do.This is so weird.I keep trying to avoid her, I don't want to look at her.

I think she is getting mad.I want to like...start making progress.But...I feel weird talking about this.I have been her "son" for so long... I don't know :/

Scarleteen volunteer: What are you afraid will happen if you stop avoiding her and start talking to her?

Teen: I don't know.It's just awkward

Scarleteen volunteer: I can understand how it would feel awkward.

I guess I'm just wondering if you expect something bad to happen.

You know, it isn't going to get any less awkward the longer you avoid her, and will probably feel more awkward if anything. Know what I mean?

The teenager and the volunteer continued talking, with the teenager unwilling to talk with their mother and the volunteer providing additional resources and support, particularly given the openness of the teenager’s mother. The teenager eventually reaches out to their mother again.

Teen: ....ok....we are texting now :/"how long have you felt this way""awhile""forever...weeks....months?""I don't know""a long time, or recently""both?...I don’t know""have you talked to anyone else""kinda""kinda who?""internet people""what internet people...how did you find them?""like....profesionals...health class""so tell me why you think you are""what?""what have you told the professionals"

*silence*"hello?"*silence*"have you tried to hurt yourself?""what?""why do you keep saying what?...have you tried cutting yourself or considered suicide?"

I haven't said anything since then

Scarleteen volunteer: How about you answer those last questions?

Teen: ....(sigh)I don't know what to sayI don't want to say anything This whole thing is making me feel awkward and weird and uncomfortable

Scarleteen volunteer: I can understand that, but what I'm hearing is that you have a parent who cares about you, and wants to know what's going on. That's very lucky for you, and also sounds like what you really need right now.

So, I'd advise to push through the discomfort you're feeling and take advantage of that caring parent. Not everyone has access to that kind of help, and it's great for you that you do when you obviously need it.

Teen: I don't know I'm kinda just waiting for her to say something But she keeps saying stuff I don't know how to respond to

The teen and the volunteer continue to talk, trying to work through some of the internal strife that the teen was feeling. The volunteer said: “It might help to bear in mind while you have probably known about your feelings for a while, they're probably brand new to her, right? If so, she's not likely to understand them or feel at home in them any more quickly than you have. In fact, since they aren't her own feelings, it's bound to take her far longer.” While the teen was able to acknowledge this, they still felt stuck and unable to reach out for help or even accept it when offered. In the end, the teen was able to access mental health services, but wasn’t able to be honest with their provider about their experiences.

HANDOUT 3: THE GENDERBREAD PERSONS

LEADER RESOURCE 5: WORKSHOP 4 IN REAL LIFE

Wedding Clothes Script

Parent: Do you remember that wedding we’re going to in two weeks?

Child: Yeah.

Parent: It’s going to be a formal wedding, so we will all need to dress up for it.

Child: I’m NOT wearing a dress.

Parent: Okay.

Child: I don’t care what you say. I’m not wearing a dress.

Parent: I’m fine with that. You don’t need to wear anything specific, but it does need to be formal.

Child: Not a skirt either.

Parent: Okay.

Child: So what else can I wear?

Parent: Well, you could wear a suit and a tie.

Child: Really?

Parent: Sure.

Child: Hm.

Parent: What do you think about that as a choice?

Child: I’m not sure.

Parent:

Child:

Nail Polish Script

Child: Will you buy me something?

Parent: Maybe. What is it?

Child: Nail polish. But I won’t wear it to school, I promise!

Parent: Why are you worried about wearing it to school?

Child: Other kids might not like it.

Parent: Is that why you always take it off before you go to school?

Child: Yeah.

Parent: I’m happy to buy you your own nail polish, whether you take it off before school or not.

Child: Really?

Parent: Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?

Child: Sometimes people don’t like it when boys wear nail polish.

Parent: But do you like it?

Child: I guess. It’s pretty.

Parent: I think so too.

Child:

Parent:

Coming Out Script

Child: Would you call me by a new nickname if I wanted you to?

Parent: It would depend on what it was. But probably. What sort of nickname would you like to be called by?

Child: I was thinking Mike.

Parent: Mike?

Child: Yes.

Parent: Why a boy’s name?

Child: I was also thinking that I want to be called him.

Parent: Wow.

Child: So will you do it?

Parent: Can you tell me why?

Child: I just feel more like a boy than a girl.

Parent: That’s a big change.

Child: Not for me. It’s how I’ve always felt.

Parent: Okay. It’s a big change for me.

Child: Can you do it anyway?

Parent: I can try. It would help me if I could discuss this with you. Is that okay?

Child: Yeah, but I’m not going to change my mind.

Parent: That’s fine. Can you tell me more about what it means that you’ve always felt more like a boy than a girl?

Child:

Parent: