Parenting | Transcript

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Marisol The SexEd Mum

I think the big problem is we got that link between sex education and the talk and parents waiting for the moment in which suddenly they're going to have a revelation that they have to have that talk.

Hannah Witton:

Did you ever get the talk from your parents?

Marcelle Kosman:

One of the ways that gender affirming care for kids gets stigmatized is by people saying that we are sexualizing our children from a young age. Children are sexual creatures, that's what human beings are.

Hannah Witton:

Why is gender affirming care and sex positive parenting so stigmatized by some?

Cory Silverberg:

Our kids are watching how we interact, the way we touch or don't touch, the way we talk about other people in relationships, the way we talk about how certain people might be dressed.

Hannah Witton:

How can we embody and express the sexual and relational values we want to pass on to our young people?

I'm Hannah Witton and this is Doing It. Over the course of this series, we're being unapologetically nerdy about sex, diving into some of the biggest taboos that impact our relationship with sex, our bodies, and the people in our lives. This is our final episode. So far, we've explored sex therapy, disability, capitalism, porn, and now we're talking sex positive parenting.

In my work as a sex educator over the years, I've been a huge advocate for comprehensive and inclusive sex and relationships education in schools. I believe all young people should have access to information about their bodies, emotions, relationships, and sex, as well as the tools and critical thinking skills to help them navigate the big, wide, wonderful, and sometimes scary world of having relationships with other people. And maybe having sex too. But schools aren't the only place where sex ed can occur.

One of the first and most influential places we learn about sex and relationships is at home. In 2022, I became a parent. And while at the time of recording this, my toddler is only 19 months old and so still too young to be asking any questions about sex, how I'm going to approach these subjects with him is something I think about - probably overthink about - a lot.

So I want to bring back a fellow overthinker. You might remember Frankie Cookney from the episode on money. She's a journalist and has a toddler similar age to mine as well as a six year old. So how is she approaching talking about sex with her kids?

Franki Cookney:

I have always really tried to be as honest as possible and obviously as age appropriate as possible. But when I say that, I think when people say age appropriate, sometimes it feels like a very big term, like you're doing something very nuanced, but it's really about simplifying. It's telling it to him in terms that he can actually understand. It's not about sort of diluting it, I guess, but I've always tried to be honest with him.

So I remember the very first time we sort of had a conversation about that was basically I was on my period and he'd come into the bathroom with me or after me as toddlers do. And he was like, “Oh mummy, why is there red in the toilet?”

So I kind of was like, all right, I'm going to just give this a shot. So I said, “Oh, well, you know, what happens is I have eggs inside me and every month one of those could become a baby. But if I don't want it to become a baby and I don't, have any use for it, then it just comes out of my body kind of in the toilet. And it does look a bit like blood because obviously it's coming out from my body.” But it was like a very simplified explanation. I remember at the time he was kind of like, “Okay.” so that felt fine.

Every now and again he'd sort of remember and ask me, he'd be like, “Oh, you know, like when you get an egg and then you don't want it to be a baby.” And I said, “Oh yeah, period.” And so then I explained that when you do want a baby, then that egg becomes the baby. Like it goes into the uterus and then it grows and that's where it grows. And I was really aware that I was missing out a very key part of that process. Because at that point we hadn't mentioned sperm, or where sperm comes from. So I was aware, like, I'm skipping over something. But then, of course, when he was four, I got pregnant with his sister. I got him a book, What Makes a Baby by Cory Silverberg.

Hannah Witton:

I promise you, that mention wasn't planned. We actually talked to Cory Silverberg in our disability episode, and they're a parent themselves as well as a sex educator. So I wanted to know, what is the role of the parents in sex ed?

Cory Silverberg:

The role of parents is huge because we are teaching our kids about sex all the time, just in the way we talk, the way we interact if we have a partner or a spouse. Our kids are watching how we interact, the way we touch or don't touch, the way we share space, the way we talk about other people in relationships, the way we talk about other things that have to do with sex, the way we talk about how certain people might be dressed, or how this celebrity looks like this. And our kids are learning all the time from us, and really we're the first ones that they're learning from. And they're learning - it is a different kind of learning because they're just absorbing it, and they're observing it. So it's absolutely our responsibility, but I think what I'm calling for is that we do it with a lot more humility than we usually do it.

So most of the sex educators that I was exposed to thought they were experts. I mean, that's such nonsense, right? To go into a room full of people and to think that you know more about what sex might mean to them than they know? It's not true. Young people don't have the language, they might not have the context, but they have their bodies, right? And they're the ones that have been living in their bodies their whole lives.

The way I do sex education is always about acknowledging the knowledge, and sometimes even wisdom, that young people have because they know stuff about their bodies. Every young person knows something about what feels good in their body, what feels bad in their body. They already know a little bit about their boundaries. They may have already been taught to ignore it, you know, by either parents of the world that says that kids don't have rights and they should, you know, only speak when they're being spoken to or however that works, but they know a lot. And that's where we need to start our conversations, right?

We don't need to start our conversations by saying, “You need to learn this thing.” Right? We need to start our conversations by like, “What is it you know? Tell me what you know. Tell me what you experience. And then let's talk about the things that I know and that I've learned that might be helpful for you in terms of context or language.”

A lot of sex education is like, we're going to teach kids about their bodies. We're going to teach, you know - as if teaching the word clitoris is teaching someone with a clitoris, what a clitoris is. Someone who has a clitoris probably knows. by the age of two or three, that there's a part of their body that feels different, right? And that for a lot of them, it feels good when it's touched, right? So they know, they just don't know what's called a clitoris. And, and the idea that what's most important there is the word: that's nonsense. It's actually the embodied knowledge.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

Every child will be very different, but like pre-toddlers - very, very common for them to touch their genitals. It feels good. And they don't have all those social conventions that they don't understand that they should not be doing those things in public.

Hannah Witton:

This is Marisol, aka the sex ed mum. She's, you guessed it, a sex educator and a mum.

Marisol The Sex EdMum:

So those are things that we can actually acknowledge, obviously depending on the age of the child, but kind of pointing out, “This is normal, pleasure is normal, touching your genitals, you know, makes you feel good, but also we do these things in private.” Using the right terms for parts of the body, kind of around that age.

Franki Cookney:

One really key thing is that I've always been really clear on using the proper names for genitals as well as obviously letting him call it his willy or whatever the hell he wants to call it. So he knows all the proper names in the same way that he knows the proper names for the other parts of his body.

Hannah Witton:

Like Marisol and Franki, I think we need to be thinking really carefully about the words we use for genitals. Instead of euphemisms clouded in shame, name the vulva and the penis like you would an arm or a leg, right?

Well, this is something Cory has given a lot of thought to.

Cory Silverberg:

I think the names are good, but I do have a problem with the correct names, right? So the way that the language that I use and that we use in our books is that I want young people to know the words for body parts that a doctor or nurse or teacher might use, right? So I want them to know those, but I don't use the word “correct”, right? Because they're not the correct ones. They're just the ones that medicine has decided: this should be called a penis. This should be called testicles. This should be called a clitoris, right? But I never say that there's anything wrong.

Like why, why should we dictate what people call parts of their bodies, right? That's not body autonomy. There's a bit of language policing that happens in sex positivity that I don't - that I don't love. Like if we find ourselves ever saying, “This is the right way to do it.” Particularly when we're talking to kids, because when we do that, that often shuts down the conversation.

You know, like a kid might say like, “Oh, I think it should be called this.” And if you hear that, you might then say, like, to your kid, like, “Oh, why?” And they might share something about what that body part feels like to them. And that's sex education, right? We want these conversations. So there's a way that that kind of expertise can kind of sometimes close down conversations.

Hannah Witton:

I love this centering of bodily autonomy and acknowledging the embodied knowledge that young people have about their own experiences and sexuality. So, as adults, how can we make space for all that for the young people in our lives?

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

Sexuality starts with ourselves. The better relationship we have with our own body, the better we know our body, the more acceptance we have for our own body, the easier it will be to relate with other people. The better relationship we have with our bodies, the better we're going to live our lives, but also our sex life. The more you promote that diversity at home, the more you discuss the different type of body, the less you judge other type of bodies, the less you judge your own body.

Children are looking at us constantly. They might not do what we say, but they're definitely watching what we're doing. And if we are making negative comments about our own body, it's the message that they're getting. And they're more likely to repeat those patterns, particularly when they're very young. We are their role model. We are their superheroes. And if mommy doesn't like her body or doesn't like her boobs, then if I'm then as an adult have those boobs, I'm not going to feel good about myself.

Hannah Witton:

The way we talk about our bodies is actually one of the boundaries we've set with friends and family when they're around Rowan, our toddler. I don't want him or any future kids of mine overhearing any negative self talk because that shit can stick with you. So, speaking of the many boundaries we might have to set as parents, how can we model healthy boundaries and consent with our young people?

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

There will be a time in which, you know, our children don't want to give us a kiss when we drop at school. That's fine, but they will be very happy to cuddle at home. So respect those boundaries, respect those moments, allow them to have closed doors, knock the doors, you know, like us, before you walk into, you know, it is their private space. So knock the door, not forcing people into displaying any type of affection towards anyone.

“Oh, grandma's here, you need to -” no, you don't have to give - you know, what, do you want to high five grandma? High five grandma. Don't go into that kind of emotional manipulation because if an adult cannot understand that, it's, it's the adult problem. It's not your child. Your child needs to understand that they don't owe any emotional affection to anyone.

Hannah Witton:

Cory also acknowledges that consent and bodily autonomy and a right to privacy are all really important principles for us to be instilling in our kids, but the very nature of a parent-child relationship means that sometimes we do have to make decisions for them. There are some things our young ones don't get to have a say on, and that can be a super confusing line to tread for us as adults, let alone for children to get their heads around. So how can we help them understand when it's good for them to make their own choices and when it's not?

Cory Silverberg:

I'm a parent, and I make my kid do all sorts of things. What I do is I talk to them about it, right? I point out the things, like, you don't have a choice about going to the dentist, right? You don't have a choice about going to school. So we look for where they can have choice, but we name the ways that they are not yet allowed to choose these things, that when they get older, they will be allowed to. And this is so important because it's very confusing when a child grows up and basically is taught to ignore their boundaries and their judgment and their gut instincts and taught that they do not have the right, that their voice doesn't matter, that their yes or no or maybe doesn't matter at all.

And then they get to be like 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 and then like, “Okay, you need to know about consent, right? And you need to learn it.” And then we give them a very simplistic lesson and then we're like, “Okay, now you know it.” And it's like, well, they just have this 10 years of other kind of learning. So, we need to let them unlearn that stuff before they learn how consent really works.

Hannah Witton:

Don't mind me, I'm just here aggressively taking notes for when my toddler is older.

So when we talk about consent, we're not just talking about sexual consent. And Cory also mentioned that when we talk about sex, we don't just mean intercourse or sexual activity. For them, it's also about relationships, feelings, activities, and expectations. So what does Cory think is the role of parents in talking about all these different things with our kids?

Cory Silverberg:

To me, I think the most important role for parents is around values, right? So I would never talk to a room of kids, or in a book, say this is the right way, or this is the wrong way. This is a good thing to do. This is a bad thing to do because those are kind of value statements. But of course I have my own values and I absolutely communicate those to my kid. When parents come to me, sometimes they have this idea, “Well, sex positivity means I'm supposed to be okay with everything.” And that is not, to me, what sex positivity is, and I don't think that's desirable, because it's not true. Right?

So, if in your house, porn is something that's bad, like that's a value that you hold, then that's something you have to communicate to your kid. I think the responsibility is to explain why in a way that feels okay to you, so someone might have that feeling and it might be connected to a personal trauma or something so that, you know, you need to figure out how you're going to talk to your kids. But that we should communicate our values, and we should name them as such. Like, this is not the universal truth. I think the problem with most sex education is that it's, it's treated as if it's, like, objective, right? “This is something that's true for everyone.” Well, nothing is true for everyone.

Hannah Witton:

This was the first time I'd really heard the advice about sharing your values with your kids and explaining to them why you hold those values, and Marisol said something similar about what happens when your kids seem to be developing different values to you.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

You need to also be open, to be challenged by your child, to support them. But there's nothing wrong in saying, “Look, you know, in my generation, or in my culture, or in my religion, we had to wait until we get married to have sex.” That's absolutely fine, as long as you're not forcing your child to do exactly what you believe to be your values or what you believe in.

Hannah Witton:

As well as discussing values, another thing Cory reckons parents can share with their kids is stories.

Cory Silverberg:

I'm always telling parents, like, think about the stories from when you were young that you are willing to share, so whether that's a first crush, whether that's an experience maybe with a slightly older kid, sharing an experience of realizing that you were being sexualized, you were being objectified on the streets, like street harassment - so I'm not advocating sharing stories about how we have sex, like there's boundaries, that's not something that we share with our kids. But thinking about the stories about also our bodies. So those are the main roles I think of as in terms of parents.

Hannah Witton:

I love this idea that one of your roles as a parent is sharing stories because that's something that would probably be inappropriate for a teacher to do but you're beautifully positioned as a parent to be able to connect with your child in that way.

Let me tell you, after hearing this, I was coming home to my husband like, “Dan, we need to share values and stories with Rowan now! That's our role as parents!” But of course, all of this is easier said than done.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

I think the main Challenges from parents are either they don't have a good role model, they don't know how sex education at home should be, they don't know how to do it, they think they don't have the information, or even sometimes they think they might put ideas on the child's mind, but that's actually not true. The more conversations we have with our children, the better equipped they will be for healthy relationships and healthy sex life in the future, really.

It will be very different for every parent, where we come from, our background, our culture, et cetera. In my coaching sessions with parents I sit down with them. And this is an exercise that anyone can do at home, really sit down and think, “Okay, how's my sex life? What things I've learned? What things were useful? What things were actually a little bit of bullshit, really? Okay. So how I want my children to learn about sex? Do I want them to think about all the negative sides of sex, like, ‘Oh, you're going to catch an STI or you're going to get pregnant, or you're going to get someone pregnant.’ Is that useful, or is it about them enjoying themselves and allow themselves to feel pleasure, whatever type of pleasure it is? Is it about healthy relationships? How I can put those things together? What do I need to relearn in order to give my children a better sex education than I had in the past?”

It's okay to be embarrassed. It's okay to be ashamed. It's okay. And I think it's actually a really, really good exercise for children to see that you're embarrassed about something and just admit it and say, “Do you know what? I'm a bit embarrassed. I'm not really sure how to talk about these things, but I'm going to do it anyway because I think you are important for me. And I want you to hear that from me first.”

Hannah Witton:

I love this. We, parents, are humans and we don't always get it right and we might feel awkward and embarrassed, but it's okay for our kids to see that. So how can we ease some of that discomfort and create more conversations around sex in the home?

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

I usually talk to parents about one minute conversations. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be one minute a day. One minute conversation is way more powerful than sitting for an hour talking about condoms and contraception and all those things. Because it's often and honest and allows you to sometimes make mistakes. And we do, you know, parents get things wrong the whole time. But when you have conversations every day, It's fine if one day you don't get it completely right because, you know, you can have another conversation tomorrow or next week or next month.

I think the big problem is we got that link between sex education and ‘the talk’ and parents waiting for that moment in which suddenly they're going to have a revelation that they have to have that talk. And that's not true. We are educating the whole time whether we are aware or not.

Hannah Witton:

I'm really here for this. It definitely shouldn't just be one talk I actually remember when I was 15 years old approaching my parents like, “So are you gonna have the talk with me?” When in reality they had been having lots of little talks with me. Probably why I was comfortable approaching them! But I'd really internalized this story that it was one talk your parents gave you. I felt we had to tick the sex talk box.

So how does a parent's role in sex education interact with what might or might not be taught at school?

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

We all play our part. Schools will have a very guided curriculum. They have to deliver certain things at certain times, or they might have established that we're gonna deliver this content in year 7 and we're not going to touch that until year 9 and stuff like that. But you play a part as well. And if you think that your school is not doing enough, do it at home. There's nothing stopping you from talking about pornography when your child is 10, regardless whether that your school curriculum puts that content in year 11 for instance.

So if the school is not covering those needs - and I think we will do with any other subject - if we think the school is not doing enough, we will support our children to get more knowledge around certain areas. Do it at home, nothing is stopping you.

Franki Cookney:

The PSHE and the SRE they have in primary is sort of so rudimentary and foundational that there's just no doubt that he's going to get more education at home.

Hannah Witton:

Here's Franki again.

Franki Cookney:

From what I've seen of the curriculum they're doing this year, like it's fine, you know, it's fine. It's like, oh, there are lots of different kinds of families and also these are our body parts and that's about it. So in terms of being a parent, I think it's really important for him to have those experiences in that setting and then sort of be able to come home and ask me follow up questions if he wants to.

So the way I feel right now, at the age of six, is that probably what we're going to end up talking about at home is going to be a lot more rich and nuanced than what he's getting at school. And I think that's fine because, you know, the school SRE curriculum is what it is, and it's about providing a foundation. As he becomes a teenager, I think I will have, like, much stronger feelings about what he's learning at school. And I had a really, really interesting conversation with a sex educator called Alice Hoyle, and she was pointing out that actually there comes a point when it's not really appropriate for parents to be the ones delivering their kids sex education.

You know, that's because, like, a big part of adolescence is accepting that your kids are independent people in their own right, and they need some separation from you especially when it comes to sex, like detaching themselves from you to figure out who they are. And so they need to be afforded the privacy and the independence to kind of have some of those sorts of feelings and conversations by themselves. Or, I mean, not necessarily by themselves, but like, certainly away from their parents. So there's actually a boundary there as they get older, and I think that needs to be respected.

Hannah Witton:

This is something that also came up when I spoke to psychosexual therapist Sylva Neves. Remember him from our very first episode?

Silva Neves:

What some young people say is that they find it absolutely mortifying to talk to their parents about their sex life and that would be the worst thing they could possibly do. And other young people say, “I wish that my parents would have had a much more open conversation about sex.” So again, it's like, well, there are different things that work for different people and not all young people want to talk about sex with their parents. But one thing surely that all parents could do is to make sure that if there is some sexual questions or some sexual curiosity, which basically happens to most young people, it's for the parents to say, “It's normal to have those urges. It's normal to have those questions and it's normal to have this curiosity.” And find the best person to have those answers. And that could be a sex educator, it could be maybe somebody at school, or it could be themselves, if they feel up for the task and if the young people are happy to discuss it with them.

Hannah Witton:

I think this is so important to acknowledge. As kids get older, they may not want to talk to their parents about sex, and that is completely understandable. And like we've already touched on, we as parents might not have all the answers anyway. I wanted to know what you should do if your kid asks you a question about sex that you don't know the answer to.

Here's Marisol.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

Tell them you don't know. Tell them. That's fine, it's alright, we don't know everything. I mean, we're not superheroes, we're just parents and we're gonna make mistakes. Try to guide them through good resources. So maybe have a little toolkit, you know, there that, you know, if you've got a question that you don't know: “All right, you know, these few sources are really good sources. You can get good information for that.” Guide them to those resources. Maybe look at it together and then have a discussion around those things. “What do you think about that? All right.” The more we talk with our children around relationships and sex, you know, the better equipped they will be to have a healthy sex life in the future really.

If they don't come with that with questions, you don't have to wait for them to ask you questions. There are things like you can buy a book. You can talk about, I don't know, an Instagram account that, you know, teaches sex education. We live in the internet era. Information is there. They don't need to be experts, they just have to be willing to learn and reeducate just themselves and think about things that they have learned in the past that now they realize that wasn't helpful or things that they realized actually that was really, really helpful and bring those things into the conversation with the children.

Hannah Witton:

Yeah, so that is one of the massive ways that things have changed in terms of like technology and the internet and social media. I, as a new mum and as somebody who is very online, do feel terrified. Cause also by the time my kid is at an age where he'll be interacting with the internet, I'm like, who knows what it's going to look like then.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

This is a generation that has way more access to information than any other generation in the past. And that's good. I've have met young children. girls in particular that have said to me, “I know what the clitoris is because I heard it on TikTok.” That's actually great. But obviously not everything that is on TikTok is correct so they will give them right information. It is good that information is there, but it is how you as a parent become the main source of information or the main points, you know, where you can actually tell them what resources are good or are bad. It's developing those critical skills that will help them navigate any situation really in the future, regardless what social media or the media will look like in five, 10 years.

There are so many body positive, body neutral accounts in there, and I think the more we as parents can promote following also these people who are offering and making this diversity visible, the better really. Do that exercise. Sit with your child. Use filters. Use editing tools. You've got free tools now. You've got free apps where you can make yourself slimmer or fatter or taller, or you can change your face completely just with a free app. Use that with them. Show them how it looks. I think sometimes we're so scared of showing children these things, but no, because they can actually then judge in the future, right?

The more you can encourage diversity, then the easier it will be for them to understand, “Alright, yes, I see this type of body, but that's not a representation of all bodies.”

Hannah Witton:

Talking about teaching our kids to understand the difference between what's real and not makes me think about porn. There's so much fear mongering around young people watching porn because it's not representative of real sex and relationships. We talked a lot about this in our previous episode. So I wanted to bring back Jetsetting Jasmine, a porn performer and parent, and Alan McKee, a porn researcher, to talk specifically about how we should approach talking about porn with the young people in our lives.

Jetsetting Jasmine:

I have people that have said, like, “My child, my 16 year old is interested in porn. I found that they were watching it, so I got them a subscription to an ethical porn site.” It's like, “No, it's not, it's not ethical, it's not legal to do that.” These are our cultural standards. We have to follow them because you cannot be a sex positive parent and there for your child from jail. So let's make that clear.

We can explain to our children. “I know it's exciting. It's probably, you know, lots of things probably came up with you watching them. I'm happy to have that discussion with you. But first let's sort of, let's talk about the logistics of what's happening. It says 18 and over for a reason. Do you know why that is?”

“No.”

“Well, because some of the things that you may see your brain is hasn't developed yet for you to compute that. So you can't watch it. It's just like any like scary movies, you know, how it has an R rating.”

So it's again, bringing it to things that they understand. “You know how you can't cook on the stove yet, like those types of things you can't.”

So make that relatable to them, that it is adult content and why they may not be prepared for it. The reason why I say to do that is because your kids are going to watch it anyways, probably just how content is. So at least they now know if their brain doesn't understand something, it's not supposed to. If it's not clear and it makes you feel a certain way, nothing's wrong with you. That's for adults. It's sort of like you're doing the education in advance of it happening or happening again.

Alan McKee:

There was some research a few years back where young people under the age of puberty were saying that they had encountered - stumbled across - sexually explicit material and it didn't bother them but their parents got really angry at them because of it. And that was what bothered them. And that's what you want to avoid, is making it feel as though young people have done something wrong. Or that they're damaged in some way. There's this great quote from one of the pieces of research. A teenager says, “Everywhere they say it's bad and it harms you, but they don't say how.”

It's this sense that young people have that just seeing pornography has already damaged them. It's kind of made them damaged goods. It's kind of, they'll never be a happy, healthy, sexual person again, just because they've seen pornography. And so you want to make very clear to your children that if they have stumbled across this material, then you're not angry about it. And if you have post pubescent children, then they may have looked for this material themselves. And again, you have to make it very clear, first of all, that you're not angry about it. And secondly, that you don't think it's damaged them.

I would say the key thing is, listen to them, ask them, “Do you have any questions? What did you think? Is there anything I can tell you?” So establishing that kind of relationship where you can talk openly and honestly with your kids about sex is at the heart of it.

Hannah Witton:

There is unfortunately a lot of resistance to talking openly about sex and relationships with children and young people. One of the main things we hear from people who are opposed to this is that it is sexualizing children.

Marisol The SexEd Mum:

I got a problem with the word sexualizing because we're all sexualized. We are sexual beings since the day they were born. We are sexualized. We're probably talking about eroticizing children, and I think that's the distinction. We all have a sexuality the same way that we grow our personality.

Hannah Witton:

Someone else who has a lot to say about this supposed sexualizing of young people is Marcelle Kosman, who is the parent of a trans kid, and I wanted to chat with her about children and gender.

Marcelle Kosman:

This idea that talking to kids about gender is sexualizing - it is misguided because we live in a society where everybody is handed a gender. And for some of us, that gender fits. And for an increasingly large number, that gender does not fit. And giving them the tools to talk about why it does or does not fit, that's not sexualizing children. That's just giving them language to understand themselves and to understand the things that they like.

Hannah Witton:

Now, gender is a hot topic at the moment, and we went into some of the quote unquote “trans debate” and the material circumstances trans people find themselves in as a result of transphobia with Abigail Thorne in our money episode.

But in this episode, I want to spend some time focusing on parenting young trans people. And as well as the “you're sexualizing kids rebuttal” when talking about gender to young people, we also often get “let kids be kids.” So, what's Marcelle's take on that one?

Marcelle Kosman:

Let kids be kids is such a dog whistle. It is one of those phrases that sounds so good and makes so much sense until you realize that the people who are using it are trying to use it to do the opposite.

So the folks who are using the phrase “let kids be kids” are suggesting that introducing things like gender or sexuality, consent, to children at a young age is not allowing them to be kids. And that is incorrect because kids have understandings of themselves, kids have understandings of what they like and what they don't like, and so providing them with language to define or to articulate those thoughts and experiences is allowing them to be kids.

That language allows them to explore their identities and to make decisions about what feels good and what doesn't. I think most of us have had experiences where there's something that we can't put into words, and then when we learn what the word is, all of a sudden it stops having power over us. When we can put words to it, we can understand it, and we can name it, and we can find balance with it.

Hannah Witton:

So as I mentioned, Marcelle has a trans child, her daughter Billie, who is 8 years old. I wanted to hear from Marcelle how she navigated and continues to navigate Billie's gender and the concept of gender itself as a parent.

Marcelle Kosman:

So, there were some things that Billie's dad and I did just on our own, which were things like dressing her in all kinds of colors. From the point where she was a baby, she had like pink trousers and a pink kimono dress and we tried to just always kind of dress her a little bit like a rainbow or a popsicle. So she was always very comfortable just sort of wearing whatever it is that she wanted to. And this whole process felt very much about, like, letting her explore, letting her play, letting her figure out, like, what she likes.

And so, I wasn't really surprised, but I also was surprised when she did actually tell us that she was a girl. And she had started talking about it at home, about being a girl. And so we were like, “Okay, yeah, no, you can, you can absolutely be a girl. You can be whatever you want.” I know at the time I was also really thinking like, “Well, she's three, so like, what does she know? And how much of wanting to be a girl is, like, internalized gender norms about wanting to wear dresses and wanting to wear pink?” Because boys can do those things, too.

For me, gender play, or playing with gender, has always been a process of being a little bit irreverent with the idea of gender in the first place, so one of the things that we used to do when Billie was just a teeny tiny baby is we would dress her up in a particular way and say like, “Okay, Billie's gender today is you know, forest animal. Billie's gender today is duck.” So from the start, we always tried to be playful.

In sending her to daycare, I did have a few moments where I would be nervous about how will the rest of the world perceive my child in her pink unicorn shirt that says it's my birthday or whatever, you know, and they were always fine. They treated her like a child who is playing.

So I remember doing a lot of overthinking, but the moment when it was clear that she was certain that she was a girl was when one of her teachers from daycare had a conversation with me to ask me how daycare should approach Billie's gender because she had told them at daycare that she was a girl. And so that's when it was like, okay, well, we're not exploring this in private. This is like, this is a decision.

Hannah Witton:

So from then, what did it look like to support Billie exploring her identity?

Marcelle Kosman:

The process for me as a parent learning to be playful with gender and learning to let my child really like direct her own gender expression has also kind of in a process of needing to let go of things being kind of neat and tidy. For example, when socks match, and it's such a small thing, but coming to realize that it's okay to let your child choose mismatched socks is the same process as letting them choose to wear a dress, if they present as masculine, for example, right?

So I've had to do a lot of kind of letting go of what I think things should look like, and that's a process that I continue to do. And however I might feel about the, the clothing choices that she makes, like, more than anything, love my child, and I want her to know that if she goes out in the world and someone makes fun of her for what she's wearing, instead of saying, “Well, you should wear this instead,” I want her to know that she can come home and I can give her a big hug and say she's allowed to wear whatever she wants.

Hannah Witton:

As a result of her experience, Marcelle has since created Gender Playground, a podcast for other parents, teachers, and anyone with young people in their lives, talking about gender affirming care for kids. So I asked her what else she's learned about gender from making the podcast.

Marcelle Kosman:

The process of making this podcast has really introduced me to a lot of the ways that gender affirming care, gender euphoria, these are things that apply to everybody. These are not things that are limited to or are only for gender non conforming kids. So gender affirming care for kids looks the same for cis kids as it does for gender non conforming kids. It really is a process of encouraging and supporting them, letting them - if your kid wants to dress up as an Ewok and go to school as an Ewok, that's actually okay.

Gender affirming care, as I understand it, is really a process of letting your child make decisions about their bodily autonomy, and respecting those decisions, and being positive and nurturing about those decisions. And I think one of the important things to keep in mind about gender expression and about gender affirmation is it's okay for your girl to play with trucks. And if your girl is a cis girl and plays with trucks, it doesn't mean she's going to be trans. It just means she likes trucks. And if your trans girl likes to play with trucks, it doesn't mean she's not trans.

Hannah Witton:

I was curious, five years since Billie told her parents that she's a girl, is there anything Marcel would do differently?

Marcelle Kosman:

The one decision that I would make differently has to do with when I was telling folks about Billie's gender. When I was first approaching certain family members about Billie's gender, I was very nervous and hesitant to tell them. And the thing that I would do differently is I would approach them as though this was great news. Because what I have found is that however people might feel about it in private, very often they will mirror the body language and the tone that you use to share this information.

And so when we told our friends, we were excited. We were like, “Hey, big announcement, Billie's a girl. We're all going to change our pronouns. It's going to be a little bit tricky. We might make mistakes, but like Billie's a girl FYI. Yay.” And people responded with, “That's so exciting. Congratulations.”

With the family members who I approached with trepidation. They initially were like, “Oh, well, that's, that's okay. That's okay.” But then they continue to sort of think of it and treat it as something concerning, instead of like a joyful piece of information that now we know this about your grandchild. Now we know this about your nibling.

I would say that for me the biggest challenge has been certain family members not respecting Billie's pronouns. I don't even want to say it's that they're not respecting Billie's pronouns, I think it's that these family members don't think of her as a girl. They still even though she's almost eight years old, they still think of her as a boy who's using quote unquote “girl pronouns” and this comes out like I see this happening when they slip in conversation and refer to her as “he”, and she has understood herself as a girl for five years. And we have been in conversation with our family members for at least four years about her gender. And so, to think that after four years, people still don't think of her as a girl is very frustrating for me. I know that they love her, and so that's why I'm frustrated, because I don't know how to change them.

I'm not sure that that's my job as her mom. I think my job as her mom is to like keep her safe and advocate for her. It's not to change the hearts and minds of, of the people around us. So if I can offer any advice, what I would say is when sharing information about your child's gender, treat it as a positive piece of information that you now know about your child. It is good news to know this! So that the folks who you are telling will know how to respond.

Hannah Witton:

I love this advice from Marcelle. Truly the only kind of gender reveal celebration I can get behind. So, gender affirming care is without a doubt a positive thing for young people, whether cis or trans. But a lot of parents are anxious about providing gender affirming care to their gender nonconforming children out of fear they will change their mind.

I wondered if this was something that Marcelle worried about.

Marcelle Kosman:

One of the things that we've talked about in the episodes was about what if your child, you know, changes their mind. What if at 12 - what if after starting hormone blockers, Billie is like,” I think maybe actually I'm a boy.” And then me, obviously in panic mode, I'm thinking like, “Well, what have I done? I allowed Billie to make all these decisions, which then she no longer thinks were good decisions.” And my co host, Rami, who is a longtime friend of mine, said, “Well, what you have done is supported your child the whole way. And then when they make a new decision, you support them in that new decision.”

And I think that's, especially as we are sort of on the cusp of puberty stuff, I think that that's really essential to keep in mind that, sure, yeah, people change their minds about stuff all the time. And that's okay. We're allowed to change as people. We're allowed to, to grow and want new things and want to try new things. And it doesn't mean that the things we liked before are no longer valid. Those were the things that we liked and what we wanted at that time. And it's okay to want new things. And so as a parent, it's okay to support your child as they explore new things.

Hannah Witton:

I mentioned Abigail earlier, you'll remember from previous episodes that she's an actress and creator of Philosophy Tube. As someone who came out and transitioned in adulthood, I wondered what gender affirming care she'd like to see for young trans people today, especially in terms of medical and healthcare.

Abigail Thorn:

I have an absolute hard line stance on this because I know some cis people are like, “Oh, I support whatever you want to do like after 18, but like kids shouldn't be able to transition.” And I'm like, “No, I have an absolute hard line stance on this.”

Puberty blockers have been given to trans children since 1988. That's literally longer than I've been alive. All of the long term studies show that it's absolutely completely fine and reversible. And in fact, worth underlining, puberty blockers were the compromise position. Because, personally, I think trans children, if they want to, have the right to go through puberty at the same time as their peers. It occurs to me that sort of thing might be important for their kind of like psychosocial development, if that's what they want to do. But for some reason, we don't give hormones to people under 18 in this country. We don't even give puberty blockers to them on the NHS. So yes, I underline my position.

It's a firm, diehard position which I will not yield and which I do not accept any cis bullshit on. Which is that trans kids should be able to choose their own goddamn medical care. Because if they don't, if they don't, then they do die. And I have met trans kids who have lost friends to the NHS. I've gotten letters and emails from parents of trans kids.

People often talk about regret rates when it comes to trans care, in particular paediatric trans care. Actually, knee replacements and nose jobs have regret rates way higher than transition related care, so if you're not going to gatekeep those procedures behind some kind of exam or test, then I don't see why you should gatekeep gender affirming care either.

Interestingly, parents who deny their trans kids gender affirming care do report very high regret rates for that decision. If you talk to parents of trans people, adults and children, the vast majority will tell you like, “My child is so much happier now!” The vast majority will tell you like, “Oh god yeah, like, we should have done this years ago.”

Hannah Witton:

It is so amazing to hear from parents like Marcelle who are listening to their kids from a really young age and being guided by them in terms of what they want. And whilst there are more and more parents like we do still live in a very transphobic society. So how's Marcelle handling that with her daughter?

Marcelle Kosman:

I am full of fear. I am full of anxiety and worry about the world that my beautiful child is wandering through on a day to day basis. And for me, what I want is for her to be able to trust me and be able to tell me when scary things happen so that like as much as I want to protect her and I want to prevent scary things from happening to her, at a certain point as a parent, you can't control your child's movements all the time. And if you do, they don't live a full and rich life. So what's important to me is that she feels confident and secure in who she is. And that she knows that she can come to me and her dad or any of her many, like, loving aunties and uncles with questions or with worries and that we can follow her lead going forward. I don't really know what else to do other than to be there for her and talk to her.

Hannah Witton:

It's true that things are especially scary and hostile for trans youth in particular right now. So I wanted to close this episode and this series with some beautiful words from Marcelle on raising a trans kid, community, and growing up.

Marcelle Kosman:

So the thing that has been the most helpful for me and that I hope will be really helpful for any parents out there who are in a similar situation to where I was. Your child, with your love and support, will still have a really beautiful, wonderful life. They can still have a family, they can still have a career, they can still have adventures, they can still travel, they can still be happy. Those things don't go away just because you presumed incorrectly about their gender.

This is one of the reasons why having community is so valuable is because you as a cis person who loves a gender non conforming child, you need to see grownup trans and non binary people living healthy, happy lives, as much as your kids do. Because seeing grown up queers is what allows us to know our children will grow up and that our children will be happy. That there's a future for us and our kinds of families.

Hannah Witton:

Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com/hannahwitton, where you can also find ad free versions of the show and bonus behind the scenes episodes and extended cuts.

You can find transcripts and shownotes over on our website doingitpodcast.co.uk.

Are you a parent or carer of young people? How are you approaching conversations around sex, relationships, and gender with them? I'd love to continue the conversation with you over on Instagram @doingitpodcast. Thank you so much for your support on this series.

If you haven't listened to them already, you can go back and listen to our episodes on sex therapy, disability, money, and porn whenever you like. While this may be our last themed episode, we do have one more special episode for you. The team and I are going to be recording a special end of season, end of year Q& A very shortly. Head over to our Instagram to ask your questions and we'll answer them for you in the next and final episode.

This podcast was hosted and co-produced by me, Hannah Witton, produced by Mia Zur-Szpiro and edited and mixed by Anouszka Tate. Episode transcripts, show notes, and social media produced and created by Moog Florin.