Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Remember that show? It was hosted by Jeff Foxworthy (stand-up comedian, actor, television personality, radio personality and author) and then John Cena (professional wrestler, actor, rapper, and TV personality). 

IMDB describes it like this: It's where adult contestants try to answer questions drawn from elementary school textbooks. Five actual fifth-grade "classmates" can help the adult player as he tries to reach the million-dollar jackpot. The grown-up can "cheat" three ways: he can peek, looking at the child's answer; he can copy, meaning he must use the child's answer; or he can save, for when he guesses wrong and the classmate has the right answer. a contestant can walk away at any point with the money he has won, as long as he admits, "I am not smarter than a fifth grader."

Guys, this wasn't just a one hit wonder show.. it went on for EIGHT years on Nickelodeon!

If I'm honest, this next decade that my girls will be in school scares me half to death. I mean.. common core? Am I right? What the HECK is that? I didn't learn math this way. My super-number-nerdy, super-smart-overall, husband is even like "WTF??". Lily's first grade teacher would give us (parents) the answer key to the math homework because if our generation worked backwards, we'd likely be able to figure out how the answer became the answer and then we could figure out ways to explain it our kids.. But her second grade teacher was like "Uh.. no.. I don't give out the answer key."

FML.. I failed second grade the second time around. Not cool to look like a dumb dumb in front of your 8 year old. <Sigh>. Let's hope her third grade teacher is bribed easily with treats. That answer key is GOLD.

Anyways.. the reason I write about this is because learning about Grace and the science behind transgender youth is literally like starting over. It's challenging everything I've ever known and for a long time I just plain didn't understand it.

About 2 months before Lily finished second grade, I was sitting in the pickup line at her school (I get there SUPER early.. I have major competitive issues when it comes to the school pickup line..) and I listened to an INCREDIBLE podcast where Brandy Ferner interviewed a mom of a transgender child.. about 20 minutes into the interview (yep.. I'm there that early) I felt a tear hit the top of my hand. I had NO idea I was crying. and from there, the floodgates opened. I sobbed. This was Grace. The child being talked about in this podcast was my baby. This was the day when it clicked.

I immediately sent the podcast to my husband. And that night, after bath, Grace sat with me on her bed while we were putting her pajamas on.

"Mama.. you know what makes me sad?"

"What makes you sad, honey?

"When the boys on my tee-ball team call me a boy. I'm not a boy mama, I'm a girl."

I squeezed her tight, told her I loved her, put her to bed, and then I turned to the internet and Amazon.

The first two books I ordered were Raising Ryland and The Transgender Child, and thank goodness for Amazon Prime. Those books arrived on my doorstep somewhere between 36 and 48 hours later. I stalked our UPS man like a crazy person.

I wanted ALL the information. The statistics, the science, the real life stories. My husband asked (more than once) "Are you sure there isn't a blood test or something we can have done to determine this transgender thing?".

And while at first I laughed at him, after thinking about it more it made me think, made me wonder, what if?

From there, we were put in contact with some other amazing local parents that had gone through this already and/or were going through it at the same time as us.. I had coffee dates, I spent hours reading and researching, even sat down with Caitlyn Jenner's therapist for a session - and what's crazy is that there really isn't a whole lot out there. The statistics are skewed, because KIDS like Grace have known their whole lives that they were different and yet they didn't or couldn't come "out" to their parents because they didn't feel as though they'd be accepted, wouldn't be taken seriously, or worse, they could be ridiculed for it - these kids felt like their parents wouldn't believe them or trust that they knew what they were feeling.

I'm sorry.. are you FUCKING kidding me?

My friends, my readers, my gray area-ers - THIS IS NOT A CHOICE. My five year old doesn't even know how to play tic-tac-toe with her big sister, but she sure as HELL knows that she's a girl.

This is a VERY long article that I found that was written back in 2016 by a Stanford graduate student called "Between the (Gender) Lines: the Science of Transgender Identity)" - and it was incredibly helpful in understanding the cisgender vs. transgender brain.

Take a look at the diagram above. Wu states that: transgender women tend to have brain structures that resemble cisgender women, rather than cisgender men. two sexually dimorphic (differing between men and women) areas of the brain are often compared between men and women. the bed nucleus of the stria terminalus (BSTc) and sexually dimorphic nucleus of transgender women are more similar to those of cisgender woman than to those of cisgender men, suggesting that the general brain structure of these women is in keeping with their gender identity.

In english? a cisgender (a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.) and a transgender (a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.) have similar (or nearly identical) brain mapping.

Woah.. <pours more wine>

You pickin up what I'm puttin down? Just three years ago there was scientific evidence that started to unveil that is so much more than just a "phase" or a "choice" as so many may think. This is science. Brain mapping. And this is just the beginning of the research. It's rapidly growing and changing. Therefore it's not as black and white as it may seem.

In "the transgender child", the author states "Today, gender can no longer be really considered a two-option category. That form of thinking is outdated. It can be compared to trying to view the world in distinct racial categories without an understanding that an ever-growing percentage of the population is beautifully multi-ethnic. Gender is very similar. Most of us were taught, and most still firmly adhere to, the concept that there are only two distinct categories of gender, male and female. But in truth, many, if not most, of us are actually a blend."

Think about it. I was known as a tomboy for a portion of my life. And while I'm no Elle Woods, I do enjoy manicures and pedicures, a pretty lipgloss, and putting on a flowy, boho dress once in a while. And while I find the beauty in women, I'm not romantically attracted to them. That puts me on a spectrum.

Gender and sexual preference are not mutually exclusive. Gender is who you go to bed as, sex (sexual preference) is who you go to bed with.

I was asked last night by someone that I have known a VERY long time, "Do you think he will grow out of it?"

"Not likely.."

And then she asked the question that makes my teeth grind together whenever it's asked.. 

"Well, do you feed into it?”

To which I replied, "I support my child to be whomever my child wants to be. If Grace wakes up 10 years from now and says 'Actually.. I change my mind, I'm a boy' (which i SERIOUSLY doubt) I will say 'Okay.. I love you no matter what'.."

I mean, what the hell else am I supposed to do?

At the end of all this, I'm just trying to understand this as best I can. I'm trying to be the best parent to my kids that I can be. I'm researching what little research there is to make sense of something so outside my realm of understanding.

But you guys. I love my kids. 

And in this circumstance.. love is more than enough.