My Niece's Unquenchable Thirst for Knowledge

I've posted this before, but I don't think it'll hurt posting it again. This is just my account of how I explained it to kids.

I had been helping a group of students writing poems. One girl was finished and turned around in her seat. Out of the blue she asked, “What’s wrong with your voice?”

At first I was a little confused. I didn’t think I was sick and even though I admittedly did need some water, I didn’t think it was anything noticeable. I replied, “What do you mean?”

I started to get an inkling of what she was talking about, so I tried to play it off as nothing. “Oh, this is how I always talk.”

“Wait. You’re a boy.. right?”

I froze for a second. I had trouble explaining myself to pretty much anyone, including people my age. How could I possibly explain myself to a 3rd grader? I million questions of my own went through my mind in that split second: Was anyone else listening? If the teachers were, what would they say? How would this kid react? Was it going to be a bigger deal than it really needed to be?

I did know one thing for sure – kids are incredibly perceptive. They know when their being lied to, or even if they aren’t being told the whole truth. I decided to just go for it, and hope I made some sort of sense.

“Well, I was born a girl, but inside I’m a boy, so this is how I express myself.”

“Oh, so you want to be a boy?”

“Yup, pretty much.”

She had a bit of a confused/incredulous expression on her face. “Why would you want to be a boy??”

I resisted the urge to insist that I didn’t just want to be a guy – I was a guy, inside, and replied, “Why do you want to be a girl?”

“Um.. so I can grow up and be pretty!!”

I laughed and jokingly flexed my arm. “Well, I want to grow up and be really strong.”

It seemed to make sense to her and the one or two others who were listening in, but that didn’t mean their questions were over. After a brief interrogation about my short haircut and whether or not I’d changed my name they seemed to just accept it and move on. If only the rest of the world could do that too…



You could try this - for a day, refer to her as male. (And tell her you're doing it so she doesn't get upset, say it might help her understand) Use he, say he's your nephew, a boy, etc. And then she might understand how that's how many trans people feel every day in addition to feeling very upset about their bodies. I dunno if that helped at all, but I tried!