What it Means Not to Have an Early Childhood Memory or Narrative of Trans Experience?
Dr. Z talks about lack of childhood narrative—something a lot of people comment about on her videos.
One of the things people tend to comment is: "Dr. Z, I don't really have the childhood experience and suddenly at the age of 20, 25, 30, 40 I have this trans awareness—what does it mean? I feel like I might not be trans enough because everybody else I talk to on social media and everybody else's videos I watch always have this childhood experience."
What does it mean when somebody is actually having an absence of that childhood experience? Childhood experience basically is having awareness as an early child (young as 3-4 years old) that you're transgender or gender diverse—you don't feel comfortable with your body or gender you were born into. Kids will verbalize it (may not have lingo for it) by refusing to play with particular toys, wanting to wear particular gender expression clothes, or refusing to have their hair cut.
Watch to find out why the childhood narrative became an unhealthy pattern (gatekeeping forced people to create cookie-cutter narratives to get access to care), why thousands of trans folks don't have that experience, and why it's about your current relationship to gender (not early awareness).
