The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes

by Diane Ehrensaft

From a leading US authority on a subject more timely than ever—an up-to-date, all-in-one resource on gender-nonconforming children and adolescents In her groundbreaking first book, Gender Born, Gender Made, Dr. Diane Ehrensaft coined the term gender creative to describe children whose unique gender expression or sense of identity is not defined by a checkbox on their birth certificate. Now, with The Gender Creative Child, she returns to guide parents and professionals through the rapidly changing cultural, medical, and legal landscape of gender and identity.   In this up-to-date, comprehensive resource, Dr. Ehrensaft explains the interconnected effects of biology, nurture, and culture to explore why gender can be fluid, rather than binary. As an advocate for the gender affirmative model and with the expertise she has gained over three decades of pioneering work with children and families, she encourages caregivers to listen to each child, learn their particular needs, and support their quest for a true gender self.The Gender Creative Child unlocks the door to a gender-expansive world, revealing pathways for positive change in our schools, our communities, and the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Parenting, Gender, Queer, Transgender, Psychology

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. is a developmental and clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Director of Mental Health and founding member of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, a partnership between the University of California San Francisco and community agencies to provide comprehensive interdisciplinary services and advocacy to gender nonconforming/ transgender children and youth and their families.

Reviews

[Danni Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea of this book was promising but the execution was disappointing, and at times, infuriating. The author frequently disregards the voices of transgender and gender non-conforming people, sharing stories in which she uses the wrong pronouns for children while she's chastising their parents for misgendering them, asking transgender people for guidance about what language to use and then rationalizing her choice to ignore that guidance, etc. Overall, it was very frustrating to read; I felt like she had some very good points to make, but the way she went about presenting them severely undermined what she was trying to do, and I honestly have to say I think this book is likely to be more harmful than beneficial by modeling poor ally behavior for cisgender providers and support people of transgender children.

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Needlessly jargon-loaded BS. A lot of it reads like some kind of starseed parenting manual, making it very clear that the innate glowing specialness of the transgender child will shine on parents too, if they just take their kids to Ehrensaft or an Ehrensaft-like proxy.

I've been to a conference Ehrensaft presents at as a (then) transgender teenager. When I looked at the kids my age around me, even then, I didn't see kids who seemed especially creative, or brave. I saw extremely anxious, uncomfortable ones, and we all had no idea how to relate to each other. The Academic Decathlon crowd had better social skills. Transition isn't usually very fun. I think about being there, every bit as stiff and nervous as most of my peers, and her relentlessly positive take on complicated feelings around gender in childhood seems pretty clueless.

Cute to read all the comments she makes about how rare it is for anyone to regret transition... it's pretty rare for people to transition, too, but obviously that's not an excuse to act like it never happens. Whatever. The little comments about kids feeling harmed by transition in any way, being written as hypotheticals? Whatever!!!

Basically: this book sucks.

[Brian Gryphon · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the obituary for the gender binary is written (being perhaps more optimistic than realistic) this book will surely be listed as a major contribution to its passing. Not just because of the scientific/medical information that it contains. Dr. Ehrensaft’s writing style makes the information easily available to pretty much any reader. That is, this book provides other professional or volunteer service providers a solid approach to working with gender creative clients and gives parents of gender creative children (and those children) information and support.

Her work with younger clients has honed her ability to clearly explain complex, or at least untraditional, concepts. From the term “gender creative” (coined in her previous book Gender Born, Gender Made) to “gender effervescence versus gender despair“(page 53) to “gender is the cure, not the disease“(page 249) this book is about affirming our reality, not enforcing modern society’s fundamentalist gender binary.

The entire (c) review continues at http://genderqueer.life/2017/03/the-g...

[Shannon Wyss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critically important book to all those who support and/or love trans and gender non-conforming children and youth. It's well-written, accessible, thorough, and enlivened by combined profiles of some of the children, youth, and families whom Ehrensaft has helped to council.

"The Gender Creative Child" is a significant improvement on Ehrensaft's previous (but still wonderful) "Gender Born, Gender Made," which focused mostly on traditionally gendered trans children and youth (i.e., those who are comfortable within the binary gender system). This new book fully incorporates gender non-conforming young people who may not identify with a traditional "boy" or "girl" label -- or who may not do so in a traditional way.

Ehrensaft is an incredibly important ally for these children and youth and their families, both those whom she sees in her clinical practice and those who are touched, directly or indirectly, by her writing and other advocacy.

The one thing holding me back from giving her a five-star review is her lack of incorporation of the intersections of race, class, immigration status, and a host of other factors in the lives of the young people about which she writes. (She does, however, spend time talking about the correlation between autism spectrum (dis)orders and transgender/gender non-conformity.) She attempts to write about people who are without race, class, etc. But as with any author who does so, that means that, by default, she focuses on those who are white, middle class, and born in the US. An author who ignores that specificities of these other identities ends up making people with those identities invisible. For better or worse, though, Ehrensaft is in very good company in falling into this pit. Hopefully, it is a pit out of which she can climb in her next book, a book that i eagerly anticipate.

With that being said, this is an incredibly important work and should be read by any parent, teacher, counselor, religious leader, aunt, uncle, cousin, adult sibling or babysitter, etc., who has or may have a gender non-conforming or trans child in hir life. Approaching Ehrensaft's book with an open heart and mind, the reader will emerge much better able to support and advocate for the young people in hir life who likely are in deep need of such support.

Thank you, Dr. Ehrensaft, for yet again supporting "our" children and youth. All of us owe you our gratitude for it.

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very engaging and quick read about children (ages 3-18) who declare themselves to be other than the gender that was marked on their birth certificates. Dr Ehrensaft's revolutionary approach to this? We should listen to them. Psychological, medical and anecdotal stories are woven together into an affirmative and loving celebration of gender creative children and their families.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Diane Ehrensaft. I think she writes about gender in childhood in a meaningful yet approachable way and has done a ton of important work in supporting gender expansive children. I still think her book "Gender Born, Gender Made" is a bit better than this one but this one is really good as well. It expands on many of the ideas that she initially presented in "Gender Born, Gender Made" and finishes with some of her own realizations she had even while writing the book.
In particular I like that she realizes how her primary focus is transgender children and that children who are gender creative without necessarily identifying as the opposite gender they were born as need support to see themselves more in the bigger world. It's true that books about boys in dresses or girls with penises seem easier to come by than books with characters who more challenge gender boundaries without necessarily being transgender. As a person who identifies as cisgender (maybe because that felt like the only option growing up, who knows) but also is well aware of falling outside of a lot of stereotypical gender boundaries growing up--I agree that more needs to be written for these gender creative children.
Still, as I have mentioned in other reviews, the trans population needs books like this as well. It's so important that we as a community learn to create gender supportive classrooms for all types of children. It's certainly a goal of mine, and Ehrensaft's work helps to me understand better in particular how to support trans children.

[Scott Robins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super comprehensive - learned a ton in this. Skimmed over a lot of the clinical stuff and focused more on the anecdotes and basic information. Good start on research for my middle grade novel.

[Jane H · Rating 5 out of 5]

not a quick read, but a thorough look at all the elements of raising or otherwise supporting a gender creative child. with chapters on gender, ways it's expressed, overlap of gender creativeness and co-occurring diagnoses, supporting parents, seeking professional help for mental health or from MD's, this book offers a broad look at all the issues facing our children. I appreciated the research and the anecdotes, and can't wait for further research to continue offering us more answers, so we can understand and support our gender creative children even better.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will definitely be a book that I recommend to parents and service providers alike.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good resource book with a lot of information .

[June Freifelder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my typical read and now that the book is nearly a decade old, maybe just a touch outdated, but still learned quite a bit! Didn’t love how the author frequently misgendered kids in anecdotes and I was definitely interested in how her own identity and story fit in. Still, the book was organized, accessible and helpful.

[Tiffany Corvi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking for a resource and was told that this book was a guide and resource for not only therapists, but parents and allies as well. I was hopeful but sorely disappointed with the contents of this book however.

I am not one for labels. Whether there are two boxes or one hundred, a system of labeling for gender perhaps isn’t what we need more of right now. But the author, with help from her young gender creative clients, opens the book with a clever labeling system to understand the multitude of genders she has come across in her work- from calling children tootsie pops to hybrids and teslas, to fruit salads. What in the ?? I get that a basic label of boy and girl does not fit all genders, but tootsie pop? Tesla? Her descriptions made me grimace and begin to understand the more conservative folk who think that the progressives are off their rockers. This is why.

Ehrensaft uses lots of examples with her clients to tell stories and give examples, but she can’t seem to refer to them with the correct pronouns, all too-often ignoring their gender identity through her text. I was both confused and angry and didn’t understand her switching back and forth between he and she when being very specific that a male-born client insisted she was female.

The latter part of the book was a bit more informative than the former, offering information to parents and therapists on how to best support a gender creative child. Ehrensaft also walked through information like hormone blockers, surgery options, etc. but the info lacked depth in most areas.

3-stars is generous for this book. I was disappointed. It was very clinical and yet, not at all. I would not recommend this book as a strong resource.

[Emily VA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the three books on transgender kids I’ve read in the last month, this is the best in terms of a clearer view of the landscape of gender identity and expression (apples, oranges, and fruit salads), and the ways children express and navigate that landscape, and the way parents and teachers and communities can help them. It’s also the most up to date on where the cultural zeitgeist is around gender. Also, given that it was published in 2015, there’s still plenty of room for updates.

Ehrensaft is, primarily, a psychotherapist, and so she places more emphasis on patterns in clinical observations and less emphasis on more quantitative research (which is much more my comfort zone). But she is still wise, empathetic, self-reflective, and worth reading.

[Francis Baetz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not impressed with this book. Written by an author who isn’t trans (or “gender creative”) herself, the book includes terms of her own making, which are limited by her inability to understand the trans experience in a personal way. She repeatedly misgenders the people that she writes about and can be infantilizing in the way she speaks about them. I was excited for this book, but am ultimately disappointed. If you’d like to learn about the queer community and how to best support your kids, listen to the voices of queer people themselves. There are queer authors, educators, activists, and more who have and are continuing to do the work in a way that centers lived experiences, not just a cisgender person’s interpretation of them.

[Mills College Library]

649.1 E335 2016

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for families and educators of children who express their gender differently.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have strong and mixed feelings about this book. It is very much a book about gender creativity by a cis lady for cis people. Ehrensaft's idea that gender used to be a "bedrock" of culture but is now "moving boulders" is an elegant and powerful analogy. It helps explain why trans and nonbinary people's existence makes people's heads explode--because it feels like an earthquake--when it logically seems like a thing that no one should really care about, honestly. Like, why DO you care what someone else calls themself? It's because we've built so much of our society on gender norms and roles that when you start playing with them, all kinds of stuff comes unstuck. And some of what comes unglued is deeply personal inside people and frankly they would have preferred never really thinking about how their lives might have been different without the gender boxes they grew up in.

Most importantly, the prescription in this book is to listen to kids. Listen to kids describe their lives--and listen well, including between the lines--to really hear and understand them. Watching the whole anti-trans thing take off, coupled with "parents' rights," has really highlighted the ways that our culture doesn't think kids are people. Kids know things about themselves and they should have the right of self-determination. They should be able to steer their own lives. They can be trusted--especially if you are listening to them as a matter of habit.

Ehrensaft's idea of the gender web, made up of nature + nurture + culture (and time, as she adds in the final chapter) is also super helpful. I appreciated that she said it doesn't matter if a person's gender creativity comes more from culture than something more inherent because all these aspects of gender are real.

But also mixed into this kind of mixed bag of a book is Ehrensaft's own weird fruit vocabulary to describe gender creative kids. There are apples, oranges, and fruit salads. (Ehrensaft addresses the problem with "fruity" as a queer slur in an end-note, but I'm not convinced that makes her choices here OK.) OH MY GOD, save us from this crap. Queer people have their own terms and definitions, so this feels a bit disrespectful. Nestled inside this cutesy vocab is the idea that--again, if you are listening to kids--some gender creative kids are persistent, consistent, and insistent that they are the other gender. This makes them apples--or oranges? I literally CANNOT remember because it makes no sense outside the analogy--who are fundamentally different from kids who are more broadly under the queer umbrella and wrestling with all kinds of gender and sexuality questions. This distinction is helpful and born out by lots of research. Sadly, the amount of attention paid to the fruit salads--again, UGH--is a little scant. Ehrensaft says as much at the end of the book, that we just don't see enough about kids who are nonbinary or genderqueer (not that she really uses those terms very much. Cannot say UGH enough.)

As smaller quibbles, this book is so long and kind of dull. The anecdotes feel like composites--which is good, protect them kids!--which adds to a weird distance and artificiality to it all. And there are a few moments where Ehrensaft misgenders the kids she is describing. Just flat-out doesn't use the right pronoun. And I'm not even talking about the stories where the pronouns shift midway through, when the kid transitions. I'm OK with that, I suppose, as an aid to the chronology of the story. I"m talking about just fucking up a person's pronoun. If you are writing a book about gender creative kids and how important it is to listen to kids, maybe you should be extra super careful to triple-check all the pronouns in the book.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

5.0, possibly 4.75.

I used the audiobook instead of the text version so I'll need to get a copy of the bibliography, which would be quite exciting to get access to.

I'm mainly giving this a 5 star rating due to the amount of data it draws upon, but due to the system it's from it centers parents & paternalism even as this book helps explain boundaries. (Seriously, "far from the tree" by andrew solomon in the deaf chapter argues that parents can't be paternalistic, and argued for things that violate the consent culture this book & its research rely on.) As a trans person I also thought the pronoun usage was too much misgendering. Like yeah I get it was centering observers, but it also made me not read the book for 7 years.

I've also had other annoyances over the years, again 5 stars because this describes a treatment method that has the highest satisfaction rate & lower regret rates.

Basically if someone is wondering how to deal with the bodily autonomy of kids, or maybe how to deal with organizing, then I'd recommend this book. -- like this book kind of makes me want to go into this field.

seriously, the way the author accumulated a variety of self-labels kids used imply that the MOGAI/MOGII movement was actually doing good work, and when people criticize MOGAI/MOGII as being maximalist with its gender labels, that those critics are arguing for the destruction of gender clinic research, such as what the author relied on. so take that rightward shift into consideration within leftist spaces when the topic comes up.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Away better read than I initially thought. I am not a loud supporter of trans rights. I understand the need of some rights but struggle with my beliefs on where that line is. This book helped me look at some misconceptions and brought new ideas to the forefront. I have read a few autobiography of personal experience of going through transitions where one was born with both body parts and another who saw their transition as a Jewish mystic whose soul was born into the wrong gender. This book talks about needed research into how neurodivergent people tend to transition at a higher rate than the general population. The author discusses how supplements and other fertility treatments may have increased the number of people looking to transition. I loved how the author looked at biological reasons and focused on people who are persistent and consistent with their need or desire to transition. This spoke to my analytical mind and took away the stories of people who change their minds every few years while transitioning and detransitioning on whims. I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to try to understand this charged topic. They will not agree with everything but if you read with an open mind then just maybe, you may consider this a good book. I shook my head while reading at times and would mentally argue with the author but it made me think and rethink my opinion.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book really readable, even the more medical sections. I was approaching it from a teacher perspective, while there wasn’t a lot specific to schools, I still think it was helpful overall. There are definitely some problematic elements to the way she tells stories and describes people; the pronoun usage can be confusing and inconsistent, as well as the deadnaming. However, I think in some ways these are necessary within the storytelling to describe each different case and the journey each child was on. She also herself acknowledges that this will sound outdated in a few years, which completely makes sense.

I really wasn’t impressed though with her framing of gender as “cure,” particularly for autism; that felt very ableist. I think maybe the biggest flaw is that she sees herself as a real expert and able to speak a lot on behalf of gender creative individuals, when really, they will always know more than her about their own experience. But her overall message of listening to children and honouring their voices and identities is the most important thing about this book, and a positive contribution overall.

[Mike Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult and uncomfortable read.

My instinct was to just pay attention to my reactions without judgment (either of book or of emotions). Some parts stretched my thinking, some I found frustrating or problematic.

At times there is a sense here that we are making it up as we go along (which is of course true, but hard to admit this and be very rigid or doctrinaire in your convictions). The various gender categories affirmed are not built upon firm footing of scientific consensus, just terms that the author stumbles into in anecdotal fashion

Some of my struggles include problems with the medical philosophy guiding this new field (exclusively listening to child). It seems to me that they would not fly in any other medical field without more grounding or balance.

While holding strong to her convictions of listening to the children, she remains gentle and understanding with family who struggle with transistions.

Overall, my consternation included, I find this an important addition to the tentative conversations moving forward in gender and identity..

[Adelaide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Running friends book club. I found this book very helpful in familiarizing myself with the current thinking on gender exploration in childhood. I particularly appreciated her re-framing of the research from the Netherlands showing that a large number of children "outgrow" nonconforming gender expression by puberty, which has led to the "wait and see" approach. Ehrensaft argues that we can sort out the "desisters" from the "persisters" even at a young age, and it is critical to do so. Waiting and seeing is psychologically damaging, and puts children at risk for dangerous coping strategies.

-insistent, persistent, consistent; "I am" rather than "I wish," gender play as identity communication
-"just a phase" implies this is something you should hope your child outgrows
-change the mindset of support to the mindset of acceptance
-"recognize the child we have, rather than the one we thought we were going to have"

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned A TON from this book about the medical and psychological considerations that face gender-creative kids and their families. I know this will be helpful knowledge to have in the future. However—It was only published 3 years ago, but bits of it feel outdated already, as the author acknowledges in the last chapter. I’m sure a lot of the medical and psychological info has changed or developed further. And the deadnaming and referencing people by incorrect pronouns in particular felt outdated and problematic, so I would have liked to see a statement about exactly why she was telling stories in this way.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

“To de-center as a parent is to learn how to remove yourself from your own wishes, needs, and desires and instead focus on the wishes, needs, and desires of your child…It means being able to empathize with what it means to be them, without getting overwhelmed with how their way of being may be so different from your own or for your wishes for them.”

As a parent of any child, we can get caught up in what we see them as. What we want them to be. Our job is to love, encourage and support our children. If you have a few set creative child (I love that term), this can help you navigate through what that means.

[Lena Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me the beauty in this book lies in the spectrum of thought she lays out for us.
I feel my own thoughts, worries, and questions reflected back respectfully and truthfully.
In a world of absolutes, and ire if you don’t conform to those absolutes, she has done a very wonderful job of laying out the complexity of gender in a way that I could categorize and organize to help me grasp it better.

“My greatest hope is that this book can provide not a puzzle to be solved but a map to guide you along the pathways of infinite variety of gender journeys”

Thank you Dr. Enrensaft your experience is invaluable to this mom.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A volte l'autrice è veramente troppo enfatica e può essere imbarazzante, ma va bene per il target (cioè i genitori dei bambini con varianza di genere). Oltre a questo ci sono elementi molto utili per valutare l'opportunità dei bloccanti della pubertà, somministrazioni di ormoni prima dei 18 anni e addirittura interventi chirurgici definitivi in età di sviluppo. Viene anche affrontato molto chiaramente il rischio di suicidio dei bambini e ragazzi con una forte disforia.

[birdy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some powerful ideas throughout the book - as well as some helpful frameworks to understand gender expansiveness.

However there were many challenging sections that held language and ideas that were oppressive - statements like 'treatment for autism' stands out as a strong example of this.

This book doesn't represent autistic trans community in an affirming light & that was very disappointing to find out.

[Eric O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many clinical studies and decades of evolving work inform this thoughtful book. Move from fear to acceptance, stay curious and supportive, and embrace gender as a cure rather than a disease. There are plenty of dissenting voices out there but you don’t have to tolerate intolerance. Instead, you could spend a few hours with this book and end up a better ally, activist, and caregiver.

If you want the Cliff’s Notes version as a caregiver, read Chapters 5&6, maybe the conclusion, too.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wealth of information, research, and level-headed advice. It's easy to read, but not without depth and nuance. I would recommend this for any family with a gender creative child, or just children, period. It's not a book that would have made sense ten years ago, but as she says, the bedrock of a gendered society is changing, and it makes a lot of sense for our times.

[Kathryn Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is filled with stories of the journeys of children and their parents (properly honored at the beginning of the Acknowledgements section of the book) which provide vivid examples of how the world is not black and white, but color. The author also captures different perspectives on matters related to the overall topic, and then shares her opinion on the matter based on her experience. There are two things that would make the book stronger than it already is: 1) stories from those that don't have the realization out of the box but come to it later in life (e.g., during puberty) and 2) more stories from those in her "fruit salad" category.