When Kids Don't Fit Traditional Gender Molds

Free to Be Me

By Janine DeFao

About this Award-Winning Article Originally published in Bay Area Parent magazine, "Free to Be Me: When kids dont fit traditional gender molds" received a Gold Award from Parenting Publications of America. This is what the judges said: "This courageous article about gender-variant children serves the community by informing it about behaviors in a way that increases sensitivity and understanding. With careful and humanizing reporting, and a strong narrative component, these stories about children who want to make their own gender decisions at a young age become a compelling and informative read. "

Sabelle loves Barbies, Tinkerbelle and the feel of twirling around in a long skirt. With big brown eyes peering out from long blonde bangs, a sparkly pink-striped hoody and ribbon-laced High School Musical high tops, Sabelle seems like a typical 6 1/2-year-old girl.

But Sabelle was born Jack and still attends school as a boy. It is only after school that the Alameda first-grader trades in jeans and sweatshirts and emerges as Sabelle, the girl Jack has been trying to be since toddlerhood.

It started then with Jack putting sheets and pillowcases on his head, pretending he had long hair, his mom, Melinda, recalls. By 2 1/2, he began expressing discomfort with his male anatomy. I took him to the doctor and she said it was normal, that kids like to make believe. But I knew something was going on, Melinda says.

At 4, a friend made Jack a dress he refused to take off. Soon after, he started telling his mother that God had made a mistake, that he was really a girl. They returned to the doctor and were referred to a therapist who diagnosed Jack as gender-variant.

How can you deny it? asks Melinda, who recently started to allow Jack to dress as a girl in public and use the name Sabelle. This is who he is. He's a little girl.

A growing issue