April 27, 2015
On Friday evening, Keeping Up with the Kardashians patriarch and former decathlete Bruce Jenner made transgender history by openly identifying as a woman in an exclusive interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer on '20/20.'
Transgender individuals are statistically more vulnerable to suicide, poverty, discrimination, bullying and violence, The Washington Post reports.
By sharing his story, Jenner spurred a national conversation on gender identity and equality, including making the point that just because he identifies as a female doesn’t mean he’s attracted to men, and also that he still – for now – wants to be referred to using male pronouns.
Jenner isn’t the first celebrity to identify with the opposite sex. Laverne Cox of the Netflix show "Orange Is the New Black," appeared on the cover of Time magazine last year.
"Transgender" essentially means having the body of one gender and the brain or the mind or the spirit of the opposite gender, said Darlene Tando, a licensed clinical social worker and gender therapist, according to CNN.com.
Similarly, Shiloh Pitt, the 8-year-old daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, wears clothing more associated with the male gender, cuts her hair short and prefers to be called John, according to her parents.
"She likes to dress like a boy. She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair,” Jolie told Vanity Fair in 2010. “She likes to wear boys' everything. She thinks she's one of the brothers."
"Transgender" essentially means having the body of one gender and the brain or the mind or the spirit of the opposite gender, said Darlene Tando, a licensed clinical social worker and gender therapist, according to a CNN.com report.
There are an estimated 700,000 transgender people in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA. Despite the growing visibility numbers, identifying as transgender -- or raising a transgender child -- isn’t easy.
Transgender individuals are statistically more vulnerable to suicide, poverty, discrimination, bullying and violence, The Washington Post reports.
Earlier this month, Taylor Alesena, a transgender teen from California, who candidly documented her struggles with loneliness and bullying at a San Diego-area high school on YouTube, died in an apparent suicide.
Also in the media spotlight was 17-year-old transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, of Ohio, who committed suicide by jumping in front of a semitrailer late last year and left behind a suicide note online that read:
"There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say 'it gets better' but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse."
remembering @LeelahAlcorn Adults have tools 2 cope kids don't #suicideisnotheanswer #supportallyouth pic.twitter.com/plaxht0cRJ
— Deleted the Play (@DeletedThePlay) April 25, 2015
A gender-affirming approach in which the parents listen to the child is "by far the one that's most likely to have a positive mental health outcome," Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, a pediatric endocrinologist and medical director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at the University of California, San Francisco, told CNN.
There are dozens of websites dedicated to offering a safe place and advice, including Transparenthood and Advocates For Youth, as well as tip sheets and support groups.
"It isn't a choice. It's who she is." A powerful story on raising a #transgender child. http://t.co/1LxiUgLYD7 pic.twitter.com/kEZMWtZiAc
— GreatSchools (@GreatSchools) April 27, 2015
