‘Girl brain … boy body’

Abstract

An increasing number of people, including children, are disclosing that they are trans. While there is a growing body of academic, popular, and educational writing that speaks about the lives of trans people (e.g. Brill and Kenney, 2016; Brill and Pepper, 2008; Erickson-Schroth, 2014; Meyer and Pullen Sansfaçon, 2014; Serano, 2007; Stryker and Aizura, 2013), very little has been written which is accessible to children. Materials targeted towards children are important for at least three reasons: 1) to enable trans children to see themselves reflected in the world around them, 2) to help aid understanding amongst cisgender children of trans parents, and 3) to support cisgender children to understand the lives of trans people. For the purposes of this chapter we use the term cisgender as a way of referring to people who are not trans, although we note the diversity of gender amongst all people. Despite issues with the term (e.g. see Enke, 2012), we have found this is the most strategically useful way to highlight that books and other resources about trans people are significant for all people.