The Problem:

Children learn and enforce rigid gender roles

Children are taught to understand gender in ways that can be oppressive to themselves and others. Harmful stereotypes from adults are often taught unintentionally because children are incredibly adept at identifying and adopting implicit social rules from caregivers, media, and environments.

Gender roles and norms are also taught by peers. A child’s awareness of their gender identity (between ages 3 and 5 for most children) happens simultaneously when peers begin adopting and enforcing rigid gender beliefs. Enforcement and belief in gender stereotypes peak when children are 5. Gender policing between children can make authentic gender expression dangerous for some and toxic for all children within a learning community.

Gender beliefs adopted in childhood inform adults' beliefs, causing transphobia, sexism, and other forms of gender oppression to continue into the next generation. The stories we tell our children either prop up forces of oppression or help to dismantle them.

The Answer:

Gender conscious caregivers

Conversations around gender should occur when children are very young to transform our dialogue. The more gender-conscious we are, the more equitable our caregiving. Gender-conscious caregivers understand how gender bias, gender roles, and gender expectations impact children. Caregivers who share healthy gender beliefs in their conversations and model healthy behaviors significantly impact gender norms and beliefs in their communities.

As a caregiver, you can work towards your own gender awareness to create gender-affirming spaces for children. Creating affirming spaces starts with modeling healthy gender beliefs and self-love.

Our Hope:

The goal of gender consciousness is to end gender-based violence and ensure that trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive people do not continue to be dehumanized or erased from our societies’ collective narratives and storytelling. We must allow children to flourish in the freedom from gender-based oppression and gender restrictive norms.

This guide was created to support you.

We hope this guide helps you create gender-affirming spaces, allowing children and adults across the gender spectrum to live with a sense of belonging, self-love, and acceptance.

Gender consciousness is a mindset that allows individuals to express masculine, feminine, and androgynous traits as they desire, affirming diverse gender identities and holding gender beliefs beyond a gender binary.

Gender consciousness begins with a sound understanding of gender.

Gender is the complex and nuanced interplay of four factors:

-biological sex

-gender expression

-gender roles

-gender identity

Independently, none of these components explain gender, but collectively they can. Each component is briefly explained below:

Biological Sex

For a long time, the popular understanding of sex and gender was that the two words were interchangeable. The reality is that biological sex refers to human anatomy—not gender identity or expression.

Sex refers to biological and physical traits in the human body.

Components that make up biological sex include:

-genitals and gonads

-chromosomes

-hormones

-secondary sex characteristics

Only one of these five components (genitals) is used by doctors to assign a sex to babies at birth. Most of these components are changeable, and one (chromosomes) is rarely known unless a medical condition requires a test. The construct of biological sex is not a foundational component of who we are as humans, nor is it a defining factor from which other identities should be dictated—doing so almost always causes harm.

Gender Expression

Gender expression is how one chooses to express their gender identity. This may align with how a person truly identifies, or it may not. Gender expression can change with age, identity development, comfort, and social environments. Most children begin to demonstrate gender expression around two to three years of age. Young children express gender through dress and appearance, how they talk and refer to themselves, the names they give themselves, etc.

Children are wired to prioritize safety over all else. Some children learn from a young age that it is not safe for them to express their gender openly.

Gender Roles

Gender roles are social norms about what behavior is socially appropriate based on gender. Social norms are learned behaviors that provide motivation, encourage empathy, build community, and are intrinsic to being human. However, rigid gender roles hurt everyone. Inflexible definitions of gender are what cause toxic masculinity, sexism, and gender oppression.

Gender Identity

Every child has an internal compass that sparks awareness of their gender identity. For some, the sex they were assigned at birth aligns with their gender identity (known as cisgender). For others, the sex assigned at birth does not align with their gender identity (known as transgender). Human inner knowing has been demonstrated and affirmed by communities across cultures and centuries. People who today we might call trans or non-binary have existed as long as civilization has and across all cultures. Diverse gender identities that go beyond the gender binary are an integral part of the story about what it means to be human.

Every child's gender expression is unique and personal. There's no need to apply a label to a child’s gender immediately unless they do so themself. Many children will begin to say how they feel and identify—as a girl, boy, neither, or both—between the ages of three and five. A child may undergo a period where they express a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth. When consistent, this is likely a true expression of their gender. All stages of a child’s gender expression should be met with gentle curiosity and warmly affirmed.

Creating gender-affirming and gender-conscious spaces is an act of liberation. Advocacy for trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive folks is advocacy for human rights.