In Raising My Rainbow:
Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son, Lori Duron goes in
search of a label that will capture her son C.J.’s “disconnect between sex and
gender,” and preference for “girl stuff.”
She finally finds the term, “gender non-conforming,” on Wikipedia, which
is defined as “a phenomenon in which pre-pubescent children do not conform to
expected gender-related sociological or psychological patterns and/or identify
with the opposite gender.” In her own
words, the author writes, “a weight had been lifted off my shoulders: there was
a name for C.J.’s behaviors and way of life.” The following article is inspired by, but is not
specific commentary on Duron’s book, which simply got me thinking about how
I feel about labels. (Please note that
“gender non-conforming” is NOT a psychological diagnosis.)
As a psychologist, who spends much of her time assessing children, I have to say:
I hate labels.
There is something horribly reductionist about taking a
complex human being, with unique constellation of personality traits,
strengths, abilities, preferences, and challenges and smacking a label on her
that speaks only in terms of deviation from the norm.
We are still in the infancy of psychology as a science. We have blunt instruments to understand these
complex human beings. The labels that we’ve generated are flawed. I find it rare that a child cleanly fits into
a particular category. More often than
not assessment is a messy business of trying to determine what of a handful of diagnoses
best captures an individual so that, if the child needs support to be
successful at home or at school, the child will receive the appropriate
support.
Diagnosis is a necessary evil—a label that provides access
to services—a key not to who your child is, but to the gate that separates your
child from the things that will improve the quality of his life. At it’s very best, diagnosis provides parents
with a sense of relief—this is what’s
going on for my child, now I have a word for it, a way of speaking about it to
others, and an avenue to pursue. Behind
the gate there are support groups, advocacy groups, accommodations,
modifications and treatments. But at
it’s very worst, the label becomes all that people see. Images from the media or based on past
experiences are projected onto the individual.
Stereotypes form. Assumptions are
made. Judgments are cast. Personhood is lost.
There is no shorthand for describing an individual, which is
precisely why, though I hate labels, I love assessment. Each report I write is my attempt to tell
someone’s story, to create a richly textured narrative that attempts to capture
the ineffable. It takes a lot of words
to do this. I usually can write no less
than 20 pages….and even then I am aware of all that is missing.
I know there are people who skip to the end to read the
labels. Sometimes I acknowledge them
first, so that we can then move past them.
Sometimes I save them for last, so I can embed them in a context that
minimizes their import. Either way, my
goal is to have a parent emerge from our conversation with a better
understanding of her child…and feeling that her child is understood.
This post was inspired by the memoir Raising My Rainbow by Lori Duron, in which she shares her journey raising a "gender creative" son. Join From Left to Write, and online book club, on September 5 as we reflect on Raising My Rainbow. As a member, I received a copy of the book gratis for review.
