How young is too young to for gender transition?
A new Frontline documentary explores this question from the perspectives of parents, doctors, and eight transgender kids age 9-19. “Growing Up Trans” premieres at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30, on Boston Public Broadcasting station WBBH (check local listings for other broadcast times throughout New England. You can also catch the 90-minute documentary streaming in full, for free, online at pbs.org/frontline.
A recent post on the PBS website says “Growing Up Trans”:
“explores the complicated emotional issues many of those parents and families face: “I feel, in a sense, like something’s been robbed… my daughter’s gone, it seems, and is morphing into this other person,” Burt Blanchard tells FRONTLINE.
The film also talks with older teenagers who were among the first wave of kids in the U.S. to medically transition from one gender to another with puberty blockers, hormones and surgery – like 19-year old Isaac. He made the transition in middle school, and he tells FRONTLINE that since then, his perspective on gender has been gradually shifting: “I started realizing at around 16, 17 how complicated it really was, and kind of what a huge, huge decision I had made to embrace this masculine part of myself so deeply,” he says.
As a new generation of kids and their parents navigate the changing and complicated world of gender and identity, this FRONTLINE special is an unforgettable inside look at what it really means to be growing up trans today.
“This generation of kids are really — they’re pioneers. They are going to be the ones to teach us,” says Dr. Courtney Finlayson, pediatric endocrinologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital.”
Watch a preview of “Growing Up Trans” today.
