True story, I have wanted to draw various Trans Ivy stuff for a loooong time. (Hadn’t actually decided whether she was trans when she first appeared, but I’m pretty sure I considered putting her in this gender-expansive ensemble from 2018.)
And it’s been held off because I figured it should wait until the actual comic had an explicit Trans Ivy confirmation. Finally decided not to wait until she circles back into the main storyline, and just do it in a Sunday extra.
Releasing it as a chaser for Trans Awareness Week was just a nice bonus.
Gentian: The gallery opening is tonight? Where did I leave my fundraising necklace?
Ebony: Middle shelf, blue box. I have a four-hour meeting with the Sønheic ambassador tonight. Where did we put the good coffee?
Gentian: Cabinet above the stove, next to . . .
[THUMP THUMP THUMP]
Ivy: Daddy, Moddy, I decided!
I’m a girl!
[THUMP THUMP THUMP]
Ebony: Well! Not the odds-on favorite, but they — uh, she — seems pretty sure. I’ll organize the gender reveal party. Do we still have leftover streamers?
Gentian: Hall closet, top shelf? I guess I’ll make an appointment with an endocrinologist. Where’s that business card Laurel gave you?
Ebony: Filing cabinet, under the . . .
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this is so goddamn cute
Cute, this reminds me of my daughter sharing her gender with me at the age of 3.
Moddy! That’s so cute.
Awww, you made gender-reveal parties actually adorable!
… not that I have any better idea, but I wouldn’t consider opinion of this small child that much reliable, no matter how sure she sounds …
With IRL kids who are raised at “you can pick your own pronouns and we’ll use neutral ones until you do,” I’m guessing you’d be surprised at how young that decision happens.
And, you know…just call people what they want to be called. An outsider’s personal judgment about whether their feelings are “reliable” isn’t relevant or useful. Their opinion could always change later on — no matter how old they are! — and it’s not like respecting the earlier preference beforehand is going to somehow block you from respecting the new one afterward.
Heck, even kids who weren’t raised that way often know they’re trans by this age.
Children don’t really have less reliable opinions than adults, they just have a shorter period of time they’ve been around and collecting/processing knowledge about things as a basis for their opinions.
Which is to say that a five-ish year old child who’s been taught in an understanding and age-appropriate* manner about gender is more likely to have a reliable opinion about their own gender than a thirty-ish year old adult who’s been expected to Just Know their whole life.
Also, when you have a kid of your own who you raise and pay attention to, you learn to pick up the difference between “this is a temporary preference” and “this is a definitive statement” pretty well.
ALSO also, this whole society seems to have really great gender-hormone medicine so like. Even if Ivy did change her mind a few more times over the next ten years, that’d be fine. They’ve pretty clearly progressed past “point of no return” decisions. And tbh I’m not even sure that whole “point of no return” thing is real IRL.
* By “age-appropriate” I mean tailored to the cognitive development level of the child, not censored for social norms.
Even in a world with really great gender hormone medicine, unless understanding has drastically changed, or there’s severe dysphoria issues, it’s likely that an endocrinologist won’t have much of anything to do until the age puberty would normally start (I’ve heard from many trans people — again, not necessarily all, but as a common trend — that dysphoria wasn’t an issue until puberty started). So the parents may be jumping the gun on worrying about the medical side, but considering how gendered Ivy’s later appearance becomes, a shopping spree will likely be in order for the near future.
Yeah, that meeting is about “let’s make sure we get a good one early and have time to build up a relationship”, not “let’s start her on hormones tomorrow.”
They’re prrrrobably being over-cautious…but there are some unlucky kids who get hit with puberty really early, and it won’t hurt to be prepared.
My niece and her cousin started menstruation at 6 and 8, respectively.
Ok, if it’s about time to build up a relationship …
In my experience, for transitioning, the endocrinologist is mostly just focused on looking at your hormone levels and adjusting medications as required, it’s not a very emotional connection beyond the relief of getting the HRT.
Even if Ivy was closer or into puberty, I seriously feel that Gentian’s bigger concern would be getting her a booking with a gender therapist (maybe get a referral from their old therapist?), to help with the various emotional stresses of socially transitioning, like a classmate not accepting her identity, or dysphoria.
They would naturally be able to refer the family to an endocrinologist when Ivy is ready.
They can also ask the fire spirits who are noted both for seeing into the future and gender conjustinous. Now they may not be able to tell you much but if it is a case of this person will majorly regret this when they grow up. Well, the fire spirits may be able to see that.
Other factors are transformation magic and an accepting society. Transformation magic help to reverse any mistakes. An accepting society makes the only mistakes needing reversal be those that cause the patient dysphoria and lessen patient dysphoria in the first place because there is less social and transitive dysphoria (i.e. the person knows this feature makes them pass less, which normally be grouped into social dysphoria but it gone though so many layers it seems to be physical dysphoria, basically sort of the trans equivalent of a psychosomatic condition).
As everyone above me has said better than I could say it myself, even if it’s not a stable gender, it’s still worth respecting.
But I wouldn’t have a party over it, either. Even adults change gender or get it wrong sometimes. Wouldn’t it suck to have a gender reveal party and then realize you were genderfluid or a demiboy or demigirl? Awkward. And if it weren’t awkward, couldn’t it incentivize kids to declare they changed their genders for more parties? That wouldn’t be horrible or anything, but it’d undermine the idea of revealing something important. At that point, why not explicitly have multiple gender-themed parties for everyone so they can explore their options and get extra cake? Wouldn’t it make it easier to decide which you liked better if you got to try out being the party girl and the party boy and the party kid?
I just love the fact that they remember where everything is, but only if it’s their partner looking for it.
I haven’t checked comics in like 3 weeks because of a nightmare mouse, and this was a *lovely* one to come back to. 🙂 🙂
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