Efforts to support children to choose their own gender identity should start before birth, a professor of paediatrics has said.
Lauren T Roth from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York described the issue as her “favourite topic” during an interview in which she criticised gender reveal parties and the colours pink and blue being forced on children based on their sex. Asked what adults and family members could do to help young people, the specialist in transgender medical interventions for children diagnosed with dysphoria said: “So it honestly starts at birth or even before.
“I really think we need to try to stop making everything pink and blue, avoid these huge gender reveal parties. It’s okay to be excited when you find out your baby is a specific sex.
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“People have dreams about what they want their families to be. But it’s really important not to push all those expectations on your child.”
Dr Roth’s comments, referred to by some as gender ideology, were made in an interview uploaded to YouTube in June 2021 that had gained only a small number of views before being reported more recently by Fox News.
She said: “We have to understand that gender is on a spectrum. There’s not just men and women, there is a different spectrum of masculinity and femininity and we just need to respect and support those people.”
Dr Roth recalled her trans sibling, whose sex was assigned as female at birth, coming out to the family at the age of 21.
She said: “He had been suffering for so many years and was really depressed and we all just felt guilty.
“I really felt, like, how did we miss something like this? Why didn’t we ask earlier? Why did he have to live until 21 in the gender that he didn’t identify with?”
“He was really lucky because my family was so supportive,” she continued. “But this really kind of pushed me to say ‘why aren’t we talking to other doctors and teachers and other people that really influence these kids and ask the right questions?’
“Be supportive of them so maybe my brother would’ve been able to come out earlier on in life and gone through the transition earlier.”
Dr Roth went on to claim that children can develop their gender identity as young as 18 months.
She said: “Toddlers starts to notice physical differences and develop gender identity as early as 18 months to two years. They might begin talking about gender, playing dress up, having these established gender roles as early as age three or four.”
The professor, who is working to bring standardised training to future paediatricians, encouraged parents not to be afraid of having gender-related discussions early in childhood.
She added: “If your child was assigned male at birth and one day they tell you ‘I want to wear a pink sparkly dress’, instead of saying what a lot of people say ‘boys don’t wear dresses, girls do’ say something like ‘tell me more about why you want to wear a dress today.’
“You know be open and curious and just start the conversation. I really think having open conversations like that and just asking questions allows your child to share a little bit about themselves. And it shows that you support them, and it gives them that space to explore who they are.”
