What a thoughtful, heartfelt and fundamentally generous bunch you are.
Please join me in offering an enormous thank you to all our panel and everyone else who joined in.
The debate is still rolling and will be for some time we suspect, so head over to #gdnteentrans if you want to keep reading. What a note to end on though:
And finally, you thought we’d forgotten didn’t you... We’ll leave you this evening with the genius of the late, great David Bowie.
Thanks for turning out. Cheerio.
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Can that really be the time?
Let’s round this off on an uplifting note:
Hurry up, please, it's time!
Absolutely completely your last chance to ask questions of our panel this evening, just 5 minutes remaining: use #Gdnteentrans or email us childrens.books@theguardian.com.
Another insightful contribution to the debate about labels, and whether gender identity should define a person, this time from Razel Reid.
Modern day society is still being painfully exposed under the microscope. The NHS specialist Gender identity development service does excellent work as a first point of call for young people questioning their identity, but...
Worth noting that while based in London, GIDS accept referrals nationwide.
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Straying into political waters alert.
Other site members have anecdotal evidence of the difficulties transgender children face in schools:
“Difficulties” being in this instance a euphemism for bullying.
Alex Gino has a check on the rather premature note of self-congratulation sounded earlier. More to do?
The next steps?
In response to a call for more genderfluid characters, T Cooper has an answer along the classic “labels are for tins” line.
This is the second storyline we’ve come up with in a matter of minutes! Is someone taking notes here?!
There are some tough questions being thrown around out there tonight. Here’s another from Joshua:
Lisa Williamson has another thoughtful response:
As does Juno, complete with recommendation:
Join in anytime
Don’t forget, you can join the conversation anytime before 8pm by posting questions using #Gdnteentrans or emailing us childrens.books@theguardian.com.
This is the next step in the process, then, surely.
Perhaps genre fiction has the answer?
Plus, take a bow T Cooper and Alison Glock-Cooper - Changers is definitely one of the best. Perhaps we’ve already come up with an idea for the next series too?
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Isn’t it fantastic to feel part of something?
*pats self on back and feels rather smug*
All of which segues nicely into a parallel conversation that’s been taking place about representations of other, non-binary gender identities.
Have binary constructions historically just been easier to get our heads round I wonder? Humans have a categorical approach to existence; label yourself or be labelled by others at your peril!
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It’s also something Alyssa Brugman has written about for Guardian children’s books after writing her book about an intersex character:
This is an interesting point which worries many people confronted with the LGBT+ alphabet soup, even those with the best of intentions. The solution is easy:
After all, Lisa Williamson wrote The Art of Being Normal which has been a crucial intervention in transgender representation.
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There is a lone dissenting voice, however:
The exception being perhaps David Walliams’s book of that very name?
Some answers posited in response to Patrick’s earlier question about the greater levels of visibility for male-to-female transitions:
Ooh this is sneaky, Lisa Williamson - we like it!
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Juno Dawson has joined the conversation on the diverse book covers front about This Book Is Gay, addressing the need to balance pride in the subject matter with the hesitations of closeted readers.
A useful reminder here from Children’s books site member Patrick that even transgender rights are not a monolithic entity (yep, we warned you it was about to get intellectual…)
Surely the answer is just always more stories, more stories.
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OK folks, serious intellectual faces on now. Tonight might be a hugely supportive forum for debate, but the real world can be a scary place.
Now this is a good ‘un!
Does anyone else think the opening minutes of this chat have not been quite as high-falutin’ as expected??
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A timely reminder that while this chat is pegged “transgender rights and teen fiction”, we’re by no means limiting the debate there.
As blogger Lexi adds,
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Ah yes, there is only so open you want this conversation to actually be…
And yet, and yet – let’s not write it off too quickly:
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Ah well, we can always dream, eh?
Still we’ve got a fantastic line-up: take it away guys!
Let’s get this show on the road!
What do the punters think?
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You can post questions anytime between now and 8pm using #Gdnteentrans, or by emailing childrens.books@theguardian.com. But seriously, you want to do it NOW! Things are about to get bus-zay.
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Some mellow pre-chatting-chaos listening
‘Girls will be boys and boys will be girls / It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world...’
50% of “millenials” see gender as a spectrum, according to a 2015 poll.
Here’s one of them on the need to appreciate the nuances of gender identity as a lived experience.
Tick tock, the hands on the clock are a-turning...
Transgender, intersex and subverting gender stereotypes: Lisa Williamson is also the compiler of this list of the top 10 teen books featuring characters of all different gender identities.
Well worth a read as we while away the winnowing minutes till showtime.
To join in this evening, all you need to do is...
Make sure you’re following us (@GdnChildrensBks), get some snacks and a nice big (non-alcoholic!) drink, and just start posing questions from 7pm using #Gdnteentrans.
You don’t even need to be on twitter to take part – search #Gdnteentrans in Twitter to read the conversation, then send any comments or questions to us at childrens.books@theguardian.com and we’ll feed them in for you.
Or you can sit back, relax and follow the whole thing with high-def, high-hilarity antics right here.
The cast
Lisa Williamson, @lisa_letters, author of The Art of Being Normal and speaker of these thoughts: ‘I have met so many young transgender people living happy, hopeful lives’.
Robin Talley, @robin_talley, author of What We Left Behind and originator of these musings: ‘It’s important for fiction to show the breadth of the world we live in’.
Juno (nee James) Dawson, @junodawson, sharer of this advice on mental health.
T Cooper, @RealTCooper, co-author of Changers with Allison Glock-Cooper and penner of this piece on gender fluidity.
Raziel Reid, @razielreid, author of much-anticipated debut When Everything Feels like the Movies.
Alex Gino, @lxgino, author of George and ponderer of these pensées: ‘I knew I was different as a kid’.
YOU (we hope!)
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Preamble
Was 2015 the best year for transgender rights in history? In 2012, US Vice-President Joe Biden called transgender rights ‘the civil rights issue of our time’. Since then, leaps have been made year-on-year: increased protection from discrimination in the workplace; more flexibility for designating gender identity on social media profiles; the UK Parliament’s first ever inquiry into transgender inequality. Caitlyn Jenner’s turn on the cover of Vanity Fair led to unprecedented levels of global discussion, Emmy-nominated Laverne Cox (who herself appeared on the cover of Time in 2014) starred in the 3rd season of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, and in the UK Rebecca Root took to the small screen in BBC Two’s Boy Meets Girl. Major gay rights group Stonewall finally came out in support of trans rights almost exactly a year ago, in February 2015.
With increased visibility can come increased risk, however, whether that’s in terms of media portrayals – where feminist icon Germaine Greer courted controversy for her comments about trans women and a TV panellist called it a ‘craze’ in November – or, more horrifically, in the real world: in 2015, the murder rate of transgender people (overwhelmingly of colour) reached an all-time high in the US.
Still, talking can only ever be A Good Thing. NHS referrals for young people have increased five-fold since 2010, signalling not only that society may be becoming more accepting but also that young people are increasingly able to talk about their experiences. To act you first need to articulate. For that, we at Guardian Children’s Books believe that books have no small part to play; young adult fiction is at the forefront of all this, writing stories that are, yes, diverse, but also engaging, exciting, and enlightening. After all, figuring out your identity as a teenager is complex for everyone and schools can be unforgiving places at the best of times: what we need are stories, stories, stories. So what role does fiction have to play in furthering tolerance for trans and other non-binary people and, having taken great strides in that direction, what next for 2016?
We’ll be discussing all this and more between 7-8pm this evening, using #Gdnteentrans. Whether you identify as cisgender, trans or anything in between, join us.
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