Gender Creative Children in a World of Diversity in Gender Identities
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Article: “Gender Creative Children in a World of Diversity in Gender Identities“, a book review of The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children who Live Outside Gender Boxes by D. Ehrensaft
Publication: Multicultural Perspectives
Publication Date: February 21, 2017 (volume 19:1, pages 57-60)
Related WestEd Editor and Author: Julie Nicholson
Related WestEd Program: Center for Child & Family Studies
Excerpt From The Review Co-Authored by WestEd’s Julie Nicholson
“Ehrensaft opens The Gender Creative Child by explaining that nothing short of a gender revolution is taking place in our country; a movement being led by gender creative children and youth who are inspiring a sea of change in our thinking about gender. Ehrensaft explains that we are shifting as a nation from thinking about gender in traditional terms that position it as a stable characteristic, “gender as bedrock,” toward recognition of gender as a dynamic construct or what she terms “gender as moving boulders.”
Central to her book is Ehrensaft’s dictum that children have a right to define their individual gender identity and adults must take responsibility to listen to children and respect what they communicate to us about their internalized sense of gender. She summarizes this in a phrase repeated throughout the book, “It is not for us to say, but for them to tell.” ”