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A transgender child tells us

This is a very personal story. I am the transgender child telling this story. But it is not just my own story. Meanwhile I now countless similar and far more touching stories of children who, for various reasons, do most things on their own. Quiet, imaginative, highly sensitive and shy children who experience their environment differently to others. Above all, they perceive themselves differently.

If I am sincere, this is probably also the reason why, in my longstanding art therapy work with children and adolescents, I am particularly interested in those young patients who, due to their sensitivity, find themselves in much stronger inner areas of tension and therefore often must overcome more complex hurdles in their development than other, securely attached, i.e. self-confident children. We have long known from infant research and numerous psychological studies how important secure early attachments, emotionally reliable caregivers and a parent-child relationship based on unconditional love are for the healthy development of a child. Without these prerequisites, the decisive stages of maturation cannot take place or can only take place with difficulty. And this undoubtedly shapes a person's entire life.

I am not interested in pathologizing or assigning blame. Quite the opposite. With the twelve episodes in my biographical story, I primarily want to sensitize people to what it is like when a transgender child grows up in a family context in which there is hardly any understanding and loving response in crucial situations. And how this child experiences it when it finally faces a developmental step that it is not yet able to master. Representative of all the hurdles later on.

Author: Titus David Hamdorf, Berlin, Germany