THE JENNIFER PROJECT — question and answer

"Dialogue is thus an existential necessity.  And since dialogue is the encounter in which the united reflect and action of the dialoguers are addressed to the world which is to be transformed and humanized, this dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one person's depositing ideas in another, nor can it become  a simple exchange of ideas to be "consumed" by the discussants" (Freire, 1970).

Most research projects are very impersonal and never truly connect the reader with the subject.  The intent of this project was to foster community and a higher level of understanding, by allowing you to ask questions and receive a response.   Click here to ask Jennifer a question.  Your question and Jennifer's answers will be posted anonymously below.  

1) What can a parent do to better help a young child in their struggle to understand their gender identity?  How will we be able to accomplish it?

Encourage them that gender should not have boundaries and let them explore outside the "norm" for male and female roles.  The worst thing a parent could do, in pretty much any situation, is to not accept their child for who they are or think they might be, and to discourage exploration within their comfort-zone.  Anyone can simply accomplish this by starting off being open-minded when your child is growing up.  If your little boy plays with Barbie's, don't tell him he can't and take it away from him.  Let him explore and learn where he fits in to the world socially on his own.  If ever a child asks you for help, please try your best to answer his or her questions, and if you find that you cannot, find time to learn about the subject with them.  For most parents, gender identity is something last on their mind, but their ignorance can be changed with education about the subject, and if a parent educates themselves it seems they are more willing to take part in the process of change that might occur with a gender-variant child.

2) I have a student who is an African American woman doing her thesis at another school and she is writing about the "Stud" - which as far as I have learned so far is an African American woman who most likely has as affectional/sexual preference other women, who is a strong female who does not assume any traditional female role/identity. So I'm wondering if Jennifer has heard this term and has any wisdom to share.

Yes, haha.  I have recently heard it.  It is interesting because there is a woman I met not too long ago.  She identifies as a stud, instead of a lesbian, and by this (she has told me) means a woman who doesn't take on female roles at all, which could include not liking men.  Sometimes, though, stud just refers to an African-American woman, who is straight, but still doesn't fit into the gender roles of females.  Like I said, I have just recently stumbled upon this myself, and am learning from her what she thinks it means as part of the African-American community and as person of gender-variance, therefore, I am not fully knowledgeable on the subject either.

3) As children we role play our identity as well as seek the gender identity of the people we are close to. In terms of transgender, where does the gender identity come from?

I believe that gender identity is made up of a lot of things, including genetics, envrionmental factors, and potentially other factors as well.  Probably the best example I can give to prove my point is that there are two friends of mine that were genetically born as females who raised exactly the same.  Their parents let them act or express themselves however they wanted after a certain age, leaving the two girls to determine their friends, their dress, their social places, etc.

One of them is now a female to male transexual and the other is a straight woman.  This proves that while they share the same genes, and were raised in the same environment, somehow, possibly due to the people they met and the experiences they had outside of their family setting, they are now completely different people.  However, I am not saying that by hanging out with a certain group of people, etc. that it is a choice.  In other words, that you choose to hang out with some people or do certain things that in turn, it is a choice to be gender-variant or gay, etc.  I do not believe it is a choice, because if many people had the choice to have their body fit with their minds on a gender-based level, I am sure they would chose so.  This may seem hard to understand, but I believe that it is also our experiences and the people around us that lead us to discover who we really are.  Let me know if you need further clarification on this, it is difficult to understand through words alone, I am sure.