Let’s Normalize Young People’s Gender and Sexual Fluidity

Gender is a psychological concept. It is less about the body we’re born into, and more about how we perceive ourselves – as masculine, feminine, neither, both, something in between, or something that shifts. Gender is not a binary concept; it is fluid rather than fixed. Some little boys develop into big, strong men. Others become beautiful, strong women. Most are somewhere in between. Similarly, sexuality is neither binary nor fixed, especially in the early years of sexual awakening. This isn’t because young people are “following a trend” or “under the influence of ideology." It’s because they’re discovering who they are and who they are and aren’t attracted to as they transition from child to an adult with sexual potential.

Psychodynamic theory emphasises early childhood experiences as influencing all aspects of the self, including gender and sexuality. The processes of internalisation and identification mostly happen during early childhood at an unconscious level, but there is a strong emphasis, in most psychological theories, on the correlation between biological sex, sexuality, and gender identity. These theories reflect cisgender and heteronormative assumptions, and do not consider the wide range of developmental experiences or gender and sexual diversities. These theories, therefore, and those who cling rigidly to them, do young people a disservice.

What if there’s a contradiction between the body and the mind? What if we’re labelled as one thing, but our thoughts and feelings don’t match up? What if we change our mind? What if we’re just not sure?

Many of the adolescents and young adults I meet in therapy have had excruciating experiences of being mislabelled, misunderstood, ridiculed and dismissed, especially those who are transgender. The people doing the mislabelling, misunderstanding, ridiculing and dismissing use their own rigidity and young people’s inconsistences and uncertainties as evidence of their naivety and “wrongness”. They ask, “How can I take them seriously when they keep changing their mind?” or “I’m sure they’ll grow out of it’ and “It’s just a phase”. But it’s those people who’ve got it wrong.

The onset of puberty is often the time when feelings about gender and sexuality become prominent. As the body develops secondary sexual characteristics, young adolescents are compelled to think about who they are, whether and where they fit — including their own bodies — who they want to be and who they are or are not attracted to. The fluidity of their thought processes might show up as gender ambiguity or sexual confusion and uncertainty, which parallels the fluidity of gender and sexuality per se, as well as illustrating the ordinary developmental process of adolescence.

It is always a privilege to be permitted insight into young people’s thoughts and feelings to help them make sense of gender and sexuality, not from a position of authority, but from alongside them, negotiating the fluidity together. Working with transgender clients affords an additional privilege, because often their experiences mean they are understandably guarded and supremely mistrustful. I accept this gift gratefully and work with it respectfully, affirming that fluidity is part of the process.