Children as young as 11 identifying as non-binary, undergoing treatment to block puberty: 'I am just me'
Young children are opening up about their decision to forgo the confines of gender and identify as non-binary, as well as their decision to undergo treatment to block puberty, all with the support of their parents.
Olivia Purdie, an 11-year-old Grade 6 student from Adelaide, recently hit the headlines after speaking about being non-binary -- where a person identifies as neither exclusively male nor female -- to ABC's Four Corners for a program titled 'Not a Boy, Not a Girl.'
"Hi, I'm Olivia. I am non-binary which means I have no gender. I am just me," Olivia explained. "The world basically evolves around boxes and those two boxes are a male and a female box. And if you're born with a female body you have to be female and if you are born with a male body you have to be a male and you've been put into a box."
Audrey, a 14-year-old who went to the same primary school as Olivia and is also gender non-binary, said they felt similarly. "It's this really innate feeling you have for a very long time and you don't know what to do with it because no-one's told you what to do with it," they revealed.
"Everyone wants to fit into a box," shared Riley, a 22-year-old. "And even I want to fit myself into a box because that's how we are raised to think. That's how society works... So the idea of being something that wasn't male or female was very, very difficult for everyone around me. And it's still something I'm coming to terms with."
In Olivia's case, they were diagnosed with gender dysphoria -- the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one's biological sex -- two years ago. Rapidly approaching puberty, the 11-year-old felt breasts did not belong on their body and doctors subsequently recommended the use of puberty blockers to cope with the anxiety. It was a decision their parents wholeheartedly supported.
"We were informed about the risks of Olivia going on puberty blockers... but we believed this risk was low and we weighed it against Olivia's mental health and wellbeing," said Olivia's mother, Jane Russo.
Indeed, Olivia's psychiatrist Georgie Swift has cautioned that puberty suppression could result in a lower bone density while growing up. But these are risks the 11-year-old's parents have understood and accepted.
"If I was to disregard Olivia's thoughts and how Olivia was feeling, I'd lose my child...," Russo said. "By saying 'this is a fad,' that 'this is child abuse,' it's actually not the reality. The reality is, I could have no child if I didn't respond to what I was hearing from my child. The need to go onto puberty blockers is actually saving Olivia's life because Olivia can be what Olivia wants to be."
It was a sentiment Riley further stressed. "No one is transitioning for the fun of it," they said. "No-one would transition because it's a fad because it's actually an awful experience and just generally in society you are ostracised."
"I ask, what does it matter to you if I don't identify as a boy or a girl?"
Swift moved to debunk theories that this was a new phenomenon because the trend of children identifying as non-binary is a recent one.
"I get asked quite a lot about why we're seeing so many more..." she said. "I don't think it is a new identity or a new type of being a person. I think non-binary people have existed as long as we have. But up until more recently, there hasn't been a language for it."