Toronto parent Tessa Yang is raising Elia, who is best described as a gender-fluid child. (Pseudonyms have been used for both to protect their privacy.) Gender identity is something they discussed together when Elia was six. “When I asked, ‘Do you feel like a boy or girl?’ Elia said, ‘I feel 25 percent like a boy and the rest is like a kid.’”
Elia, now a teenager, used the pronouns “they/them” before switching to “he/him” in public school. A few years ago, she also started using “she/her,” and Yang seamlessly changes between the two sets of pronouns throughout our interview. “When Elia said to me, ‘I use she and he pronouns now,’ I asked, ‘How do you know which one to use?’ . . . but Elia just really wanted both all the time.”
