It’s Just a Phase: Contemporary Interpretative Frames of Trans Childhood

Abstract

This essay focuses on trans childhood’s permissive frames of interpretation. Childhood shall be seen as determined by age, the social context, and transition. Childhood is therefore a capacious term which extends to post-adolescence, or the post-secondary school period. It is also situative: even in adulthood, the child role may continuously be reinforced in the family and in inter-generational interactions. In addition, transition undertaken in adulthood may hormonally reproduce the effects of adolescence. The aim of this essay of to explore the ways gender identity and childhood are co-articulated in Hungarian popular cultural phenomena. Two comedy sketches by Tibor Bödőcs represent both gendered ambivalence and the anxieties surrounding the propagandistic construct of transitioning kindergarteners. The discourse of child psychology, as practiced by the trio of Tamás Vekerdy, Péter Popper, and Jenő Ranschburg, also touches upon the idea of a queer or trans childhood. Alexa Bakony’s 2021 documentary, The Colours of Tobi uniquely thematizes trans adolescence in the countryside – and allows for the radical simultaneity of the experience of trans childhood and its representation.