Including gender dysphoria

KU Osborne Park Preschool, in Sydney’s Lane Cove, is just one of KU’s many services with a strong lens on inclusion and social justice.

But in 2022, the team of 14 educators won KU’s highest accolade, the KU Marcia Burgess Award, for their work in creating a safe and inclusive space for a child with gender dysphoria.

The service welcomes 150 children across the week and Lisa Milham, Director, says their motto, “At preschool you can be whoever you want to be”, is long standing.

“Our motto is a reminder to staff not to encourage children to assign roles and for children to not let others tell them who they are,” says Lisa.

“Children can pretend to be who or whatever they want especially when they’re playing, and they can also wear and look however they want,” she says.

“So, when Samuel* rocked up to preschool every week for a year in a yellow Wiggle dress, no one batted an eyelid. Sometimes he’d even say, ‘I’m a girl!’.”

And then Samuel shared that he would like to be called Mia*.

Why is Samuel now called Mia?

Samuel’s mum and dad knew their KU community would be an essential support as Mia started on a new life-path, so they introduced Lisa to a specialist at The Gender Centre, which is recognised as a centre of excellence in NSW through an Australian Service Excellence Standards Award Accreditation.

“When a child comes to our service and has different needs, the first thing we do is seek specialist input so we can ensure staff are best positioned to support each child,” says Lisa.

“I was very glad to be invited to join the family for a Zoom meeting with The Gender Centre,” says Lisa. “The meeting was about making Samuel officially Mia at preschool, and importantly to reassure Mia that her wishes would be respected.”

Lisa admits that at first, she and the team were concerned about saying the wrong thing, like using the wrong pronouns. They also worried how they would respond to questions from children and families.

“The Gender Centre gave us scripts to use in a variety of situations,” Lisa says. “One thing that was really helpful was knowing we didn’t have to explain anything because we never discuss any child’s genitalia at preschool.”

“But what made the staff really relieved, was knowing all we had to do was make a commitment to support Mia. It would be okay to make mistakes and apologise – even using humour. We just needed to be role models for the children,” she says.

Creating a safe space

Mia’s locker, hat and name tag were all updated, and Lisa led a group-time talk with the children explaining how Mia wanted to be Mia.

“I also updated our library with books about diversity and stories with gender neutral characters so Mia could see herself in the pages,” says Lisa.

“As educators we took on the responsibility of backing Mia up at all times, so she never felt she had to fight battles on her own,” she says.

Lisa also updated the philosophy of the service. “It already spoke to inclusion, but I wanted the wording to be specific and include that we welcome all diversity be it gender, cultural, religious, neurodiversity or diverse abilities,” says Lisa.

Supporting staff

As well as the expertise from The Gender Centre, Lisa reached out to the knowledge bank of KU’s Learning and Development team and her Education and Quality Manager.

“We had lots of conversations about diversity in general as well as gender diversity. There are so many great resources out there including presentations from Early Childhood Australia Conferences,” says Lisa.

Every time Lisa found an informative article or video, she’d circulate it among her team, so everyone felt comfortable.

The greatest support to all the educators was seeing that now Mia found her identity, she was able to be her authentic self. And she was a totally different person.

“As the specialists confirmed, Mia was totally in the wrong body before. Now she is super confident, more talkative and takes the lead in play. We can all see the growth in her,” says Lisa.

“I feel so proud of everyone – the children, families and educators – they all embraced Mia’s transition in such a kind way,” Lisa says choking back emotion. “There was no push back from anyone.”

“And that’s the way it should be, everyone should have the opportunity to be whoever they want to be,” she says.

That radical kindness, just letting others be themselves, takes zero effort. But it is life changing for the individual who is asking for acceptance and a sense of belonging.

As Lisa says, “Just be kind. It makes no difference to my life how you want to live your life.”

*Names changed to protect privacy