Sadie's Summer Camp - Bonus Scene | Gender Revolution

NARRATOR: I met so many families, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, all adjusting to a new normal when a child tells them, "I'm not a boy or I'm not a girl." But as the saying goes, it takes a village. So I wondered, how are the institutions who help raise our children adapting to this gender revolution? Grammar schools, daycare, and that rite of passage—summer camp. So I traveled to Long Island to meet Sadie, a tiny camper on the front lines. She's on a gender journey of her own, and the entire community here at Hampton Country Day Camp is along for the ride.

Will you show me around?

Sure.

OK. Low ropes, ooh. Oh, this is like a zip line, right?

Yeah. That's so cool. So Sadie is the first transgender camper here at Hampton Country Day Camp.

Yes.

Has it been a big adjustment? Were you worried about her making this transition, because she started here as a boy?

Well it initially took me by surprise. I think through conversations and just looking at it in a rational way and trying to figure out how this was going to work out and knowing Sadie as such a wonderful little child, just a happy child. This is camp; camp is about being happy. So our concerns were really how Sadie was going to make the transition here and how other campers were going to receive her. So there were a number of things to consider. It was never a question of would we do this; it was just a matter of how will we do this.

Never a question?

Never a question.

So how old were you, Sadie, when you said—when you thought to yourself and you started telling your mom and dad, "I'm not a boy, I'm a girl"?

I think when I was little.

When you heard from Sadie's parents that she was going to be coming to camp as a girl at six, were you surprised?

I wasn't because I had been speaking to her mother even at the age of three.

I think a lot of people listening to this conversation might think, "That's just too young. How do you know, at such a young age, that this is who you are? And could it just be a phase?"

I think that's probably—

That is the question.

—what people ask. I just use the facts that have been given to me, and that is children actually formulate a gender identity at a very young age. And it can be as young as two or three that they begin to demonstrate. This is exactly what we saw in Sadie when she was here at camp. And you have to allow them to express themselves freely and be the people that they are.

The seminars that we've attended, and we go to camp conferences, there had already been a lot of discussion going on. Sleepaway camps are now starting to consider these situations, and started to educate ourselves a little bit about this because we knew that we're on the horizon of change.

And tell me about other campers and their parents. Was that tricky?

I called every person who had a child that was going to be in Sadie's group two summers ago, giving them the information about what we were planning to do.

So what was the reaction? Was there any resistance from family members?

It was amazing. They were so welcoming to the idea. I was actually surprised by how easy it was. Sadie was in a boys group at age five and then a girls group as Sadie at age six.

How did the campers react?

The campers were just welcoming to her. There were certain steps that we took to make sure that her privacy was respected and that the privacy of the other campers was respected. So her changing was handled separately.

And you asked Sadie's parents, "You need to have a bathing suit that affords her more modesty than maybe other girls."

Exactly.

I know you went shopping for a bathing suit this year. For a girl's bathing suit, right? Was that exciting for you?

Mm hmm.

Yeah? Tell me about your bathing suit.

I think, really, I liked it. And I was like, that was the best shopping in my life.

And when Sadie changes, she goes to a private area. She goes to a separate area to change, she's taken by a counselor, which she loves to do, and they go to a separate bathroom and she changes in that bathroom.

In a very short amount of time, it seems that our perception of gender has changed dramatically. There's so much going on around this issue. And people can just be accepting of who people are and give them an opportunity to express themselves.

She's joyous. I mean, this is a joyous child. How could we ever take that away from her? Make her feel shameful for who she is? It just doesn't seem right or fair.