I Was a Bigoted Speech Therapist

As my views on gender evolved, so did how I taught kids about pronouns

Speech therapist Judith Lam Tang's epiphany about gender biases transformed how she teaches kids about gender concepts in language. Photo by Magda Ehlers

I’m ashamed to admit this, but I think it has to be said: I used to be a bigoted speech therapist.

As recently as ten years ago, when I worked on teaching pronouns to children who demonstrated difficulties using them correctly, I used the most cringe-worthy methods. I presented a photo of a person with long hair and a dress riding a bicycle and said to little Johnny, “Is this a boy or a girl?” If Johnny correctly said, “It’s a girl,” I proceeded to explain that “girls use she and her” and say a sentence like “She is riding a bicycle.” We’d do the same thing with various photographs of people, looking at the photo and assuming the person was “a boy or a girl” and then practicing using “he and him” or “she and her” based on the response. I don’t remember learning anything beyond the gender binary in my schooling twenty years ago, and this method of teaching pronouns was what we practiced in our clinical placements. Any purchasable materials for teaching pronouns were structured this way (and many still are).

If this doesn’t make you feel icky, it should. I taught children to look at a person and make assumptions about their gender based on their physical appearance: the length and style of their hair, the clothing they wore, whether they were wearing makeup, and what they were doing. To be clear, these were people who weren’t known to the children. They were stock photos or other random photos printed on cards. The way I was helping children learn how to use pronouns was doing two very harmful things: teaching children they should assume gender from someone’s appearance, and reinforcing the gender binary.

I distinctly remember the first conversation I had with someone at work about singular they/them pronouns. “It doesn’t really make sense, though,” I said, “because they and them refer to groups of people. How can we make them refer to a single person? It’s too confusing!” At that time in my life, I didn’t know anyone who was non-binary or transgender. I had once come across a bank teller who had a nametag that said something like “Joelle”, and I thought they had a male-sounding voice. It confused me but I didn’t really think much of it. My husband told me about an artist we’d once met who was a man, married to a woman at the time we met them, but now had transitioned to being female. “Huh,” I said, “totally didn’t see that coming.” Again I didn’t think much else of it.

I was completely ignorant. And that ignorance meant I was perpetuating harm. As a cisgender woman, I had the privilege to stay ignorant.

The adage, “Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist” really applied to me.

I grew up in a very Christian family, and a very small bubble of Christian culture. As a teenager and young adult, I attended Christian youth conferences where people would give testimony about how they had been shown the light and turned from gay to straight. My dad became a pastor when I was in junior high (and still is, even though he’s supposed to be retired) and I was an extremely zealous churchgoer into my twenties.

But shortly before I got married, there were political happenings at our church that led to my parents leaving and moving away. It was the first time I was confronted with the fact that the church was a man-made (emphasis on the “man”) institution and was essentially full of the same politics and grabs for power as any other institution. My husband and I got married in a different church and tried attending many different churches to find a new home, but never settled on one. Being away from the church bubble exposed me to the outside world. I started to see how the way I had been brought up didn’t actually reflect the real world.

However, my awareness of the existence of transgender and non-binary people was still extremely limited. As a speech language pathologist, I occasionally heard about therapists who worked on voice therapy for transgender clients, to help them sound more like who they felt they were. I never took the time to learn about it, though. I completely overlooked this population. I didn’t know, didn’t care, and couldn’t be bothered to learn more.

Fast forward to about five years ago, when I had a racial awakening. I’m a woman of Chinese descent, born in Canada, and I suddenly realized how much I had allowed my proximity to whiteness as a model minority dictate how I lived my life. I read everything I could get my hands on about antiracism, and was introduced to intersectionality. Thanks to this research, my entire mindset shifted. When I learned about white feminism and wondered how white women could understand sexism but completely ignore racism, it finally hit me I was doing the exact same thing with transphobia. I understood racism very well, but hadn’t considered other marginalized identities, especially queer and trans identities. I realized that I couldn’t actually be antiracist without being anti-oppression for everyone.

In my speech therapy life, I have changed how I work on pronouns with children. Now I emphasize that we teach children to use pronouns correctly when a person’s pronouns are known, and we don’t teach children to assume anyone’s gender or pronouns by looking at them. If I use a photo of a person with long hair and a dress riding a bicycle, I’ll introduce the person and their pronouns before doing any pronoun practice.

I’ll try to mix it up by introducing a person with pronouns that seem counterintuitive to stereotypes, and make sure to include singular they/them examples. If a child makes a comment like, “But they’re wearing a dress, so they must be a girl,” I do my best to dispel those gendered stereotypes by saying, “Anyone can wear a dress. Dresses aren’t just for girls.” It’s taken a lot of conscious practice to make these changes, and I still slip up all the time. I’m actively monitoring the language I use to make sure I catch myself when I make mistakes.

Ultimately, I want to demonstrate—to my students and myself—that I’m a human who is capable of change, who is capable of learning. I grew up thinking in a certain way because that’s what I was taught. I didn’t know any different, and I didn’t know any better. When I was presented with new information, I was open to considering it and allowing it to change how I think, and in turn change how I act. As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” I believe this capacity to “know better and do better” is truly what makes us human.

This essay is part of Work Week, a series of essays related to work and career. Stay tuned for more this week, and see our Work section for past essays.

Judith Lam Tang is a Chinese Canadian author, advocate, and activist. She writes about intersectional social justice at judithlamtang.com. Her forthcoming nonfiction book, Muted Colours, is scheduled for 2027 with Dundurn Press. Her essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Fiddlehead, The Festival Of Literary Diversity’s literary magazine, and Edmonton Public Library’s Capital City Press Anthology. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband, her daughter, and many plants.