# 5yo trans girl: "I want the fairy princess to come and make my penis into a vagina" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263 "2006-06-11T02:18:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/141 "2006-06-13T21:14:22Z")
> [@Ensign Edison](#): > > For some reason, you want to repeat an irrelevant point instead of addressing the questions and points I’ve put to you. Mere posts ago, you declared that “all you were ever saying” was that diagnosis hasn’t been properly made in this case, but now you say that you agree with Marienee and that she’s saying what you meant to. What she said didn’t have anything to do with whether the child has been diagnosed, or what with. No I know you have a comprehension problem. Did **Marienee** not sya the following? > [@](#): > > **Because it looks to me like the child has been diagnosed with GID and nothing else** , and that having the child dress as he likes at home and dress neutrally for school and in public is the name of the game right now – he is the one who doesn’t like the program. The bolded part is exactly what I’ve been saying. So is this next part from Marienee: > [@](#): > > In any event, I think treating children with GID by public transition is in general a bad idea, if we have the same definition of punluic transition. I cant imagine how it could be a good idea Those are Marienee’s essential points and I’ve been trying to make those exact points for the whole damn thread. You said I had made statements contradictory to Marienee’s post. What are they? > [@](#): > > Address the questions I’ve asked you and the arguments against your points I have made. Quit stalling. I’m really starting to think you don’t even know what you think or why, or that maybe random people just come and type on your keyboard at various intervals. I have no idea what you’re asking for. I’ve answered every question you’ve asked. Are you still harping on that stuff about most kids with GID not being transgendered? Well that IS what the article says and you’ve offered no evidence or counter-cites to disprove that, so the ball is in your court, man, not mine. ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/142 "2006-06-13T21:18:01Z")
> [@Frosted Glass](#): > > I was wondering if any TG’s, who have expressed having known about their condition at such a young age, experienced the same level of disgust with their own genitalia as Nicole. To me it is the most unsettling part of the article. A discussion of self-mutilation in children so young is usually a giant red flag for educators. I’m not TG nor do I play one on TV but it’s part of the diagnostic criteria for GID. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/143 "2006-06-13T21:37:16Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I have no idea what you’re asking for. I’ve answered every question you’ve asked. Are you still harping on that stuff about most kids with GID not being transgendered? Well that IS what the article says and you’ve offered no evidence or counter-cites to disprove that, so the ball is in your court, man, not mine. The ball was in my court. When I addressed those points. In this very thread. Now it’s in YOUR court. Go read my posts again. You will find many questions you have not, in fact, answered. The post you replied to with “TG is not GID” ends with one, in fact. You have ignored the fact that the article DOES NOT SUPPORT what you’re saying, you have ignored my quotes of your very own statements, you have ignored my questions and you now have the audacity to suggest you’ve answered them? I do not have to provide a “counter cite” to a cite which is some crackpot quack announcing with no context, no actual cite of any study or explanation of methology, that his results are “80 to 90 percent” in “curing” GID. I do not have to provide a counter cite to your interpretation of another vague statement, when I have provided a perfectly valid alternate interpretation. Just back up your position. Once again: I’m SURE you have some basis for your opinion (the one you decide to have in every other post you make) that does not come from that article, right? ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/144 "2006-06-13T21:41:17Z")
> [@Ensign Edison](#): > > Address the questions I’ve asked you and the arguments against your points I have made. Quit stalling. I’m really starting to think you don’t even know what you think or why, or that maybe random people just come and type on your keyboard at various intervals. If I may, I think he is not responding to your point because it isn’t interesting to him and it hasn’t been all that clear which part of this equation is most interesting to you. Having looked back, it looks to me as though the part you are interested in is the bit about whether most, many, or any proportion of kids with GID "just grow out of it. I am not at all sure you care what I think, but if you do, here it is: When we are talking about preschoolers, I expect that some large percentage of them do grow out of it. I also expect that, since only the most extreme manifestations of GID would be clear/diagnosable in preschool, the precentage of people with GID and who are also diagnosed with it is probably lower than for the whole population. The reason I expect that is that I am operating on the assumption that awareness of self in relation to gender and gender roles in society are fundamentally neurological in nature and that therefore a disorder in this area would also likely be neurologically based. I could be wrong and I feel am certain (lol) that there are people with psychological issues having to do with gender – but tht’s not the subject here. Kids under (well, depends on whom you ask. Since I have the floor, I’m saying) around 8 ish are not done cooking yet in that area, and diagnosis can be very difficult fro that reason – it’s hard to say how disordered development is if it isn’t done developing yet. But I do not think that gender identity is a simple analysis, and I do not think that because a preschooler identifies with the other gender than is actually expressed that this identity will remain constant over time; nor do I think that the fact that a preschooler identifies witht he gender that is expressed means that this will remain constant over time. People are amazin’. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/145 "2006-06-13T21:48:10Z")
You’ve provided no counter-cites for anything. The article provided tow professionals and a study (the ONLY study) on the subject, all of which stated that most GID kids are nit transgendered. All you’ve done is protest that one of the professionals is a “crackpot” and that all three cites are “invalid,” but you haven’t provided any evidence as to why, and you haven’t offered anything that says any different. Waving your hands in anger and snorting that you “don’t have to offer a counter-cite” is not exactly rigorous or convincing and does not absolve you of your burden. You also asked me when a kid should be “allowed to be trans” ( a nonsense question with no possible answer) and at what age a kid should be “treated for GID.” The answer to the latter question is whenever they’re diagnosed BUT (and this is the part that keeps sailing over your head) public TRANSITION is a specific treatment for **TG** and is not necessarily valid treatment for all kids diagnosed with GID. What part of that do you disagree with and why? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/146 "2006-06-13T22:39:34Z")
> [@Ensign Edison](#): > > Let’s say for a moment that I accept all this without question. What conclusion do you draw from it all, in regards to this case? Do you have any evidence that this is what’s happening here? Do you think that because psychiatric conditions can’t be tested for in a beaker, we should…what? Not diagnose them? Be very very careful? Have you seen anything that shows this case to be an example of insufficient care being taken? All we on this forum have to go on is a reporter’s article. We have no way to know what’s really going on in that family, & we have no way to know that sufficient care is being taken. > [@Ensign Edison](#): > > Most trans people report that they knew they were trans from this young, and most never “change their minds” or decide it was “just a phase”. Which evidence (if an actual statistic & not an anecdote) tells us nothing about those non-trans adults who had a trans phase in childhood. > [@lee](#): > > Humans display sexual dimophism in height. Women tend to be shorter than men. Girls tend to be shorter than boys. We are pretty good at measuring height, and the subjects can even remain alive while we measure it. Still, diagnosing the sex of anyone based on height remains problematic. I think most characteristics we would base LED tests on would face similar issues. Thank you, lee, that’s a good analogy. I would add that we cannot determine that someone is female because of a 5’0" height, nor that a person is male because of a 6’2" height. > [@Oy!](#): > > I don’t understand why they aren’t just dressing the kid in the typical kid-appropriate and basically gender-neutral play clothes and explaining that for now, the grown-up rules require that because the kid has a penis, s/he’ll have to use the boys room. > … > As long as he understands that, once again, this is an arbitrary rule, and can change when he gets big, I don’t see why living as a boy would permanently damage him assuming he does grow up to be TG one bit more than having been raised as a girl would damage him if he doesn’t. The parents talking about it with him, telling him that he will be loved and treasured regardless, indulging his current belief at home - why wouldn’t those be enough? When adult TG people talk about the damage that growing up ‘wrong’ did, I don’t think we’re talking about a similar situation. Those children usually grew up with a painful and extremely guilty (in their own minds) secret, and with no one but themselves to know they were not what they physically seemed. That’s a whole different thing from telling a kid to play along for now, because that’s the way the grown-ups want it to be. As the child gets older, s/he can decide with considerably more safety in either direction which way s/he wants to present, and heck, change schools if necessary. Surely a child who has been certain he is a girl from pre-school to, say, the age of ten is a whole lot more likely to truly end up TG than one who is still only five. Right on. This is my position. “You have a penis at this time, therefore you are anatomically a boy, & you will have to put up with that.” (I might manage to leave out, “Maybe when you’re older you’ll realize that boys don’t have it all that bad.”) And let me close with this: _A priori_, a diagnosis of TG, or GID for that matter, is much less certain than one of diabetes, because it relies on patient reporting. [House]Patients lie.[/House] ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/147 "2006-06-14T03:58:33Z")
An interesting thought here is that if we’re able to positively indentify transgendered before puberty and we’re able to intervene, a male to female would be able to stop their vocal cords from deepening and thus be able to more completely fit in as their desired gender. Once you’ve hit puberty and have a deeper voice, there’s no going back. Female to male transexuals have a much easier time of fitting in. I wonder though, is there a way to “delay” puberty until one hits 18, and thus be able to make a fully informed choice? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/148 "2006-06-14T04:06:11Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > An interesting thought here is that if we’re able to positively indentify transgendered before puberty and we’re able to intervene, a male to female would be able to stop their vocal cords from deepening and thus be able to more completely fit in as their desired gender. Once you’ve hit puberty and have a deeper voice, there’s no going back. Female to male transexuals have a much easier time of fitting in. I wonder though, is there a way to “delay” puberty until one hits 18, and thus be able to make a fully informed choice? From the first page of this thread: > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > One happy development is that we now have drugs that can forestall the process of puberty, but can also be interrupted at any time. If Nicole still identifies as a girl when she reaches her pubertal years, her boy-type puberty can be delayed until she reaches a sufficient age to make a decision regarding hormones and surgery, meaning it will be far easier for her to physically transition. And should she choose otherwise, she can go off the androgen blockers and male puberty will proceed. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/149 "2006-06-14T05:06:38Z")
> [@Oy!](#): > > explaining that for now, the grown-up rules require that because the kid has a penis, s/he’ll have to use the boys room. They can also explain that when the kid gets big, things can change, but for now, those are the silly rules […] telling a kid to play along for now, because that’s the way the grown-ups want it to be. I keep hearing this as spoken by Roberto Benigni in the concentration camp in _La Vita è Bella_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/150 "2006-06-14T05:23:13Z")
> [@Frosted Glass](#): > > I was wondering if any TG’s, who have expressed having known about their condition at such a young age, experienced the same level of disgust with their own genitalia as Nicole. To me it is the most unsettling part of the article. A discussion of self-mutilation in children so young is usually a giant red flag for educators. I experienced a painful level of disgust with it in childhood; I didn’t even want to acknowledge that it existed. However, this was without any violent ideation. I just wanted to deny it, though I knew denying it was no use. You want to talk about self-loathing in trannys? ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/151 "2006-06-15T05:15:59Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Has anyone else considered the possibility that this could be a case of an intersexed baby who was given (an incorrect) sexual assignment surgery? If Nicole nee Nicholas has a functional, normal penis, probably not. Surgically, it’s a lot easier to “dig a hole” than it is to “build a pole.” Of course, there’s no way for us to tell from the article if baby Nicholas was actually born with sexually ambiguous genitalia and had some kind of reconstructive (or maybe just constructive) surgery. If Nicole nee Nicholas is being used as a transgender poster child by the adults around her, it’s likely that if that had hapened, they would keep it under wraps. Something else I noticed: the older sister, Angela, refers to her younger sibling as “it” and “that.” More pronoun confusion. > [@](#): > > It’s kind of strange," she says, "because my friends always call it a he, and I’m like, ‘No, it’s a she,’ and it’s kind of hard. Everyone always goes up to me and goes, ‘That’s a boy, right?’ and I go, ‘No, it’s my sister,’ and they go, ‘Oh.’ " ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/152 "2006-06-15T05:39:32Z")
> [@Mirror Image egamI rorriM](#): > > If Nicole nee Nicholas has a functional, normal penis, probably not. Surgically, it’s a lot easier to “dig a hole” than it is to “build a pole.” Of course, there’s no way for us to tell from the article if baby Nicholas was actually born with sexually ambiguous genitalia and had some kind of reconstructive (or maybe just constructive) surgery. If Nicole nee Nicholas is being used as a transgender poster child by the adults around her, it’s likely that if that had hapened, they would keep it under wraps. I came in to say this, but also to admit that sometimes the parents don’t actually _know_. A friend of mine discovered he had “sexually ambiguous” genitalia when he was born after having read up on transexuality and the intersexed. When he started seeing a lot of things that looked familiar, he got… concerned… and contacted his parents. They said he’d had urinary tract problems as a wee child; that’s why he’d gone in to the doctor and gotten his genitals messed with so many times. And then the doctor admitted what he’d done. His parents didn’t know. His parents were infuriated. And my friend was shaken. He’d never really felt male all his life; not that he felt definitely female either, but he’d always known something wasn’t right. The answer was sure as hell not what he was looking for. He lives as a male, or at least he was when I last saw him – past thirty is a little late to make a big change, maybe, or maybe he just doesn’t feel the need to change. Granted, he lives as a male with long curly hair and an occasional penchant for skirts, but in Austin that hardly makes him stand out. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/153 "2006-06-15T05:59:01Z")
Incidentally, **Dio** asked why we are referring to Nicole using female pronouns if she hasn’t been diagnosed as trans. The answer is, because that is what Nicole would prefer. When someone tells me what pronoun to use, I don’t ask for their psych write-up, I call them by that pronoun. It’s polite. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/154 "2006-06-15T14:03:06Z")
> [@Mirror Image egamI rorriM](#): > > the older sister, Angela, refers to her younger sibling as “it” and “that.” More pronoun confusion. I noticed the same thing happening in an unrelated IMHO thread. > [@Walloon](#): > > You wouldn’t know it from usage today, but “bimbo” in Italian means “baby boy”. It’s already a “him”. We now have linguists at the Centers for Language Control monitoring around the clock this human neuter pronoun (HNP) outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/155 "2006-06-15T16:18:31Z")
> [@Little Plastic Ninja](#): > > I came in to say this, but also to admit that sometimes the parents don’t actually _know_. A friend of mine discovered he had “sexually ambiguous” genitalia when he was born after having read up on transexuality and the intersexed. When he started seeing a lot of things that looked familiar, he got… concerned… and contacted his parents. They said he’d had urinary tract problems as a wee child; that’s why he’d gone in to the doctor and gotten his genitals messed with so many times. > > And then the doctor admitted what he’d done. His parents didn’t know. His parents were infuriated. Thus the reason for my “malpractice” comment earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263/156 "2006-06-15T18:24:24Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I keep hearing this as spoken by Roberto Benigni in the concentration camp in _La Vita è Bella_. I don’t know if that’s a slam or a commentary on the fact that adults can make difficult situations much better for children by helping them to achieve a viewpoint that’s acceptable. If it’s a slam, I suggest you get a grip. I know growing up tg is difficult, but if you think it’s comparable to being in a concentration campas a child, with daily starvation, heavy labor, disease, victimization from both guards and other prisoners, and of course the little matter of death as a imminent likelihood, you’ve got a serious case of tunnel vision. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/5yo-trans-girl-i-want-the-fairy-princess-to-come-and-make-my-penis-into-a-vagina/360263.md?page=7)