# Good for you, CNN. (edit teen suicide/gender identity) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 2, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743 "2015-01-02T04:16:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/121 "2015-01-03T15:35:53Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > If a boy from ages 5 to 10 insists he is a girl, persistent, insistent, and consistent, or whatever the phrase was, I would still not advocate allowing him to present as female. I don’t think a 10-year-old should make that decision. I’m clearly in the minority, perhaps of one, but I do not find it as urgent as you do that he begin a transition. Get him in constant therapy, with the whole family, and be loving and understanding, but have him wait until 18. Why not? No harm will be done by allowing her to present as female, but much harm could be done by forcing her to pretend to be a gender she is not. And you’re still calling it a decision - it is no more her decision to be female than it’s yours whether you’re gay or straight. What you are basically saying is that a child can’t know their own gender, and that they should accept whatever gender their parents impose on them, despite the medical and psychological arguments otherwise. Oh, and if people - children or otherwise - do happen to change gender through their lives, so what? It doesn’t appear to happen, despite your uncited scare stories, but if it did there should be no problem with that. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/122 "2015-01-03T15:53:15Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > You confuse my insistence on proper pronouns with thinking transgenderism isn’t real. It is and people living with it deserve dignity and support. Your insistence on proper pronouns reveals that you do you not believe being transgender is “real,” as you put it. And you are showing evidence of neither dignity nor support. In fact, I would not willingly allow someone like you around the transgender kids and adults whom I counsel and mentor. You must also know that by stating you don’t believe sex and gender are not the same is doing exactly what you accuse others of doing - applying your own definitions to something already established. Good luck with all that. [I don’t know why this reference summarizing the evidence on structural differences in transgender brains keeps being forgotten.](http://transascity.org/the-transgender-brain/) ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/123 "2015-01-03T15:53:44Z")
It’s not always as straightforward as XX vs. XY. There are mosaics and chimeras who have both XY and XX cells. There’s androgen insensitivity. Different types of aneuploidy, e.g. XXY, XXYY. I dunno if that applies to this case. Obviously, the parents are terrible people. But the topic has gone further afield. What’s curious to me (and where the controversy always explodes) are XY males who say they’re really women. They seem to conflate sex with gender and think it should be the same, in opposition to those who think they shouldn’t necessarily align. They say they feel like a woman, but the descriptions are often stereotypes of femininity in a specific time and place, sometimes almost sounding like something from the 1950s, e.g. liking dolls as a kid, liking pink, wanting to wear a dress, etc. This is where tomboys and butches say they never felt any of that and they’re pretty sure they’re women too, thank you very much. Or the XY will say he’s more nurturing than other males. Or maybe he likes dudes, or prefers the company of women vs. men. Ain’t nothing wrong with being gay. It’s unfortunate we don’t have a way to cure the disconnect in their brains between physical and mental. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/124 "2015-01-03T15:54:28Z")
People need to understand how fundamentally the school-age social scene has changed. I teach at a school with about 400 kids. In the senior class, there are 5 boys who are out, and it just isn’t a big deal. We had a kid, a freshman, who transitioned over the summer. It’s a little weird, I think, for his middle school peers (not all the kids went to the same middle school), but it’s a \*little \*weird, it’s not the story of the year, by any means. If he were to decide to transition back in a year, that would also not be a big deal. Put it this way–when one of the freshman muttered “faggot” at a senior boy, THAT was a much bigger story, because everyone found that so shockingly rude (and, honestly, impertinent). People are making assumptions about what it would have been like to be a transitioning kid in their school, 20 years ago. It’s not that world. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/125 "2015-01-03T15:55:37Z")
> [@Hayden](#): > > I hearby declare my self a duck. And so it shall be. Feed me bread. > > “Leelah” was free to believe whatever he wanted, but his belief didn’t make it so. The difference being that Leelah never claimed she had a female body nor basic overriding physiology. She was a different gender than aligned with her sex. This is so basically evident from the facts you either didn’t read anything, or else you stepped into Great Debates to flaunt your bigotry. Either way, it’s kinda sad. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/126 "2015-01-03T16:02:15Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Why not? No harm will be done by allowing her to present as female, but much harm could be done by forcing her to pretend to be a gender she is not. And you’re still calling it a decision - it is no more her decision to be female than it’s yours whether you’re gay or straight. > > What you are basically saying is that a child can’t know their own gender, and that they should accept whatever gender their parents impose on them, despite the medical and psychological arguments otherwise. > > Oh, and if people - children or otherwise - do happen to change gender through their lives, so what? It doesn’t appear to happen, despite your uncited scare stories, but if it did there should be no problem with that. What harms were caused by NOT letting a 10-year-old boy be a “girl”? And apparently you think it’s settled science that sexual preference is biological, with no element of choice. Monozygotic twin studies do not support this claim. No, I am not saying impose any gender identity. I’d say accommodate a boy where possible (dress however he wants at home) but keep his name and he has to play on boys teams. He can go full XX when he’s an adult. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/127 "2015-01-03T16:07:05Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > This is exactly what public high schools teach about sex and gender. I didn’t realize it was controversial. We teach that sex is a dichotomy, and gender is a continuum, as is sexual preference. (Some schools use “sexual orientation.”) I realize this is problematic for certain chromosomal irregularities and asexuals, but teachers make it work. > > I don’t think most Dopers understand the practical implications of telling children, “You get to choose your gender.” It is a nightmare. Names are easy, unless the parents object. If “Jack” wants to be “Juliet,” and the parents are opposed, on what grounds, and at what age, do kids get to pick? My school tries to be as accommodating as possible, but some things can’t be accommodated. There are state laws that bar males from using female restrooms and vice versa. For good reason: Do any of you want senior boys hanging out in your freshman daughter’s locker room? On what grounds would you ban them, if gender is self-reported and mutable? And despite all the remaining words, this contains the fault in your argument. You assume that children choose their gender. Or I guess by implication that anyone chooses their gender. Your entire argument is based on a false assumption. Your gender chooses YOU. YOU do not choose YOUR gender. Anyone who did actually wake up one day and say “hey, I think I’ll be a girl for a while, that sounds like a lark!” is playing a game or delusional. Transgender kids present as being _insistent, persistent, and consistent_ about their gender identity. I cannot even begin to explain the lengths to which they will go to try to be the gender they are. None of them chose it - most of the ones I work with will be in tears of it, begging us for help at the counseling center. They beg us for a drug, counseling, a “shot”, an operation - anything so they won’t be transgender. Kids are very sensitive to peer pressure, and most of them do NOT want to be the class “freak”, the one who is mocked, threatened, beaten. Genderfluid kids are a bit different, but they are not switching back and forth to spite society or play a game. They honestly do not know for certain what they are. They come to us and most of them want desperately not to feel that way. Again, they ask for anything they can do or any treatment to make them normal. To make them not stand out. To stop the pain they feel inside. You speak a lot about experience with children. How many transgender children have you counseled? More than 0? I’ve helped more than I can count, person to person, working with them and their parents. If you saw, spoke to, and worked for some time with any of them, you would feel completely different about it. The most compelling argument for the reality is to work with the kids themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/128 "2015-01-03T16:09:38Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > And apparently you think it’s settled science that sexual preference is biological, with no element of choice. Monozygotic twin studies do not support this claim. We’re talking about gender identity, not sexual preference. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/129 "2015-01-03T16:11:34Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > So you would require some kind of clinical diagnosis of gender identity disorder (sorry I got my psych degree using the DSM-IV) in order to identify transgendered children? And what about those who do not fit the clinical criteria but still insist they are transgendered? If you do not let the kids self-identify without a diagnosis, how do you stop all the harms you claim arise? Good question. It happens, unfortunately. I’m not sure what I’d do, to be honest - the requirement of a clinical diagnosis is more a concession to people who have little understanding of the issue. > [@](#): > > I’m not suggesting the football team will wear wigs and dresses to shower with girls; I’m suggesting they’ll act like they always have but SAY they feel like girls, and therefore want to use the girls’ facilities. And someone coming out as gay probably doesn’t change their behavior much either. Not to mention that someone claiming gender issues and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing about them beyond use the girl’s locker room would almost certainly come under some scrutiny. But this is all talking about a hypothetical scenario which does not happen, and if it does happen, can be handled on a case-by-case basis. I’d be more worried about this if it ever happened. In reality, it doesn’t. > [@](#): > > Again, I understand neuropsychology, but I don’t know how to explain transgendereds switching back if their gender is literally hard-wired in their brain. Maybe for some, it’s like some bisexuals; they really feel it is a choice? Although, you can’t concede that because you’ve asserted repeatedly that gender is NOT a choice. EDIT: **Una** covered it. She knows more about this than I do by a long mile. > [@](#): > > I don’t understand. If there are no irreparable changes before age 18, why can’t those changes wait until 18? If taking female hormones for a male from 13-18 doesn’t retard his male development, why can’t he begin them at 18? I think they obviously retard his ability to develop as a normal male, even if the hormones are stopped. [https://www.endocrine.org/~/media/endosociety/Files/Publications/Clinical%20Practice%20Guidelines/Endocrine-Treatment-of-Transsexual-Persons.pdf](https://www.endocrine.org/~/media/endosociety/Files/Publications/Clinical%20Practice%20Guidelines/Endocrine-Treatment-of-Transsexual-Persons.pdf) The whole point of beta blockers is to _delay_ puberty. To push it back, to make the decision with an adult without the consequences of puberty. Why can’t it wait until 18? Because puberty is _not_ reversible in the same way. > [@](#): > > I realize that some transgendered students live a tortured existence. No one wants this. I also realize that transgendered students aren’t “faking” anything and that Gender Identity Disorder is a real pathology. I just question the wisdom in allowing children to make decisions that can literally affect the rest of their lives before they are of the age of majority. We don’t let them, though, do we? Show me a parent who just “took their word for it” that their kid was transgendered and proceeded to get that kid therapy, and I’ll show you a parent who’s both a moron, and will be stopped by actual doctors and psychologists who will double-check the diagnosis before any actual permanent changes are made. > [@](#): > > If a boy from ages 5 to 10 insists he is a girl, persistent, insistent, and consistent, or whatever the phrase was, I would still not advocate allowing him to present as female. I don’t think a 10-year-old should make that decision. I’m clearly in the minority, perhaps of one, but I do not find it as urgent as you do that he begin a transition. This is because you don’t understand the issue very well. Neither the medical background on how treatment proceeds, nor the psychological background on diagnostic tools, nor indeed it seems much of anything to do with gender dysphoria. I strongly recommend looking up what organizations like the APA and NHS have to say on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/130 "2015-01-03T16:15:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’m not comfortable being a liar. I posted this earlier, and I’m curious as to your response: > [@Eonwe](#): > > But why is it so damned important to “get it right”? I mean, I disagree with you completely on this issue, but putting that aside, what’s with the stick up your butt about ‘telling the truth’ about this person? > > Have you ever read an obituary? Been to a funeral? People “lie” up down and sideways about the deceased; they’re always beloved, always missed, always have good relationships with their community and family. Heck, forget the deceased, human beings get along on a fundamental level by lying to each other all the time, about things that matter more to the person who wants the lie told than to the person who is complicit in telling it (“honey, do you think I look good,” being the obvious example). > > Why is it more important to you that the reporters get it “right” (which, to be clear, they did), than that they identify the deceased in a way that the deceased would like to be identified as? You say this is about you being “honest,” but you (and all of us) tell half-truths and spread less-than-accurate information multiple times a day, every day. What is it about this specific subject that makes you feel the need to declare an absolute truth? > [@Smapti](#): > > When you show me someone who can change their male organs into female organs by thinking at them then I will acknowledge that the brain is a bigger part of gender than ones chromosomes. Come on now, this gets ridiculous. You’re already arguing (I think) that genitalia are not important in identifying gender (ie, a person receiving surgery to replace male organs with female organs would not truly be female). > [@Smapti](#): > > Either sex/gender is defined by biology or the concept is entirely worthless. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6973/full/427390a.html](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6973/full/427390a.html) > **[What Determines Sex?](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201001/what-determines-sex)** > > Surprisingly, the answer to the question of what exactly determines sex is still obscure, but only evolutionary genetics can supply it. [http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/12/3115](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/12/3115) . . . so, read some literature. I know I’m just echoing what others have said, but brain=biology. Sex organs are a result of a combination of chromosomes and hormones and other factors . . . as is brain development. Sometimes the brain does not grow with the same ‘gender’ as the bits of flesh between our legs. Of course, research is incomplete and ongoing, but our understanding is certainly more developed and nuanced than penis=man, vagina=woman. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/131 "2015-01-03T16:17:47Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > People are making assumptions about what it would have been like to be a transitioning kid in their school, 20 years ago. It’s not that world. This is my experience. The biggest issue our transgendered students have is when the parents oppose a name change. (The bathroom question is moot because of state law.) ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/132 "2015-01-03T16:19:48Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > What’s curious to me (and where the controversy always explodes) are XY males who say they’re really women. They seem to conflate sex with gender and think it should be the same, in opposition to those who think they shouldn’t necessarily align. They say they feel like a woman, but the descriptions are often stereotypes of femininity in a specific time and place, sometimes almost sounding like something from the 1950s, e.g. liking dolls as a kid, liking pink, wanting to wear a dress, etc. This is where tomboys and butches say they never felt any of that and they’re pretty sure they’re women too, thank you very much. Or the XY will say he’s more nurturing than other males. Or maybe he likes dudes, or prefers the company of women vs. men. Ain’t nothing wrong with being gay. It’s unfortunate we don’t have a way to cure the disconnect in their brains between physical and mental. You really don’t know many transgender persons, I’m guessing. The vast majority of the hundreds of transgender young adults I know dress and act exactly like their peer cisgender women. At several recent meetings of transgender women which I attended who were under age 25-30 which I was at, I was the ONLY one in the room wearing a skirt. Most wear not one bit more makeup or jewelry than a cisgender woman of that age. Many of the flamboyant over the top “transgender” women who people think of wearing pink skirts and playing with dolls are actually crossdressers. The rest tend to be transgender women age 45 or older, who are conforming to some extent to the way in which women dressed when they were younger. I dress very femme, I admit. Why? Because I like the way I look. I receive a lot of compliments on how I look. But part of it is fashion science- my hips are too skinny to look good in trousers or a pantsuit, so I wear a skirtsuit every day. Even after I developed a “female curve” I wear my skirts because I can layer more or less and stay warm easier in an office where the thermostat is set to “arctic.” Yet I’ve been accused of wearing my skirts just because I’m trying to conform to an outmoded version of femininity. As far as the transgender teens go, as it happens I’m counseling a transgirl this afternoon. She wears blue jeans and sweaters, earrings, and a tiny bit of eye makeup. That’s it. I gave a lecture to a group of transgender high schoolers a few months ago. EVERY SINGLE KID wore the same thing - blue jeans, a top or shirt, and minimal, bare minimal anything else standing out as either masculine or feminine. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/133 "2015-01-03T16:24:04Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Why do you keep claiming that sex organs are relevant to gender, when both biology and psychology say otherwise? Because if they aren’t, then the entire concept of gender is meaningless because to call someone male or female conveys absolutely no useful information about them. What _is_ a male? What is a female? What are these things if they are not defined by sex? How can one tell them apart? What defining characteristics do they have? If all that a female is is “one who identifies thrmself as female”, then the tern means absolutely nothing. I may as well just bow out of this conversation if that’s the case, because the things you’re asserting make no sense to me whatsoever on a fundamental level. ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/134 "2015-01-03T16:28:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And what of furkin and other in and Na’vikin and other people whose brain tells them that they aren’t what they physically are? > > If Josh had killed himself because his parents refused to accept that he should be living on Pandora, would you be talking about how they’re wrong for insisting that their Na’vi was a human? > > Either sex/gender is defined by biology or the concept is entirely worthless. That’s a false analogy. Na’vi don’t exist. Females do. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/135 "2015-01-03T16:32:35Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > What harms were caused by NOT letting a 10-year-old boy be a “girl”? Depending on the situation? Potentially the continuation of depression, social alienation, and any of the conditions I listed above. _Pretty substantial shit._ What harms were caused by letting that 10-year-old “boy” (because, let’s be clear, this is what we’re talking about here, people whose _gender_ is not the same as their sex) correctly self-identify as a girl? ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/136 "2015-01-03T16:36:06Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Because if they aren’t, then the entire concept of gender is meaningless because to call someone male or female conveys absolutely no useful information about them. What _is_ a male? What is a female? What are these things if they are not defined by sex? How can one tell them apart? What defining characteristics do they have? If all that a female is is “one who identifies thrmself as female”, then the tern means absolutely nothing. > > I may as well just bow out of this conversation if that’s the case, because the things you’re asserting make no sense to me whatsoever on a fundamental level. It conveys useful information about who they are, how they feel about themselves, and how they wish to be treated. Information that, in my opinion, is far _more_ useful on a day to day basis than the nature of their genitals. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/137 "2015-01-03T16:36:16Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > We don’t let them, though, do we? Show me a parent who just “took their word for it” that their kid was transgendered and proceeded to get that kid therapy, and I’ll show you a parent who’s both a moron, and will be stopped by actual doctors and psychologists who will double-check the diagnosis before any actual permanent changes are made. . I’m not referring to hormones or surgery. I’m saying changing a boy’s name, dressing him in girls’ clothes, putting him on girls’ teams, etc. can introduce long-range harms, especially if the transition doesn’t “take.” Are you suggesting NO children with Gender Identity Disorder outgrow it or become asymptomatic? Because some do. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/138 "2015-01-03T16:39:08Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > I’m not referring to hormones or surgery. I’m saying changing a boy’s name, dressing him in girls’ clothes, putting him on girls’ teams, etc. can introduce long-range harms, especially if the transition doesn’t “take.” Okay. How often does this happen, as opposed to the inverse, and how do the long-term harms stack up? > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting NO children with Gender Identity Disorder outgrow it or become asymptomatic? Because some do. I’m not aware of any that do, although I am open to citations. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/139 "2015-01-03T16:41:16Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > I’m not referring to hormones or surgery. I’m saying changing a boy’s name, dressing him in girls’ clothes, putting him on girls’ teams, etc. can introduce long-range harms, especially if the transition doesn’t “take.” > > Are you suggesting NO children with Gender Identity Disorder outgrow it or become asymptomatic? Because some do. What’s the dems travel harm if they are allowed to socially transition and then transition back? Fact is, the push to let younger kids socially transition is not from carpetbaggers trying to impose ideas on families, but from the kids and families living with this themselves. They have determined that kids are happier and emotionally healthier if allowed to explore social transition. This is a ground up development, not one imposed by experts or do-gooders. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/140 "2015-01-03T16:42:44Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > I’m not referring to hormones or surgery. I’m saying changing a boy’s name, dressing him in girls’ clothes, putting him on girls’ teams, etc. can introduce long-range harms, especially if the transition doesn’t “take.” Why the use of passive terms? The girl would be changing her own name, dressing herself, and so forth. Also, what do you mean by the “transition” not “taking”? They _are_ female, they aren’t changing anything except the way they present themselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743.md?page=8)