The harm is, he turns 14, hits puberty, and wants to be a man, but his name is Emma, he plays tennis and soccer and basketball on the girls’ teams, and he pees sitting down. (That last one is, admittedly, easy to correct.)
And he screams at his parents: what the fuck is wrong with you?! I was 10! I was a 10-year-old boy! Why couldn’t I just wear nightshirts around the house and play with makeup?! Now the whole world thinks I’m a girl!
I agree that such steps aren’t to be done lightly. They should be considered in consult with a family therapist or doctor. But that’s true of any major treatment: you wouldn’t put your kid on ADD meds, treat them for autism or take out their appendix on a whim either. But that doesn’t mean you don’t do it, you do it in conjunction with expert advice and family support. All parties are included, invested and part of the process.
Because it might be done poorly means it shouldn’t be done at all?
I also agree that many kids are exploring what it means to be male or female without the 100% certainty that they are transgendered. In my day I was a tomboyish girl. Today I might have explored if that I meant I was really a girl or not. With a little support and latitude kids can do some healthy identity exploring that includes gender identity and come to conclusions that work for them. It’s really ok.
Why? And I mean this–Genderfluid kids do transition back and forth sometimes. You seem worried that some kid is going to transition MtF, decide it’s not right for him, and then when he goes back to his dude-bro buddies be derided. It really doesn’t seem to work that way: a genderfluid kid is not likely to end up being a person so fixed in their gender identity that a period spent openly identifying as the other gender will fill him forever with shame and horror. Again, I think you are imagining how this would play out in the world of 20 years ago. This isn’t that world.
Not without input from the child. Are you seriously saying that children shouldn’t be allowed to express their true gender because some parents might be forcing cisgendered children to express otherwise?
I’m under the impression that gender isn’t mutable, and that almost all people, including transgender, know their true gender from a very young age. But even if I’m wrong about this, there would be no harm in people transitioning more than once, at least prior to any surgery.
But to give a straight answer yes, I am under the impression that no children with GID become asymptomatic. Either their gender is different from their sex, or it isn’t, and they were misdiagnosed. If you know otherwise, please cite it, rather than keep making unsubstantiated suggestions that children’s gender is fluid.
What is genderfluidity? I’ve never really heard of it, and it somewhat goes against what I have heard… Not that I’m denying it exists or whatever, but I’d like to know more.
What information? Who is a female? How does a female fundamentally feel about themselves and how they wish to be treated that is not defined by their body status? I sincerely don’t understand what you, or most of you, consider males or females to be at this point.
YES, to answer the question, some kids “transition back.” This is no secret. SOME kids do.
And again, we have folks on the anti-transgender side speaking mainly from Google searches and Wikipedia.
Transgender kids go through years of counseling, as do their parents. Years and years. The decision to go through puberty blockers is not made lightly nor without seeing consistent, persistent, and insistent evidence for years that the child is indeed transgender. I know of many kids who were denied puberty blockers because of expressing doubt just once. This stuff is not done on a whim. Some folks almost think kids go to a vending machine and just buy a bottle of estradiol or testosterone syrettes.
And with some notable exceptions (largely/exclusively for intersex teens), no one in America goes through SRS until they are a consenting adult (some exceptions also exist for emancipated minors). Again, there is this boogeyman that somehow treating a transgender 12-year-old as their proper mental gender has set them suddenly down this irreversible path towards surgery. It is not the case.
And Manda Jo is absolutely correct. The kids of today are not the kids of 20 years ago. I go to the high schools and meet with them and their peers, face to face and in groups. I’m stunned at the large level of acceptance for non-traditional sexualities and genders. The first time I spoke to a GSA group I was moved to tears by the stories the kids told me of the acceptance and welcoming of their peers in school. It really is a difference world now in high schools, and I don’t pretend to fully understand it, but what I see gives me hope.
This video was made by a very close friend of mine - she lives just down the road. I’ve met her daughter many times, shoot we had Christmas together once. This video can help some who have questions understand a bit of what it’s really like to be the parent of a transgender child.
The only cite for that claim is a study from 1986 that involved 44 children. Do you have anything else to support your claims? Gender Identity Disorder in Children isn’t even a DSM diagnosis anymore, so I hesitate to rely on a very small study from 28 years ago as the final word.
Fine. If you don’t like the word “choose”, use “define.”
I have counseled, one on one, about 10 transgendered kids over the last decade and a half. I’ve had more as students.
We totally agree they should be loved, nurtured, educated, and respected. My unforgivable sin is that I advocate waiting until adulthood to change genders. I’m ok with that.
I somehow fail to see the problems - names and labels are as arbitrary as arbitrary gets, so if Leelah wanted to called Leelah… what difference does it make? Is somebody getting defrauded or identity-thieved or something?
