Is it okay to encourage a child who chooses to be transexual?

[Carol_the_Impaler]

I doubt I will read this thread (because my opinion is pretty fixed and I just know this is gonna piss me off and I’m trying to be more zen), but I thought that I would link to the story in question:

“‘I’m a boy-girl’, says 8-year-old” from the Omaha World-Herald.

I apologize if these areas have already been covered, but the story is pretty extensive and discusses how the parents have been dedicated to exploring this issue with their daughter and getting her the help and support she needs. My comment on this situation in particular is that the Catholic School itself seemed to be much more accomodating and understanding than the Diocese (but that’s not surprising), more than I would have assumed, and that the only letters to the editor regarding this situation have all been positive and supportive.

All-in-all, I’m very proud of my paper for printing this, for doing such a good job presenting it, the parents for having the guts to put their story on the front page, and my fellow Omahan’s (except for the OP, maybe) for realizing this is all just part of the human fabric.

[Guinastasia]

I found this kind of amusing:

At home, he wore armchair covers and sweatpants around his head to mimic ponytails. He did this so often that his father caught himself hollering for Ben to “throw your hair down the steps” so he could get a full load in the washer.

(Just because obviously his father didn’t see anything wrong with it)

[Lamia]

@Freudian_Slit

And actually, don’t pre-schoolers also have pretty distinct ideas about these things? I’ve read about very young kids, like 3-4, having really strong ideas about girls wear this or boys do that, because it’s how they’re figuring out the world…exceptions and so forth come later.

Children who are 3-4 years old do recognize and label themselves and others as being “boys” or “girls” and have ideas about what kind of behavior is acceptable for boys and girls. They don’t necessarily understand exactly what distinguishes boys from girls though, and they may believe that gender is transient. A child that age may think for instance that if a girl cuts her hair short then she’s turned into a boy. Someone mentioned upthread believing as a small child that girls could grow into boys when they got older, a belief a friend of mine has also said she had as a child (possibly because she was both the youngest and the only girl in her family).

If the child in the OP were a 4 year old then I could believe that he might not be transgendered at all but just had some mistaken belief like all grown-ups are women or anyone who likes to play with My Little Ponies is a girl or something.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Broomstick

I see your point, but for that hypothetical 25 year old the statement was no less true at 8 than at 25.

This sort of concern is why people who suspect they have a transsexual child should get that child into therapy with professionals and not just try to wing it on their own. Also why nothing irrevocable should be done prior to puberty.

<snip>

The problem is that when puberty occurs the transsexual starts down the “wrong” physical development path, which costs time, money, and effort to reverse where it is even possible to reverse at all.

I have no problem with that position. I would assume that professionals can tell the difference between a boy who wants to be a different and a boy who really is a girl.

Are you suggesting that he should be undergoing homone replacement therapy prior to puberty, then?

[Broomstick]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Are you suggesting that he should be undergoing homone replacement therapy prior to puberty, then?

Absolutely NOT.

There is NO reason to start hormones prior to puberty. None whatsoever. Indeed, in an earlier post I even argued for a delay to puberty to give the individual more time to make sure that such an irrevocable decision is the correct path. Delay of puberty is, to my understanding, not done with hormones but with drugs that block the action of hormones. I don’t normally advocate interfering with normal development at all, but under the circumstances of a young transsexual I think a good argument can be made for a medically supervised delay.

So, not only would I be opposed to hormone treatment prior to puberty, I’d argue for delaying normal “application” of hormones.

[Lisa_Harney]

@Kalhoun

I don’t have the experience you have. I know only one pre-op F-to-M from my high school days in the early 70s. The subject was pretty much untouchable back then. There were no straight discussions about it.

I saw the documentary Southern Comfort, which touched on the problems trans men have in getting gynecological care at all. I wasn’t aware that they had the additional problems you mention here. Thanks for that info. However, I was referring more to the “pass” aspect of transitioning, basically being that you can’t turn back the clock on some visible features that are considered male for M-to-F, but F-to-M seems to more completely erase the appearance of the former gender. In another documentary I saw, females who transitioned to male anatomy were virtually unrecognizable as former female bodies. Unfortunately, many M-to-F transitions don’t go nearly so well.

“Passing” isn’t the most important goal of transitioning. For some, it’s not even a goal at all. It also doesn’t reflect directly on how long people would prefer to wait before transitioning, or how long they’d be okay with transitioning.

Also, it’s kind of gross for you to be talking about trans bodies like this.

[Lisa_Harney]

@jtgain

I still can’t help but think that this whole thing is political correctness gone crazy. If if I thought I was a horse, and truly wanted to be a horse, that doesn’t make it so, and no amount of encouragement by my friends and family, surgeries or false manes would make me a horse. No philosophical discussion about how just because I am genetically a human being, I can still be a horse in spirit or in some other abstract sense, will make me a horse.

The only thing is that longing to be a horse is not in favor with the elites, so if that were the case, the mental health professionals would have me locked in one of those rooms with a doorknob on one side only. But since destroying gender roles and identities is en vogue nowadays, then these people don’t get the mental help that they need…

This is the kind of argument that can only come from complete ignorance of the topic matter. Seriously. Just stop and educate yourself.

Also, political correctness gone crazy?

- YouTube

[Lisa_Harney]

@Lemur866

I think she’s just talking about trying to get people to be happy with the way they are.

And as I said earlier, I don’t quite understand why transgendered people HAVE to be transgendered. What’s wrong with being a femme man or a butch woman? Counseling intended to help people be happy as a femme man instead of a transgendered woman doesn’t seem like such a horrible idea.

It’s been tried. It never works. Gender identity is not typically mutable.

Or - has your sense of yourself as (I assume) a man changed over your lifetime? Why do you think trans people would be any different?

[Lisa_Harney]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Unfortunately, when the subject is an 8-year-old, I think it’s probably more likely that it is a passing whim. I’m certainly uncomfortable with the idea that an 8-year-old is capable of making this sort of decision.

So are you suggesting that 8 year olds are not aware of their gender?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

I’m not saying that. I’m saying they’re not self-aware enough to identify the fact that they’re the “wrong” gender.

[Freudian_Slit]

@Lisa_Harney

“Passing” isn’t the most important goal of transitioning. For some, it’s not even a goal at all. It also doesn’t reflect directly on how long people would prefer to wait before transitioning, or how long they’d be okay with transitioning.

Also, it’s kind of gross for you to be talking about trans bodies like this.

What was gross about it? Kalhoun’s post seemed pretty innocuous to me.

[Locrian]

I like this thread, and many of you have opened my eyes-- Marley23 especially, I think you put it best with “one gender brain, one gender body.” (Paraphrasing)

BUT… on the whole, some have mentioned the hypothalamus, something we can’t examine until we’re dead. Until we come out with a way to test for that, I STILL can not buy an 8-year-old’s story! Probably not at 10, 12, or 15 either. I think the other possibilities mentioned (could be homosexuality, a phase, maybe even an early understanding of the attention girls get, etc.) outweigh the well-it’s-possibles. We CAN’T be sure until we plug in infants to the brain-sex-finder thingamajig as infants and say, “Yup, Sally’s got a guy’s brain. Buy something blue.”

I really hope this kid and his family find the right steps to take to discovering why their child feels this way. They seem VERY encouraging from the article, and that’s a great thing these days.

As far as the school thing goes, from a looooooong experience with Catholic education (renounced), this kid will be mentally tortured over and over much more by teachers and faculty. They will say, “You’ll go to hell” or “you’re a sinner, I’ll pray for you” over and over and over ad infinitum. This I won’t debate. It’s not a theory.

Public school will be bad too. It’s more the kids there. Like one poster pointed out, there really aren’t any places for true transgenders in our society we built.

I’m all for it if you think or know you’re trans, I’ll support you if you want surgery, medication, all that, but I can’t make the world make you feel welcome. It’s nuts out there…

[Locrian]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

I’m not saying that. I’m saying they’re not self-aware enough to identify the fact that they’re the “wrong” gender.

See, you put it well. I don’t think self-awareness is a factor in ANY 8 year old, except things like, being scared of a Goblin they saw on TV, or how scary the dentist is, or spiders freaking them out. Some might still believe in Santa.

This kid seems really intelligent, though. I love his response to his mom saying god made him a boy for a reason. He said, “He made a mistake.”
Priceless! At least he’s aware enough that this god ain’t infallible. Maybe that’s what riled up Lucanae in the first place.

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

@Miller

I dunno. I suppose ideally, we should have both solutions available, and allow people to pick whichever works best for them. But I got the implication from Hilarity that changing the person’s mental identity should replace treatments that change their physical identity. Could be I’m reading to much into her post.

It seems there are a lot of components to gender identity. For some people it’s an internal thing and they just feel wrong, but I’m reading things in this thread that indicate an important component is the way other people react to them, as well.

What I was thinking, I read something very recently which talked about phantom limb pain, and how in the process of trying to figure out how to help people who had that, some people did some studies on folks who think they should be amputees. And it turned out that there were anomalies in the brains of those people who thought they should be amputees–for instance it wasn’t usually just any limb, but very specific, the left leg three inches above the knee, etc. There was some kind of mirror therapy involved that helped both the phantom limb pain and the body dismorphia. I have no idea how that might relate to transgender, and IIRC it didn’t involve drugs of any sort, which seems preferable to me to hacking bodies parts off and taking hormones forever. I realize it’s not the same thing, and of course it might not even be related.

[Locrian]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

It seems there are a lot of components to gender identity. For some people it’s an internal thing and they just feel wrong, but I’m reading things in this thread that indicate an important component is the way other people react to them, as well.

What I was thinking, I read something very recently which talked about phantom limb pain, and how in the process of trying to figure out how to help people who had that, some people did some studies on folks who think they should be amputees. And it turned out that there were anomalies in the brains of those people who thought they should be amputees–for instance it wasn’t usually just any limb, but very specific, the left leg three inches above the knee, etc. There was some kind of mirror therapy involved that helped both the phantom limb pain and the body dismorphia. I have no idea how that might relate to transgender, and IIRC it didn’t involve drugs of any sort, which seems preferable to me to hacking bodies parts off and taking hormones forever. I realize it’s not the same thing, and of course it might not even be related.

It’s called Acrotomophilia.
I had to caption a show years ago concerning this and other weird fetishes. Like a fascination with pee wasn’t enough. :rolleyes:

[Lacunae_Quell]

I know I haven’t been keeping up with replying to the threads… mainly because I feel my views and beliefs on this subject offend people, and I am often mislabeled something I am not… so I’ve decided that when I do participate I will hypothesize certain scenarios or just make a point instead of posting what I believe…

okay… so… after reading articles about this 8 year old child it is quite clear that he is determined to be a she. His parents are supportive, most of his neighboring society is supportive, science is supportive… so it’s quite clear this child is going to be allowed to change from a boy to a girl… so here’s my question and scenario…

It would be considered psychologically damaging for this child to not be allowed to undergo the process of gender reassignment… in other words, it’s more dangerous for this child not to be allowed to change from a boy to a girl… so assuming this child wants to be a girl in all aspects, this child will eventually be interested in boys and will want to be in a relationship… this usually starts very early in a child’s life… so, let’s say the transgendered child starts public school and there is a boy this child falls in puppy-love with… the boy has mutual feelings for the transgendered child because he believes the TG-child is a girl physically as well as mentally.

Now let’s say they started their relationship in 4th grade… and in 7th or 8rh grade they start to get physical… and one day they decide to get naked in front of each other… wouldn’t it be psychologically damaging for the boy to discover that the “girl” he fell in love with has a penis?

I know this is a vague hypothetical situation… but… I hope you can understand what I’m getting at… if the transgendered child and his family are seeking to erase all memory of Benjamin James, would they be obligated to tell the parents of the children at their new school that “Katie” was born a male and has male body parts? Would they be obligated to tell the parents of “Katie’s” romantic interest that “she” was born a male?

I guess my point is that even though it may be psychologically damaging for Ben not to be allowed to become Katie, this decision ultimately has the potential to be even more psychologically damaging to the people who have no idea that “Katie” was born a male.

Further more… how will “Katie” find a boyfriend? What if “she” doesn’t want to date a gay boy? And if he is a girl, why would a gay male want to be with “her” if a gay male is interested in pursuing a relationship with someone of the same sex?

…there are just so many situations and scenarios that prove that this child’s choice may not be the right choice to make, regardless of what science proves.

…but of course I guess I’m not well enough educated on this subject… and common sense just isn’t enough nowadays…

[Lacunae_Quell]

…oh…

and if this child begins a relationship with a boy does that make him heterosexual or homosexual… and if this child starts a relationship with a girl will he be a lesbian?

[Locrian]

Good, Lacunae. But again, your scenarios are a little too… soapy. It sounds like an episode of a show on Here! network. Your common sense says, “Be what god made you.”
Fine if you think that, but please read the last few pages. I and many, many others addressed some of your posts.
Understand that I think common sense here is, “Let’s come up with a test so we can determine if a human brain on this particular child is really female.” Yes, it’s possible for a male body to have a female brain. However, until we find a test for this, I just CAN NOT trust an 8-year-old on this whole issue.

I wish the parents the best of luck on their venture.

I also addressed the Catholic School part. I said he/she would experience a worse scenario there because the FACULTY will be the most damaging.

[Locrian]

@Lacunae_Quell

…oh…

and if this child begins a relationship with a boy does that make him heterosexual or homosexual… and if this child starts a relationship with a girl will he be a lesbian?

He will be what he started as (if he’s REALLLLLY right about this) a transgender.
Male body, female brain. Man you love labels!

[Lacunae_Quell]

Not only do you ignore each scenario I proposed, and fail to answer any of my questions, you still assert that I am a hatemonger with no tolerance for those who are different from myself or have a different belief system than I do.

I’m asking these questions because they really need to be answered… I’m not trying to label anyone anything… I’m genuinely interested in the scientific explanations for the questions and scenarios I brought to the attention of the readers of this post.

I can tell when people beat around the bush… so either answer my questions or don’t respond to them at all…

You may not be able to trust the 8 year old, but his parents trust him… so I’m asking these questions as someone who trusts this child’s decision. If anything, I’m showing more of an acceptance for this child than you are.