# Transgender toddlers **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597 "2019-10-10T15:57:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/21 "2019-10-10T19:20:40Z")
My kid came out at 14 (M-F). When asked how long she had known the answer was “Pretty much from birth.” We had no idea. So, I think it’s certainly reasonable that this kid knows what s/he’s talking about, and if s/he’s incorrect there is plenty of time between now and puberty to figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/22 "2019-10-10T19:24:38Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > So, a boy who likes playing with dolls and likes dresses has to be a girl? Talk about being sexist. He’s a boy who likes “girly” stuff. Or are you saying that only girls can play with dolls? > > “We’re just delaying puberty” makes it look like you’re taking a gap year before going to college. You’re pumping hormones into a healthy child and stopping a normal, natural progression in their lives. > This is an atrocity and I’m sure in 10 to 20 years we’ll hear from those kids living conflicted lives that their parents brought upon them. We’ll look at those parents as we do antivaxxers. > Parents are projecting a fashion onto their kids and harming them. Yes, I used the word fashion. Well this post is about as ridiculous as the OP. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/23 "2019-10-10T19:35:02Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > So, a boy who likes playing with dolls and likes dresses has to be a girl… > > This is an atrocity… I was going to respond with where you are wrong with the first part of your response. Then I got to the last part and realized that any response would be wasted. > [@Leaffan](#): > > Well this post is about as ridiculous as the OP. The OP seems to be willing to learn, even if the questions were a little ignorant. The other post is pure bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/24 "2019-10-10T19:35:07Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I too think that age 3 is far too early to read this much into a child’s behavior. I can’t even recall anything much from before age 4. I would sure hate to be told, when older, “Well, when you were 3, you said this, therefore…” Yeah. I’m all for supporting older kids who identify as transgender, but three seems way too young to say anything more definitive than “I think this kid _might_ identify as transgender when they’re older.” Most three-year-olds are still at an “all dogs are boys and all cats are girls” level of (mis)understanding. Incidentally, I spent six months or so when I was around seven insisting that I was a boy and wanted to be called Christopher. Nobody took me remotely seriously, as it was 1983. As it happened, they were right not to take me seriously; I had merely discovered that sexism was a thing and that I didn’t like it, so I’d come up with a slightly bizarre form of imaginative play that I thought would protect against it. (I would, of course, never have been able to articulate this at seven.) Nowadays I suppose it would be taken very seriously indeed, and under different circumstances with a different kid, _that_ would be the right thing to do. I don’t quite know where I’m going with this, but I do think kid-behavior is often too idiosyncratic to fit neatly into adult paradigms. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/25 "2019-10-10T19:38:49Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Yeah. I’m all for supporting older kids who identify as transgender, but three seems way too young to say anything more definitive than “I think this kid _might_ identify as transgender when they’re older.” Most three-year-olds are still at an “all dogs are boys and all cats are girls” level of (mis)understanding. What do you think is being done with a 3-year old that is more definitive than saying “they might identify as transgender when older?” Of those things you think are happening, which do you think are bad? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/26 "2019-10-10T19:45:18Z")
- I think that even at the age of three, people perceive gender roles and expectations and gendered notions of “how one should be”, and can be aware of being a misfit within that. - I do think that, from a previous utter lack of social awareness of the possibility of transgender – the only possibility that seemed to dawn upon parents for a long long time was that their child might be gay or lesbian – we have moved to a point where people who perceive gender variance are immediately thinking in terms of male-to-female or female-to-male trans. That is narrow. Message boards frequented by teens and 20-somethings are chock-full of people who identify as demigirls, agender people, genderfluid folks, persons “on the masculine spectrum”, and a huge host of other gender-variant options that may include hormonal or surgical intervention but often do not. I think it would be a better world if more parents were better acquainted with the depth and width of choices and options for identities. Binary trans is not the end-all and be-all of being gender variant. The tolerance and acceptance, on the other hand, is an unmitigated good thing. - I don’t know why it is, but I am finding it difficult to envision the OP at a PFLAG support group. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/27 "2019-10-10T19:46:11Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > […]You’re pumping hormones into a healthy child and stopping a normal, natural progression in their lives. > This is an atrocity and I’m sure in 10 to 20 years we’ll hear from those kids living conflicted lives that their parents brought upon them. We’ll look at those parents as we do antivaxxers. > […] People who give pubescent trans-identifying youths hormones to delay the onset of dismaying secondary sex characteristics are opting to do what current medical practice indicates. Antivaxxers are refusing to allow what current medical practice (and even some laws) indicates. I think throwing that final punch about “fashion” suggests you’re just trying to be hurtful, and not to bring something valued to the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/28 "2019-10-10T19:46:24Z")
My experience is that even at a young age boys and girls act so different. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/29 "2019-10-10T20:21:42Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > There is a chance that the grandparents are overreading something in the toddler’s behavior. A designated-male kid who dresses up in fairy princess dresses isn’t necessarily going to identify as female. Maybe the kid just likes the swish and beauty of dresses. > > I’d rather we de-emphasize gender for young kids, not pushing them to be Boy or Girl but just be whoever fits for them. > > Of course, if the kid is already strongly identifying as a boy or girl, then ferchrissakes there’s no harm at all in taking them at their word. And if their word changes next week, the awesome thing is, we can adapt to that change as well. Yeah, that. ALL that. There’s nothing at all about the life of a three-year-old that means you need to think about their gender at all, either “matching” or “non-matching”. They’re not even going to have to choose a bathroom for another two years - nearly half their life away. Bunches of three-year-olds haven’t yet figured out that there ARE two pronouns, let alone what the ‘right’ way of using them is. There may be people in the child’s life (other children, particularly) who will pull the “you can’t do XYZ, only girls/boys can do that” but the appropriate everyone-affirming response to this is “that’s dumb” not “well I AM a boy/girl so there!” If the grandparents have decided they’ll be affirming of their grandkid if/when they decide to live as the other gender, that’s great. Hopefully that should take about thirty seconds - now you can think about whether you’re going to take them to the park, the library or the museum this afternoon, and what they’ll eat for tea. Going to PFLAG meetings at this stage (unless they’re already there on behalf of another family member) does strike me as a little over-invested, though that’s not the worst thing in the world to be. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/30 "2019-10-10T20:25:39Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > My kid came out at 14 (M-F). When asked how long she had known the answer was “Pretty much from birth.” > > We had no idea. So, I think it’s certainly reasonable that this kid knows what s/he’s talking about, and if s/he’s incorrect there is plenty of time between now and puberty to figure it out. How does a boy know he is a girl? Because the like femenine things? > [@Napier](#): > > People who give pubescent trans-identifying youths hormones to delay the onset of dismaying secondary sex characteristics are opting to do what current medical practice indicates. Antivaxxers are refusing to allow what current medical practice (and even some laws) indicates. > > I think throwing that final punch about “fashion” suggests you’re just trying to be hurtful, and not to bring something valued to the discussion. You’re already making a choice, it’s not a neutral decision. People who hate their bodies have mental issues that won’t be corrected. Yes, my use of fashion is intentional because parents who harm their children can at least take that very minor insult. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/31 "2019-10-10T20:26:08Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > - I don’t know why it is, but I am finding it difficult to envision the OP at a PFLAG support group. My son was gay (was meaning he died two years ago). I have a friend who has transitioned mtf. I suppose I am going to have to take lessons on how to phrase my posts, as I see I’ve misrepresented my opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/32 "2019-10-10T20:28:33Z")
(sorry about the doublé post) > [@TroutMan](#): > > I was going to respond with where you are wrong with the first part of your response. Then I got to the last part and realized that any response would be wasted. How does a three-year-old boy know he is actually a girl? How do the parents know? Can’t Boys be “girly”? Are we saying the effeminate boys cannot exist and thus they must be girls? There’s a hint of bigotry in “if he acts like a girl and likes girly thing he can’t be a boy”. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/33 "2019-10-10T20:33:42Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Yeah, that. ALL that. There’s nothing at all about the life of a three-year-old that means you need to think about their gender at all, either “matching” or “non-matching”. They’re not even going to have to choose a bathroom for another two years - nearly half their life away. Bunches of three-year-olds haven’t yet figured out that there ARE two pronouns, let alone what the ‘right’ way of using them is. There may be people in the child’s life (other children, particularly) who will pull the “you can’t do XYZ, only girls/boys can do that” but the appropriate everyone-affirming response to this is “that’s dumb” not “well I AM a boy/girl so there!” Thirded. I’m sure that a transgender adult in retrospect can understand that their 3 year old feelings were an indication of their adult identity, but that doesn’t mean we can look at a 3 year old and determine what their gender identity will be as an adult. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/34 "2019-10-10T20:34:26Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > How does a boy know he is a girl? Because the like femenine things? How does a grown male know that he is a woman? How does a grown female person know _she_ is? How does she know she has meaningful things in common with other people who are also female? What makes it an “identity”? How does she know which of the things she feels and values and so forth are uniquely her own and which ones are things she has in common with other women? Under what valid circumstances could a male, of any age, come to feel that he has more in common with them than he has with other people whose bodies are male? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/35 "2019-10-10T20:40:00Z")
I can’t help but suspect also that if the parents and grandparents are heavily in favor of the trans movement, that they might also project their inner assumptions onto their 3-year old. It’s like how to those who have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. They may be so keenly attuned to the trans cause that they’re reading “trans” in their kids’ behavior where there isn’t any. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/36 "2019-10-10T20:53:19Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > How does a grown male know that he is a woman? > > How does a grown female person know _she_ is? > > How does she know she has meaningful things in common with other people who are also female? What makes it an “identity”? How does she know which of the things she feels and values and so forth are uniquely her own and which ones are things she has in common with other women? > > Under what valid circumstances could a male, of any age, come to feel that he has more in common with them than he has with other people whose bodies are male? This is probably a good point in the conversation to bring up that there’s not only a divide between people who feel like they match their assigned gender and people who feel like they don’t - there’s also a divide between people who _have a strong feeling_ about it, and people who don’t. This is what the useful term [Cis by Default](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/cis-by-default/) is good for. Conversations like this can often get derailed because the transperson “side” is saying things like “well, imagine you suddenly had the opposite body - it would feel all wrong, right?” and the other side is full of CBD people shrugging their shoulders and going “eh - wouldn’t feel like anything much”. Bacause for them, that’s actually true. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/37 "2019-10-10T21:11:51Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > My experience is that even at a young age boys and girls act so different. That’s a generalization, and you can’t apply a generalization to any one specific person. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > How does a three-year-old boy know he is actually a girl? > How do the parents know? > > Can’t Boys be “girly”? Are we saying the effeminate boys cannot exist and thus they must be girls? > > There’s a hint of bigotry in “if he acts like a girl and likes girly thing he can’t be a boy”. I have no personal experience with this but parents of transgender girls have reported that their child said things like, “When is my penis going to fall off?” There are behaviors that go beyond being effeminate that could indicate a child is transgender. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/38 "2019-10-10T21:16:10Z")
When you proclaim social acceptance and medial treatments, naturally more trans folk are going to come forward. My opinion- there aren’t more trans people than there were in previous generations. There are just more being open about it. ---
**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:** [October 10, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/39 "2019-10-10T21:20:32Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > There’s a hint of bigotry in “if he acts like a girl and likes girly thing he can’t be a boy”. Luckily, you are literally the only person in this thread who is saying that. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597/40 "2019-10-10T22:24:30Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > What I meant was, its a very young age to decide and start hormone therapy at puberty, we don’t let those under age 18 vote, so My goodness, here we go again! The practice currently is not to start administering hormones but to BLOCK hormones to delay puberty until the child is more mature/legally of age. That delaying action is entirely reversible - just stop taking the blockers and puberty ensues. It allows more time before any permanent, non-reversible action is taken, whether that’s remaining the birth gender or transitioning via hormones and/or surgery. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > “We’re just delaying puberty” makes it look like you’re taking a gap year before going to college. You’re pumping hormones into a healthy child and stopping a normal, natural progression in their lives. No, you’re BLOCKING hormones, not “pumping them in”. And there are other conditions, such as precocious puberty where medically delaying puberty has been standard practice for decades. It’s not some wholly new treatment cooked up this past year for just the transgender population, these medications have been used for _decades_ for various conditions. Their effects, side effects, risks, and benefits are well known. Someone who is transgender, _whether treated or not_, is not, in fact, normal. They have a serious and unusual condition that, untreated, can have terrible consequences. So no, we’re not talking about a “normal” progression in the lives even if it’s “natural”. So is cobra venom and botulism, but we stop those when we can. The acid test is whether or not we have better outcomes with gender transition or by denying it. You might be squicked out by trangender people and/or their condition, but it’s not about YOUR comfort. It’s about THEIR best interests. What treatment results in better outcomes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-toddlers/841597.md?page=3)