I would be completely freaked out because I don’t have a daughter.
It’s better for boys to be with boys in tents and girls to be with girls in tents. I don’t know what you are talking about.
We’re not talking about intersexed people here, so there is no one who is “male-genitaled but female”.
Transgender is just that: the genitalia doesn’t match the gender identity. Intersex is different: ambiguous genitalia.
Sounds to me like you’re promoting some kind of gay agenda. 
The thing is that transgendered people don’t get the chance to “deal with any gender identity issues” when they are older. It’s not something you can pencil in to get to next Tuesday. I think we all agree that our first 18 years or so are the most important for forming who you are as a person and the trajectory of your life. If you spend all of those first 18 years miserable because some narrow-minded people who can’t get over your plumbing force you to live in a way that makes you deeply unhappy all of time, well, you’ve lost a chunk of your life.
Honestly, it feels like with this topic any statement that isn’t 100% in favor of treating each and every gender confused child as “transgendered” is considered ignorant and bigoted. I guess I just don’t think it’s appropriate to automatically assume a 7-year-old who wants to hang out with his big sister at Girl Scouts is transgendered on the basis of this and this alone. Citizen Pained’s questions and comments don’t seem all that outlandish to me, because this idea of very young children with gender identity issues is still pretty new in the grand scheme of things and I think it’s a mistake to assume they are all in the wrong body. It seems like that would cause more problems than it solves.
I don’t have an issue with a boy joining the Girl Scouts, although I think it would be better if there was a coed group in addition to the boy/girl only groups.
You make some good points, and I was pretty sloppy in stating my thoughts in that post. I should not have said “any”, but rather been more focused on the issues one might have by being segregated by gender, when that is appropriate. Those things would include: going to the boys bathroom if you’re a boy and being in either the boy or girl scouts if you’re a boy or a girl. There are other venues better suited to exploring your gender identity.
I’m pretty much in favor of treating children like children and not caring what their personal gender identity is.
One of my good friend has a small child (5 years) who’s always said that she wants to grow up to be “a man” whenever she’s asked what she’d like to be. She’s not what I’d think of as tomboyish, but she’s utterly un-girly. She likes action games, loud toys, and is very rambunctious.
None of us treat her as if she is “transgendered,” “gender confused” or anything like that. We say “we’ll see when you’re older,” and move on. If she DOES decide she’s actually male, when she develops a strong enough vocabulary to make that known, then that’s fine. If she’s just a loud, rambunctious kid who sees on TV that men get all the good toys (she’s repeatedly expressed she wants to be a policeman, a wrestler, and a fireman, always with an emphasis on the man-ness) and later decides women can do those thing too, that’s fine as well.
I just don’t see the value-add in telling her she’s wrong and trying to force her into some weird binary gender mores when she may or may not fit into them. She doesn’t need discouragement, and the only encouragement she needs is to be told that, however she feels when she’s an adult, we’ll all be okay with it.
And nobody is basing it on this and this alone. These decisions are best in the hands of the parents, the child, the child’s doctor, and others who are close to the situation. I’m all for whatever they think is best.
Didja watch the video linked to in the article? There’s a lot more going on with this kid than simply wanting to join Girl Scouts. Although I don’t think he’s necessarily transgendered. He appears to prefer male pronouns, and he says he likes “girl stuff,” but isn’t quoted anywhere as saying that he is a girl. He may just be an extremely effeminate male.
Thing is, I don’t think the distinction really matters with this kid. Is the kid transgendered? Who cares? How does that information change how he should be treated? The kid really wants to wear a dress. Is he trans, or is he just a big ol’ sissy? Does the answer to that question really have any bearing on whether you should let him wear the dress?
She hasn’t been back to clarify it yet, but her “raise some flags” comment read like an insinuation of child abuse to me.
No one is assuming that every child exhibiting non-traditional gender traits is transgendered. Rather, they’re arguing that children should be allowed to explore their gender expression to whatever extent they feel is necessary, up to and including transgenderism. The message isn’t just, “It’s okay to be trans,” it’s also, “It’s okay to be a boy who likes Barbies and My Little Pony.”
That the mom and grandmother may have influenced his…extreme girly-ness. I think our gender identities are also reinforced/suggested and open to influence. And then they call 9 News when a Girl Scout leader says the boy can’t join and there’s no attempt to even take the child to a shrink (not that transgender-ism makes you a head case, but preschoolers rejecting everything that is stereotypical for your gender is odd).
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Gee, thanks. :rolleyes:
And that’s my point. If there were some clear-cut medical reasoning for this behavior, I think it would be easier for the tens of thousands of psychologists across the country to come together on this one.
Again, the mom was presenting this as “I have a boy who likes girl things. He should be able to be in Girl Scouts”. That, to me, is not right. But upon further examination, they may or may not be saying the boy is transgender (making him a girl) but they’re not outright saying so.
My red flag is their attitude about it.
Oh, to clarify: When I say it’s not right for the boy to join, it’s not because of the transgender issue (which he seems to not be). It’s because Girl Scouts is for girls. The ‘transgender’ thing came from the GS spokesperson, not the family. And the boy seems to just be exceptionally effeminate, if not outright obsessed with ‘girl’ things.
I don’t care if boys want to play with My Little Pony! I questioned the sensibility of his mother who said the Girl Scout staff shouldn’t be around children because the staff wouldn’t let the mother enroll her boy in Girl Scouts. Drama much? Again, I’m kind of taking their lead here - no one in the family is saying that the boy is a girl. They are saying that he likes girl things.
No cite, but it’s my recollection from when I was a Girl Scout 20+ years ago that little boys who were too young for the Cub Scouts (starts at age 7) were allowed to join the Girl Scouts (starts at age 5). Bobby Montoya is old enough for Cub Scouts so he wouldn’t fall under that rule, but it’s not totally unheard of for boys to join Girl Scout troops.
You can’t weasel out of your misguided and unscientific ideas about transgendered issues. You are wrong on this one. If you are guided by science and evidence, rather than by some kind of faith or irrationality, you are objectively wrong. It has nothing to do with how you feel or your beliefs- it has to do with evidence.
You are free to believe this, but you are wrong and you are holding this belief against all evidence. Time after time after time, in well documented cases, it has been shown that there is pretty much nothing you can do to change someone’s gender identity. Did you look at David Reamer’s story? There is something fundamental and inborn about gender. This has been proven, multiple times.
Tens of thousands of psychologists do come together. It’s not really a controversy, it’s standard practice for psychologists to respect a person’s gender identity and to work with them to find a way to live happily with that. The only psychologists who oppose this are religious fundamentalists who believe that Jesus told ladies to wear skirts and bake cookies.
Not completely understanding the science doesn’t change the effects. We don’t really understand depression, but you’d never use that as a justification for denying someone life-saving treatment, would you? You’d never tell someone to hold off until we understand SSRIs a bit more, right? Or that they should just suck it up until they are 18?
There are some things that we do know- we know, with certainty:
[ol]
[li]People with gender identity disorder have a very high morbidity and mortality. This kills people. This robs their quality of life. It is deadly.[/li][li]The best way that we know to mitigate this is to allow people to express their gender as they see fit.[/ol][/li]
Not to tell people they are transgendered. Not to force people to act against their sex. Simply to allow people to be their own guide when it comes to gender.
It would be nice if this problem did not affect young people, and if everyone could happily wait until the age of majority to seek treatment. But, it doesn’t.
Based on a couple lines in a news story? 
So, I gather this is to be the cause célèbre of the season. Lesbian mothers that raise their son as a she. Hormone blocking chemistry. Transgender toilets. Etc. Suddenly its all over the landscape. Last season’s gay marriage is falling out of vogue in favour of the even more marginal transgendered kids cause.
The mother doesn’t get to dictate what kind of criteria the Girl Scouts use to admit members. If the scouts only want girls then she is free to start her own scout group that takes any sex. Likewise if it is the Girl Scouts policy to admit boys, then if somebody in the Girl Scouts gets weirded out by boys in the Girl Scouts they can start their own single sex troop.
If I put one of my daughters in the Girl Scouts, I’d expect it to be girls only. And if it wasn’t I wouldn’t enroll the daughter. And in general I couldn’t care less about transgendered issues.
Well said. Bookmarking this post in case the topic ever comes up with family or friends. I understand why the family felt it necessary to explain why their son wanted to join the girls, but gender confusion is a side-issue and a distraction from the argument of equality. It should remain a private matter between the family and professionals. Why do we meddle rather than assuming the kid shows a propensity for cooking or sewing, and needs a venue to foster his skills? How many famous chefs, designers, and decorators are men? Do we bother to speculate about their identity, or do we just admire their success and purchase their products?
As a kid I was bored to death by the clutter-creating arts and crafts offered by the girl scouts, and was envious of the constructive, useful activities the boy scouts were doing outside the window. I cared nothing for dolls or playing house; I collected model cars and rode dirt bikes with the boys in my neighborhood. Never had a problem climbing off the bike to get ready for ballet, either; no gender confusion here. I was just oblivious to the fact that I should be limited by virtue of my gonads.
So long as the scouts remain a private organization, I suppose the have a right to exclude, but it seems to me the group should remain in step with the rest of society and strive for equality among the sexes. We certainly raise a stink when we find evidence of male/female salary disparity or exclusive men-only clubs come up. Would any of us prevent a man from joining a quilting club? Would any of us prevent a woman from joining a fantasy football league? Why should children be exempt from equal and fair treatment?
You’d have liked my troop. Hardly a craft in sight. Camping, science, outdoorsy stuff. A few crafts, but pretty minimal.
funny when a girl wants to join the boy scouts there is a big kafuffle about her right not to be discriminated against in this day and age but if a boy wants to join a girls organisation he’s an oddball or effeminate…
A dad of 3 girls here so hear it all
How about looking at how it actually happens in actual scout groups that have actual boys and girls in the group?
The kids have girls tents and boys tents, and never the twain shall meet. If there is a group with only one girl (or one boy), then this might lead to difficulties with isolation. However in our group, it is fairly even, so no problems.
I will not go into the mind of this mother or this kid to why he is doing this.I don’t know if this a mom pushing the boy to act this way or if it is what he believe and thinks. I won’t begin to go into someone head to how they feel.But I see nothing wrong with separate groups for boys and girls. Adult women go to women only places like shapes to work out why because they don’t like males making sexually comments to them while they work out.Girls need places to be girls and boys need places to be boys.I agree what happens when a boy wants to be a girl or girl wants to be a boy.I know lot of people will jump on me for this and I only bring it up because it recently happened where a group of children jumped a guy kid and taped it with their phones just because he was guy. What is gonna happened when this boy is dressed in girl scout uniform standing in front of place of business and some idoit with half a brain decides to make fun of this kid or attack him. And your daughter is standing next to him just trying to sell cookies.My hope is she will defend him but when she gets punched in the face for jumping in front of him.Now she is in danger to.I don’t want any child to have poor shelve esteem and I don’t think we should teach kids to bash other children and they should expect everyone but this is the real world.I am sorry but when this kid out in public wearing a girl scout uniform and people are laughing and making comments which the other girls in the troop will have now also deal with.I would hope they would jump back and defend him.Some say this teaches acceptance and i guess maybe it does. But when they step out of the troop leaders house to go on field trip and step into the real world no can protect you from the real world may do.I don’t want to see any kid cry but if he started crying by what the troop leader said what he gonna do when people in the real world say something worse and if he is a bit different this will keep happening?