http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/05/18/dnt.ne.transgender.kid.ketv
On CNN today: An eight-year-old is transgendering from male to female, with parental encouragement. What a life sentence! He has expensive surgeries to face, to mutilate his normal healthy body (and I hope we don't have to pay for it) and hormone treatment and the fact that most normal males will not want to date a transgendered female or marry one --who cannot bear children --who is, in reality, a fake girl. And he would have to tell that about himself to be intimate leading to marriage --or he'd be committing fraud, leading to annulment. Nor will girls feel comfortable having over-nighters and sharing showers and bathrooms with a transgendered girl --who is really biologically male. I believe he really will NEVER seem normal to others --and never really PASS for female. He will be very odd --and he will never forget that he has this secret which his parents think he can perpetuate for life simply by starting into a new school where they don't know about him. His hormones are going to kick in--and he may have all kinds of emotional upheaval as the doctors tinker with his normal healthy body making it abnormal for the rest of his life.
In fact, that's what he's trading: a normal, healthy male body, for a fake female body that needs constant tinkering via surgery and hormones all his life in order to help him pass as a female.
This child did not come to the conclusion that he was in the wrong body without adult influence. Children learn what they really are from their parents. Something went awry in this case. Parents are VERY powerful in teaching their children. These parents have failed by letting their kid wander around in uncertainty about his sexual identity ---letting him "choose," in effect --with no knowledge that he has opted for giving up his normal, healthy body for an abnormal artificial one. So they tell him that he will have surgery and hormones, etc. some day, and that he can choose to change his sex --what does the kid know about that and what it means?? NOTHING!
Little boys and little girls are so much alike in their voices, in their "girlyness," in their baby-ish qualities --that call forth effeminizing "babying" by parents --which is appropriate for both sexes of little kids--to a point. But normal, sensible parents teach their children that they are boy or girl --by how they treat them, what they tell them, what they do with them, how they direct their interests and activities. They don't say things like, "he really looks like a little girl" or "He'd really make a beautiful girl with that hair --that skin --those eyelashes," or "Look how graceful he is! He can dance like a girl," or "Bobby's so clumsy --he really isn't very athletic --I think he'd make a better girl than a boy."
I remember when Oprah featured such children on her program--watched by so many suburban women. The letters flooded her website from mothers who thought their boys were possibly girls in the wrong bodies --because their boy toddlers put on Mom's high heels, carried Mom's purses around the living room, put scrunchies in their hair, tried Mom's make-up, preferred pink, played with dolls, etc. Some of the mothers said they were TRYING to be gender neutral in how they raised their kids. Some of them drew conclusions because children did the above things --and some of the fathers were furious to see the mothers encouraging the confusion instead of simply and subtly separating the feminine things from the child's playthings and directing him more toward Dad's shoes, shaving cream, mudpies, trucks, farm sets, etc. Boys have to have some fun, too, and if they are only around their mothers and sisters who squeal with delight over American Girl dolls--or if girls are raised only around boys and men (as was the famous pregnant "man,") it's no wonder they have an interest in the things of the opposite sex and identify with the opposite sex. This 8 year old's favorite toy was his American Girl doll. Who was the dumb bunny who gave it to him!!?? who cultivated his interest in these dolls? Geesh!
I knew a man whose grandmother fascinated him with her jewelry collection and willed it to him--he grew up with an abnormal self-image and fixation for jewelry and other things of more interest to women than most men--including other men.
Parents direct their children's sex identity --no question about it. How could we be so erroneous in the modern age! Just one more travesty in child-development psychology. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became as fools."
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
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19 comments:
Barb, I actually know a person who changed gender from male to female.
He came to work in our office at the time of divestiture of AT&T, 1/1/84. Everyone pointed him out to me as a person who wanted a sex change operation and I was curious enough and, I think, compassionate enough to befriend him. He was an outcast everywhere he went.
His parents and brothers disowned him. He had been married and had a daughter but decided he could no longer be a male for whatever reason.
He had to go through a lot of psychological testing, hormone treatment, breast implants, hair removal and he cried at the drop of a hat.
One Friday a bald man left the office for the weekend and Monday a "woman" with a wig that looked like Cher's hair came back, wearing an out of date long skirt and the highest stacked heels I've ever seen. The toenails were so thick they could only be a man.
Everyone gasped and when he tried to use the ladies' room people complained so he went to the McDonald's downstairs until they kicked him out.
After 3 or 4 years of listening to all his sadness and problems he finally went to the University of Virginia to have the operation. I called him there while I was on vacation visiting my grandmother in Maine.
He was in such excruciating pain.
He, now a "she" came back to work after the recovery period and still never had happiness. No man was interested in "her", except for one gay man who claimed to be a Christian. (This way he could get married and still be gay).
Robbie/Rhonda finally quit the company and went to work for one of the nation's largest banks. They took up a lot of space in our building eventually and I saw him/her one more time.
Still sad, his daughter thinking he/she was a friend of her mother's.
About two years ago he/she called me and told me he/she had given up the farce and was still miserable. His/her daughter now knows and they "hang out" together at times. He dresses as a man now and is not happy.
I learned a lot from him as he was going through this process and can tell you he was one of the most compassionate and giving people I had ever met.
The parents and brothers have accepted him now, but he's still so sad. He's an outcast even among friends.
I could not turn my back to him now if I wanted to. He's a human being who is lost in more ways than one and will never know true happiness. His body has been destroyed. Maybe he can reverse the surgery but where would he get the money? Last he told me he's going to school.
I feel for the little boy who is going to have a lifetime of ridicule and unacceptance because of a choice made when he is not old enough to understand.
There's nothing wrong with boys playing with dolls occasionally, as they will become fathers some day and need that experience. The same as there is nothing wrong with girls playing with trucks.
When I was a girl I was a real tomboy, but I never, ever wanted to be anything but a woman, wife and mother.
Thanks for the story--it does confirm my conviction that such people end up forever "odd" to normal folks --and forever miserable --not fitting in wholly with either gender. Of course we should be kind and compassionate --but we don't need to say it isn't mental illness --or against God's design --it is both.
I think some tomboys DO wish they were boys --at least when they are trying to play with the boys and enjoy their activities or be Dad's right hand man--but it doesn't lead to life-time transgender wishes--because in our youth, such choices were not promoted as rights --and normalcy kicked in for most tomboys who would rather fit in than be a cause celebre --who actually find they enjoy being a woman.
Yes, I, too, feel very sorry for this little boy who has no idea the life he's choosing. His parents have made a terrible error in not helping him identify as "a boy just like daddy" from infancy. It has to be difficult if Daddy isn't admirable and Mom puts down men all the time --which may not be the case here, but I've heard women do this and observed the negative impact on the kids.
We make a terrible mistake when we think a little boy with some effeminate qualities is inevitably gay or in the wrong body --and that his journey to normalcy as a male will be more difficult than transgendering.
I, too, know and like and have compassion for a transgendered person. He doesn't look wholly convincing as a female with his large frame and the wig with root-edge showing and the voice. I was pretty sure as soon as I shook hands with "her" that she was a he.
Then there is the college professor in the Christian college who transgendered. I hear he flaunts his change in short skirts and long wig on the campus streets, where the college paid him off to leave teaching rather than risk losing a court case regarding their convictions about cross-dressing --setting a precedent for all religious institutions. He was a fine-looking man but he looks ridiculous and affected and unattractive as a female in his post-mid-life gender choice. I've only seen pictures in his case but I know Christians who defend his transgendering --which is very wrong. We can love someone while still upholding God's standards of both love and morals.
Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is so clearly a problem between the ears --but has not in most cases been determined to be a hormonal or genetic issue. It is mental illness --same as other people who are deluded about their identity. It may be demonic in nature --but I'm leaning more toward parental influence causing one to transgender.
There is no way this child's parents have done him a favor. Meanwhile, she hides his face in the media --but shows her own. Some secret! he sounds and looks like a normal, slightly pudgy youngster with a boy's frame emerging with his square shoulders and the way he slumped over the table. What a life they've helped him choose! Always on the fence between girl and boy.
BTW, I agree that some play with dolls doesn't mean a boy is abnormal--especially if he plays the dad.
And I don't think parents should traumatize little boys for playing with MOm's things or girls' things --they should just direct boys to their identification as boys with boys' interests --by showing enthusiasm with their "boyness." It's sort of hard for women to do since their own interests enthuse them and they may overly draw little boys into their own interests and identity as women.
One woman I read about observed that her boy was effeminate and drawing pictures of Cinderella and other fairy tale heroines and said he wanted to be a girl. She observed that her relative, who was the baby sitter for him, drew him into her interests in Disney movies of fairy tales --and the girl's perspective of romance, etc.
I believe there is an age where children are very responsive to learning what is true, right, wrong, up, down, --where the barriers are --as they learn about life from their parents. These aren't years to leave junior rudderless or let him be the captain of his own ship --lest he be a craft lost in the sea of uncertainty for the rest of his life--never having learned the basics of sailing or his rightful place in the world.
it does confirm my conviction that such people end up forever "odd" to normal folks --and forever miserable -- To normal folks?
And how do you fit in with 'normal folks?'
You are as odd as they come except that you don't know how odd you are.
I'm happy that you are finally getting back to your sex-mania once again. Hopefully you will be in full rage mania posting mountainous rants against homosexuality.
Surely, your 'faithful' readers have missed your homophobic rage.
Let it go! Get it all out once again; you've been way too restricted here, attempting to act so christian. But you know and we know that, deep in your heart, you are a bigot.
It isn't healthy to keep all of that anger, hate, and bigotry bottled up, especially at your age and in your health condition.
Let 'er rip- like a grand enema.
You will feel so good, so purged, so clean after all of that anal retentive filth is released.
BLAM!!
It isn't healthy to keep all of that anger, hate, and bigotry bottled up, especially at your age and in your health condition.
Let 'er rip- like a grand enema..
.
well mud, you no doubt speak from experience on this one, but take it from some outside observers. It isn't working for you.
On what acquaintance do you judge my "oddness," Mudracious? Did we ever have a face to face conversation? If you thought I was odd --well, gee, let's remember that I know YOU at least as well as you know me --and, uh, well, I think you are more than just a little bit odd in your blogging! your letters to the editor, your obsessions, your on again, off again, moderating, deletions. E.G. you opened this "oddball" blog for people like me --so I went over there willing to be odd for a cause or two --and what did you do? You couldn't stand it again--giving me space even in your new blog designed for oddballs like you and me !
In this article about a child, I'm talking about the kind of oddness that is inevitable for one who is male trying to be female. I dont' think he can ever pull it off. I've seen female impersonators on tv --and a few in person in Olde Town Chicago, many many years ago --and they aren't convincing as women --yes, superficially glamorous and "effeminate" and sexy--but not wholly convincing. The maleness shows through.
Likewise with the girl called "the pregnant man" trying to be a man. Very mannish, but not quite --just very odd.
You evidently think encouragement to transgender must be given to confused children. I don't. These people are to be pitied for their fixation on gender and their dissatisfaction with the one they were assigned --and the lengths they go to, to be what they were never meant to be --but the truth is they will be "odd," in ways that will make happiness elusive --IF they REALLY want people to accept them as just one of the guys --or just one of the girls --whichever gender they choose to be.
Hormones, surgery, size,voice, men who don't want to date or marry someone who is genetically female and vice versa--women who don't feel comfortable around "her" , suspecting that "she" is really "he"-- don't tell me this is something you would encourage in your grandchild.
Well never let it be said that this one can let people dialogue without injecting his hate into the conversation. Like a fly - obsessively buzzing about.
But back to the actual post....this was surprising that a physician would perform such an operation on a very young child. Most children at that age aren't sexually or physically mature. I wonder how this family became to obsessed with it to the point that this extreme came to pass?
I'm sure that our fly won't like my take on this, but I would advocate that children be allowed to grow up in a positive and nurturing environment. When they're old enough to be comfortable in their sexuality then, as all adults are, they're responsible for those choices.
But I can't see how it's appropriate for parents to take such a route for a child who's hasn't even reached the age of puberty.
And Jeanette, your story touched me. I feel so bad for that person and am sorry that she was surrounded by such unloving people. It had to be near impossible to get through such a confusing time without alot of support. And what would the outcome have been if loving support was available instead of people making sure she was using the right bathroom.
We aren't responsible for the choices other people make. Only in showing Christ's love to the other people in our life. And I really don't think Christ would have screamed at her for using the women's bathroom.
I don't think this child had any surgery YET, Kateb. Did you hear otherwise? I agree that I don't think most doctors would do such a surgery at such a young age --sounds like something that ought to be illegal.
This is an awful choice to make in childhood --choosing gender. What does a child KNOW about normal function and sexual experience? and the consequences of such a change --the surgeries and pain required --the psychic pain of never quite being normal. I can't think that transgendering eases the discomfort of the person with gender identity disorder in the long run.
If I didn't think parents could help kids with their gender identity, the issue of sexuality wouldn't be such a focus for me. I really think parents need to see that they can help their kids be normal --and not just watch them grow up any old way in an untended weed patch--instead of a cared for garden plot.
I'm not sure about how the process is moving along Barb - I was going by what you posted and the video, "An eight-year-old is transgendering from male to female, with parental encouragement. What a life sentence! He has expensive surgeries to face, to mutilate his normal healthy body (and I hope we don't have to pay for it) and hormone treatment and the fact that most normal males will not want to date a transgendered female or marry one --who cannot bear children --who is, in reality, a fake girl."
But I would hope that any surgeon would understand that this would be better addressed once a child has passed through the hormonal process of puberty.
I wonder if some doctor would intend to do the hormonal changes before puberty.
I think it would be a lot easier and in the long run more successful to correct what's between the ears in toddlerhood and elem. years --before hormones kick in --to PREVENT gender identity disorder -- than to surgically and hormonally alter the body at any stage of development. They will always have to face the fact that a lover or spouse should know what the body is genetically and its likely inability to reproduce. Though science may accomplish reproduction through surgical alteration. At what expense and whose expense?
Reading the letters to Oprah on this topic was an eye opener to the ignorance of the parents of such confused children. E.G. --so WHAT if junior likes the pink crayon or mom's purse and shoes --is there not a little emphasis on the parents' part to reinforce that interest? by noticing it and calling attention to it and suggesting it means he's feminine? Talk about dim bulbs on the human family tree!! Kids will play with anything available and they will take on their siblings' and parents' interests and enthusiasms if encouraged. And pink IS a lovely color --so what? It is WE who made it feminine.
I agree about the family tree. There won't be one in this case.
Exactly!
Omg you bunch of fucking idiots! Lets start with the facts ! Yes us male to females cant have babies and we will always have been born male but we dont look male. Yer some dont pass as women but its not bout how you look its how u feel on the inside. Not everybody wants a child and thers always adoption or are you religious cunts against that too!! iv spoken to tons of trans women and men who are happily married and enjoying life! You all need to lighten up its a hard fucking journey and its not called transgendering you morons its called transitioning!
Homophobia is a crime u religious bastards started! Im sick to death of listening to your crap about god made this and that pull your heads out yer arses god dont exist and if he did why the fuck would he be worryin bout people being gay!
You have big issues that you need to address. Being transgender is not a crime! We aint hurting anyone or doing anything illegal and this idea we cant and wont be happy or married is bullshit .
So basically what im saying is open up , dont be homophobes but if you are at least learn the right terms before trying to insult us!
Im proud to be transgender and im bisexual and dont give a fuck what any of you think .. Grow up !
Oh and another thing i forgot to mention is we are fucking normal! We make better women than most genetic women do .. Because we were born trapped in the wrong gender we strive to be women more !
I dont think you understand enough to argue about it your just bigoted morons who are living in the past ! Its 2010 not 1610 !!
Move with the times be more open minded and seriously learn something about it dont judge a book by its cover .
You let religion control how you really feel and you live a miserable life ruled by a fake book then u die and thats it! We live to the full have a happy time and who gives a fuck what happens after u die you wont know youl be dead! No heaven or hell just emptyness for evermore.
Still cant get over how homophobic u are i just wish i could spend an hour in a room with you with a machete id soon teach u manners!
Your religions full of incest and paedophiles , child molestors yet you try to tell people were the bad ones just because your own opinion is that what we do is wrong lol seriously u dont know what your talking about..
Oh well im tired of arguing with you so il leave it at that . Youl prob be backwards and abusive if u see or reply to these messages but just think were normal people like anyone else we all have our differences and shouldnt judge each other !
I can honestly say your comments gave me a good laugh . Not only dont u know what your talkin about but you think your word means something!
oh and as for parents,families etc some of them just turn theyr backs on us because like you religious wankers theyr backwards an homophobic!
one last thing. one of the two women who have helped me change my life and come out and openly be myself and start hormone treatment etc is a christian! She beleives in god and the bible , shes the nicest person iv ever met in my entire life and i owe my life to her so your religion shouldnt control your feelings it dont controll hers! Shes very open minded if you christians took leaf out her book youd be much nicer people.
Skye -- your mental confusion probably started young and progressed unabated until you had your "transition."
My topic here is a concern for children who might be helped early on toward a normal self-image.
I think kids are way too immature --and malleable--to BE ALLOWED to develop a self-image that will require surgeries, hormone treatments, chronic abnormalcy and discontent. It would be best if we could direct what goes on between their ears from infancy on --concerning their gender -- and in their environments that makes them feel they'd rather be what they are not --the opposite sex.
We very consciously parented to help our kids feel like the guys and girls they were --but a father's role is so important for the guys --and so many of our children don't have a caring and righteous father these days. And even if they do, the culture and peers, media and education, are pushing kids to follow whims and inclinations instead of developing a life of character and discipline toward a Biblical code of moral righteousness.
You don't sound happy to me --wanting to take a machete to me. You obviously are NOT a person who doesn't care what others think --since I've made you so angry here.
Rebelling against God's design for your body is a basic rebellion against your Maker--and I trust a result of great sin on the part of others as well-- who couldn't see your pain early on and affirm you as the man you were meant to be.
If you were to remain as a woman and yet, seek this Creator-God your Christian friend believes in --you would nevertheless need to approach Him in repentance for having rebelled against your sex assignment --like we all have to come in repentance for our sins --but I've no doubt that this God you don't believe in would forgive the repentant heart --as that is His promise.
BTW, your language here, words chosen, are those more commonly seen in a man --an angry man.
I personally know no less than FOUR transgendered men, men who used to be "women" and had operations to make them men.
All four of them are great, well-adjusted people, living happy, fulfilling lives, and three of them have long-term girlfriends who do not mind that they are not biological males. Some girls are even into that. And that's totally cool.
EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT!!!!
NOT EVERYONE IS LIKE YOU!!!
NEWSFLASH: SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT LIKE YOU AND THEY ARE ........ HAPPY!!!
Oh, I also know a couple of non-bigot christians and they are nice, well-adjusted people too.
I saw the television program you are talking about and I think that kid looked so happy, and I thought, wow, what great parents she has to accept her as she is.
If you have never felt like you were given the wrong body, you do not know what it is to feel this way. You have no empathy. Try to imagine what it would be like. You can't pray that shit away, no matter how hard life is going to be for you. Have some empathy and compassion and put yourself in someone else's shoes. THis child will be much more miserable trying to live as a man than living as she really is in her soul - a woman.
Quit judging and preaching for a minute. Quit standing on your invented hill of righteousness. Isn't god meant to be all like "Thou shalt not judge"? A true god does not judge. NOT ANYONE.
Beckyjo and Chloe
God loves you and has a plan for your life.
Your bio-assignment was part of the plan.
But how could you know that if you didn't have loving Christian parents to cherish you and treat you as the girl or boy you were born to be? to teach that God made you like your mommy or daddy for his purposes? to teach you what it is to be male or female --to affirm your sexual self-image--instead of just assuming you would grow up like a flower in a garden without getting caught up in the weeds of disillusion and discontent with your sex-assignment?
there are REASONS for your feelings of being in the wrong body --or desiring the same sex.
And the reason is not because God made a mistake.
We are supposed to either be celibate and single --like St. Paul --or get married and be willing to receive children. The world needs children for the future who are well-raised.
Young people get eager to be their grown-up selves and their peer group can be discouraging about their potential for happiness --if our kids are taught right from wrong, have patience for the good things of life, have confidence that God "is a rewarder of those who seek Him," have commitment to Christ and a willingess to serve Him
THEN, they will NOT be self-centered about their sexuality, focused on it, willing to go about being what they are not --never quite convincing anyone, never being free to serve God because everything is about them and their sexuality and trying to find love and satisfaction.
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