The issue of transgendered children

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  • CrazyLoopCrazyLoop Posts: 31,148
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    Are these children actually "transgendered" or are they just camp boys and tomboys? It seems an extremely major label to put on a child at a young age, when it may well be just a phase.
    There are some children who will literally just be that but being transgendered is so much more and not a label that can just be applied to a child willy nilly. You can't even start hormone treatment (the first stages of treatment) until you lived as the gender you really are for two years minimum.
  • Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    CrazyLoop wrote: »
    There are some children who will literally just be that but being transgendered is so much more and not a label that can just be applied to a child willy nilly. You can't even start hormone treatment (the first stages of treatment) until you lived as the gender you really are for two years minimum.

    Not sure where that rule applies but it is more common to start hormone treatment pretty early in the period of living in role. Sometimes even before. The two year rule tends to apply to irreversible things like surgery. That, of course, is for adults. But hormone therapy to children is in the form of puberty blockers and these are not given until pre the onset of this. So I expect some very young children will be 'in role' potentially for years and those who come for treatment shortly before puberty are probably assessed more carefully to balance too early administration of blockers versus the need for them to be given in time to delay puberty. As once that happens there is no reversal.
  • DiamondDollDiamondDoll Posts: 21,460
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    no parent would want their child to be trans.

    no trans-person would want any child to be trans.

    no transperson wants to be trans.

    as a transperson, i agree. in an ideal world, boys would be boys, and girls would be girls.


    .

    I really am sorry that you have to read posts from people who know better than you do. :(

    As you say we do not live in an ideal world.
  • Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    I really am sorry that you have to read posts from people who know better than you do. :(

    As you say we do not live in an ideal world.

    And she is absolutely right that nobody who has experienced what living with this is like would wish it onto any person or family.

    It is very easy to make judgements from an outside perspective and make general observations about what you think should be done. Because you do not have to live with the consequences.

    Those who have been there and done that offer a unique and brave insight into how what looks to be obvious from a dispassionate external view is very different when it is your entire life.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 68,508
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    My Time wrote: »
    It's a mental disorder according to an esteemed psychiatrist and




    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change

    I'd settle for the opinion of a distinguished, peer reviewed psychiatrist over those of the amateur forum shrinks.

    Ah, Dr Paul McHugh. This would be the Dr Paul McHugh who has been campaigning against gender reassignment surgery for over 40 years, who omits to say in this article that the reason Johns Hopkins University discontinued it is that he made the decision personally, and who also believes that homosexuality is a choice.

    Nicely rebutted - with links to a lot of 'distinguished, peer reviewed' research - here: http://www.transadvocate.com/clinging-to-a-dangerous-past-dr-paul-mchughs-selective-reading-of-transgender-medical-literature_n_13842.htm
  • anne_666anne_666 Posts: 72,891
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    Ah, Dr Paul McHugh. This would be the Dr Paul McHugh who has been campaigning against gender reassignment surgery for over 40 years, who omits to say in this article that the reason Johns Hopkins University discontinued it is that he made the decision personally, and who also believes that homosexuality is a choice.

    Nicely rebutted - with links to a lot of 'distinguished, peer reviewed' research - here: http://www.transadvocate.com/clinging-to-a-dangerous-past-dr-paul-mchughs-selective-reading-of-transgender-medical-literature_n_13842.htm

    You beat me to it WD. I've encountered his worrying theories before. Has he been put out to grass yet, where he belongs? A major clue below.

    -- Former member of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishop's National Review Board


    More about the bigoted homophobe and other scum of the earth characters here. I now need mind bleach!


    https://www.glaad.org/cap/paul-mchugh

    Facts

    -- Refers to homosexuality as "erroneous desire"

    -- Argues that being medically accomodating to a transgender child is "like performing liposuction on an anorexic child"

    -- Filed an amicus brief arguing in favor of Proposition 8 on the basis that homosexuality is a "choice."

    --Describes post surgical trans women as "caricatures of women"

    -- As part of the USCCB's Review Board, pushed the idea that the Catholic sex abuse scandal was not about pedophilia but about “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”
  • ChristmasCakeChristmasCake Posts: 26,078
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    Just because someone is a professor of psychiatry, does not mean they are an expert in every area of psychiatry.

    Clearly, since what he says goes against all available evidence and scientific consensus, it isn't this area.
  • What name??What name?? Posts: 26,623
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    jesaya wrote: »
    The childen are being given the chance to live lives that make them happier now... and then given the opportunity to develop in whichever direction that continues to make them happy. The alternative is to force them to comply with whatever gender they present as physically, which is what is making them unhappy in the first place. Waiting until they are adults is the problem... not the solution.

    It's not either/ or. They could just let the children live as children and not put a label on them and consider their maturity, awareness and how that impacts on informed consent before any treatment that leaves permanent changes.

    I know that needs to be balanced with the fact that sex changes are more convincing when begun younger. However being wrongly labelled can also be damaging.

    I think people in this area should be reminded that other scientific fads have come and gone creating unintended consequences and that therefore they should be cautious.
  • Fairyprincess0Fairyprincess0 Posts: 30,038
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    your perfectly willing to label children with the gender they were born with, though.

    i'll say this again. gender isnt just physical. nor is it a thought or an idea. its deeper then than. so deep that, if it works, you dont acknowledge it.

    it just 'is'....
  • What name??What name?? Posts: 26,623
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    your perfectly willing to label children with the gender they were born with, though..

    Which part of "not put a label on them" confused you?
  • Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    Transgender and its treatment is not a fad, though, as you seem to think What name??.

    There is a big movie out soon with Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne playing Lili Elbe - the first trans woman to have surgery. That is set in the 1920s, So it is a long fad.

    Certainly significant treatment programmes only really started in the 60s in the UK - but even that is half a century.

    The new way of dealing with transgender earlier than before has emerged because so many who only got help later in life were by then deeply scarred and yet said they had had this issue from very early on. So it is natural - surely - to try to find a way to diminish the problems created by doing nothing earlier in life.

    Nobody as far as I can see is advocating taking irreversible action until adolescence at the earliest - and surgery is still limited to being an adult as it always was. All that is really happening is a long term study monitoring children who report these issues and thus both gathering data to determine further steps and helping guide these children as they grow. No major steps should - nor do I expect will - be taken without very serious consideration by all involved.

    At the same time this research allows those with severe issues (and being transgendered is horrific for a child) also have support, family understanding and the ability to make modest changes to lifestyle that will probably help them reach a better choice themselves about the future.

    As the evidence from a few thousand adult transgender patients has clearly shown the damage done by a lack of such help and by repression, isolation in and outside the family and the fear that there can be no way out other than suicide.

    Everyone knows that a child's future is at stake. But that works both ways whatever you do.

    As for a kind of gender neutrality approach. The problem is that society does not work that way. Children who are transgender would face even more turmoil if forced to basically live two lives owing to school rules, or whatever.

    For those not really transgender that solution would probably help. And I expect it is the choice that will be followed by all concerned.

    But recall that for a true transgender person that would be more torture because - believe me - most of them know absolutely who and what they are from well before puberty.
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