Transgendered children

[Neo-Scholastic]

Pizza, you were in such a rush to disagree with me that you criticized me for having the same understanding of sex and gender as you do. As for Rebbeccarox and SteelCurtain, try not to be so judgmental that you automatically assume that a different opinion is being judgmental.

People are different, no shit Sherlock. And I say live and let live. My point was not that transgendered people are fucked-up; but rather that our culture is fucked-up and obsessed about gender identity. Heck, I'm a man and wish I didn't have to shave every now and then. But I do. I'm growing bald and I'm looking old. So what, I accept my biology. But having a five o'clock shadow and loosing my hair has nothing to do with my masculinity. I eat quiche and like bubble bathes. I suppose some people think that's a bit feminine, but I don't care. Fact is, I spend very little time thinking about whether other people think the things I do are masculine or feminine. And I don't care if a guy wears make-up (like one of the sub-contractors I hire) or if a girl struts around like a construction worker (like the woman who sits two cubicles from me). As a culture we need to get over the idea that some things are for 'real' men and ladies don't act in certain ways.

If an adult wants to have a 'sex-change' operation then that's their business. But, but, but,...being transgender isn't like having diabetes. It may have a biological component, but it also has a huge psychological and cultural component. I don't think an eleven year old is capable of truly knowing who the hell they are much less enough to base medical decisions on something as fluid and subjective as gender identity. And really, I know the parents are ultimately responsible, but c'mon parents fuck us all up enough without bringing drugs into the picture and messing with us medically.

[Regina]

I don't think it's really about what "real men" or "real women" do. I grew up gender non-conforming in the sense that, by society's standards anyway, I "behaved more like a girl than a boy". I never identified as a girl though. In my mind I've always been male, albeit not a typical alpha male.

It's not just about gender roles and expression, it comes down to identity. These people don't change their sex because they want to do things the opposite sex does without being judged, they change because they identify as the opposite gender they were labelled as at birth. There are, believe it or not, some transgender women who are butch lesbians. They still do a lot the gender roles we expect men to do, but they have transitioned because they identify as women.

It's all missing the point too that this is harmless. If someone wants to change their gender, it's their own decision. As I said before as well, a child is old enough to know. We have expected gender roles shoved down our throats from the moment we are born. You don't need a fully developed adult sense of self to notice if you don't identify with those gender expectations that are put on you.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Seriously though, strictly speaking isn't identity, the sense of who you are, largely formed in response to an understanding of your place or role in society?

[Napoléon]

As I said before as well, a child is old enough to know. We have expected gender roles shoved down our throats from the moment we are born. You don't need a fully developed adult sense of self to notice if you don't identify with those gender expectations that are put on you.

Based on what?

[Regina]

As I said before as well, a child is old enough to know. We have expected gender roles shoved down our throats from the moment we are born. You don't need a fully developed adult sense of self to notice if you don't identify with those gender expectations that are put on you.

Based on what?

Based on everything, all the messages we have hammered into us as kids about "this is what boys do, this is what girls do". I said it earlier, it's how right from day 1 we segregate out what colours we associate with boys (blue) and girls (pink). It's the way toys are often marketed as gender-specific, and if a child of the "wrong gender" takes a liking to them, they're promptly reminded "that's a girls toy, play with this instead". It's how young boys are looked at like they are abnormal if they're not obsessing over football.

It's drummed into us, so if you don't strictly identify with what society says you should indentify with, it does become painfully obvious from a very young age. You do anything that is not in society's comfortable little bubble of "males do x, females do y", then people won't hesitate to remind you what gender you've been labelled as, and what you are expected to do as said gender. To an extent I experienced this myself despite not being trans. So yes, it's easy for me to understand how a child can have full awareness that they are trans, even if they are too young to know the fancy name for their "condition".

[Mudhammam]

If a child's brain is still developing, and they have yet to experience enough of life to process the various cultural biases and influences on their sense of self to truly and confidently formulate their own identity, isn't there something inherently risky and inadvisable in giving them the choice to take drugs or undergo surgeries that may entail irreversible consequences?

[Neo-Scholastic]

To my mind, it seems pretty extreme and should be unnecessary to take very profound drugs and major surgeries just to fit in with societies expectations. I would think the better approach, personally and as a society, is to work towards a culture that treats biological sex the same way it does height or shoe size. And the way it should, but doesn't yet, treat skin color.

Sure a little nip and tuck is whatever. Color your hair to express yourself. But I think it is very sad that some women feel the need to get breast implants to improve their self-esteem or desirability. I don't know anyone that thinks that Micheal Jackson's body modifications of were the actions of a sound mind. Did you know that there are people that self-identify themselves as amputees and sometimes even have surgeries to remove limbs so they can conform to that identity? Does that sound healthy to anyone?

The other way leads to madness. For example, where I work, they decided to install new signs on the washrooms: female-identified and male-identified. I kid you not. But the kicker is that the words 'female-identified' are placed over the image of a person in a skirt with long hair and the 'male-identified' is over the circle-headed stick figure in pants. On the one hand they want to be all politically-correct and inclusive and at the same time they reinforce the traditional stereotypes that we as a society are trying to out grow.

[Regina]

If a child's brain is still developing, and they have yet to experience enough of life to process  the various cultural biases and influences on their sense of self to truly and confidently formulate their own identity, isn't there something inherently risky and inadvisable in giving them the choice to take drugs or undergo surgeries that may entail irreversible consequences?

I can agree with that if you're talking about a child who is just going through a phase or an experimental period. However, if you're talking about a child who has consistently been saying "I'm not the right gender" from age 4, 5, 6 all the way down to 10 and beyond, I think you can assume they're pretty sure. That's what the girl in the news article was like, they said she'd known since she was 3. That's not "a phase".

As we've already established as well, all they are doing with these kids is postponing puberty. That's completely reversible if they change their mind, well I think until they're like mid-teens anyway. There's no surgery or hormone treatment until they are adults or almost adults.

[Tiberius]

This is where I think it's stupid then. Shouldn't birth certificates instead list these changes as... well changes, instead of just blanket saying "this person was born a boy", even though they weren't?

They could I suppose, but I think you are reading too much into birth certificates. They are quite simply a certificate of a live birth; that is to say, a document which states that the person the document is about was born on a specific date. That date doesn't change, and that's really the most important piece of information a birth certificate holds.

My guess is it's easier to just change a small piece of information on a birth certificate than to have to redesign birth certificates themselves. The original birth certificate isn't going to change; there will in all likelihood be a copy of the birth certificate stored by some government agency which has accurate details *at the time of birth* on it, and there will also be documentation which tracks the sex change, name changes, etc.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Despite what Rebbeca thinks, I'm not a doctor, but I cannot imagine that postponing puberty beyond its natural timing is without consequences. Could be wrong.