8 yr old now living as girl

[wynn]

Why don't they just leave the ignoramuses behind and go to another church. That's what I would do. A new school and a new church where she'll be nothing but a little girl and no one will question it.

And what when this boy-girl grows and starts to show readily visible signs of manliness? Facial hair, Adam's apple, lower voice?

What will happen to this child if he has to conceal his manliness all the time?

Would you, as a female student, like a female look-alike in your gym class and locker room?

Or do the parents intend to get the boy on hormone treatment and surgery?

 

[wynn]

I think it is sad that a genetic boy who feels he is a girl and is allowed by his parents to be this is kept from the church.

While parents who force their boys, for example, to be in boy drag and do boy drag - not cry, play with trucks not dolls, whatever - would be accepted without a blink.

I would do the same as the chruch, and I do not support the parents.

Life is hard enough as it is, no need to make it harder by trying to be something special by being a boy-girl / girl-boy.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Everyone here seems to be unfairly judging the Reverends decision or maybe everyone didn't read through the article. His decision was based on what would be best for the child and the school, he never said the child couldn't attend church. Its not about secular conservative ethics its about not placing the child and other children in a situation that's confusing and distracting.

"The mother, a life-long Catholic, thought making the transition in their parish would be the best place for their child to continue friendships, with a support system that included other parents and children.

“The child is welcomed to come, but it would not be acceptable to change the child’s gender and present as a girl,” said Omaha Archdiocese Chancellor, the Rev. Joseph Taphorn.
Taphorn said having the child attend the school for three years as a boy, and then presenting as a girl would not be a good learning environment for the child or other students. He said school has to be a peaceful, positive environment for everyone.
The child will attend a public school in the fall, using her chosen name and wearing a ponytail in her hair."

He's right, can you imagine you went to school with peter and the next year he came back in pony tail wearing a dress and insisting he's jenny. Well I'm sure it would have created more social confusion and at these tender ages its too much to expect children to understand what is going on. Starting fresh at a new school was a good choice. I do think the mother sounds wonderful, incredibly understanding and compassionate, really present for her child. This little girl sounds very lucky and I am sure that at the appropriate age they will start the gender change if that's what she wants.

 

[wynn]

Everyone here seems to be unfairly judging the Reverends decision or maybe everyone didn't read through the article.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

I didn't mean you Signal

 

[phlogistician]

It's the 21st century, men and women are allegedly equal. What is a sexual identity these days then?

Seems the parents and the church are guilty of holding images of sexual stereotypes too dearly.

So it's no news days, one anachronism clashes with another. Big deal.

 

[wise acre]

I would do the same as the chruch, and I do not support the parents.

Life is hard enough as it is, no need to make it harder by trying to be something special by being a boy-girl / girl-boy.

So you think you know what the child's motivation is?

 

[CutsieMarie89]

And what when this boy-girl grows and starts to show readily visible signs of manliness? Facial hair, Adam's apple, lower voice?

What will happen to this child if he has to conceal his manliness all the time?

Would you, as a female student, like a female look-alike in your gym class and locker room?

Or do the parents intend to get the boy on hormone treatment and surgery?

I don't get your point. Then she will deal with it or not. Personally co-ed gym classes are much better than single sexed gym classes, but that is neither here nor there. I wouldn't have a problem with a masculine looking woman in the locker room. I mean you don't have to pull your pants down to get in. Playing sports a lot I've come across many woman with no breasts and facial hair. Where would an intersexed person whose had no gender assignment or did not like their gender assignment change?

 

[CutsieMarie89]

I would do the same as the chruch, and I do not support the parents.

Life is hard enough as it is, no need to make it harder by trying to be something special by being a boy-girl / girl-boy.

That's easy for you to say because you're not transgender. But a co-worker of mine is, it is a diagnosable psychological disorder and the treatment is gender/sex reassignment. The treatment has a pretty high success rate as well. As far as people no longer feel like prisoners in their own body.

 

[visceral_instinct]

That's a hard row to hoe, but I would never do gender assignment until after puberty.

There are plenty of in between steps which can be explored without having to say you are this or you are that. Metro sexuals, tom boys, various androgynous tweeners.

If s/he likes dresses I would start with kilts.

In short work with what you have to find a happy medium between what you desire and what is possible.

Actually it's better if you alter them before puberty, because they won't have already been influenced by the sex hormones they do have.

You do though have to be sure it's a genuine condition and not just a phase, though.

I would do the same as the chruch, and I do not support the parents.

Life is hard enough as it is, no need to make it harder by trying to be something special by being a boy-girl / girl-boy.

Well done for spewing out a fine helping of ignorant BILGE.

You would make the girl's life harder by forcing her to conform to her physical sex, not by accommodating her condition, which is real.

She is not trying to be special, for fuck's sake. She did not ask to be born a male-to-female transsexual. She is hardwired that way in her mind, forcing her to be 'normal' will only cause her more problems.

 

[takandjive]

Would you, as a female student, like a female look-alike in your gym class and locker room?

Frankly, in locker rooms, I don't stare at women's crotches. While I don't want men in women's locker rooms, I don't care if a transwoman is in there. A girl is a girl is a girl.

Everyone here seems to be unfairly judging the Reverends decision or maybe everyone didn't read through the article. His decision was based on what would be best for the child and the school, he never said the child couldn't attend church. Its not about secular conservative ethics its about not placing the child and other children in a situation that's confusing and distracting.

[...]

He's right, can you imagine you went to school with peter and the next year he came back in pony tail wearing a dress and insisting he's jenny. Well I'm sure it would have created more social confusion and at these tender ages its too much to expect children to understand what is going on. Starting fresh at a new school was a good choice. I do think the mother sounds wonderful, incredibly understanding and compassionate, really present for her child. This little girl sounds very lucky and I am sure that at the appropriate age they will start the gender change if that's what she wants.

She is a lucky girl, but I question if uprooting her whole life is the answer. I think children deal better with these things than we credit them. I think the grown-ups are more the problem than the kids. I guess hoping for tolerance is a bit much; a new school may be best.

 

[lightgigantic]

Everyone here seems to be unfairly judging the Reverends decision or maybe everyone didn't read through the article. His decision was based on what would be best for the child and the school, he never said the child couldn't attend church. Its not about secular conservative ethics its about not placing the child and other children in a situation that's confusing and distracting.

"The mother, a life-long Catholic, thought making the transition in their parish would be the best place for their child to continue friendships, with a support system that included other parents and children.

“The child is welcomed to come, but it would not be acceptable to change the child’s gender and present as a girl,” said Omaha Archdiocese Chancellor, the Rev. Joseph Taphorn.
Taphorn said having the child attend the school for three years as a boy, and then presenting as a girl would not be a good learning environment for the child or other students. He said school has to be a peaceful, positive environment for everyone.
The child will attend a public school in the fall, using her chosen name and wearing a ponytail in her hair."

He's right, can you imagine you went to school with peter and the next year he came back in pony tail wearing a dress and insisting he's jenny. Well I'm sure it would have created more social confusion and at these tender ages its too much to expect children to understand what is going on. Starting fresh at a new school was a good choice. I do think the mother sounds wonderful, incredibly understanding and compassionate, really present for her child. This little girl sounds very lucky and I am sure that at the appropriate age they will start the gender change if that's what she wants.

aka - conservative secular ethics

IOW if you examine what is held as a cause for disrupting students/etc, its but one indication of the values.

as a contrast compare something like Steiner schooling

 

[John99]

the kid should be raised as a boy because he is a boy. twenty years from now he may end up resenting his parents for not correcting him and acting logically. he can always make his own decision when he is intellectually mature enough to make an informed choice.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

She is a lucky girl, but I question if uprooting her whole life is the answer. I think children deal better with these things than we credit them. I think the grown-ups are more the problem than the kids. I guess hoping for tolerance is a bit much; a new school may be best.

Her life was uprooted the moment he decided he was a she. I don't think that children would understand this situation easily, do you really believe that little boys at 8 are going to be 'kind' to a little boy dressed as a little girl? Do you think its fair for the child in question to be placed in a situation where he will suddenly be confronted with name calling and strange looks because everyone has known him as a boy for three years? Its distracting. A new school is not any more a disruption to a childs life than being in a situation where she would constatntly have to explain herself to people who knew the her as he.

Lightgigantic:
IOW if you examine what is held as a cause for disrupting students/etc, its but one indication of the values. as a contrast compare something like Steiner schooling

This would have been an issue even in a Rudolf Steiner school. Let us remember that these situations are rare and most schools do not have to explain why Peter who they knew for three years is now Jenny even though he's still peter. What's wrong with the child starting over now that he has started over as a she? I think that a school has the right to think of all their students and class functioning and not just one child. I think he made a practical choice as did the parent. I don't hold 'conservative ethics' and yet I agree completely.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

the kid should be raised as a boy because he is a boy. twenty years from now he may end up resenting his parents for not correcting him and acting logically. he can always make his own decision when he is intellectually mature enough to make an informed choice.

Didn't you read the article? It is the child who is making the decision, they are not changing his sex (he would have to decide that later) they are allowing him to explore his desire or need to be a girl. Its not that he doesn't KNOW he is male, he says he isn't male 'inside', he feels as if he were born in the 'wrong body', which is what transgender is about.

Being a 'tom boy' or going through a 'tom boy' phase for example isn't the same as being transgender, tom boys don't think they were born the wrong sex, they just don't see why they can't play with and dress like boys.

 

[Repo Man]

Here is another similar case.

From the moment he could speak, Jazz made it clear he wanted to wear a dress. At only 15 months, he would unsnap his onesies to make it look like a dress. When his parents praised Jazz as a "good boy," he would correct them, saying he was a good girl.

The Jennings wanted to believe it would pass. Scott said he "was in a bit of denial" about what Jazz was trying to tell them. After all, even their rowdy twin boys, who are two years older than Jazz, had painted their nails growing up. But Jazz kept gravitating to girl things, insisting that his penis was a mistake.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=3088298&page=1



And then there was the purely human mistake, where a doctors hubris destroyed a boy's life. In 1967, following a surgical accident which destroyed the infant's penis, a doctor convinced a well meaning couple that the boy could be converted into a girl. Pure social determinism was in style at the time. The experiment failed horribly.

“I recognized Joan as my sister,” Kevin says, “but she never, ever acted the part. She’d get a skipping rope for a gift, and the only thing we’d use that for was to tie people up, whip people with it. Never used it for what it was bought for. She played with my toys: Tinkertoys, dump trucks. Toys like this sewing machine she got just sat.”

Today, with the twins having rejoined each other on the same side of the gender divide, the stark physical differences between them eerily testify to all that John has been through. At 32, Kevin is a dark-bearded, bearlike man with the thickly muscled arms and shoulders of a manual laborer. To see him standing alongside his scarecrow-thin, scantily bearded brother, you would never guess that every cell in their bodies bears identical DNA – until you compare their eyes, noses and mouths, which are indistinguishable from one twin to the other.

As children, their physical differences were, if less pronounced, equally deceptive. Photographs of them as preschoolers show a puppy-eyed little boy with a crew cut and a slim, brown-eyed girl with wavy chestnut hair framing a face of delicate prettiness. But by all accounts, this illusion of two children occupying opposite sexes disappeared the second that Joan moved, spoke, walked, gestured. “When I say there was nothing feminine about Joan,” Kevin laughs, “I mean there was nothing feminine. She walked like a guy. She talked about guy things, didn’t give a crap about cleaning house, getting married, wearing makeup.... We both wanted to play with guys, build forts and have snowball fights and play army.” Enrolled in Girl Scouts, Joan was miserable. “I remember making daisy chains and thinking, ‘If this is the most exciting thing in Girl Scouts, forget it,’ ” John says. “I kept thinking of the fun stuff my brother was doing in Cubs.”

Linda and Frank were troubled by Joan’s masculine behavior. But they had been told by Dr. Money that they must not entertain any doubts about their daughter, and they felt that to do so would only increase the problem. Instead, Frank and Linda seized on those moments when Joan’s behavior could be construed as stereotypically feminine. “And she could be sort of feminine, sometimes,” Linda says, “when she wanted to please me. She’d be less rough, keep herself clean and tidy, and help a little bit in the kitchen.”

.....There was only one problem: Joan was determined not to have the surgery – ever. The child’s increasingly stubborn refusal was not only a result of her deep-seated fear of hospitals, doctors and needles. It also had to do with the realization that she’d made around the time of grade two – that she was not a girl and never would be, no matter what her parents, her doctor, her teachers or anyone else said. For when Joan daydreamed of an ideal future, she saw herself as a 21-year-old male with a mustache and a sports car, surrounded by admiring friends. “He was somebody I wanted to be,” John says today, reflecting on this childhood fantasy. By now Joan was ever more certain that submitting to vaginal surgery would lock her into a gender in which she felt increasingly trapped.
http://www.infocirc.org/rollston.htm

I think we are finally getting away from the dogma that gender identity was strictly socially determined, and it is about time. Cases like these very strongly imply that the brain has gender from early in our development. And screw the haters.

 

[John99]

i didnt read the article. i know the child is making the decision but does anyone allow eight year old children to make all their own decisions?

he says he isn't male 'inside'

all his parents have to say is 'no you cant dress like a girl' and 'yes you can grow your hair long as long as you dont put bows in it' but they should try and make him understand the reasons why. there are no ideal solutions but this is better than any other.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

i didnt read the article. i know the child is making the decision but does anyone allow eight year old children to make all their own decisions?

all his parents have to say is 'no you cant dress like a girl' and 'yes you can grow your hair long as long as you dont put bows in it' but they should try and make him understand the reasons why. there are no ideal solutions but this is better than any other.

Why? Why should the parents do that? Maybe you should read the articles. The parents are fine with this and the child is happy. You can't explain to him if he says he's in the 'wrong' body, forcing him to accept what he cannot accept and knows to be wrong only makes matters worse which is the usual story for most transgenders when they grow up confused and miserable pretending to be something they are not and then one day breaking to their wife and kids that they are going to get surgery and become a she. Wouldn't you rather spare society that kind of bother? Its better if they catch it now, allow him to be a girl and when he is in puberty take the hormones if he wishes and then later get the operation if he so wishes.

 

[Bells]

i didnt read the article. i know the child is making the decision but does anyone allow eight year old children to make all their own decisions?



all his parents have to say is 'no you cant dress like a girl' and 'yes you can grow your hair long as long as you dont put bows in it' but they should try and make him understand the reasons why. there are no ideal solutions but this is better than any other.

So you are making an opinion on a story that you have not even bothered to read? You "know" that the child is making a mistake without even reading what the child, her parents and doctors have said about her case? How very predictable of you.

The boy is in fact a girl in a boy's body. One's sexual organs does not automatically mean that you are that particular sex. Her brain identifies her as a girl, not a boy and has always done so. Now, you can attempt to force her to be a boy or you can let her be who she really is. From the article.

“It’s kind of like you’re trapped somewhere and you can’t get out,” said the child, whose name and face are not being made public to protect the family from potential harm.

“She’s been a girl since the beginning, everything about her, the way she dances and skips around and the things she’s attracted to. It’s more than toys and clothes,” said the child’s mother.

The mother said the child has consistently asked to be called a girl since she was 4 years old.

“One night, she said ‘Every night when I go to bed, I pray my inside will match my outside. But it never happens,'" the mother said, recalling the words of her middle child.

As you can see, this isn't something that she's just woken up one day and said "I want to be a girl". She has been a girl from the start and since the age of 4, has asked her parents to call her and refer to her as a girl. Her body and her penis have nothing to do with it.

“It was not a decision that was made rashly at all. It was a decision to protect her psyche and her self-esteem,” the mother said.

Therapists agree that forcing a person to live in a social role outside their perceived gender is damaging.

Omaha mental health therapist Ellie Hites said she’s worked with more than 200 transgendered clients in Omaha over the past 35 years.

Hites said she does psychological evaluations on all of her clients.

“One hundred percent of the time, I’ve never had anybody show up anything other than healthiest in the chosen gender role, as opposed to biological,” Hites said.

She said her adult transgender clients have lived through nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts and deep depression because they could never truly be themselves. She has four transgendered clients right now.

“The story that I get is that ‘I’ve known since I was real little, but everybody laughed or nobody paid any attention,’” Hites said.

The therapist said transgendered children insist they are the opposite sex, consistently.

“It’s like they arrive here with one biology but the mental set is counter to that,” Hites said.

Good on her parents in my opinion. They obviously care more about their child and her welfare than about the opinions of people such as yourself who view what is between one's legs as being one's gender identity. It is not always the case.

As for the school's decision. I can understand why they would have refused her to attend the school as a girl. It would be difficult for her classmates to understand and the result would probably entail a lot of teasing and bullying for her. It is probably better for her to attend a new school where no one knows who she was. A clean fresh start where she will always be known as a little girl. It is sad but children can be and are cruel.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Bells again you are being too kind. You shouldn't have helped him by posting parts of the article. Now you've denied his index finger and mind the difficult task of pressing on the little link buttion and *gasps* reading.