For school officials in Haverford Township, the challenge was daunting: What do you do when a 9-year-old student, with the full support of his parents, decides that he is no longer a boy and instead is a girl?The article goes on to discuss the controversy surrounding this, but I have a deeper question. How can you tell if you're transgendered or even homosexual years before puberty? Maybe I just don't understand the whole homosexual thing. My first reaction to this is that it's the ultimate in spoiling a child. It appears as if the child has been given no boundaries at all and is going as far as he can to try and find just where mom and dad draw the line.
Parents of a third-grade student at Chatham Park Elementary School approached the administration on April 16 to ask for help in making a "social transition" for their child.
Taking my assumption as fact: It's sad and pathetic at the same time. Boundaries are a sign of love. They're the act of an adult protecting and guiding a child by imposing adult sensibilities on a child's world. Even children know they don't know everything. Even though they don't like to be told to turn off the TV and go outside because they're not allowed to play video games 24 hours a day, they want to know that their parents love them enough to guide them. When my kids talk about schoolmates who are spoiled, the conclusion they come to is not that those other kids are lucky, it's that their parents just don't care.
That's what this sounds like to me. It's parents who are too weak to put any limits at all on their child. Now he's called their bluff and gone completely off the deep end. The article goes on to quote someone whose title makes him sound like an expert.
About one in 5,000 people is transgender, said Walter O. Bockting, a psychologist and coordinator for transgender health services at the University of Minnesota. Bockting said he sees about 10 children a year who are 9 or younger.OK, so he's the coordinator for transgender health services, so what? That's a single psychologist giving their opinion, not a scientific consensus. It still doesn't make any sense to me. I'd have to see the DNA evidence of serious genetic problems before I believed this one. The words of one goofy psychologist does not make it so.
"It's a little early, but occasionally that happens," he said.
11 comments:
"How can you tell if you're transgendered or even homosexual years before puberty?"
Well, I could tell that I was heterosexual for as long as I could remember - long before reaching puberty. I always found women very attractive, even before I knew what sex *was*.
I know a few people who are homosexual, and several of them also say that they knew what their ultimate sexual preference would be well before they hit puberty.
Granted, one probably doesn't want to *commit one's life* to a sex change well before puberty without being really rock-solid certain that nothing was going to change (although, it would certainly simplify things a lot if the hormone therapies started before there were too many physical changes), but I don't see why at least a large subset of people wouldn't be certain of which way they were heading by the time they were, say, eight years old or so.
Great comment, Tim. Looking back, I can recall the same thing.
I dunno. Kids go through phases of identifying with one parent or another, of trying on different things for size - seems to me if you encourage one thing, even with subtle mannerisms, maybe the brain synapses create a longer trial on that particular thing, but kids shift and evolve a great deal, and I would not be in favor of locking them into something so early that will be so sure to cause them enormous pain and suffering as they try to make it in this world, tolerant as people may try to be.
This is the new vogue it seems, my kids are being told in sixth grade that gender is what they feel.
They kinda KNOW that's false because they have guinea pigs and hamsters and litters and know what that takes and what it means. Innately.
Rose alludes to something... what is the parents' role in all this as far as what they are teaching and the culture they are providing much more beyond just allowing the child to "act out"? It would seem to me there is some undue influence in this. My pea-brain can't wrap around the reality of a child just waking up one day and wanting to be the opposite sex completely on his own. Doesn't print out.
Dean-- I think you may be on to something.
I loved playing Robinhood, a dozen other male characters I loved--maybe the parents encouraged this kid to think some games were "signs of something deeper"?
Worse yet, what if the parents *encouraged* this to make some sort of a statement?
I'm kind of with Dean on this. It just doesn't make any sense. That's why it comes across as the ultimate in spoiling the child.
And if the kid is bent on changing sexes, why make such a big deal about it and go along with it? Why not just say, "Yes, dear, that's nice. Did you finish your homework yet?"
Second, if it is true and the kid does have a serious genetic handicap, why do it at age 9? Why have him go through the rest of his school years with that anvil around his neck? Why not see if you could kick the can down the road until college?
Devil's advocate: what if it's all true and all of the things we are bringing up here were brought up in the master bedroom of that house, accompanied by screaming, crying and accusations? Right or wrong in their decision, that family could use a prayer or two.
STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!!!! I have had it with all of your comments discussing this boy. knock it the hell off
If you can't stand seeing folks talk about it, DON'T READ COMMENTS ON THE TOPIC.
genrocks,
This is one of the problems with allowing your 9 year old boy to change sexes. It's so bizarre that it can do nothing but bring national attention to him and mostly bad at that. I'm sorry if what has been said here offends you (most of it seems to have been pretty compassionate), but shark attacks, bridge collapses and children going through a sex change are strange enough to warrant discussion.
I don't know about sexual orientation before puberty, but that's not this girl's problem... Shes doesn't know her sexual orientation, transsexualism has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
I'm surprised that no one gets this. It's not about being gay or not.
My son knows he's a boy, and he's four. Of course if you're transsexual you know it before puberty.
The radio is now talking about a new
"anti-bullying" curriculum in the Minneapolis public schools. Turns out its
bank-rolled by a gay support group.
The teachers are required to tell the kids that traditional family values are wrong.
There's an article in the startribune.com.
Apparently is 3rd quarter before they even talk about bullying and again it's focused on bullying on gays, with passing notice to others.
Thank God, my kids are in private school.
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