11 year old transgender

[BC_chick]

Hormones used to delay menstruation are not life altering. Birth control pills do the same thing and they're not 'life altering' either. Life altering is something he can't undo later for which he needs adult mental capacity. Surgery would be one such example and that won't be happening before 18 according to the article.

As for parents denying medical intervention based on religion, that's as absurd as comparing it to criminal children. In both cases of criminal behaviour and medical intervention, a person is harmed. You fail to show how anyone is harmed by a kid dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender.

Of course my opinion differs on the two. You're comparing apples with oranges.

[TimG]

Hormones used to delay menstruation are not life altering. Birth control pills do the same thing and they're not 'life altering' either.

Puberty is one of most important transformations humans go through - delaying it is life altering by definition.

Life altering is something he can't undo later for which he needs adult mental capacity. Surgery would be one such example and that won't be happening before 18 according to the article.

You are also touching on the other aspect of the irresponsible behavior of the parents: teaching their child that a sex change surgery is a "normal" part of the process instead of treating it as a last resort that is only used if the child cannot reconcile their gender identity with the body that the child has. Edited September 8, 2013 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

Hence, there should be temporary limitations imposed by parents and/or caregivers, teachers, and society; there are still such limitations in place (around sex, for example). I tend towards the opinion that gender and/or sexual identity fall into the field of matters about which kids don't have enough experience to make sound decisions on.

So you want other people, even parents, to decide what a child's gender/sexual identity is? Do you think that's the healthiest thing psychologically for them?

[Guest American Woman]

Hormones used to delay menstruation are not life altering. Birth control pills do the same thing and they're not 'life altering' either.

Of course it's life altering; the monthly injections she's taking are preventing puberty from taking place. Birth control pills do no such thing. I have to wonder how you could even make such a ludicrous claim.

Life altering is something he can't undo later for which he needs adult mental capacity. Surgery would be one such example and that won't be happening before 18 according to the article.

Life altering is what alters one's life at any given time; preventing puberty from taking place is altering one's life. Furthermore, who's to say she won't be able to "undo" the effects of preventing puberty from taking place when it would naturally occur?

As for parents denying medical intervention based on religion, that's as absurd as comparing it to criminal children. In both cases of criminal behaviour and medical intervention, a person is harmed. You fail to show how anyone is harmed by a kid dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender.

It's not absurd at all - and it's quite telling that you compare it to "[my] failure to show how anyone is harmed by a kid dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender" when I clearly said that that's not what I'm taking issue with at all. That is either a totally dishonest move on your part because you can't refute my comments honestly, or a complete inability to comprehend what was clearly said (which would be pretty sad).

Again. Repeating.

No, I don't consider "dressing like a boy life-altering," and trust me, your having dressed like a boy has absolutely nothing to do with my views on this.

What IS life altering, what I was referring to, is this: Wren has started monthly drug injections to pause female puberty.

Of course my opinion differs on the two. You're comparing apples with oranges.

More like I'm comparing something you agree with to something you don't agree with.

Edited September 8, 2013 by American Woman

[Moonlight Graham]

You can't really compare it to someone who from day one has known they were in the wrong body.

Nobody is in "the wrong body". That term doesn't sit well with me when people say it. Transgenders have a biological sex that doesn't match their gender identity/gender expression or even gender or sexual personality. Or put more simply, their brain is wired the opposite of their biological sex

[TimG]

Transgenders have a biological sex that doesn't match their gender identity/gender expression or even gender or sexual personality. Or put more simply, their brain is wired the opposite of their biological sex.

This is the way I see it.

Now the question becomes: are radical medical interventions the best way to treat this mismatch or are these people better off learning to accept the mismatch? (note: acceptance is not denial).

[BC_chick]

Of course it's life altering; the monthly injections she's taking are preventing puberty from taking place. Birth control pills do no such thing. I have to wonder how you could even make such a ludicrous claim.

Life altering is what alters one's life at any given time; preventing puberty from taking place is altering one's life. Furthermore, who's to say she won't be able to "undo" the effects of preventing puberty from taking place when it would naturally occur?

It's not absurd at all - and it's quite telling that you compare it to "[my] failure to show how anyone is harmed by a kid dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender" when I clearly said that that's not what I'm taking issue with at all. That is either a totally dishonest move on your part because you can't refute my comments honestly, or a complete inability to comprehend what was clearly said (which would be pretty sad).

Again. Repeating.

More like I'm comparing something you agree with to something you don't agree with.

Birth-control pills stop menstruation. It didn't sit too well with everyday folks, so a fake period is simulated during the last week of the 28 day cycle, but in fact, there is no period. It's very similar to what will happen with Wren.

Not sure what you're going on about after that. You made a ridiculous comparison by bringing up parents refusing medical treatment based on religious upbringing and until you can show that Wren is being harmed in this ordeal the same way as people who refuse treatment for their kids, your comparison is baseless.

Nobody is in "the wrong body". That term doesn't sit well with me when people say it. Transgenders have a biological sex that doesn't match their gender identity/gender expression or even gender or sexual personality. Or put more simply, their brain is wired the opposite of their biological sex

You're right, it's not wrong, opposite is better word. I think thereafter we're splitting hairs because I agree with your definition even though I used a different adjective. My only point was that you can't compare a transgender's predicament to a kid going through a phase.

Puberty is one of most important transformations humans go through - delaying it is life altering by definition.

You are also touching on the other aspect of the irresponsible behavior of the parents: teaching their child that a sex change surgery is a "normal" part of the process instead of treating it as a last resort that is only used if the child cannot reconcile their gender identity with the body that the child has.

You realise lots of girls don't get periods when they play sports, right? Is that child abuse too then? Sorry, but getting your period is not the only rite of passage for puberty.

As for your second point, of course you think that. You think being transgender is a mental anomaly. That's why I stopped responding to your posts.

Edited September 8, 2013 by BC_chick

[TimG]

You think being transgender is a mental anomaly. That's why I stopped responding to your posts.

IOW - you only respond to people who basically agree with you. A rather strange attitude for a discussion board poster.

Being transgender is not a mental health issue if the person has no issues reconciling the body they have with their gender identity.

However, if some cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity then it IS a mental health issue no matter how much you would like to believe otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge this fact can be harmful because it means people don't seek the treatment they need.

Frankly, I am sick of the political correctness as much as anything else. There is nothing wrong with pointing out the obvious by saying that people who cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity have a mental health issue.

Edited September 8, 2013 by TimG

[Guest American Woman]

Birth-control pills stop menstruation. It didn't sit too well with everyday folks, so a fake period is simulated during the last week of the 28 day cycle, but in fact, there is no period. It's very similar to what will happen with Wren.

Once. Again. The pill doesn't prevent puberty from occurring; and in case it's escaped you, puberty involves a bit more than a girl starting her period.

Stopping puberty and stopping ovulation are two very different things no matter how hard you try to equate them. Taking injections to stop puberty and taking birth control pills are not similar at all.

Not sure what you're going on about after that. You made a ridiculous comparison by bringing up parents refusing medical treatment based on religious upbringing and until you can show that Wren is being harmed in this ordeal the same way as people who refuse treatment for their kids, your comparison is baseless.

You might want to try re-reading my post. More than once, if necessary. If you still are "not sure" what I was "going on about," then that explains a lot. Edited September 8, 2013 by American Woman

[BC_chick]

IOW - you only respond to people who basically agree with you. A rather strange attitude for a discussion board poster.

Being transgender is not a mental health issue if the person has no issues reconciling the body they have with their gender identity.

However, if some cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity then it IS a mental health issue no matter how much you would like to believe otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge this fact can be harmful because it means people don't seek the treatment they need.

Frankly, I am sick of the political correctness as much as anything else. There is nothing wrong with pointing out the obvious by saying that people who cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity have a mental health issue.

No, it has nothing to do with responding to people who share my views, it has to do with debating with people who refute WHO. The stance is against science and based on personal prejudice. What is there to debate, really?

Once. Again. The pill doesn't prevent puberty from occurring; and in case it's escaped you, puberty involves a bit more than a girl starting her period.

Stopping puberty and stopping ovulation are two very different things no matter how hard you try to equate them. Taking injections to stop puberty and taking birth control pills are not similar at all.

You might want to try re-reading my post. More than once, if necessary. If you still are "not sure" what I was "going on about," then that explains a lot.

There is nothing life-altering about the hormones (see below). But please, tell me again, how there is any kind of connection like refusing medical treatment on your child based on religious beliefs.

Children's offers reversible medical intervention to a select group of at-risk transgender patients in order to suppress their production of estrogen or testosterone, but only after these patients have entered puberty. This reversible treatment gives patients time to reach an age when they can decide, with their families, whether to begin cross-sex hormone therapy. Cross-sex hormone therapy consists of testosterone for genetic females and estrogen for genetic males. If they decide not to transition to the opposite sex, pubertal suppression will be discontinued, genetic puberty will resume, and patients will mature into the gender/sex they were born as.

http://www.childrenshospital.org/dream/summer10/puberty-suppressing_drugs.html

[TimG]

No, it has nothing to do with responding to people who share my views, it has to do with debating with people who refute WHO. The stance is against science and based on personal prejudice. What is there to debate, really?

Prove that the WHO actually disagrees with the nuanced view I stated above. Show me the exact statement with all of the caveats. I suspect you don't know what the WHO actually said and you are simply using it as an excuse to avoid discussing issues when you have no rational counter argument. Edited September 8, 2013 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Your views are about as nuanced as cracking an egg with a sledgehammer.

[TimG]

Your views are about as nuanced as cracking an egg with a sledgehammer.

Only because you don't read what is written and instead insert your own prejudices.

Why don't you provide the WHO reference that BC Chick keeps yabbering about.

My research suggests that professional mental health community is not as unified as you want to claim.

Yet you seem to think that you can drop some factoid like "WHO says this' or the 'DSM says that' and it is supposed to end the discussion when what these sources say is actually much more nuanced/contradictory.

For example, the DSM-V did not remove gender identity disorder - it simply renamed it to Gender dysphoria.

Which means that all of your assertions that 'gender dysphoria' is not a mental health issue are nonsense as far as the professional community is concerned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5#Gender_dysphoria

Edited September 9, 2013 by TimG

[cybercoma]

And Gender Dysphoria is not the same thing as Gender Identity Disorder. Did you take the time to read the differences between the diagnoses? Probably not.

I've posted the WHO link several times. But here it is again, not that it matters to you. Because when you disagree with something, you simply dismiss it as political without any understanding of the issue whatsoever.

If you want to live in your own little bubble and think that transgendered people are mentally defective and that there is no difference between biological sex and gender, go right ahead. But keep your ignorance to yourself. Nobody needs to be subjected to your disgusting vitriol and shaming because you don't understand the issue well enough to be able to sympathize with others.

[TimG]

And Gender Dysphoria is not the same thing as Gender Identity Disorder. Did you take the time to read the differences between the diagnoses? Probably not.

Yeah? So what? The differences are not material to the point I was making. It is clear that from the perspective of of professional communication gender identity issues are a mental health problems yet you object when I claim they are? It is not me who is living in a bubble.

I've posted the WHO link several times.

Again, no information here that supports your argument that gender identity issues are not mental health problems.

If you want to live in your own little bubble and think that transgendered people are mentally defective and that there is no difference between biological sex and gender.

But that is not what I saying. My point is much more nuanced and consistent with opinions expressed by the professional community. My point from above was:

Being transgender is not a mental health issue if the person has no issues reconciling the body they have with their gender identity.

However, if some cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity then it IS a mental health issue no matter how much you would like to believe otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge this fact can be harmful because it means people don't seek the treatment they need.

Your trouble is you are so wrapped up in your own ideology that you simply cannot be bothered to understand what people who disagree with you actually think. You choose to instead make crap up which supports your prejudices and allows you to rationalizing dismissing POVs that threaten your cozy little bubble.

Edited September 9, 2013 by TimG

[Black Dog]

I suggest you read the op:

So the facts are a child who is deemed too young to be culpable if she commits a murder has claimed to want to change sex. Based on this desire the parents have started injecting potentially harmful hormones to delay puberty and are counselling their child that a surgical sex change is the "final step" (read "normal").

From the OP:

Wren has started monthly drug injections to pause female puberty. When he's about 16, he'll decide whether he wants to start injecting male hormones. At 18, he'll be legally old enough to have sex reassignment surgery.

Wren says he's not sure yet if he wants to take that final step

Sounds like the parents are leaving the tougher choices up to the kid.

Obviously a lot of details are left unsaid but if we take the op at face value it appears that sex change operations ARE being treated like getting a filling. If the world actually worked they way you claim it does then the kid would have not been put on drugs and sex change surgery would be described as a "last resort" if she can't reconcile life with the body she has.

Sure, if getting a filling took seven years and a massive amount of medical preparation, not to mention soul searching. And at the end of the day there is nothing stopping the kid in question from changing his mind about surgery.

I have been arguing that the attitude towards transgenderism illustrated by the actions of the parents in the op is wrong. You now seem to be at least partially agreeing with me by claiming that there should be years of therapy before gender reassignment is seriously entertained as an option.

I don't know the parents in the OP, so I don't know what their attitude is and thus can't say one way or another if its right or wrong. Your attitude, however, appears to be that transsexuality should be pathologized as a mental illness. Overall it's a strikingly similar attitude to those who have (and continue to believe) that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, that gay people can change their orientation through therapy or prayer.

Being transgender is not a mental health issue if the person has no issues reconciling the body they have with their gender identity.

However, if some cannot reconcile the body they have with their gender identity then it IS a mental health issue no matter how much you would like to believe otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge this fact can be harmful because it means people don't seek the treatment they need.

The question you haven't bothered answering is why any transgendered person just accept the body they have.

[TimG]

The question you haven't bothered answering is why any transgendered person just accept the body they have.

Well, if you are asserting that the transgendered are not defective then there is no need for sex change surgery (why risk surgery if there is no defect to correct?)

However, you seem to be claiming that the transgendered ARE defective but it is only their body that needs correcting.

I argue that that if the defect lies anywhere it is in the mind and it should be resolved in the mind.

Edited September 9, 2013 by TimG

[Black Dog]

Well, if you are asserting that the transgendered are not defective then there is no need for sex change surgery (why risk surgery if there is no defect to correct?)

However, you seem to be claiming that the transgendered ARE defective but it is only their body that needs correcting.

Nice dodge.

The question is, again, why should a transgendered person just accept the body they have?

[TimG]

The question is, again, why should a transgendered person just accept the body they have?

I answered the question. If they are not "defective" then a sex change is like a boob job.

If they are defective then it makes much more sense to correct the problem mentally rather than surgically.

Perhaps you would understand my answer if you tried to answer this question:

The question is, again, why should a transgendered personwoman just accept the bodybreasts they have?

Edited September 9, 2013 by TimG

[Black Dog]

I answered the question. If they are not "defective" then a sex change is like a boob job.

If they are defective then it makes much more sense to correct the problem mentally rather than surgically.

False choice.

Some transgendered people get sex changes. Some don't and still live as the other gender. Some might even mess with the whole binary. Point being: the assumption that there's only two kinds of people (those who are right with the body they have and those defectives who are not) is needlessly restrictive and retrograde.

Perhaps you would understand my answer if you tried to answer this question:

The question is, again, why should a woman just accept the breasts they have?

By your logic, a woman who wants breast implants is wrong in the head. Personally, I don't really care (their body, their choice, even if the reasons for the choice can be subject to examination).

[Guest American Woman]

My research suggests that professional mental health community is not as unified as you want to claim.

No, it's definitely not unified; there are differing opinions among the mental health community. In fact, from what I've read, postponing puberty is "highly controversial." Some say it's great to treat young cross gender children by halting pubperty and then taking opposite sex hormoes and others say to wait until they are old enough to legally make all of the decisions themselves.

Studies also vary; some show that all cross gender children continued along that path as adults while others show that a significant/larger percentage of cross gender children identified with their biological sex as adults.

Furthermore, if a child of 11 or 12 takes drugs to stop pubety and then goes on to take opposite sex hormones, they become infertile. At what age are kids old enough to fully comprehend that, and make such decisions?

Edited September 9, 2013 by American Woman

[BC_chick]

No, it's definitely not unified; there are differing opinions among the mental health community. In fact, from what I've read, postponing puberty is "highly controversial." Some say it's great to treat young cross gender children by halting pubperty and then taking opposite sex hormoes and others say to wait until they are old enough to legally make all of the decisions themselves.

Studies also vary; some show that all cross gender children continued along that path as adults while others show that a significant/larger percentage of cross gender children identified with their biological sex as adults.

Furthermore, if a child of 11 or 12 takes drugs to stop pubety and then goes on to take opposite sex hormones, they become infertile. At what age are kids old enough to fully comprehend that, and make such decisions?

The link I posted earlier (from a children's hospital) indicated that puberty delay hormones have been used for a long time and they have no side effects. The same link mentioned opposite sex hormones which are administered later on. Those *may* have lasting effects, and are provided when the child is older. In Wren's, case the article mentioned that would 16 or 17.

I'd be very interested in reading your links showing irreversible damage from puberty delaying hormones. Reputable scientific link please, as I did.

[Guest American Woman]

The link I posted earlier (from a children's hospital) indicated that puberty delay hormones have been used for a long time and they have no side effects.

I didn't say they did, as I don't know. I find it hard to believe, however, that of all the drugs in the world, puberty delay hormones have no side effects.

The same link mentioned opposite sex hormones which are administered later on. Those *may* have lasting effects, and are provided when the child is older. In Wren's, case the article mentioned that would 16 or 17.

May? They do have lasing effects in that they render the person sterile. And yes, in Wren's case those hormones will be administered at 16 or 17, which many believe is too young to make decisions regarding fertiility - or lack thereof. Not all cross-genders take the 'final step' of surgery, and according to the article, Wren isn't sure yet if he wants to take that final step. So he may live his life as a boy without having the surgery. Yet he'll be sterile. Remember the big news about the "man giving birth?" That was only possible because he hadn't undergone this hormone therapy we are speaking of. The reality is, not all who have the hormone treatment at a young age go on to complete the 'transition' to the other sex - and I, too, believe that 16/17 is too young to be making decisions that alter one's life forever regarding the ability to reproduce.

As a side note, even some who have had surgery, such as Charles Kane, go back to their previous gender. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1327554/Charles-Kane-sex-change--hated-Samantha-man-Now-hes-getting-married-So-fiancee-crazy.html

[bleeding heart]

My argument is against the blanket assumption that people without a biological reason to question their gender identity are not suffering from mental illnesses that need treatment.

???

Your blanket assumption is that they ARE.

But I guess you demand higher standards from others.