transgendered 7 year old?

[TragicMonkey]

I applaude your decision. What I find curious about very young transgendered children is how they develop such narrow definitions about what is masculine (trucks) and feminine (Barbie).

What does it mean for gender roles if the child plays with both, and has Barbie being run over by the truck, then she returns from the dead and seeks revenge upon the truck and pushes it over the cliff into the Grand Canyon, ie the back of the sofa?

Umm, no reason. Just asking.

Also, when Strawberry Shortcake marries a Care Bear and they seek to topple Darth Vader from ruling the galaxy, does that mean anything?

 

[Alt+F4]

What does it mean for gender roles if the child plays with both, and has Barbie being run over by the truck, then she returns from the dead and seeks revenge upon the truck and pushes it over the cliff into the Grand Canyon, ie the back of the sofa?

Umm, no reason. Just asking.

Also, when Strawberry Shortcake marries a Care Bear and they seek to topple Darth Vader from ruling the galaxy, does that mean anything?

I'm sure situations like you describe do happen but it's been my experience that most kids go full tilt one way or the other.

When I was a girl I wanted nothing to do with girl stuff. My sister had the Barbie Dream House and I had the G.I. Joe (with kung fu grip). Now as an adult I have no idea why I was like that. My parents neither encouraged or discouraged what I was doing. I didn't process the way I was behaving as masculine but rather as just more fun than boring girl stuff.

 

[davefoc]

I thought it was strange that the parents would have allowed their identity to be established so easily. It might be good for society as a whole that these issues are discussed openly, but is it good for their child that his identity and situation are made public?

My general view of these kind of cases is that if I was ever involved in the situation I would tend to defer to somebody like earthborn who seems to have actual knowledge of this kind of thing, but part of me definitely sympathizes with Corplinx's views.

Humans have what I call belief hysteresis. It takes less information for an individual to form a belief than to change that belief. Over time, beliefs can become established so strongly that they are fixed beyond all reason. I think this process might have been part of the explanation for the actions of the prosecutor in the Duke case and part of the explanations behind the actions of the Washington DC judge in the 54 million dollar pants suit.

I suspect that in some of the cases that involve an individual who believes that he is physically the wrong sex something similar may be going on. At some point, for whatever reason an individual develops a belief that they would be better off as the opposite sex. The trigger could be any kind of minor event or situation, but it is enough to start the process of belief establishment and after a period of time the belief is fixed beyond nearly all reason.

Children form beliefs quickly and given their inexperience in dealing with belief hysteresis they will often ratchet their beliefs to the point of absolute certainty without many underlying facts. My own very limited experience in dealing with this as a parent is that patience and gradual reinforcement of the idea that objectively evaluating the situation is the appropriate way to deal with this.

I am not sure that my ideas on this have any practical value, especially when dealing with something as profoundly difficult as gender identification issues. But it is hard for me to see the desire to change our sex (except in the case of genuine mixed sex conditions) as completely rational and accepting the child's beliefs along this line might work to reinforce what in the end is just a routine human belief anomaly that we are all subject to.

 

[petra10]

When i was young I was classed as a "tom-boy".I loved to climb trees,play football do all the rough and tumble thinks.Never played with dolls or girly things.However when I reach my teens this all changed I gradually became all girly.Make-up,skirts,boys and long hair all those kinds of girly things.So was I confused or mix-up no I was just a young child living my life.

 

[Miss Anthrope]

I'm sure situations like you describe do happen but it's been my experience that most kids go full tilt one way or the other.

My experience has included a full range of middle ground with full tilt being less common.

My daughter never cared for dolls. She liked some "girlie" stuff, but has always preferred swords, nunchucks, dragons and fighting. Given the option for gymnastics or martial arts, she has excelled at the martial arts. Yet her appearance, by her own choice, is very girlie. As puberty is beginning (TOO SOON!) I see certain changes in her interests, but she still dislikes pink and all things like that.

My son started playing with trucks before he knew what a truck was. He seemed to be going the "full tilt" way. Except for those times he sneaks into his sister's room, tries on perfume and says "I smell beautiful", or plays in some of her clothes.

Being a homeschooler I spend a lot of time with other people's children. Especially in secular families, I see less of the roles being enforced (this is for boys, this is for girls), and a lot of middle ground. Most of the girls don't go the doll route. Many of the boys play with dishes, pots and pans, kitchen toys generally considered "girls" stuff. Oddly enough, it's the very religious families where I find the doll collecting and more strictly imposed rules of gender. But it's anecdotal, who knows really?

As for the other comments, I simply don't have enough information about this family to know how I feel about the situation. As a parent I've never faced it. While I always knew I'd accept my child and love them exactly the same if they were gay, straight or inbetween, this kind of issue coming up at such a young age really threw me.

The two people I know personally who have changed their sex have serious issues that didn't appear to be solved by the operation. The first person started off as a straight male. He had a much older sister who grew up to become an NFL cheerleader. She was always living in the shadow of her sister, and it was glaringly obvious a lot of major baggage came with growing up in this environment. The gender reassignment compounded the issues in a lot of ways, and she seems to struggle with life even more than before. I don't discount the experiences of other transgendered people who may not have had environmental factors involved, and certainly my limited anecdotal experience cannot speak for more than these two people.

I can't possibly know what it's like to find oneself in the situation where they believe strongly they are living in the wrong body in such a fundamental way. If this is truly the case with this child, ultimately I'm happy he/she has parents who will be supportive and accepting. I'd feel better if the child had psychiatric care, that's all.

I wouldn't discount puberty has having the power to make a profound difference. It could very well make no difference at all, but it could.

 

[Alt+F4]

When i was young I was classed as a "tom-boy".I loved to climb trees,play football do all the rough and tumble thinks.Never played with dolls or girly things.However when I reach my teens this all changed I gradually became all girly.Make-up,skirts,boys and long hair all those kinds of girly things.So was I confused or mix-up no I was just a young child living my life.

None of that happened for me but yes, it's usually during puberty when kids start thinking about their gender and/or orientation. That's why it's so curious when children as young as seven make these determinations.

 

[geni]

the problem with the "wait untill puberty" aproach is that sex chnage operation are likely to be more effective before that point.

 

[Miss Anthrope]

the problem with the "wait untill puberty" aproach is that sex chnage operation are likely to be more effective before that point.

I can't stretch myself that far. At this point I simply cannot support gender reassignment surgery for children. Adults should have this option available to them, but I cannot support a child making this decision, or a parent signing off for it.

 

[supercorgi]

When I was a girl I wanted nothing to do with girl stuff. My sister had the Barbie Dream House and I had the G.I. Joe (with kung fu grip). Now as an adult I have no idea why I was like that. My parents neither encouraged or discouraged what I was doing. I didn't process the way I was behaving as masculine but rather as just more fun than boring girl stuff.

I wasn't quite like you, since I did have and played with dolls, but I always liked G.I. Joe better (he had much cooler gear than Barbie!). I also played with my brother's matchbox cars (built many a road through Mom's garden). My favorite pastime was building things with Tinkertoys and Legos. But I also spent many hours wandering through the woods collecting wildflowers and cooking things in my EZbake Oven.

You're right, boy toys were generally a lot more interesting than girl toys.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I will agree with those that say that children should be able to choose how ever they want to play, and it should be supported by their parents. Be that trucks, cooking, dolls or what ever. But I am not for elective surgery for children in these cases. Hormonal treatments I do not feel like I can honestly venture an opinion, as I do not feel confident in the medical aspects of it.

I also do not think it is wrong let children present themselves as the gender they want, to the extent that they can understand the situations they will be involved in.

Edit to add: I never understood why cooking was considered such a girl thing, but say chemistry and such was not. Especially how sexist the professional chef world is.

 

[Z]

My experience with children is that they will play with whatever they want to, as long as they're never told that such things are 'boy toys' or 'girl toys'. My sons have all played with dolls at various times, and my daughter loves cars and construction toys. Danielle prefers some of both - dolls and princess toys, along with cars and Scooby Doo stuff.

Choice of toys has never really been part of gender role in our house.

But when Danielle announced that her goal in life was to be a mommy and raise kids and be a good wife... well, that's been his wish for several years, now. It's hard to ignore.

But if it is a phase, at least we haven't done anything too rash yet.

 

[Hamradioguy]

I can't get the link to work. I'm presuming the story is about a child that has had gender surgery without being born a hermaphodite?
Boo

Can't get the link to work for me either. But for those who want more info on the issue of intersex (which seems to be the replacement word these days for hermaphrodite) I can recommend Elizabeth Weil's article on the rights of intersex babies in the New York Times Magazine of 24 September 2006.

Intersex is not the same as transexualism of course but it's far more common than I'd have guessed: something like 1 in 4,500 births. And decisions by doctors and parents often had devastating consequences for the child. It's an excellent article.

 

[Earthborn]

I can't stretch myself that far. At this point I simply cannot support gender reassignment surgery for children. Adults should have this option available to them, but I cannot support a child making this decision, or a parent signing off for it.

Rest assured that there are very few people in favour of sex reassignment surgery for transsexual children at prepubescent age. Geni has it all wrong, it doesn't make much difference on the effectiveness when the surgery takes place.

What is true however is that hormone treatment is most effective before puberty. In some countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, children who have been diagnosed with persistent gender dysphoria are sometimes offered hormone treatment to inhibit the physical changes of puberty from about the age of 12 until the age of about 14. It offers them and their parents a bit more time to think about it without having to deal with too invasive and irreversible changes caused by either puberty or an actual sexchange. In some obvious cases, the age of 14 is considered to be a reasonable age to carefully start with hormones that do promote the development of secondary sex characteristics, basically starting puberty but towards the other sex. Sex reassignment surgery is not done until the age of 17 or 18, even in the most clearcut cases.

 

[davefoc]

earthborn,
What do you think is the driver behind the desire to change one's sex?

I know we have had this discussion before, but let me ask this. Do you reject the idea that the desire to change one's sex isn't just an extreme example of a person's fixation on an unrealistic or destructive goal?

For whatever reason, people adopt all sorts of weird beliefs and at some point after the adoption of those ideas a reevaluation of those ideas becomes almost impossible. I see this kind of behavior in lesser ways evident in myself and I suspect this is true in some ways for everybody.

It is interesting to me that the treatment of intersex conditions today is moving away from surgical solutions and more towards counseling and acceptance but the treatment for people who develop a fixation on the idea that they would be better off as the opposite sex is moving more towards invasive solutions. Do you agree that this is true and do you have any thoughts about this?

 

[Antiquehunter]

I must admit to being completely out too lunch when it comes to being informed / au courant with the latest scientific approach to gender dysphoria. My experience as a male (albeit a gay male) has never clouded for one second my perception of my own gender. I'm a particularly ugly woman in drag.

I don't have kids, but I find it hard to believe that a child of 7 truly 'knows' and identifies one way or another as being 'male' or 'female'. This is not a criticism of anything - but simply is my opinion. There are definitely traits of behavior at an early age that may be considered 'effeminate' for a male child (reluctance to play rough and tumble sports, introversion, playing with what are considered 'girls' toys for example) - but having this lead to the idea that a child is transgendered seems to me to be a very dangerous diagnosis.

Z - out of simple curiosity, how do you predict Luke/Danielle will identify once your child reaches puberty? Do you have a prediction that what Luke/Danielle is experiencing now is just a 'phase', or do you genuinely think that your child knows that 'he' is really a 'she' after 7 years on the planet, and having a 7 year old perspective on what gender means?

 

[davefoc]

I wonder how the drive behind various other obsessions associated with changing one's body compares with the desire to change one's sex.

For instance:
1. Women that have extraordinarily large breast implants.
2. Men that are consumed with body building, some to the point that they get biceps and chest implants.
3. People that get extreme facial tattoos like the guy who has his face tattooed and horns implanted in his forehead to look like a lizard.

My supposition (based on absolutely no relevant knowledge or research) is that there is something similar with the desire to change one's sex to other obsessions over profound physical changes or possibly even all obsessions.

 

[Bikewer]

I've long suspected that individuals that are intensely involved with appearance in it's many manifestations, from clothing to body modification, have some sort of deep-seated self-esteem problem.

I think the transgender phenomenon is something different; it appears to be much more internalized. That is, it's much more important to the sufferer that they feel like the gender that they perceive themselves to be.

There have been a number of shows on the Discovery network about such individuals, and HBO did a nice documentary as well.

 

[Earthborn]

What do you think is the driver behind the desire to change one's sex?

Having a gender identity that does not fit one's biological sex. I think the interesting issue is how gender identity is formed, and that process goes wrong in transsexuals. I suspect neural signals from the genitalia to the brain play an important part.

Do you reject the idea that the desire to change one's sex isn't just an extreme example of a person's fixation on an unrealistic or destructive goal?

Yes, I reject that idea, at least for people who are diagnosed as transsexual. It just does not describe the majority of transsexuals. I also do not consider the desire to change one's sex as "extreme", "unrealistic" or "destructive".

For whatever reason, people adopt all sorts of weird beliefs and at some point after the adoption of those ideas a reevaluation of those ideas becomes almost impossible.

Many transsexuals constantly reevaluate their ideas of identity, gender and sex.

Do you agree that this is true?

No, I don't think these development occur in opposite directions. I think they are slowly moving in very similar directions: towards a greater acceptance of ambiguity of sex and a greater freedom for personal expression of gender and away from medical intervention to make individuals conform to one sex or the other.

 

[Earthborn]

My supposition (based on absolutely no relevant knowledge or research) is that there is something similar with the desire to change one's sex to other obsessions over profound physical changes or possibly even all obsessions.

You mean, like your obsession to think about transsexuality in terms of obsession?

I don't discount any similarity in cause out of hand, but I think the things you name differ profoundly in one way from transsexuality: transsexuals usually try hard to conform to societal norms and often don't like to stand out, while people who desire extreme body modifications purposefully try to be different.

 

[ReligionStudent]

Isn't the attraction to pink and other girl related toys, which they say was an indicator, at least partly a cultural construction of what are girls/boys toys?