The Queer Issue: You're Doing It Wrong Trans Advocates (At Least Where Genderque

[Shana A]

The Queer Issue: You're Doing It Wrong
Trans Advocates
(At Least Where Genderqueer Kids Are Concerned)

by Alice Dreger

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/trans-advocates/Content?oid=8743338&mid=53

When my son was in preschool, there was this kid who was convinced he was a train. Actually this child—let's call him Thomas—believed he was a locomotive. "Train," I learned from Tommy, is technically the engine plus all its attached cars. One person couldn't be a whole train, Tommy explained to me. That would just be silly!

[...]

Before I get slaughtered by the trans activist community (again), let me be clear that I don't think being a transgender adult is like being a child who imagines he is a locomotive. There's no analogue to the engine-wish among adult humans. Meanwhile, most adult humans do seem to have gender identities, and we know that some people grow up with genders that don't match their body types. I support the right of people to determine their own genders, and even to change them repeatedly. I don't see a lot of reason why governments need to keep as close track of our gender identities as they do. And if a person is found by a qualified mental health professional to be likely to be left better off in terms of mental health by "sex change" interventions, then I think those interventions should be paid for by the same insurance systems that pay for treatment of depression and anxiety.

[Rain Dog]

I'm not sure I follow the point. That children can't be fully aware of their gender?

There are plenty of children, both cis and trans, who are very aware, and very adamant about what gender they are. And besides, they have many years to mature before being started on puberty blockers, and then several more years to mature before making it permanent with either HRT or their own hormones.