How do you parent a transgendered kid?
DENISE BALKISSOON
Special to The Globe and Mail
Last updated Friday, Jan. 11 2013, 1:22 PM EST
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/how-parents-of-transgendered-kids-let-them-feel-free-to-be-themselves/article7199123/Doctors and therapists say they're seeing a dramatic increase in families with gender-curious children. Even the most accepting parents must learn how to navigate these new waters – is their child showing the early signs of ->-bleeped-<-, or just going through one of childhood's many experimental phases?
Noting the rapid rise of gender-identity referrals to American pediatricians, an editorial in the March, 2012, issue of the journal Pediatrics suggests a connection to the explosion in media coverage. While cross-gender behaviour in children is relatively common, Dr. Walter Meyer writes, "The more parents hear about childhood GID [gender identity disorder], the more they question if their child may need to change gender."
Daniel Metzger, an endocrinologist at B.C. Children's Hospital, works with tweens and teens who don't feel at home in the genders they were born to. "It's a bit of a deluge happening, more and more kids are coming forward," says Metzger. Since 1998, he has put 109 pre-pubertal children on the hormone blocker Lupron. "The first 10 years were quite slow, but just this year I had 30 new referrals," he says. In B.C., youth who want to see an endocrinologist about gender transition must first spend years talking to a child psychologist, and be considered free of depression or eating disorders.
