Children’s hospital opens clinic for transgender children

[traci_k]

Children's hospital opens clinic for transgender children

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/14/childrens-hospital-opens-clinic-for-transgender-ch/?

Washington Times
By SCOTT FARWELL - Associated Press - Sunday, June 14, 2015

DALLAS (AP) - The first clue came while Mela Singleton was giving her 2-year-old daughter Evie a bath.

"You're such a pretty little girl," she cooed.

Evie responded, "I a boy."
.......

Then after Evie had an epic meltdown at about the age of 7, Singleton and her husband, Bryan, said they finally got it. Evie was born with a boy's brain and girl parts. So, they changed their child's name to Evan, cut his hair and bought a new wardrobe. That lasted about two years, until Evan started growing breasts.

Frantic, the Singletons ended up at the door of Dr. Ximena Lopez, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children's Medical Center Dallas. Soon after, Evan became the first patient in what would become a new clinic for transgender children and teenagers.

********************************************

[suzifrommd]

Amazingly balanced and well informed treatment from what is usually considered a conservative newspaper.

[Harryquin]

Sometimes I wanted to try something new. But never had a chance yet.

[AnonyMs]

I find this bit quite striking, especially the matter of fact way it's said.

"Cases like that worry some politicians and preachers, who say it's normal for children to experiment and role play across gender lines."

Politicians I can understand, but what have preachers got to do with it?

[Neshkav]

I confess this growing awareness of treating transgender children puts me in an awkward political stance ever since I've been looking at it.

On the hand, this would've been a dream come true when I was a kid. I didn't really think of it as being trans when I was a kid, per se, but I definitely discovered an awkardness with trying to grasp female biology when male biology made complete sense to me at age eleven (which was unfortunately when I hit puberty... ended up way shorter than I wished to be). And saving up for top surgery has been a pill (which I've now just gotten enough to start scheduling as soon as I sort out a good time to go on vacation). Not to mention that thus far, I haven't seen anything that would suggest there's severe repercussions for that likelihood that the kid turns out to not be trans just before they're old enough to consent to hormones.

And on the other hand, I sometimes feel if life would be better for trans people if transitioning was treated as something they have the right to go ahead and do once they're of age (whether in terms of voting age or 'age of consent' of age terms) so long as they can commit to the health and monetary needs once they start and everyone just follows non-discrimination laws so that we don't have to fear getting fired along the way.

To be fair, there's requirements for one to get SRS before legally changing their gender marker in a lot areas, which is not so in Washington State where I am (you can pretty much do it right after you start hormonal transition), and as someone whose only problem with WPATH was that the therapist I tried to start out with made RLT extend to eight months instead of three months I was told by different websites it should remain as (to be fair, I also thought, as announcing I was ftm when I first came to her, it would be self-explanatory that my main purpose for coming at all was specifically to begin transition). Other than nixing RLT though, it always seemed like common sense that SRS would be physically improbable until the hormones had been brewing for two years or so.