The New York Times
Supporting Boys or Girls When the Line Isnt Clear
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
Published: December 2, 2006
LinkOAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 1 Until recently, many children who did not conform to gender norms in their clothing or behavior and identified intensely with the opposite sex were steered to psychoanalysis or behavior modification. ................
a major change is taking place among schools and families. Children as young as 5 who display predispositions to dress like the opposite sex are being supported by a growing number of young parents, educators and mental health professionals.
Doctors, some of them from the top pediatric hospitals, have begun to advise families to let these children be who they are to foster a sense of security and self-esteem. They are motivated, in part, by the high incidence of depression, suicidal feelings and self-mutilation that has been common in past generations of transgender children. Legal trends suggest that schools are now required to respect parents decisions.
First we became sensitive to two mommies and two daddies, said Reynaldo Almeida, the director of the Aurora School, a progressive private school in Oakland. Now its kids who come to school who arent gender typical.
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As their children head into adolescence, some parents are choosing to block puberty medically to buy time for them to figure out who they are raising a host of ethical questions.
While these children are still relatively rare, doctors say the number of referrals is rising across the nation. Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have laws protecting the rights of transgender students, and some schools are engaged in a steep learning curve to dismantle gender stereotypes.
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The literature on adults who are transgender was hardly consoling to one parent, a 42-year-old software consultant in Massachusetts and the father of a gender-variant third grader. Youre trudging through this tragic, horrible stuff and realizing not a single person was accepted and understood as a child, he said. You read it and think, O.K., best to avoid that. But as a parent youre in this complete terra incognita.
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Dr. Herbert Schreier, a psychiatrist with Childrens Hospital and Research Center in Oakland.
Dr. Schreier is one of a growing number of professionals who have begun to think of gender variance as a naturally occurring phenomenon rather than a disorder. These kids are becoming more aware of how it is to be themselves, he said
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