Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I think someday this will be possible....what would we, as tg, do?

We all want the best for our children. I know my tgism caused me (and still does) a lot of misery. I suppose I would 'opt' to monitor my woman and prevent my child from being transgender. Sad but true.

Love
DebTV

Absolutely,

If I could make sure that my child's mind and body remained in cinque throughout the fetal development I would do it in a heart beat. Why should my children have to go through the same things I had to when they can come out right in the first palce?

Cassie

Rest assured that if this were possible, the *correct* segment of society would find a way to make adjustments mandatory.

Right on Leigh,  as we speak, right now in a lot of Indian societies, parents are finding out what sex their child for the explicit reason that if it is  a girl they abort it, as girls are so expensive by way of dowries when they get married.

I can imagine what the Pat Robertson's in the world, who freely advocate assassination, would be advocating.

Truly though, I believe that I would let nature take it's course, as who am I to determine who populates this world.  My child would be loved, cared for and supported no matter what  :)

Steph :)

Girls/women have little or no value in many societies.

Thailand school system is suppported by funding from the parents.  Boys go, girls don't.

Self determination.  Would I want my son to have to deal with this, NO.  Would I support his decision, YES.

Quote from: Leigh on August 28, 2005, 12:06:17 PM

  Would I want my son to have to deal with this, NO.  Would I support his decision, YES.

You've got in a nuthell there Liegh. I'd only add son/daughter for me. I've got six, five boys one girl.

Shelley

QuoteI've got six, five boys one girl.

Yikes  :D :D :D

Quote from: Leigh on August 28, 2005, 08:48:08 AM
Rest assured that if this were possible, the *correct* segment of society would find a way to make adjustments mandatory.

A recently replayed episode of Star Trek the next generation dealt directly with this issue.  Imagine a world where there is NO gender; uniformity is the norm as dictated by law.  Acting as a male or female is a criminal act, and the person is forced to undergo corrective psychiatic treatment to remove these "inferior" gender desires.

Those who have gender preferences and want to avoid manditory treatment for this "sickness"are forced into deep-stealth lives.  They present to the world a facade that is a total fabrication.

Sort of sounds alot like myself and many of my sisters and brothers here at Susans....

I would not.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, regardless of whether or not we know what that reason is.

Okay, I've changed my mind. Can I change my vote? Ya'll have brought up some fine points. I did not consider all of the aspects of such a decision. Who decides which gender is the correct one in order to make the adjustment. Do they go after the body or the mind. I was only considering haveing the body adjusted to fit the mind. I didn't consider the possibility that if you could alter one you could alter the other. I would not want anybody futsing around with my childs mind. So put me down in the definetely not column.

See, that's what's so great about this place. You get a lot of input that helps in making informed and thoughtful decisions.  :)


Cassie

You should be able to edit your vote now  :angel:

If I had a choice of whether my child would be TG I would choose that they were correctly gender aligned.

I like you would not force my children into anything and will and do respect their choices. There is however one very clear exception, I try to bring my children up to be accepting of the differences between people whether they be be physical, sexual or psychological.

I don't think that you necessarily have to experience something to be accepting and often witnessing something wrong is all that is required to judge it that way. You don't have to experience bigotry to know its wrong and to be accepting of the individuals that receive it from others.

Shelley

For what it is worth, I don't think you can "prevent" your child from being who they are.

My parents weren't happy that I wanted to dress and be a woman.  They did everything they could to prevent it, from beatings, to being locked in my room, to shrinks.  Obviously, nothing worked.

If my children were TS's, I would rather help them, than make them go through the heartaches and problems I did.

Sarah

i would support him or her complety , but i would be sure this is what they realy and truely want, as it will be hard for anyone.

I do believe, (if I have kids), that I would not stop them from being TG, i would support them fully no matter what. And, I would understand their plight, if they can take the heat from society, I say let them.

If it could be prevented (so that it never manifested) OF COURSE! Why would you WISH to allow a situation that would cause so much pain and confusion to befall a child!!!

That's a totally different situation than having an abortion.

Of course, if it didn't work, the child would have my unconditional support!

Quote from: Northern Jane on November 15, 2005, 04:50:21 AM
Why would you WISH to allow a situation that would cause so much pain and confusion to befall a child!!!

Self actualization.  The ability for a person to control their own destiny.  A parent can educate, shelter, guide but to take literal control, not for me.  This is akin to selecting the sex of an child before birth.  Predetermining what they will be like.  Very much like the mutilation that peeps who are IS go through.

Its the time travel paradox.  What would happen if you altered you past?   You could have ended up a drug addict, on the street.  You might not be alive today if your past had been changed.

Besides, most TS or TG people perfectly well realize that while being perceived as the wrong gender is a pain all of it's own, most of the problems we develop are caused by the rejection and discrimination that results.

Would you be a party to this rejection etc... concerning your own child?

Terri

              I think the answer depends on whether we mean before a child is conceived, or changing a child once it is alive. I wouldn't have a transsexual child if I had a choice ahead of time but I wouldn't change a child I already had.

             This reminds me of how I felt when I witnessed the birth of my grandson, they said it's a boy, and I immediately thought "God I hope it really is"


beth

Of course we want the best for our children, but as has been pointed out in this thread should we meddle and where does meddling in the natural development end? What other consequences do we incur through such a process. I think, leave well enough alone. For us we have an advantage we can offer to our children should they turn out TS. Our experience.

Cassie

I think that this question can be taken two ways.

1. Philosophically, would we prevent all the negatives of being TG from being foistered upon our child. Philosophically of course we would.

2. Should we be able to interfere in the process that leads to our child being TG. That is a much more difficult question and it depends on how you view GID. Is this an affliction that needs to be cured? Is GID a naturally occurring phenomenon? Should we be able to play God?

All very difficult questions with pro's and con's. Why then are we trying to answer this question? I think because discussion is one very important way to explore what it means to be TG.There is no right or wrong answer to this question only an opportunity to learn more about ourselves by comparing our thinking to that of the others that have been provided.

All I want to say then is thankyou for this opportunity to compare my thoughts.

Shelley

A difficult question.  GID has caused considerable misery in my life and I would want no child to go through what I have.  But were there a cure or some treatment at birth that would correct GID, then I would be male in mind and body and I've never wanted to be male.  Hmm, if I'd been cured, supposedly I wouldn't feel that way, but I feel a huge sense of loss thinking about being denied my female self completely.  It's a paradox really.

Dawn

Quote from: Shelley on November 17, 2005, 04:35:14 AM
  Is GID a naturally occurring phenomenon?

What if the ability to change sex was what was intended and anything else was an abberation of evolution, creationism or intelligent design.

I say Natural development. Why hers what I thought as I read through the posts

sometime in the near future.
Husband and Wife goes to Doctor.
Doctor: from the test you are 2 weeks pregnat.
Wife: can you run a scan.
Doctor: Sure, (puts wires on wife's belly and types on computer)
Doctor: okay it looks like you will have a boy, blue eyes, brown hair,will grow to about 5' 9",around 190 lb has no homicidal or any of the other ones we have to remove by law.
Husband: thats good.
Doctor: oh my, has GID.
Wife: whats GID (doctor explains)
Husband and Wife both agree no GID.
Doctor: okay its deleated.
Husband: Can you make his intrest into a pro athletic.
Doctor: sure no problem I'll change his hight and wieght too.
Wife: wait a sec I want a lawyer.
Husband: I let you change our daughter from a artist to a doctor its my pick this time.
Wife: okay but next time we have a daughter she will be a lawyer.
Husband: no next time we have another boy.
Doctor: don't worry the next ime we can just change the sex to what ever you want.
All three laugh and go on changing what they want on the baby.

Welcome to the world of designer babies. NO THANKS



Love and hugs
brandi

I agree with Melissa. Sure I'd have been happier if I'd been born in the right body. If the "fix" involved giving the child the body to match the brain, I think I would do it. If my mum had been given the choice of giving me a male body to match my male brain and had not done so, I think I'd be pissed. This is a bit like the cochlear implant debate in the deaf community. Some will not feel the same way.

However, if the "fix" involved not allowing that child to be born, I definitely would not. Being trans is not all bad and there are some good aspects to it. Like, living life on both sides of the street, getting to know who your real friends are, acquiring a unique perspective on gender relations. I know many of you have suffered badly from others' reactions to your being trans. I can't say that I have. I've only had one negative reaction and it turned out to be a positive experience.

If it were my child that was trans, that would be one of the major factors taken care of - supportive family. You can't insulate a child from all pain, but would you want to? You'd have a defenceless child. And, you don't know what the world is going to be like when that child grows up. Odds are, it is going to be more accepting of difference.

Dennis

I'd rather allow my son to discover who he is, so that he would not have to go through what I did at a young age.  The youth of today are more understanding than when I was young, at least where I am currently living.  We have several openly gay students at my work.

This is a really old post but I'm bored and going through the polls. I hate everything to do with messing God's will up, I would let nature take the course.

I tend to dislike when an anchient post is necro'd but this one is diferant.

Yes I would opt to have the treatment.
I went through bloody hell my entire life due to this curse. I can not count the amount of times the fact that I am natal male has litterly put me in utter grief and mourning mode. I do not like being curled into a ball of misery howling from misery. I would never want anouther human to ever have to face that hell.

I know it would mean the end of trans people and I know that society would lose a great boon but we are talking about not having anouther child hideing his or her gender for fear that religious family members might kill her. (I went through that one.) Not having anouther person so traumatized by just being born wired wrong that pulling the trigger is a viable option for them.

Yes I would.

I've had little to no hostility and while the system is excruciatingly slow, it's available to me.
My dysphoria is primarily internal. It's "my" problem with how "my" body does not fit "my" brain.
This has been one of the big negative impacts on my life. There are things I've done to try and overcome this that I'm not proud of.
I am transitioning because it's the only path left to me, the only path that's given me any release from the constant stress, humiliation, and other negative emotions caused by this.
I wouldn't want to put my worst enemies through that pain.
Let alone a child.

If there was an option, I'd prevent my child from being trans.

Absolutely not under any conditions. I think about what it would be like if it had been done to me, and I can't come to any other conclusion than that I would not exist. Some girl would. Not me. And in that sense, it's exactly the same as sex-selection abortions, which I think are morally indefensible.

Being TG/TS isn't like having a physical disability or a mental illness. It goes to the core of our identity. If it's at all similar to any other non-gender-related condition, it's closest to autism - and people with autism react the same way I do to the thought of having been "cured" in utero. If you prevent a condition that has such profound effects on brain structure and core identity, you kill the person you were trying to cure, and create a new one in their place.

Pardon my pointing this out but you do not appear to realise the rather obvious point that being TG is simply NOT A CHOICE PERIOD!

It is NOT preventable. You are either born with it, or you are not. FACT!

I was.

There was nothing my parents could have done. It was a simple choice. either help me to be myself or ruin my childhood with a misguided attempt to cure me of being myself!

Happily even as long ago as 1960 I had parents who understood this and helped me to be myself. The end result is that I had almost none of the hang ups and misery that people with less perceptive parents suffer.

Oh - and as for prevention by pre natal manipulation NO WAY - it's not a curse. The only thing which makes it unpleasant for some of us are the attitudes of people who don't understand. Because I was lucky and met with much less than some of these attitudes I honestly do regard having been Transgender, and having been successfully cured by SRS as a rich and positive life experience.

i don't think that these sort of things are to be altered with.  If childbirth got to the point where you can choose how your child turns out, I just think it would create a bad society, people should be the way they are meant to be.

I dont want kids, but say i had one and I got to somehow "know" they they would be transgendered, I would not alter it, I would just be there for the child and I would be fully prepared to help them cope.

When you say child, I'm thinking younger than 21. Anyone younger than 18 will definitely need to think it over for a long time before doing it. Teens have a tendency to just jump into something. However, if they show the desire, have done their homework, and have given it some time to sink in...I would not obstruct them at all.

Quote from: Aidan_ on October 16, 2010, 09:57:17 AM
When you say child, I'm thinking younger than 21. Anyone younger than 18 will definitely need to think it over for a long time before doing it. Teens have a tendency to just jump into something. However, if they show the desire, have done their homework, and have given it some time to sink in...I would not obstruct them at all.

you missed the boat on thios one.
The question is (paraphrased) if you could give a woman a treatment when she is pregnant that would gaurenty a cisgender child whould you?

If somehow they could give something to a mother to make sure the developing child would be cis then yes I think it should be used.

Being transsexual is awful, the dysphoria, the surgery, having to take hormones for the rest of your life and discrimination isn't nice.

If this question was about preventing a child from being lgb then I would say no.

I don't believe it's possible. No matter how much you or others repress your transgender feelings, they will still come out, or you'll just be plagued with anxiety and other problems for the rest of your life. However, if it were possible somehow, I'd prevent my child from being TG. I believe it'd save him or her a lot of emotional pain--it's not easy being TG. No parent wants their child to bear unnecessary pain.

Depends on a few small factors... but in general, I would say absolutely yes.

I can't speak for everyone, and I know there's lots of people for whom being transgender is their identity.

But for me... being transgender is something I have to deal with, it's a circumstance, but it's not an identity. It's not 'me'.

A disadvantage I could have done very well without.

However this is not without philosophical issues, specifically in that.

I know a lot of people feel like they were "supposed to be" their identified gender, that that's what they should have been born as.

I identify as female, and that is at the core of every aspect of my psychological self as I experience it, however I don't for a moment feel like I was "supposed" to be this way. I have a Y chromosome, I was "supposed" to be male. I'm not..... something ->-bleeped-<-ed up and didn't turn out quite so simple for me. And no part of me wants to be male. But I accept that genetically speaking, I was 'meant' to be born male. Now if I had been... if whatever makes me what I am weren't the case. I would be someone totally different to who I am. Who I am as I exist today would be gone. Not replaced by me as mentally and physically female but as me mentally and physically male... which is not me at all.

In that sense, preventing whatever is wrong with me from having happened would be preventing my existence. And as horrendously crap my existence has been in many areas... I still wouldn't approve of having been denied the chance to live it.

It's a difficult question, but given that likewise, even if you accept the above as true, that hypothetical male version of myself would also reject in being allowed to die in my place. Both can't live... I'm the mistake of nature... so I accept that I'm the one to not exist.


Disclaimer: The above is very philosophically complex... that or the incoherent ramblings of a crazy person, but don't expect it to make a tremendous amount of easy sense.

If any of me or my fiance's future children were to come out as transgendered we would unconditionally love and accept them exactly as they are. We would also provide any resources in order to make their transition successful.

Quote from: rejennyrated on October 15, 2010, 03:50:50 PM
Pardon my pointing this out but you do not appear to realise the rather obvious point that being TG is simply NOT A CHOICE PERIOD!

It is NOT preventable. You are either born with it, or you are not. FACT!

Respectfully Jenny, no person alive has definitive information on the true eitiology of what makes us transgender. So no, this is not a 'fact'. At best, it is a hypothesis that has yet to be proved.

I am with you Ashley, almost 100%.  The only thing I'm not sure of is whether you would necessarily have to be a completely different person to be okay with the body you were born with.  I get why you would say that, but just thinking of all the changes that have happened to me on a mental and emotional level over the past year- they have been profound- but yet I still feel like the same person I always was.

I'm sure there is that tipping point, but I'm not sure where it is exactly.

Having been through a childhood where I was not allowed to be anything but my birth gender, if I had had a child who was Transgendered, I would be their biggest ally, and let them explore that part of themselves.

Respectfully:
Being Trans is from birth.  John Money proved it was not nurture, when his little experiment, John/Joan fail.  We may not know why or how, but it is from birth.  We had no choice in being Trans.  We have a choice to transition or not.

Quote from: Janet Lynn on November 28, 2010, 12:58:20 AM
Respectfully:
Being Trans is from birth.  John Money proved it was not nurture, when his little experiment, John/Joan fail.  We may not know why or how, but it is from birth.  We had no choice in being Trans.  We have a choice to transition or not.

I'm sure you know enough science to also know that once uncontrolled sample does not prove a hypothesis?
The evidence that being trans is inborn is strong, but only a very bad scientist would make that irrefutable claim that it is inborn, without a complete understanding of the eitiology :)

Yes it is an hypothesis.  But with Money John/Joan experiment, that proved it was not nurture, it can be conclude that it is nature.  And so far there is no evidence that it is not inborn.  Therefore I think one can it can be said "we are born this way, for whatever reason".

And I am not going to derail the thread by further discussion.  If you wish to continue, please do it by PM.

Oh and totally unrelated I love the ring.  Lucky Girl, he is a keeper.  ;D  For more than one reason I am sure.

Yuk, what a moraly repugnant idea, attempting to "correct" a child of being TG. I really don't see my being the way i am as either a curse or a blessing, it's just the way i am. As much as i have wished that i was born female or could be happy being male, neither of those people would be me...i actually quite like being me, i think i turned out ok in the end. So no i wouldn't want to prevent any child of mine being ts, i'd just love them and support them on their journey through life.

I think alot of you who responded need to go back and re-read the original post.

I think a lot of people have different ideas about what the original question is... but agree with cynthia. Seriously have to argue with the viewpoint of the 'leave well enough alone' people though.

If your answer is predicated on how miserable you are as a TG person, consider that if society stops treating TG people poorly and it's dealt with as a normal anomaly (like needing braces for your teeth), would you still feel the same?
If being TG wasn't a big deal, would you still try to prevent it?
If having green eyes was the 'Mark of Satan' would you prevent your child being born with green eyes?

Quote from: Vexing on December 31, 2010, 02:48:26 PM
If your answer is predicated on how miserable you are as a TG person, consider that if society stops treating TG people poorly and it's dealt with as a normal anomaly (like needing braces for your teeth), would you still feel the same?
If being TG wasn't a big deal, would you still try to prevent it?
If having green eyes was the 'Mark of Satan' would you prevent your child being born with green eyes?

that completely changes the equation

I wouldnt stop my kid from being trans if i had one, if their trans their trans. Just one of them things, i'd be more worried about them because i know what it entails.
But you cant prevent any one from being anything if it's already in their nature.

I voted yes.
Jennifer

still definitely, and defiantly, a no. To say yes means you see being TS as inherently bad. I don't.

I personaly do not see TS as being bad. most of my close friends are TS.
But I recognise society has a serious issue with us.

So I still say yes. If we could prevent the condition from hapinging in the womb so as to ensure the child is born cis I think it would be the best thing we could do for the child.

Now if we lived in a more accepting society I would not. I think that people like us are special and have a unique outlook that society benifits from.

Quote from: Jennifer on December 31, 2010, 09:12:27 PM
I voted yes. Read the question carefully. Most of us are going to great lengths to get our bodies to match our brain, why not have that happen in the womb the way nature intended?

Interesting interpretation.  It seems that most of us were assuming that the operation would involve changing the brain rather than the body.  But given the vagueness of the original question, your perception is also accurate.

In the case of changing the body to match the mind, I'm still not certain I would do it.  "The way nature intended" is a very difficult thing to interpret.  What if nature intended someone to be TG?  How would we know otherwise?  Even though my life has been difficult, I've learned many things that I probably wouldn't have learned if I had been born in a female body.  I don't necessarily know that my life would have been BETTER as a female, I only know for certain that my life would have been easier.  The only way for me to know whether my life would have been better is to relive my life as a female, which is impossible.

Cool topic. I'm ashamed to admit it but I answered no. I remember looking into my daughter's innocent eyes and swearing to protect her but being tg is a hard thing to protect a child from. I just mean... I was beaten up in school, put through what many of us go through, and I would rather my child not have to deal with that. If my kid was tg though I would support and help in every way possible.

In a world where we had enough technological understanding to figure out if a child would be tg, I would hope it is also a world is not as ignorant as the one we live in now.  If that is the case, I not saying total acceptance, but that society has a overall better understanding, I would like to "let nature take its course."  As a someone who is non-op, I think there are more genders than strictly male, female, and men born in female bodies, and females born in male bodies, that there are legitimate genders in between we just don't have names for.

Quote from: cynthialee on December 31, 2010, 09:40:47 PM

Now if we lived in a more accepting society I would not. I think that people like us are special and have a unique outlook that society benifits from.

give it another 20 years and being TS will be no different than having blue eyes or something. Besides, once all the trans-speciests start coming out of the wood work we'll look like shinning beacons of normality.

"Mum. Dad. I don't really know how to say this but I want to transition Human to Dolphin"

*mum and dad's collective jaw hits the floor and doesn't move for a bit"

I'd love an andro kid, we could bond

Quote from: Helena on January 01, 2011, 06:06:34 AM
"Mum. Dad. I don't really know how to say this but I want to transition Human to Dolphin

Can you imagine an internet flooded with blowhole op pics?

No, I don't think I would with my daughter.  For now, I'm just going to go on and treating her like a daughter...but if for any reason she should declare she is a boy, well then I'll giver her the respect and treat like a boy!  I just want society to accept me as a woman, so that would be kind of twisted to try and prevent her from being who she is.

Quote from: pixiegirl on January 01, 2011, 12:13:15 PM
Can you imagine an internet flooded with blowhole op pics?

All too easily...I expect the adult entertainment industry would have a field day with it as well

Quote from: Jennifer on January 02, 2011, 08:17:41 PM
I was confused and suffered for 50 years, is that not bad?

Your experiences are not universal.

QuoteIt is called a disorder, is that not bad?

Homosexuality was still classified as a disorder not that long ago.

QuoteIt has been referred to as a birth defect, is that not bad?

It has? Not by any medical establishment I know of. That sounds more like a quote from someone's trans narrative. Not a universal experience.

QuoteGetting beat up at school, is that not bad?

Many would say that it 'builds character'. In my experience, the kids who were beat up at school end up being the nicest, most compassionate people.

QuoteThe suicide rate for TG folk is about 3,000 times the national average, is that not bad?

Is that a result of being TG or the result of how TG people are treated? Think carefully before you answer.

QuoteWhy seek therapy if it is not bad?

I sought therapy because it was a requirement. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

QuoteWhy do we take expensive and dangerous hormones for the rest of our lives if it is not bad?

You're under the wrong health system and on the wrong hormones if that's the case, honey.

QuoteWhy have risky, painful and expensive SRS surgery to change something that is not bad?

Because it is required for society to see TG people as their correct gender.

QuoteWhy do we have painful and expensive laser treatments and cosmetic surgeries to change something if it is not bad?

What laser treatment? What cosmetic surgeries? As we transition younger, these have become less necessary. I've had neither.

QuoteBeing ostracized by society, broken marriages, disowned by family, are these things not bad?

Again, is that a result of being TG or the result of how TG people are treated?

QuoteIf I could easily keep my child from going through all this (which is how I interpreted the question) I would do it in a heartbeat, but that's just me. :)

I'd prefer to build a world where being transgender isn't a big deal.
But I'm well known for taking the tougher option  :)

I'd prefer for my child ( ::) ) to be born cis-gendered from the stard (but not after it's been "corrected" after they discovered the TG trait..).

I would have liked to have been spared this whole trans fate if my parents had a choice, but maybe that would have been a totally different person that was born  and not me. Idk.

I'd prevent it, but what does preventing it mean? If the child was to be born M2F does preventing it mean they're born F? A little science in utero seems better than a lifetime of science later.

I don't buy the slippery slope of right wingers making it a requirement.  Inter-sexed conditions are LESS treated/corrected now than in the past.  All kinds of diseases can be detected and can be aborted in utero but society doesn't mandate any of them.

Japple;
We have researchers out there who are activly looking for the gay gene. Specificaly so that parents have 'more options'.

We have preachers who are anti abortion say that if the gay gene is found, that abortion in that case would be justified.

Don't think that if they find a trans gene or combination of them that some parents won't abort.

My fear is that we are soon to be a dieing breed. Mother nature does things for a reason. ...

Quote from: cynthialee on January 03, 2011, 12:37:37 PM
Japple;
We have researchers out there who are activly looking for the gay gene. Specificaly so that parents have 'more options'.

I am very pro-science and know that eugenics is always an issue. Though, finding a gay genetic markers if they exist would be far better for society as it exists than not.  The more we know and understand the better off we'll be, even if the answers aren't what we want them to be.  Information is power.  Look at the differences between being young and trans now from when you were a child.  Mother Nature does things for a reason..mutation and natural selection.  If science is able to determine who is trans early and can apply the correct hormones in Utero or give people their proper male or female puberty, I'm all for it.  I can't imagine there are many trans men or women who wouldn't go back and start HRT at 12 instead of 19 or 40 if they knew then what they know now.

I said no and I think that it's the word 'prevent' that weirds me out as it makes me think of something that would stop me being trans and therefore be male. :o I can't think of anything worse than this as you are really messing with who people are supposed to be.

However, if they could have identified that I was going to be trans and could prevent this by allowing me to develop as female then, yes I can see the benefit in that and it would certainly have made things a lot easier. I do have problems with the whole genetic engineering issue, not from a philosophical standpoint as I can see huge benefits but I just don't trust the ethics of those in charge.

One little thing I think has been missed here: the question is asking if you'd prevent your child from being TG.

That could mean anything. TV, cross-dresser, andro or anything else covered by this forum. Not everyone who's TG feels the need to go the HRT/SRS route. If it was possible to detect a TG baby that early, would they then be able to tell what kind of TG? Would they know how to treat the baby so it developed properly? How often do we get frustrated by politicians or other authorities who think they know how to fix a problem when they're actually clueless? How, therefore, would you know that by preventing this development in the baby that you wouldn't make it worse?

Assuming that it would mean giving them the right body from birth - I still wouldn't. Maybe I've just been lucky, but as confusing and painful as it's been, I've also learned so much. I've become less judgemental, more understanding and more angry at the bigots ruining it for what are, at the end of the day, just people trying to live their lives.

There was a period recently where I kept having this dream, where I was fully transitioned, married and we'd gone for IVF. The resulting baby was intersex, and I'd end up in an argument with the docs who wanted us to "choose a gender" for the baby. Among my argument was "how is it I have to jump through all these hoops for surgery, yet you're perfectly happy to do this on a child who's too young to choose for hirself?" Don't know why or where that even came from, but this thread just reminded me of it *shrug*

Quote from: heatherrose on January 11, 2011, 05:07:28 AM

Absolutely no part of being "TG" has ever been pleasant for me and I am quite sure I am not in the minority in saying this.
I would much rather have been born exihibiting the primary sexual characteristics with which I identify. Instead of wasting time, energy and emotion,
for the last forty something years dealing or not with this crap. "TG, TS," or what ever, is not some sort of badge of courage that I wear,
Trans is the journey from one state to another. I am not "A Transgender", "A Transsexual" or what have you, I am a woman who
was not born with the correct primary sexual characteristics. I would do everything in my power and use every tool or proceedure
at my disposal to ensure that my dear sweet child would not have to deal with the same GID BS that I have.

I have nothing else to add, you read my mind.  :eusa_clap: :eusa_clap:

Now if this poll DIDN'T ask if it could be prevented beforehand, I would support my child 1000% and make sure they get the help they need EARLY on, for the EXACT same reasons you mentioned.

I am in fear for this for one of my children as I speak, I do alot of questioning.

This is a BIG reason I have a hard tome coming out.