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.