http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/25/transgender-children-gender-identity-bigots-media

NHS to give sex change drugs to children' screamed the newspaper headlines last week. The reality is so different for families dealing with the condition known as gender dysphoria. Here, a mother writes of the pain such coverage causes


The Observer, Sunday 25 May 2014
My seven-year-old child, although born male-bodied, has expressed herself as a girl since she could walk and talk. That expression translated into an articulation at age four that she was a girl "stuck inside the wrong body". Reinforcing boyhood for our child began to lead to distress, upset and anxiety. What did we do? We kept reinforcing boyhood. What happened then? We found ourselves with a five-year-old who talked about wanting to die rather than be a boy. A five-year-old with a fascination for butterflies and caterpillars and mermaids who began talking about suicide ...

Our child lives as a girl now and her school describes her as "calm, mature, bright-eyed and intelligent". How did we get to that point? We listened to the child. We educated ourselves on the facts at hand and we facilitated the child's outward expression of her own assertion about her identity. This has led to a happy child, well adjusted and thriving, engaged with an education and well liked by peers.

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And it's not only the children who are considered unreliable on the topic of their gender. Many adults (myself included) have experiences with health care providers that refused to accept our assessments of our own gender.

Yes and if there isn't puberty blocking intervention, we face bills for many thousands to put right what testosterone made wrong. Spotting transkids early on is so important. My girlhood was stolen from me; I consider myself lucky to have found myself when I was 27. Many are forced by circumstances to wait until much later. It's inhumane and wrong that intervention is withheld when blockers are completely reversible and so many will otherwise attempt suicide.

Quote from: Teslagirl on May 28, 2014, 10:10:04 AM
Yes and if there isn't puberty blocking intervention, we face bills for many thousands to put right what testosterone made wrong. Spotting transkids early on is so important. My girlhood was stolen from me; I consider myself lucky to have found myself when I was 27. Many are forced by circumstances to wait until much later. It's inhumane and wrong that intervention is withheld when blockers are completely reversible and so many will otherwise attempt suicide.

Yep, the biggest risk of discouraging transition too is it puts people in denial and at risk of remaining in denial till their past 30-40's where Testosterone starts doing irreversible damage.

Spreading information and encouraging understanding is so important.

Quote from: Olivia P on May 28, 2014, 10:14:15 AM
Yep, the biggest risk of discouraging transition too is it puts people in denial and at risk of remaining in denial till their past 30-40's where Testosterone starts doing irreversible damage.

Spreading information and encouraging understanding is so important.

That is SO important!

I keep hearing people say it might be a "phase" but I knew by age 8 exactly what was wrong and what I wanted to do about it. Unfortunately that was the 1950s and it took me 9 more years to get on HRT and 14 years to get SRS.

Quote from: Northern Jane on May 28, 2014, 06:09:40 PM


I keep hearing people say it might be a "phase"

They sure do like to say that a lot huh. I think, no, rather I BELIEVE that right there is a misconception, a myth a LIE that people came up with because of various factors such as, DENIAL! *Points to my sig*

Yeah, I got the "we thought it was a phase" thing too.

Silly people.

Dang, this is an awfully long phase.  It ends someday, right?  Right?  *le facepalm*

Quote from: Jill F on June 03, 2014, 07:21:07 PM
Dang, this is an awfully long phase.  It ends someday, right?  Right?  *le facepalm*

My "phase" was only 8 years.  The only reason it "ended" was after 100 conversations about this crap and never getting anywhere, I gave up for the time being. It just lasted a decade longer than I anticipated because I fell into a very long cycle of being high/drunk all the time. Never would have went that way if I could have transitioned as a child.

Quote from: Laura Squirrel on June 03, 2014, 07:36:27 PM
My "phase" was only 8 years.  The only reason it "ended" was after 100 conversations about this crap and never getting anywhere, I gave up for the time being. It just lasted a decade longer than I anticipated because I fell into a very long cycle of being high/drunk all the time. Never would have went that way if I could have transitioned as a child.

25+ years for me... Now THAT's just a phase.  Believe me- you name it, I at least tried it.  I did that until I realized that all I had to do was transition, and my reason to need to get loaded all the time evaporated completely.

Jill F: Now available in SOBER. LOL...

These parents are wonderful! Hell with what everyone else thinks, they know their child just as their child knows him or herself. Phase my ass. My mom tried to convince me that it was a phase too once I came out with wanting to be a girl. She had hoped I said I was gay instead, since that was more acceptable, she worried that she wouldn't be able to leave the house or go to work without risk of embarrassment and shame. I'm glad she came to her senses (but it took quite some years), listened to her heart, realizing that it wasn't so bad, that I was still me, but still kept it hidden from everyone for quite some years until she finally had the courage to say F@#$ it, you're my child and I love you no matter what.

Quote from: Megan Joanne on June 03, 2014, 08:24:17 PM
She had hoped I said I was gay instead.

I remember my mom asking me if I was gay when I came out to her. I said 'no', but that turned out to be false. I am most certainly a lesbian. But I know she meant "do you like guys?". In which case I would have been straight. But she couldn't wrap her head around that idea. I don't think anyone in my family can. Honestly, for all the progress they have made in regards to me, they all have a LONG way to go when it comes to understanding all of the nuances of gender variances.