Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think it's a more common belief than one would think, that parents can just make the choice without the child having any input. Or that seeing little john wearing heels at 3 means they now raise him as a little girl and force the issue.
Which doesn't work if the child is *not* transgendered to begin with even when the reason is mutilation at birth.
On March 14, 1980 -- when "Brenda" was 15 years old -- Ron and Janet Reimer finally told their child the truth: "She" had been a normal boy until a terrible act of medical malpractice had destroyed his penis. "Brenda" was relieved. He wasn't crazy, after all; his growing sexual interest in girls suddenly made sense; everything made sense. "Brenda" insisted on immediately reassuming a male identity, and he did so with remarkable ease, despite having neither a penis nor testicles. He chose the name David, because he felt that his life so far had been a David-and-Goliath struggle. "Brenda" is now David Reimer, happily married and the adoptive father of three children. He is proficient at automobile mechanics and enjoys watching televised sports.
Reflecting on the case, Dr. Milton Diamond commented that "if all these combined medical, surgical, and social efforts could not succeed in making that child accept a female gender identity, then maybe we really have to think that there is something important in the individual's biological makeup; that we don't come to this world neutral; that we come to this world with some degree of maleness and femaleness which will transcend whatever the society wants to put into it."
Cheers to nana for putting up the story of David Reimer. I remembered the story as it aired on Television (60 minutes? Dateline? Can't remember) but I did remember the name of the psychologist, Dr. Money. I see it as a highly cautionary tale.
Making a life-altering decision based on the semi-coherent babble of a toddler seems...poorly advised to me. One's understanding of their gender is an extremely complex notion informed by one's mind and body. As a child, I understood that I was male because I had male genitalia and wore "boy clothes." You could have told me that I were a Martian with Martian parts, for all I knew of the world. It was superficial and very much informed by those around me.
It wasn't until high school when I began to grasp the complexities of gender that I saw my masculinity as a quality of self informed by both biology and psychology. I worry about taking a drastic step such as raising a physically unambiguous (IE not intersexed) boy or girl as the opposite sex, let alone using surgery or hormonal treatment. In my opinion, the cautionary path is best. Such a decision must be made by the questioning individual ALONE at an age when his or her understanding of gender can be fully informed, with the help of neutral counselling. The Reimer story is proof of how catastrophic the results can be when parents make such decisions.
No, intersexed is not the same as transgender. Children who are intersexed are born with ambiguous genitals and doctors often used to make a decision as to what sex the child would be raised. Since they are born with an ambiguous gender they cannot be transgendered.
Reading your post, you're confusing gender, gender presentation (expression) and sexual organ. Ambiguous "sex organs", not ambiguous gender.
I never said intersexed was the same as transgender, they have similarities, but nobody is the same.
Where they are similar is when a intersexed person was an outward appearance of one gender while internally they believe they are actually the other gender.
Again gender is between the ears, what is between the legs has little bearing on gender. Just because you or other posters do not have a gender conflict doesn't mean it isn't real and cannot exist in others. Appeal to popular belief doesn't make someone's GID go away. It is real. in the case study put out there, altering someone sex organ doesn't fix a gender conflict where nine existed, did it?
Last edited by buzzards27; 02-26-2012 at 08:56 AM..
Cheers to nana for putting up the story of David Reimer. I remembered the story as it aired on Television (60 minutes? Dateline? Can't remember) but I did remember the name of the psychologist, Dr. Money. I see it as a highly cautionary tale.
Making a life-altering decision based on the semi-coherent babble of a toddler seems...poorly advised to me. One's understanding of their gender is an extremely complex notion informed by one's mind and body. As a child, I understood that I was male because I had male genitalia and wore "boy clothes." You could have told me that I were a Martian with Martian parts, for all I knew of the world. It was superficial and very much informed by those around me.
It wasn't until high school when I began to grasp the complexities of gender that I saw my masculinity as a quality of self informed by both biology and psychology. I worry about taking a drastic step such as raising a physically unambiguous (IE not intersexed) boy or girl as the opposite sex, let alone using surgery or hormonal treatment. In my opinion, the cautionary path is best. Such a decision must be made by the questioning individual ALONE at an age when his or her understanding of gender can be fully informed, with the help of neutral counselling. The Reimer story is proof of how catastrophic the results can be when parents make such decisions.
David reimer was made into a girl because of a botched circumscion by his parents which is not the same thing we are talking about here.
David reimer was made into a girl because of a botched circumscion by his parents which is not the same thing we are talking about here.
It still goes to the point of not being able to just *change* because society says you are something or because you have a particular genitalia.
It may be more determined by the chromosomes than the sex organs, but a child who actually identifies as the opposite gender will not be changed by a combination of social pressure and parental pressure.
It still goes to the point of not being able to just *change* because society says you are something or because you have a particular genitalia.
It may be more determined by the chromosomes than the sex organs, but a child who actually identifies as the opposite gender will not be changed by a combination of social pressure and parental pressure.
Which i agree with, but this is about kids who do want to change.
Which i agree with, but this is about kids who do want to change.
And that is why we need to allow this if the child truly identifies at the opposite sex. In those cases, the change is to actually allow the real gender of the child to be matched to outward appearances.
I question the ability of kids (say under 15) to understand the concept of gender and identify with the gender opposite of their birth.
Thats why they don't allow kids to make the change until they are older. The things they do up until 15-16 are reversible. Even doctors say that once puberty hits and your sexuality comes into blood then often see kids realizing they are not meant to change sex.
Thats why they don't allow kids to make the change until they are older. The things they do up until 15-16 are reversible. Even doctors say that once puberty hits and your sexuality comes into blood then often see kids realizing they are not meant to change sex.
And what of these parents who raise their child as "Tina" because Timmy pronounced that he was a girl at the sagely age of 2 years, 7 months?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
