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Interestingly, the creator of the project, Dan Savage, has a long history of transphobic statements. He's actually even worse toward bisexuals and seems to believe all bisexuals WILL cheat on their partners and that bisexuals should only date bisexuals. I'm not a fan. Many in the gay community find the project itself problematic because it puts the pressure on those being bullied to survive rather than on society to change, especially since it often *doesn't* get better. I can see both sides though and I find some of the stories very touching
Edited to add especially Tim Gunn, Buck Angel, and Samantha Lauzon (who transitioned at 13),
Last edited by ParallelJJCat; 09-30-2012 at 08:39 PM..
It has nothing to do with family not supporting decisions you have made, it has to do with parents not supporting who you are & demanding that you hide it so that they can maintain their denial.
& thousands more heterosexual, non trans-gendered people have been sexually abused. What was the point of this comment?
And, the reason my family has this issues with me is because of who I am. They do demand I hide it when I am with them. Are they in denial? No, they aren't. Would I be in denial if I had a transgender child? No. I'm just saying that parents not "accepting" it is completely different than disowning said child. It also does not mean that the child is destined to feel disowned and have psychological repercussions because of it.
And, the reason my family has this issues with me is because of who I am. They do demand I hide it when I am with them. Are they in denial? No, they aren't. Would I be in denial if I had a transgender child? No. I'm just saying that parents not "accepting" it is completely different than disowning said child. It also does not mean that the child is destined to feel disowned and have psychological repercussions because of it.
Destined? No. But you cannot deny that a parent's refusal to accept their child, especially if that child discovers young that they are 'different', can have a profound effect. The suicide rate of gay and transgendered teens is so high not because they are being disowned...most of these youths are still living at home. They are stuck in a situation that they cannot escape.
I am glad things worked out for you and that you do not feel damaged by your parent's actions. But not all people escape unscathed.
I lived for a while in a city that had a law forbidding employment (and other) discrimination against transgender individuals. As a result, I met a lot of transgender individuals. There was one thing about them I found quite shocking, and the support community in that city was well aware of this.
An extremely large percentage were born intersexed. At birth, doctors were unable to determine their biological sex, so the doctors, sometimes with parental input sometimes without, surgically assigned a sex to them. Years later, when they began to undergo therapy for potential sex reassignment, their parents would reveal the truth to them or they would research their own medical records and find out the truth. About 1 in 100 children are born with some departure from standard male/female, and about 1 in 1500 requires some sort of sex differentiation at birth. There are so many physical conditions liked to becoming transgender, and so much secrecy around sex differentiation at birth, that there is really no way to know how many of these transgender individuals essentially lost the coin flip at birth. Still though, from my experience, it is a very large number of them.
What does this mean for parents? There is a good chance that the parent put in the situation of learning their child is transgendered knew all along that there was a much better than average chance of it.
I lived for a while in a city that had a law forbidding employment (and other) discrimination against transgender individuals. As a result, I met a lot of transgender individuals. There was one thing about them I found quite shocking, and the support community in that city was well aware of this.
An extremely large percentage were born intersexed. At birth, doctors were unable to determine their biological sex, so the doctors, sometimes with parental input sometimes without, surgically assigned a sex to them. Years later, when they began to undergo therapy for potential sex reassignment, their parents would reveal the truth to them or they would research their own medical records and find out the truth. About 1 in 100 children are born with some departure from standard male/female, and about 1 in 1500 requires some sort of sex differentiation at birth. There are so many physical conditions liked to becoming transgender, and so much secrecy around sex differentiation at birth, that there is really no way to know how many of these transgender individuals essentially lost the coin flip at birth. Still though, from my experience, it is a very large number of them.
What does this mean for parents? There is a good chance that the parent put in the situation of learning their child is transgendered knew all along that there was a much better than average chance of it.
And this right there is why intersexed individuals should not be assigned at birth. Many intersexed individuals have their genitals modified as infants to make them 'fit' with one gender. If they lose the coin flip, as you say, they are going to have a very hard road of it.
.
There's a very interesting book called As Nature Made Him. A young boy lost his penis in a botched circumcision. On the advice of a doctor (who wanted to test if gender was inborn or created), they modified his genitals further and raised him entirely as a girl, to the point he was discouraged and punished for having any 'boy' interests. The doctor proclaimed the experiment a success and claimed the child was happy as a girl and fully identified as such. In reality he suffered throughout his life and KNEW he was a boy despite what everyone around him was telling him. He transitioned as a teen and later committed sucicde.
This doesn't mean that the cultural traits we assign to gender are inborn. It just points to the fact that identifying with a gender is (for most, not all...I am agendered, some are bigendered.)
How prevalent is transgender in society's youth? 1 in 100? 1 in 500?
Is transgender essentially cross-dressing 24/7? And is going through with the reassignment surgery then transsexualism? A friend of mine who is fairly liberal once told me that he was standing at a copy machine at work in a large company and that a woman there was in line behind him to use the machine. He got a better look at her and saw huge hands and an Adam's Apple. He said it was jarring, because he had never paid attention to her and got caught off guard. He wasn't judging, just observing.
Is there any psychological point of reference as to what makes a kid transgender? I think this would be a good point of departure.
The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb.
However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain.
There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.
And this right there is why intersexed individuals should not be assigned at birth. Many intersexed individuals have their genitals modified as infants to make them 'fit' with one gender. If they lose the coin flip, as you say, they are going to have a very hard road of it.
.
There's a very interesting book called As Nature Made Him. A young boy lost his penis in a botched circumcision. On the advice of a doctor (who wanted to test if gender was inborn or created), they modified his genitals further and raised him entirely as a girl, to the point he was discouraged and punished for having any 'boy' interests. The doctor proclaimed the experiment a success and claimed the child was happy as a girl and fully identified as such. In reality he suffered throughout his life and KNEW he was a boy despite what everyone around him was telling him. He transitioned as a teen and later committed sucicde.
This doesn't mean that the cultural traits we assign to gender are inborn. It just points to the fact that identifying with a gender is (for most, not all...I am agendered, some are bigendered.)
I know of the case:
Psychologist Michael Bailey on the story of David Reimer (the boy raised as a girl)
"If you can't make a male attracted to other males by cutting off his penis,
castrating him and rearing him as a girl, then how likely is any
social explanation of male homosexuality?"
That being said....many transgendered people were sexually abused as children.
Mine wouldn't have been.
That is complete nonsense. Where did you get that idea?
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