Some children strongly believe that they should be a different gender. Some little boys want to be girls and some girls think that they're really boys. It's one thing for adults to undergo hormone therapy and surgery to change the sex they were born with, it's quite another for children to do this. Increasingly, our society is letting children "reassign" their sex. The Boston Globe recently wrote about a doctor at the Boston Children's Hospital who offers puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy (irreversible) to young children.
It sounds like a sort of madness to me, both for the children subjected to this bodily mutilation and for their school mates, who at a tender age, have to learn about Brian becoming Brianna. Why are we doing this? Who knows the long-term consequences of a lifetime of taking hormones? Considering that something like 1/3 of all adults who've had sex change surgery wish they never did it, how can adults in good conscience allow children to make this irreversible decision? The world is getting very creepy. Surely there are better ways to deal with these troubled children. From World Net Daily:
"A Pennsylvania elementary school has angered parents by giving them one-day's notice of planned counseling with 100 third-grade students to explain that one of their male classmates would soon begin wearing girls' clothing and taking a female name and to ask that they accept him as a girl and not make unkind remarks."
"The exercise in 'social transition' was initiated by the boy's parents who approached the administration at Chatham Park Elementary School in Haverford Township asking that the school help in having their child's female identity find acceptance among his peers. After consulting experts on transgender children, the Haverford School District sent letters to parents advising them the school guidance counselor would meet with their children, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer."
"...Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was critical of the school's handing of the issue. 'They do not have a right to stop the child, but it's different when they gather everyone around and say, 'Johnnie is Jeanie,' he said."
"McHugh, who has studied sexual reassignment surgery for 30 years, particularly in the 1970s when Hopkins was a leader in the field, said society should not support decisions of immature persons. 'People came to us saying that if we changed them, we'd solve all their problems,' he said. 'So we changed them, and their problems remained.'
Hormones and surgery aren't always the answer. We probably know very little about the biochemistry and psychology of these "gender identity issues." Why are we doping and cutting children (or adults, for that matter) based on our minuscule understanding of what's really going on?
On an anecdotal level, a niece of mine was a hard-core tomboy from ages 6 to 11, we'll call her TB. TB refused to wear dresses or skirts, pink was anathema, camouflage clothing was her idea of fashion. Her older sister (we'll call her KIA) came home from a session at her public middle school about a boy who was going to come back from school vacation as a girl. KIA announced to her stunned parents that she thinks TB is having gender identity issues. TB should see a pschiatrist, maybe TB is really a boy. The things parents and schools have to deal with today! An earlier generation looked at these girls and said, "she's a tomboy, she'll grow out of it" and admired the girls' spunk and athleticism. Today, other children are proclaiming that tomboys have "gender identity issues" and recommending psychotherapy. Nuts!
TB, buy the way, is now 13, and she's developed into a feminine young woman, all coltish long legs. Hair accessories and jewelry are a serious matter these days. She's still an excellent, fearless athlete.
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