12 year old boy becomes girl; parents upset
 

Link

A basic summary: A young boy who before would dress in girl's clothes and wear pigtails and all that got his name legally changed to a female name and came back to school wearing a dress and the school has asked that the students call him by his new name. The problem is that the boy was extremely mistreated afterwards by his fellow students. Why are parents upset? Because they weren't told beforehand so they could prepare their kids so their kids wouldn't mistreat the student. That's pretty much the best possible reason to be upset. The student will be getting a sex change and hormone therapy at some point in the near future.

I do feel that the school should have contacted parents ahead of time, though whether an actual assembly was necessary or a good idea I'm not certain. On the one hand, it drew a lot of attention to something that the kids probably wouldn't handle well. On the other hand, you can't just pretend they wouldn't have noticed.

I'm also a little back and forth on whether this is something that should be going on this soon in the child's life, because it is a huge decision to make. However, I expect the sex change and adaptation will probably go smoother because it was done this young, and I wish him/her all the best.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

This is indeed a dodgy subject to be discussing. I am not a supporter in any way of sex changes, I have my opinions and reasoning for this which I'm not going to go into here. That said, I don't that it's right for a kid this age tio go through such a dramatic procedure at such a young age. There is medical evidence to sugest that it may be easier at this age, but other evidence that suggests that this could screw up the kids body. Mostly because the "evidence" is based in educated theory, rather than documented fact, based on the results and data taken from cases of other sex changes and the balancing of bodily chemicals in the prepubescent body. The reason it's only a theory though is because it's never been done before. It could go either way.

On a scientific basis it would be interesting to see the results, but on a moral basis I would most certainly wait until the kid doesn't need parents permission. Especially seeing as this may be construed as abuse by some fundamentalist social workers. Maybe the parents wanted a girl and so brought him up that way and now "giving permission" for the sex change because it's what they want, not the kid.

It's a hard case, and should be scrutinized thoroughly by the correct authorities before any action is taken.

I know a couple transgendered individuals, and it was discussed extensively in some of the psych classes I took. Overall, I say go for it to the kid, and commend her parents for being accepting.

In what way will it "screw up" her body? From what I know it has been shown that the earlier an individual starts on hormone therapy the easier and more complete the transition will be, and the only real concern is the liver/kidneys from androgen blockers. Which are not nearly as needed in younger individuals.

If you knew a truly transgendered individual you would know how truly obtue this statement is. Also, no one can just go into a hospital and have them perform SRS. There are very stringent Standards of Care guidelines and criteria that have to be followed/met before SRS can occur. (http://www.wpath.org/publications_standards.cfm)

For Patients Under the Age of 20 (Adolescent Cases)

*

Patients must be at least 16 years old, and under age 20
*

Must not be undergoing treatment for any psychiatric or psychological disorder other than gender identity disorder (GID), Gender Dysphoria or transsexualism
*

Have had treatment with anti-androgens and/or feminizing hormones (HRT) for a minimum period of 6 months
*

Have lived full time in their acquired gender for a period of at least 6 months, evidenced by at least 2 documents **
*

Have a written referral for SRS by a doctor, psychiatrist, psychiatric social worker, clinical psychologist, or endocrinologist/sexologist who is a professionally qualified specialist in the field of gender dysphoria
*

Have written consent from legal guardians (usually parents)
Source (http://www.supornclinic.com/restrict.../protocol.aspx),
and those are fairly lax standards from what I learned about in my classes.

If I need to clarify anything let me know, It's 3 in the morning right now and so I may not realize i,e being incoherent.

Just because you have some understanding of transgendered individuals, doesn't mean that my point is moot. There was a case in the UK in 2006 where parents who had been "home schooling" their kids were approached by social workers because there were neighbours concerns of abuse, and it was discovered that the kids, 2 boys were dressed like girls, brought up to believe they were girls and for all intents and purposes thought they were girls. All because their parents wanted girls not boys.

This is just a step further, having no understanding of this specific case there is no way that either of us can make such a judgement call on whether the case is legit or not. However the comment I put forward is a serious matter and shouldn't be passed off as obtuse. I am thinking mostly for the sake and safety of the individual not to be obtuse. Do you really think child abuse doesn't occur in this way? I can only name one case specifically, but I'm sure if you did research into it you could find many, many cases.

I still say believe the individuals should be over the age of 18/21 whatever the legal age of adulthood is in their country before the operation is even considered.

Yes, and I'm sure they look into that sort of thing before allowing the operation.

I guess. I think the age bothers me more than anything else though.

Why does the age bother you so much? Most transgendered individuals know they are trans from about the time they are 5 or so. ( I think I can come up with a source other than my textbook if you want it). The group that sets those Standards of Care guidelines also have things down fairly well, with less than 2% of post-surgery transsexuals unhappy with the choice, mainly because they were older and their bodies did not transition to the extent they would have liked.

That case you mention is very extreme, but do you happen to know the age of the kids? The most notable case I know of in relation to that is detailed in "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl." It is about Bruce, who was born male and then reassigned to being female in infancy after a botched circumcision. As he grew older he was able to determine for himself that his parents were lying to him and that he was really a male, and transitioned back to male when everything came to light. The point I am trying to make is that most people are fairly rigidly male/female at about the age of 8 and will gravitate to the gender role they truly are when outside of that kind of influence. Sadly however, in support of the abuse inherent in the UK case, Bruce suffered from severe depression and committed suicide shortly after that book was published.

You guys did notice the line at the end of the article that says "the child would not be allowed hormone treatment in the UK until passing puberty," right?

e: honest question because I nearly missed it, too.

I wouldn't like to guess, but I believe that the oldest was in his early teens. The one thing that bothered me at the time, though really out of context of this situation wouldn't be something to be concerned about, was that the kids didn't understand what a urinal was, the concept of urinating standing up was completely alien to them.

Not that I want to start a further argument with the psychology of it all, but I'm pretty sure you could find backing in psychology text books, that supports that people can be directed to being gay, straight or to believe that they are something they aren't through mental conditioning and manipulation from an early age.

As I got horribly off-topic as to the initial post:

I really think that the situation could have been handled so much better by the school. Telling the parents beforehand could have made things go a lot smoother, but there is almost no way to judge how a community is going to react to this sort of thing (and this community seems to have reacted very admirably). I guess they could have called a PTA meeting? However, there are privacy concerns to consider, especially dealing with anything remotely relateed to the medical histories. The kid and her family may have wanted to keep this primarily a private matter, in which case the school royally fucked up, or they may have wanted to introduce the situation gradually, in which case the school fucked up, just not quite so badly.

I dont know, I mean although I am personally against sex changes on the grounds that gender is a function of culture not biology, I do support a persons personal choices. I dislike how things are designated "for girls" or "for boys". That being said, this was a bad idea. You have to be able to make a distinction between how people should react and how they would. He is violating social mores on such a deep level just about anyone would react badly. The parents should have explained this.

You cant hit kids over the head with social acceptance. Humans naturally reject that which is different. Unless the entire culture accepted this, there was no way to avoid it. Its unreasonable to expect different.

On the one hand I think it would have been better to wait until he was an adult, since I think making the change would be easier, at least in the sense that he will have fewer people giving him trouble to deal with, and he'll also be better able to cope with the people who do give him trouble.

On the other hand, it will save him trouble in the future.

I'm very unsure on how to feel about it.

I'm with Aero. I know that a lot of times, gender dismorphia (I believe that's the correct term for it) is apparent from a very young age. Little boys preferring dolls and makeup or little girls being into roughhousing and cars, etc. I get that that leads to a lot of social problems and teasing and such, because I got harassed for a hell of a lot less, like just reading books and sucking at physical activity.

On the other hand, the entire "POOF!!! I'm a GIRL now!" thing is a lot to spring on a kid or even a teen, and you can bet the crap the subject in question took for being femmy is going to double or triple.

I'm honestly not capable of passing beyond the fact that he is 12 years old.

and then i saw this:

the same case with a 9 year old

...Is this a Hoax?

For fuck sakes! 12 and 9?! That's not an age where ANY kid can form a rational though and say "I would like to change my GENDER now". C'mon!

Ah, but gender is not truly, or fully, a function of culture.

(http://www.physorg.com/news144579930.html)

In addition there are people who have found gender differences in the Sexually Dimorphic Nucleus (a nerve cluster that is found in the brain which is twice the size in females) and that apparently a majority of transsexual individuals have a SDN more similar to the sex they were not born as (though this was a fairly small study as it can only be examined during an autopsy).


I am slightly confused, did you mean the parents of the kid in question should ave explained this to him/her?

P.S. I apologize somewhat if I sound like an ass, but, just as we are still striving to understand and accept gay/lesbian people, there are so many misconceptions about transgendered people out there. Just as most, if not all, gay/lesbian people do not choose to be how they are most transgendered people would want to just be happy with how they are as it would make their lives so much simpler.

From the article it reads like the school is being demonized for a situation in which they themselves had no advanced notice, at least this is what I gather from the bits where the kid purportedly showed up on whichver day in a dress saying his name had been changed and the teaching staff then having an emergency assembly. From what I can tell the school did the best they could in terms of trying to get the kids not to be awful shits to this kid. Does anyone think this would have worked out any better had the school just not said anything and left the kids to work things out for themselves? If the kid's parents wanted things dealt with more sensitively then it was their job to work out with the school in advance how it was to be dealt with.

...Adding to that the standard disclaimer/complaint that this thread/news story suffers the same glaring deficiency of every such shocking/extremely personalized "news" story in which all we have is a very very faint thumbnail sketch of a situation going on thousands of miles from anywhere where it could ever actually affect any of our lived and in which everything of significance about it comes down to details that none of us will ever know and so any of us can do is cobble together a threadbare patchwork of an understanding based on the little bit we're told in one news story and then spackle in the inevitably massive holes with our own assumptions and prejudices.

It would almost be more useful to posit pure hypotheticals as then we would at least all be working from the outset with a straightforward agreed-upon set of facts about the situation.

so true, so true

Indeed. Although i must say that anything related to sex change involving 9 and 12 year old kids is borderline insane. I can't honestly think of a scenario were it would seem right at all.

I disagree with sex change myself, but I think the parents are being upset for a silly reason.

First is even if they were informed and talked to their kids it wont stop them from making fun of the new kid, and not all parents are rational on this subject either and could also say derogatory remarks about this kid that their kids will repeat. Second is, some of this stuff is a private matter between the kid and his parents themselves. They only needed to report to the school his name had been changed. The school also really can't really inform the parents or kids on this until it becomes public knowledge either. It would be like a kid getting cancer treatment and the school not saying anything on it. They aren't allowed because its a private fact with the kid and their family.

I don't agree with sex changes, and definitely not for people so young. But that is personal opinion and I don't begrudge people making their own choices and I don't think it should be a big deal at all that its happening.

Wait... so everyone is on my side for this one... sweet!

Haha, oh wow.

Because all the bigoted fucks she'd face in elementary school are all going to vanish into the aether, and not totally keep their opinions well into adulthood with an added dose of power to exert that bigotry, right?

Seriously. Its better for the kid to slide into her actual identity earlier, where there's a limit on what kind of abuse can actually be done to her, then to force her into doing it years later where after years of abuse she'll probably get fired from a job or have her livelihood cut off when she finally tries.

Also not only will this make it easier for her to live in the long run it might actually show the kids around her that hey, sex change isn't some horrible freaky thing to throw rocks at.

Because you are better emotionally equipped to deal with such things and you have a lot more control over who you surround yourself with.

Also, with the nine year old one Bells mentioned, groups of people who've gone through sex changes have said it would have been better to wait until an adult for the very reasons I just said.

But the cases you are discussing, the nine and twelve year olds, are not actually going through with SRS at that age. They are starting to present as female at that age, most likely not even taking hormones until they are through with puberty. and stefan is correct in that the majority of adults who transition do lose their jobs etc. Some even totally strip away everything of their old life in an attempt to hide that they were something other than what they are now. Also, transitioning later in life will cause difficulties in the exchange of one set of social rules for another (boys act differently when hanging out with just other boys than girls with other girls etc.) How is that any easier than beginning the change when you have yet to really build your life (who here over twenty still hangs out with most of the people they knew in middle school? I know I don't) and learn those social rules?

P.S. NonCon, out of curiosity do you have any links etc. about this ? I would like to read their thoughts on the matter.

P.P.S. If anyone wants articles etc. I can link them later, I just do not have the time at the moment.

Here's the quote, from the Beaumont Society, the world's largest transgender organization.

Source

Furthermore, if someone were fired for getting a gender change, I'm sure they could sue to get their job back. They shouldn't have to, but you act as though there aren't options.

This is just odd.
Nobody should be discriminating against anyone for any reason, but this just puts a bad taste in my mouth. A kid just a few years younger than me is doing this?! Why in God's name would a parent let a child do this at such an early age?
I personally don't agree with this stuff but people should be able to do whatever floats their boat as long as they don't act obnoxious about it.
But this is just going way too far.

I don't know why you guys are surprised about the age of 9 doing this, there was a news story on NPR last Fall I believe following two 7 year-old transgendered boys who were becoming girls and how their parents were part of a support group of parents with the same problem. I forget what state this was (I don't want to sound stereotypical but I believe it was California, Oregon, or Washington for one of the boys, the other was from another state quite a ways away and they had become friends via a support group).

I dunno if kids this young should be making such drastic life decisions but I suppose it's more sensitive than telling them they can't do the things they naturally want to do (such as wear girls' clothing etc.) I know the parents were concerned and that was why they had joined the support group (the one boy's father had had problems with the transition and enjoyed being able to discuss his feelings with other parents who were going through the same thign).

But yeah the fact that the boys were starting school is probably somewhat better in that there wasn't this sudden transition that someone runs into at the age of 12 for example.

Please cut back on comments that don't add to the discussion taking place.

And by "cut back" I mean "stop making them or we'll ban you."

Honestly, if the child wants the sex change operation, she should wait until she is an adult. No amount of talking to teachers and parents will stop the teasing and abuse. You can talk with a 12 year old about how his/her classmate is going to change gender, and they will still shun them.

That said the teasing may have not come from as many kids if the parents were notified. Either way, she would have been teased.

Yeah, but she's changed her name to a girl name and is wearing girl clothes and all that, so she's taking on a female identity at an age when the external consequences of such can be hard to cope with and her options are fairly limited, as opposed to when she's an adult and she'd be better able to cope with the mistreatment and fight it.

Yeah, she can go back to wearing boy clothes and going by a boy name, but it's hardly like any of her schoolmates will forget this event.

I think its safe to say that she was having troubles with this before hand. I don't think "you'll be able to deal with it better later" is a good reason to force someone to stay repressed, even if its a 12 year old. It'll only cause different kinds of emotional scars.

I honestly find it hard to consider a child who probably has trouble spelling "repressed" to be ....y'know... repressed.

We all have Emotional scars, of all kinds, not really something you can avoid with a clever life plan. Still, kids whose BODIES haven't even fully developed yet should not be making life altering decisions on their own.

They don't have the critical thinking abilities to actually consider things trough, their body is not fully adjusted yet, and they simply don't posses enough knowledge, information and culture to actually evaluate their choices and it's consequences.

And if his parents are providing all the missing points, then it's not the kid's choice. Which has an even greater chance of fucking things up for the kid in the future.

All I'm saying is that kids this young should be worried about playing tag and coloring dinosaurs not picking what Sexual Organs they would rather have for the rest of their life.

Figuring out exactly what you are and where you fit in is VERY important esspecially in the social atmosphere that can be basically understood simply by recieting the 'girls have cooties' mantra. Whatever level of legitimacy you assign to this paticular situation, you can't just say that not being sure whether you are a boy or a girl is not important or even that it shouldn't bve important to a child. Kid's aren't stupid, just inexpierieced. Self-identity is fragile and extremely important for them.

That'd be understandable if being able to spell repressed had anything at all to do with the idea I was conveying. They probably wouldn't use that word if they were to describe it, no, but that doesn't mean its not what's happening.

No, but you can and should minimize them. Or, in this case, pick and choose which ones you want. Here, the parents decided that letting the kid be what she wants to be (or knows that she is?) and dealing with the bullying that comes with that was better than forcing the child to be what they or society (or whatever) wanted her to be.

Some would say its not a choice you make, its who you are. I don't know myself.

As far as I can tell these kids don't deliberately decide that they're male or female. It's something that they are simply born knowing- did anyone here wake up one day and think "Yep, I'm definitely comfortable with my gender identity." It's not something that ever passed through my mind, at least- I was born the way I am and I have never questioned it as I have always felt comfortable being the gender I am. Sexual orientation is kind of similar, although I believe it's more fluid. Again, did anyone here just wake up one day and decide that they're hetero-, homo-, or bi-sexual?

That said, why would someone intentionally go against their gender identity? A 12-year old is intelligent enough to understand that society doesn't easily accept those who deviate from the norm. Nobody wants to be perceived as a "freak." The answer is, their brains are simply wired in an anomalous way and, to them, they are not deliberately choosing to go against something which they biologically are.

Something like gender identity is very deeply rooted in your psyche. That is, a great deal of our decisions are made without us being completely aware of them. Although I cannot speak from personal experience (:P), I imagine that it is more painful for this child to go through life adhering to an identity that they feel is wrong for them, than to adhere to the identity that they feel is right for them and deal with the consequences.

Now, what's more debatable is the WAY in which this child makes their gender transition. Obviously, going right back to a school where everyone previously knew him as a "he" is not a smart move. If it was within their resources, the parents should have transferred him to another school so he could have a fresh start. That doesn't eliminate all of the difficulties, of course, but it would help.

For anyone who feels iffy about transgendered persons, I urge you to watch this documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utpam0IGYac

Oh, hey, I had totally forgotten about that documentary. If anyone is interested/intrigued by that one you could attempt to look up the "Transgeneration" documantary put out by Logo. It can be hard to find, but I think it is totally worth a watch.

I feel I should point out there is a differance between sex and gender. Gender is man/woman boy/girl. It is a function of society, and thus yes waking up one day and going "I feel like a girl" is how it works.

Sex is a biological aspect and determined at birth. Often these are interchanged as in our society they are one in the same. A male is a man, a female is a woman.

I bring this up because just as it says this is a gender identity thing. It isn't that a person thinks they should have a vagina, its that society treats their prefferances and mannerisms to be those of a girl.

A boy that likes dresses, plays with dolls, and is sexually attracted to boys, does not to me mean he is a girl in a boys body. It just means his preferances are towards what society has assigned to girls. Its pressure of society to conform, that you should like these things and shouldn't like these other things.

Ultimately the only thing that determines sex is whether you have a penis or a vagina. I cant think of any personality trait someone might have that would dictate otherwise. Liking girly things doesn't make you female, it just means you are against the norm. Nothing wrong with that

Determined at conception. Now, besides that different choice of words really, you are right. Sex is a biological aspect. Biology is pretty amazing, but it doesn't always go as it's supposed to. I don't see why being of a certain gender by your primary gender traits (organs, mostly) it isn't possibly to be of another gender by your secondary gender traits (everything besides your sexualorgans).

What I'm saying is: I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible for stuff to "go wrong" in a biological sense so, that you are physically a boy but mentally a girl. Being "mentally" something different than "biologically" or "physically" is a misleading way to say things. The way you think and feel is also affected by your biology; actually it IS biology.

but why, why does this boy feel he is in fact a girl? or rather, what makes this boy in fact a girl?

because I can read why he feels this way, though I dont see why that makes him a girl

I agree with the first two sentences. I don't agree with the last, but if you want to go that way- if it is, in fact, a conscious decision, then why is it wrong for someone to decide that they are the opposite gender? It's not your or my decision to make, after all. Why does it bother people so much that someone should chose this lifestyle for themselves?

What day did you wake up and decide you were a girl? When did you decide it was better to play with trucks than barbie dolls? What criteria did you base this decision on? You probably said "I feel like a boy." That's just it- these people, for whatever reason, happen to feel differently. Why would someone deliberately chose a life of hardship for themselves?

And why the hell does it matter that he feels this way? He's not HARMING anyone.

Socialization could have a lot to do with gender roles and sexual orientation as well. I mean, society is a by-product of biology... But, for direct cause there's a whole nuture vs nature aspect to this as well.

I think someone posted a source citing a brain center somewhere.

Simply put, these people feel from an early age that they were born into the wrong body. I was watching a program on it a while back and standard procedure in America is like five years of counseling before they're allowed to have the operations. An alarming number of them hop on a plane and go to Thailand to get it done before that because they just can't take it anymore.

Also of interest are boys who end up raised as girls due to botched circumcisions. They still show all the same interests as boys do, much like transgender girls.

Gender identity is simply the way people are born. What makes this boy a girl? What makes you a boy? It's how you identify yourself. It's a core part of your being. Going and telling this kid he has to be a boy instead of a girl would be like telling you your eyes had to be blue instead of brown. Sure, you can cover them up with contacts. This kid can cover it up with clothes. But it doesn't change what's underneath the mask.

but that doesn't explain why they think they are born into the wrong body. Besides for horomone levels and sex organs there is no real differance between men and women.

If its purely something wrong with the brain that somehow forces them to deny the facts of their biology then psychotheropy and medications sounds like a better fix. What you describe sounds more like intense dilusion, inwhich case plastic surgery would be counter productive as it reinforces their dilusion.

For the record this is not simply apply to sexchanges. I find just about any type of plastic surgery as an easy and shallow solution to what is in fact a psychological issue.

see now I get why your posts in this thread are grating on me, this is basically about the exact argument to used to declare that homosexuals are a bunch of delusional nutjobs, which was so endemic a few decades ago.

Well, therapy and pills sound fine until you factor in that no amount of therapy is going to help if a shrink can't convince them in five years. Really, with pretty much any therapy, after one year, what you see is pretty much what you get.

Pills are an even scarier idea. If you can just give a person a "boy pill," what's to stop from giving someone a "straight pill?" Homosexuality pervades the entirety of recorded history, and I find it hard to believe that that indicates it's a choice, given that many societies punished it with death, including, to an extent, recent America. Put simply, I can find no reason to believe homosexuality is a choice. Giving a pill to "fix" it is treating it like a disease. Worse yet, it could be considered brainwashing. You are actively putting chemicals into another person's body to alter the way their mind works when they aren't even harming anyone. Not only that, but any chemical you put in your body causes a degree of damage. Some medications are downright toxic. The idea that one would suggest that a person take pills that could make them sick or shorten their lifespan to make them think a certain way is absolutely abhorrent to me.

Frankly, if a person's brain is structured female, I see it as far less damaging overall to change their body, since our understanding of the mind is still piss-poor. The person gets to feel good about who they are, they don't have to live a lie, and they don't have to have pills shoved down their throat just to force them to conform to society's expectations based on whether or not they were born with a penis.

Edit: A final concern about pills, coming out with "cures" for benign issues only results in those issues not being seen as benign. It reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with those people, and especially the ones who choose not to take the pills. If a pill to turn gay people straight came out, it would set all the gay community's efforts back to the stone age, with religious nuts likely seizing control of the air waves to condemn them. Treating people who are simply different as freaks breeds intolerance and hatred, which lead to violence and an overall shittier world.

Blue thats slippery slope, a logical falacy, this isn't homosexuality. The nature of homosexuality is still debatable. This is definative, he is a boy, this is unalterable medical fact, he thinks he is a girl, this is a psychological dilusion. You yourself said it was a problem with the brain that causes them to think this. I do not think mutilating his body to fit his mistaken view of reality is the healthiest solution. All you are doing is reinforcing it.

Your missing the point entirely. Yes there are overt structural indicators of your gender. However, the absolute core of your personality is set from birth by brain structures. You can fiddle around a bit on top of that but such basic things as preferring a more feminine nature are pretty well hard coded into the physical structure of your brain. There is variability in how each person builds and expands on top of this structured mental gender and rarely do you get people with absolute masculine or absolute feminine mental gender. Transgender in the serious "not going away been that way since 5 years old sense" is no more a delusion than being homosexual or not liking chocolate. While your overt structural indicators and your internal mental gender are usually highly coordinated that is not always true. Those areas are controlled with different genes and different hormones and if everything isn't prefect you get mostly male brains in female bodies or mostly female brains in male bodies. This wouldn't be that huge of a problem if as a society we didn't build on top of basic gender identity with expected gender roles.

but there is no such thing as a "girl brain". Personality quirks, preferances, thats stuff our society has determined belong to a gender arbitrarily. If thats it, then they should realize that relating to the other sex doesn't mean you are. Can you give even one example of something that is definitively 100% a male or female trait? Because excluding obvious biology I cant think of any

If my logic is false, then please explain to me how homosexuality has nothing to do with the brain. Homosexual males think they are sexually attracted to other males, and the same for females and other females. What we know about the chemistry of attraction is pretty definitive at this point. Simply put, it all boils down to chemicals in the brain.

So unless you can find a way that chemicals in the brain does not equate to chemicals in the brain, I think my point stands. By all means, people have made the same arguments about homosexuality being a delusion that you're making in this case, based on the same logic concerning outward physiology.

The fact of the matter is having a body is fine, but who we really are is determined entirely by our brains. These people were born with brains featuring characteristics of the opposite sex. It is who they are. If the body doesn't match the brain, it's ultimately the body that's wrong, because physiologically speaking, the only parts of the body not there to benefit the brain are the sex organs, which are there to benefit the continuation of the species. Everything else is there to allow the brain to travel in, sense, and interact with the world, or protect it while doing so.

I am not who I am because I have a penis. I am who I am and the penis just happens to match up. Most people have the benefit of a body matching the mind. Those who don't feel understandably trapped. However, making the mind match the body is ultimately backwards logic. The mind is the most important part of a person, and if they don't want their mind "fixed," which means that the world is judging them entirely on appearance, I think they're within their rights to fix their body. It's the most direct route to them being appreciated for who they are rather than what they are.



Edit: I'll give you a trait: identity. That's about as basic as you can get, and it just so happens to be the one in question. Trying to boil down an entire gender to one idea is like trying to boil down physics to one number. Nobody is exactly the same. However, a combination of traits can lead to the formation of an identity. For instance, I happen to like gemstones, but that doesn't instantly make me a girl. It just makes me take a passing interest in geology. I also have other traits, like liking girls, liking martial arts, liking cars, liking to pose in front of a mirror (yes, I totally admit it), and various other traits that define me as an individual. None of them have any solid bearing on my gender identity, but as a sum total, the better portion of them would lead to others defining me as a male. I couldn't care less what other people think, but I happen to identify as male, so it really doesn't matter. Trying to boil down WHY I define myself as a male leads back to a simple "because I do." It's just a part of who I am. I'm comfortable being male. Other people aren't. Maybe they like all the exact same stuff I do and simply identify as female. Maybe they have a vagina to go with it, maybe they don't.

To turn this question around, why do YOU identify as male or female? I think you'll find it's a bit harder to pin down than words indicate.

its a logical falacy because homosexuality is not the topic, doing something about this does not automatically mean the same approach will be taken with homosexuality because it is not the same thing.

Except there are overt differences between mostly female and mostly male brains.

For example:
http://www.doctorhugo.org/brain4.html
http://www.medicaleducationonline.or...d=46&Itemid=69
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporte...x.html?ID=4717
http://health.howstuffworks.com/men-...nt-brains1.htm

Now to move slightly past that point. Brain structure is not a binary thing. You do not find people that have perfect male or perfect female brains. It just doesn't happen. Thus, it is absurd to try to classify any specific trait as 100% male or 100% female. Some are socialized into us and many are there from the beginning. However, no one possesses a brain that structurally is perfectly one gender or the other. Further, most societal conventions about gender roles are not arbitrary. They are usually generalization about what most people of that gender will enjoy or traits most of them exhibit. This is of course not always the case but the vast majority of people of a gender will exhibit some if not a majority of the expected traits even without socialization. The entire argument that being male or female is simply an attitude that can be changed is demonstrably false. I mean you couldn't really look at a persons mental performance and brain structure and definitively say male or female but you could get an idea as to if they would identify to a more masculine or more feminine gender stereotype. Gender of course not being a binary thing but a spectrum of ideas this is not altogether unexpected.

edit:
The comparison is valid because transgender like homosexuality can be, or is entirely no one is sure quite yet, a brain structure issue. If we decide its ok to berate and drug transgenders into fitting in than its a very small direct hop to doing the exact same thing to homosexuals.

The true cause of homosexuality is still being debated somewhat, yes, but do you agree that homosexuals are homosexual not so by choice, but that they just are? If so, then what is so much different about this?

Sexuality exists on a continuum. We have:
*Men who are attracted to men
*Women who are attracted to women
*Individuals of both sexes who are attracted to individuals of both sexes
*Guys who are attracted to chicks with dicks. Look up the Kathoy from Thailand or futunari(not actually real, more of a fetish present in hentai publications) from Japan.

biological sex is also not a black and white. You get males, you get females, and you get a whole lot in between, i.e. intersexed people. These are people who are born with either:
*Both sets of genitalia: hermaphrodites, very rare and I do not know of a case where someone was born with both sets functional.
*Ambiguous genitalia: a sex organ larger than a clitoris but smaller than a penis, usually the doctors decide a sex to "assign" the infant within the first week of its birth, sometimes without consulting the parents, and the decision normally defaults in assignment to female (since it is easier to create a vagina than it is to grow a penis). Or it boils down to the doctor in charge saying "well, I think it looks like a ______.
*People like Caster Semenaya, who has been at the center of some olympic controversy over her sex lately. Supposedly, she has female genitalia but was born with what amount to internal testicles instead of ovaries.

Gender identity is similar, and related to both. There ARE gender differences brain structures and how it functions, and if there are females born with internal testicles then is it really such a stretch that there are males born with feminized brains?

Edit: wow that took a lot longer than I thought to write, or you people are just magic and can type just by thinking at your computers.

Edit Mark. II: I think I am saying much the same thing as SithDarth, but he is saying it much more cogently than I am able to at the moment.

It means something is different about their biology. Wether that is wrong in a social sense is more up to society than science.

There's actually an interesting evolutionary theory about homosexuality. I wont go in to detail, since homosexuality isn't really the main subject, but basically the theory gives homosexuality an explanation in evolutionary terms. I'll try to find a link later.

Psychological delusion is biological fact.

thus he is a dillusional boy. Sex is a very definative and obvious fact. Male human is one with male sexual organs, penis and testicules. Thats the definition of male, he has male sexual organs, he is male. His personal opinion does not alter reality. Someone might run around claiming to be Elvis, just because they truely believe it doesn't make it true. If they get extensive surgery to look like Elvis that doesn't make it true. For a less extreme situation someone might dye their hair blonde and insist they are a blonde in a burnets body, that doesn't change what their natural hair color is, it just gives the outward appearance that it is blonde.

Before it gets to that hermaphrodites are their own class, and plastic surgery does not grant you different sex organs. It merely creates an artificial approximation of the appearance of those organs. They are purely cosmetic. Until someone can create functioning organs and alter their DNA, sex change opperation remains in fact just incredibly extensive plastic surgery.

Similarly, ignoring all the proven scientific evidence of different natural operational mechanisms between male and female brains that Sithdarth posted and continuing on like you know what you're talking about doesn't alter reality, either.

Sex and gender aren't the same thing, the former being the physical aspect while the latter is the hard-coded neural programming part. The two do not always match up, and many years of research and experience in the matter by trained professionals have shown that augmenting the neural to fit the physical is impossible while augmenting the physical to fit the neural is not, and attempting the former is altogether incredibly dangerous for the mental health of the subject.

The whole thing just plain isn't as simple as "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina."

The definition of sex actually includes two things: primary sexual traits (sexual organs) and secondary sexual traits (breasts, body hair etc. AND personality).

It looks like this thread is between a rock and an Aerozord place so I am gonna go ahead and tie this off.