News-Record.com

Ok - this is wack. The kid is in 2nd grade, but looking over the context of the story, he must be older than your average 2nd grader. And I agree with you, Nancy. The parents shouldn't put up with or encourage this sort of wishful thinking at this stage of the kid's life.

When I was in elementary school, I was curious about the opposite sex. But not to the extreme level this kid appears to be. That family needs some serious head shrinking, I think.

Everyone involved in this case needs to have their head examined. Unisex bathrooms?? Second grade is much too early for this kind of thing and the parents need to find out what's really going on inside that kid's head.

just over the horizon you can expect - homosexual bathrooms, straight bathrooms, lesbian bathrooms and bisexual bathrooms - heck lets segregate these very ones into separate classrooms and cater to their specifics desires - all at the general public expense. i wonder what accommodation this school would make for someone who claims to have multiple personality disorder - maybe they should invest in research how to hardwire a sensor into the child's brain to activate a lapel badge which would light up the 'person' they are at this given moment. we are rapidly becoming a society that caters to virtually every whim and fancy the distorted mind can conjure up !
"Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work [be] pure, and whether [it be] right."............"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."........."The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise [child] shall have joy of him"
a right child does not happen by accident, that child is trained. makes one wonder what the parents of this child are training him to become. the Word has given us the prescription necessary to raise up our children.

It has been my experience that transgender people know that they are different at a very early age. They truly know that they are not in the right physical body for their feelings and actions. This is not about choice but about living true to yourself. We discredit children's deep understanding and knowledge of themselves when we don't give them room to grow as they know they should. Children are able to understand and accept a lot more than we give them credit for. Often it is the adults in their lives that hold them back and give them the negative thoughts and ideas.

I have seen the damage done when someone spends years and years trying to hide who they are and trying to live according to what others say they must. In this case being true to yourself does no one else any harm. It can actually prevent the heartbreak of having to come out after many years of hiding.

As a transgender youth has told me, "Sex is between your legs and gender is in your head."

The young person in this article is very lucky to have a family that will stand with her and support her.

Honestly, I can't see such a decision in the hands of a child so young under any circumstances. I couldn't see that decision in a teenager's hands, even. Maybe it's because I feel that if something is a right decision for someone at age 7 or 8, then it can be a right decision when that person is older and has more maturity and living under their belts. Am I living in the real world?

Being transgender is no more of a decision a person makes than being heterosexual or being male is a decision made. I once asked a transgender friend when she decided she was transgender and her response was "When did you decide you were a girl?" My response was "I always knew I was a girl." She replied, "I always knew I was in the wrong body. But did not have the courage to let anyone know until I had tried to live a lie and messed up my life and those of others around me."

Living with a teenager who is transgender, I can tell you that this is not something that is undertaken lightly by them. This is incredibly difficult. The only thing more difficult would be to live as someone they are not. This is very complicated and difficult for everyone involved.

I think the child is old enough to know who they are. I am not a parent yet but my youngest sister is 13 years younger than I am and I currently live with two small children -- two and almost-five. The five year old knows who he is and can tell you more about trains than I know. Children aren't oblivious, they know whether they are being treated like a boy or a girl and they know with which gender they identify.

We don't know why some children don't take to their gender assignment. We have girls who want to cut their hair short and run around in jeans and stomp and cry when we try to put a Sunday dress on them. We have boys who would rather be in the dress having a tea party and playing with Barbies. People are different.

But being transsexual is not just about being different. It's about a fundamental identity. Some of those girls aren't just tomboys, they're boys with female bodies. Some of those boys aren't just sissies, they're girls with male bodies. It's a torment to be told that you are something that you're not from all angles. How many times was I told that I was a boy and not a girl when I was a child? Yet here I am, a girl and now a woman. You can't just scold a child into being something that they're not.

For people who say that the child is not old enough to decide their own gender, how old should the parents be to decide their child's gender for them? Babies born with ambiguous genitalia are often given a vaginoplasty and raised as girls. Some of them really don't agree with that idea and live as boys as soon as they are allowed. Despite some people's claims that children are a "blank slate", parents and teachers don't have full control over their child's gender. It's likely to be as much or more neurological than social.

I applaud the parents and the school for doing what they can to support this child. I believe that normalizing transsexualism will go a long ways towards acceptance in society. Many people don't realize that this is an accepted medical condition, even though there are conflicting theories in psychology, genetics, neurology, sociology, religion, etc. about why exactly this happens. Throughout history and around the world, this question has arisen about what to do with transsexuals. In many cultures, they have been regarded as a third or fourth gender or revered as liminal shamans bridging the gap between men and women. Our culture tends to try to be scientific and to pathologize differences and perhaps we will understand some day why some people are like this while most others aren't.

But what we have here is a little girl who is tired of living a double-life and being told that she is a boy. She will probably grow up to be a beautiful, wonderful, well-adjusted woman, wife, mother*, businesswoman, etc. I don't understand why people want to push her down and dismiss her and her family. Transsexual people suffer enough.

Helping children to accept themselves and their differences is very important in building self-esteem and creating psychologically healthy children, teenagers and adults.

I transitioned to live as a woman as a teenager but I still had to go through many years of torment between physical changes with male puberty and with social ostracism. I thought I was alone in my struggles, adults just tried to tell me I was a boy and not a girl and kids just made fun of me. It wasn't until I was 16 that I found out there were many other people out there who were like me and that there was help for us. The greatest lie a transsexual child knows is that they are alone. We are not alone and we need to help the children in our society grow up to be healthy adults, transsexual or not.

* Though obviously sterile, she will have to use a surrogate or adopt. But the method of having a child isn't as important as actually being a mother.