Being transgender is hard

[JJM 777]

People can be mentally stuck in so many different thinking patterns, including religions, phobias, compulsive obsessions, pedophilia, violence, whatever. My starting point is that the physical is the default position, and the psychological is a programmable unit. Psychology is a poorly developed science so far.

 

[Floyt]

People can be mentally stuck in so many different thinking patterns, including religions, phobias, compulsive obsessions, pedophilia, violence, whatever. My starting point is that the physical is the default position, and the psychological is a programmable unit. Psychology is a poorly developed science so far.

That's a reasonable position and worth discussing.

One of parents in the group has a transgender daughter, age 10. This parent is a public speaker, and is preparing some talks on transgender children and their care, relating in particular how all but one endocrinologist is willing to treat her child, how her religious school kicked her child out. Apparently, some parenting blogs have caught on to the news, and refer to her child as a "freak" or an "it", one showed a picture of a rolled up belt with the caption "here's what I'd use to treat my child", another blog used the same caption juxtaposed with an image of a gun.

This is not.

I trust it's clear which one "bigotry" refers to.

 

[Puppycow]

- $14000 to remove facial hair. (200 hours * $70/hr electrolysis)

If that's how much it costs, it seems like it would probably be cheaper for two or more transgendered people to buy the equipment and learn how to use it on each other.

Maybe I should get into this business. $70/hr is a lot more than I make at my job.

 

[PhantomWolf]

This is wrong. From the OP:



See that? Endocrinologist. What do they do?

That's what people are responding to. Now, @Sceptic was also wrong by talking about surgery.

I notice that you responded positively to @truethat's statement as follows:



This is irrelevant.

The question is whether 10-year-olds can be reliably diagnosed as transgendered, especially to the extent of being confident of taking away their ability to reproduce forever.

Nobody in this thread has presented evidence for this, let alone evidence so strong that it overrides what we know of the poverty of diagnoses. All we've heard is that, if you don't automatically nod assent, you're a bigot.

Perhaps you need to go further than just the OP before judging people then. The OP said that they had found that all but one Endocrinologist was willing to treat, the OP didn't say that they were currently treating. Willing to treat doesn't equal actually treating.

If you had bothered following the story the whole you you'd have found that:

Her parents have not yet decided how they will approach her medical condition in future but say she will not be given hormone blockers until she is 12.

Hmmm, now why would they be considering hormone blockers at twelve if she was getting hormone treatment at 10? Oh, she wouldn't. The only reason to have blockers is to prevent puberty so that the child can decide what to do at a point in time when she is older. But hey, why bother with the facts when you can just jump to a conclusion right?

 

[PhantomWolf]

People can be mentally stuck in so many different thinking patterns, including religions, phobias, compulsive obsessions, pedophilia, violence, whatever. My starting point is that the physical is the default position, and the psychological is a programmable unit. Psychology is a poorly developed science so far.

You are forgetting that the psychological in intimately bonded into that physical thing we call a brain. Basically to take your argument to the extreme, being gay is just a disease too and they just need to be treated for it, after all, sexuality is part of the psychological too.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Is there any hardcore scientific research on the subject? I'm kind of on the fence and don't know what to think about this subject.

 

[Rolfe]

I saw a documentary which reported neuropathology work showing structural differences in male and female brains, and that trans-women had the female structure.

Rolfe.

 

[sarge]

Be careful with that line of thought, its equivalent to involuntarily outing a little girl everytime she goes to the bathroom.

Not only is it not similar to "outing" a little girl, it is the exact opposite of "outing" a little girl. It is requiring someone who is, to all other people, a male to use the male bathroom. While I understand that this would cause some discomfort for the (fe)male child in this story, it would cause less discomfort than allowing a child that is male on the outside to use a female restroom.

Seems pointless and needlessly cruel on a very very personal level.

It seems pointless to you to allow the rest of the student population to use a gender restricted restroom? In what way is it cruel to require a child to use a restroom that is specifically designated for their assigned gender?


All in all, the least harm is done by requiring the child to use the male latrine until the child is no longer biologically male.

 

[Rolfe]

Mmmm, it's hard to see what harm could be caused by letting a child who is outwardly dressed and appearing to be a girl use the girls' toilets.

• Little girl in girls' clothes disappears into toilet cubicle and bolts door behind her.
• Child does whatever child has to do behind bolted door.
• Little girl in girls' clothes emerges from toilet cubicle.

Since the other little girls will be doing exactly the same thing, and will never be in a position to be seen unclothed by any other little girl unless they choose to undress in the wash-hand-basin area (which is not usual), who will be upset?

Rolfe.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I for one am not opposed to the idea that someone can be transgendered it’s just at the beginning of the thread I heard "10 year old" used. And that's simply too young to make any informed decision. Allowing a child to dress up in the opposite genders clothes is one thing, but helping them transform at such a young age may have negative consequences we don't fully understand yet.

 

[Rolfe]

In the case in question, there was no suggestion that anyone was going to help a child transform at such a young age.

It's an extraordinarily difficult problem. If one could be 100% sure that the person's adult choice was going to be to change gender, then it's highly likely the best time to change is before puberty. However, how can it be certain that a pre-pubertal child's decision really is their final adult choice?

I suspect a few people are going to be damaged by wrong decisions being taken before there is enough information to know which way is best to jump on this one.

Rolfe.

 

[Information Analyst]

It must be a lot easier to make the transition as a child. I gather it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to persuade doctors in Britain to agree to this, though. Or at least, it was the last time I watched a documentary about it. The idea seemed to be that a child may just be going through a rebellious phase, and must go through puberty and become an adult in his or her biological sex before anything will be considered.

I guess the main issues is that there can be other reasons why a child may feel conflicted about their own gender identity, and it's better to leave such a drastic change until they're an adult, when they can make their own informed choice.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I guess the main issues is that there can be other reasons why a child may feel conflicted about their own gender identity, and it's better to leave such a drastic change until they're an adult, when they can make their own informed choice.

Yes and the idea is to explore all these other reasons before anything drastic is done, and if there is no resolution be a certain age it might be a good idea to delay puberty as it may be very traumatic for the child. Nothing surgical would be done until they were an adult and freely chose it.

 

[Aepervius]

Mmmm, it's hard to see what harm could be caused by letting a child who is outwardly dressed and appearing to be a girl use the girls' toilets.

• Little girl in girls' clothes disappears into toilet cubicle and bolts door behind her.
• Child does whatever child has to do behind bolted door.
• Little girl in girls' clothes emerges from toilet cubicle.

Since the other little girls will be doing exactly the same thing, and will never be in a position to be seen unclothed by any other little girl unless they choose to undress in the wash-hand-basin area (which is not usual), who will be upset?

Rolfe.

Then why have girl bathroom ? just make unisex bathroom with only stalls , and no pissoire. Et voila problem solved.

 

[sarge]

Mmmm, it's hard to see what harm could be caused by letting a child who is outwardly dressed and appearing to be a girl use the girls' toilets.

• Little girl in girls' clothes disappears into toilet cubicle and bolts door behind her.
• Child does whatever child has to do behind bolted door.
• Little girl in girls' clothes emerges from toilet cubicle.

Since the other little girls will be doing exactly the same thing, and will never be in a position to be seen unclothed by any other little girl unless they choose to undress in the wash-hand-basin area (which is not usual), who will be upset?

Rolfe.

Except for the comoflauge of girls clothes, the exact circumstances you describe would be replicated by having unisex restrooms in elementary school. It is not reasonable to expect that every person in the school does not already know that the "girl" is (presently) a boy.

Let's extend the time frame a very few years down the road. Where, after gym class, does this still male now-teen shower?

 

[Information Analyst]

Dessi welcome to the board and thanks for sharing. I have been very intrigued by this topic for many years. I have heard about tranny chasers and I'm curious if you could share some insight on that.

At first I would think a person who is specifically attracted to transgendered women would be a godsend to these women. But it seems like there is more to the story with that.

Sadly, it's probably on a par with those who are turned on by amputees - they are attracted to the condition, not the person.

 

[Rolfe]

Then why have girl bathroom ? just make unisex bathroom with only stalls , and no pissoire. Et voila problem solved.

Indeed.

Let's extend the time frame a very few years down the road. Where, after gym class, does this still male now-teen shower?

It's still a surprise to me to learn that some schools have showers for their pupils.

Why design anything so that people have to get changed in a communal changing-room? Might shut up a lot of this "mine's smaller than his help I'm inferior" stuff we hear from the males. Even better, end the excuse for male genital mutilation that an intact boy might be embarrassed in the changing rooms.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I remember my trans-woman friend telling everyone about his (as he was then) "dare" to spend the weekend of a science fiction convention dressed as a woman. (Of course, as it later transpired, there was a lot more going on than a dare, and I suspect there may in fact have been no dare.)

One man asked him what he did about the bathroom. My friend replied that he simply used the ladies' room, not a problem. The men got awful interested and asked what it was like in there. He explained that it was all individual stalls, so no problem at all. In fact, if anyone else had noticed him, they would have refrained from remarking anyway, out of politeness - possibly he would have been assumed to be a trans-woman. Anyway, none of the women batted an eyelid.

Rolfe.

 

[L.Y.S.]

It's still a surprise to me to learn that some schools have showers for their pupils.

Why design anything so that people have to get changed in a communal changing-room? Might shut up a lot of this "mine's smaller than his help I'm inferior" stuff we hear from the males. Even better, end the excuse for male genital mutilation that an intact boy might be embarrassed in the changing rooms.

Rolfe.

I don't know about other places but they no longer use public showers in Illinois. It has had some smelly consequences .

 

[commandlinegamer]

It's still a surprise to me to learn that some schools have showers for their pupils.

I suppose you might get away without a wash down afterward for certain forms of PE, but surely for cross-country and swimming, showers are pretty much a necessity.