How young is too young...Follow

Why? It's not politically correct. But it's also not wrong. I'm willing to write down in words the uncomfortable truths that we all live with, but some of us like to pretend don't exist. The reality is that a child *will* be happier if they can be taught to conform to societal norms. I didn't make it that way, but it is true. Ignoring the real world in the pursuit of avoiding a politically incorrect statement just seems kinda foolish to me.


Instead of just knee-jerk reacting, tell me why what I said is wrong. Can you do that?

You're wrong because people have been trying to force transgender individuals to conform to the gender norms for as long as we've made ourselves known. It's physiologically impossible for a trans person to force themselves to deny the reality of who they are so as to conform to gender norms and keep other people happy, AND be happy themselves. Why do you think the suicide rate among trans individuals is so obscenely high?

I'm not talking from lack of experience, either. In fact, you can't deny that I have a lot more experience in the field of how a transgender person feels than you ever will. I know you're intelligent enough to see what I mean by that, but if you think you can convince me otherwise, please try. I was raised Catholic. I went to a Catholic school for 9 years. I was taught that people like me were sinners and were wrong. I was told that even though God loves everyone, people like me shouldn't express themselves, because it makes other people uncomfortable. I denied who I was to the world from before I even knew what I was, because I knew if a little boy acted the way I wanted to act, I would be labeled as a sinner, and God would punish me, and my family would abandon me. I did this for more than 10 years. And you know what? I don't have a single happy memory of my childhood. I had a normal family, a good education, good friends, good morals, and not in a single memory of my life from my earliest memories up until the day I finally came out publicly, did I ever feel "happy". Not once.

Imagine, for example, if your political views and opinions were not considered the norm, and for your entire life, you were forced to profess and claim views that completely opposed what you actually thought, because "that's the norm". Imagine your right to free speech ripped away from you completely. You have to act and speak like Jophiel, and agree with everything he says, for your entire life. Do you think you could be happy? Do you think you could feel true joy? Sure, you could pretend, and say you were happy, and focus on the little things, but you would know, every waking second of the day, if you ever actually tried to voice your actual opinion, your entire world would come crashing down, you would be disowned, fired, evicted, and forced to suffer in miserable loneliness because you were different. Hell, to make it even more realistic, imagine that you had to do all this, while wearing an Obama costume. If you ever tried to take off the costume, or change it, the world would abandon you.

And don't say "But that's not the case." This is a hypothetical, meant to give you an understanding of what it feels like.

Do you get the point I'm trying to make?

Also, it's not terribly uncommon for people to come out as ***** late in life. Eventually, they just get too tired putting on a facade that isn't them--it's a constant effort, and it is NOT gratifying. They spend their whole lives alienating others from ever getting close to their real selves. Many of them end up building families that fracture as a result (for instance, those of the absurdly high number of anti-gay closet cases in the GOP).

Putting on a false identity might save you from the scorn of bigots (like yourself, gbaji), but it doesn't self you from the self-deprecation that necessarily goes along with.

Um... Except that... wait for it... it's the question asked in the OP. The question was asking how young is too young to consider/conclude that a child is transgender. I've just made the logical extension that this also requires that we ask when parents should switch from discouraging the child's cross-gender behavior to encouraging it. Isn't that the key point here? Or did you miss that with those big blinders on your face?

My answer (if you read it) is that 3 is too young for this, but 10 might be the right age. WTF is wrong with that answer?



No I don't. I think that's a typical response from someone who can't see beyond their own politically correct glasses though.

What that act does is recognize what societal norms are and what they mean. It recognizes that anyone who is outside those norms will suffer some negatives for it (stigma if that's the word you prefer). The person encouraging their child to conform to those norms didn't create the norms and didn't create the social negatives one might suffer for existing outside them.

Saying "Don't run in traffic because you might get hit by a car" isn't the same as actually threatening to run someone over with a car if they don't comply.



That's a bizarre interpretation of my argument. Why would you assume I'm saying that you should tell the child he'll be happier if he acts this way versus that way? I'm saying you simply encourage them to act in a given manner. You're confusing why the parents teaches a child to behave a certain way with the method actually used.



You can say that, and that may sound great in a politically correct context. But the reality is that parents are still going to dress their boys in pants and their girls in dresses. They're still going to put ribbons in the girls hair and not in the boys. They're still going to buy the girls dolls and the boys toy trucks. Why? Because that way their kids will "fit in".

I'm just the messenger. I'm pointing out how the world really is. Feel free to wail and gnash your teeth and whatnot, but it's not my fault that those are the standards of dress and behavior that our society expects and that most people are going to want to align themselves with those standards, if for no other reason that that they'll feel more comfortable doing so.

The idea that we should discourage parents from doing this because once in a great while a child might be transgender and suffer harm as a result is catering to the minority while harming the majority. Most kids will be more harmed by not being encouraged to conform than will be harmed in the other direction. You think that the boy who's parents never told him that boys don't wear dresses isn't harmed the first day he arrives at school wearing a dress? You don't honestly think that only transgender boys might do this if we did what you suggest and avoid pushing children towards any gender role?



Are you saying that I'm trying to actively encourage people away from supporting minorities? That's a pretty interesting all-or-nothing argument you've got there. Stop thinking only in terms of whether something is for or against a group and you might understand what I'm saying.

An idiot who is somehow trapped in 1950s middle America.

Yup. Can't see past the blinders. What's the saying? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?

I'd like to refer you to Eske's earlier post, which begins to scratch the surface of how absurd you are.

Or, by all means, you could just continue to ignore what we say and insist that we're just seeing what we want to see.

Well, I don't think I've ever seen him admit to being wrong, so it would probably be wise to do the latter.

For most people, being ignorant is remediable. Many people actually desire to become more well-informed.

I've NEVER seen gbaji admit to a wrong opinion. If I believed that he'd be willing to actually learn, this conversation would probably be very different.

Obstinate refusal to forfeit a false belief in the light of substantial evidence, when that belief actively hurts other people, is malicious to me.

Well, if nothing else, I can say that I learned a lot from this thread, thanks to Jinte and Tailmon sharing so much.

Thank you two both for that.

Your welcome and thanks for understanding. Many people don't have the courage to ask about my change but sit there wondering the how and why. I'm not afraid to talk about it and the hardships I've endured and the discrimination and harassment that came with my change. And as people know I'm not afraid to help coach you if your considering a change. The last person I've helped is on HRT now and she is doing well.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2011 4:27pm by Tailmon

I can kind of understand that, most people don't really go out of their way to try and find out more, because either they're uncomfortable with it, or they don't want to make me uncomfortable talking about it. People don't seem to have much issue asking "Oh, you gonna have the surgery?" like my crotch is any of their business, though. [/quote]

Biggest complaint I hear from trans peoples.

I don't get it. I would never dream of asking someone that (let alone assume that they even planned to have the surgery). But you don't have to know anything about trans issues to realize that asking a relative stranger about their genitals isn't any less rude or inappropriate than if they weren't trans.

I don't really understand why some folks are fixating on the number 3. From what I gathered in the article, she underwent therapy and was observed over the course of her entire childhood, and now that she is in her teens has decided to forge ahead with physically matching her body to her mind. No concrete decision was made at 3 years old. She was merely afforded opportunities to live in a way that was comfortable for her. Kudos to the parents for not cramming GI joe down her throat and instead letting her make her own decisions.

And holy ****, what a beautiful little girl. It's hard to look at that picture of her and her brother smiling and think she was somehow 'forced' into this change or that it's unnatural. In fact, it's hard to imagine that she actually has a ***** at all. She's certainly a much prettier and feminine looking girl than I was at her age.

I think that Gbaji's words of caution are wise, but some of his comments do border on paranoid. There's definitely some anxiety there on his part, and that's ok. Not everyone is comfortable enough with themselves to actually be accepting of others. I'm just glad that the decision wasn't his to make and was instead in the hands of smarter, stronger, and more accepting individuals.