Calls to help sex-change kids as demand for gender reassignment soars

[The Straight Story]

The number of children accessing medical treatment to help them change gender has increased 60-fold, leaving Australia’s only clinic for transgender young people struggling to cope with the rise in demand.

Exclusive figures obtained by The Sunday Age show the Royal Children’s Hospital gender dysphoria service is seeing 150 patients a year, with new referrals rising from one per year in 2003 to 60 in 2014.

Parents of children as young as three with gender dysphoria - which causes persistent and distressing feelings of being born the wrong sex - are facing a five-month wait for treatment.

Doctors say the surge in demand is being seen throughout the Western world as increased awareness of transgender issues prompts more people to seek help to transition to the gender with which they identify.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/calls-to-help-sexchange-kids-as-demand-for-gender-reassignment-soars-20140704-zsvz7.html

[LuvLoogie]

1. I can't say that I agree with giving kids drugs to stave off puberty.

I am for the least intrusive treatment. If we can instead as a society accept that sex and gender are not the same thing, that sex and gender don't always "traditionally" align, perhaps we can relieve most of the anxiety.

I suspect that, for the most part, people learn to accept their own skewed gender and sexuality. I think that even those who are gender/sex aligned experience anxiety over their bodies and sexuality.

I couldn't see giving my minor child hormone therapy. It just seems like another way to medicate as opposed to deal with underlying issues.

[longship]

2. A transgendered person is one whose body is the wrong gender.

So hormone therapy would be appropriate, if that is the individual's choice. One has to be careful and it should not be done frivolously. But if due diligence is done drugs are entirely appropriate.

[LuvLoogie]

3. The title of your post illustrates what I mean.

Perhaps we need to agree on terms. In my view you are conflating biological sex and psychological gender. If we can say for simplicity's sake that genders are either masculine or feminine, and sexes are either male or female, then we can separate gender from sex and start to move away from saying that someone has the wrong sex or gender.

Instead we can say that someone is male with a feminine gender. We could even say female gender with a male body if you wish as long as we understand that gender and sex are not the same thing.

Otherwise you would have to decide which was the mistake, the sex or the gender. In my opinion, neither is "wrong" per se. This sense of wrong is the source of the anxiety.

And certainly, while a child develops into adulthood, I think it is best to "ride out" his/her changing hormones before one artificially alters the body's course.

I have a friend whose daughter self-indentified as a boy for a period as a child. She is a young woman now, and has come out as a lesbian. The parents didn't freak out as their child developed. They had the wherewithall to let the child be, accept and love.

Of course, as an adult, one can consent to any procedure. But coming of age is difficult enough without trying to micromanage body chemistry.

[longship]

4. Too often adulthood is too late.

There are so many cases where things have gone bad and the suicide rate for transgendered is bad enough.

There are many who take the approach that the kid very well might already know what's up earlier than puberty. The transition is so much easier then, at least with hormones. Families relocate and enroll the kids in trans friendly schools and the kids turn out fine.

The alternative for some of these kids is horrible.

You have to take an open mind on this.