So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

Yonic I figured she was talking about the undifferentiated sexual development of an early stage foetus. It's a basic mistake commonly stated by the biology-trans lobby but it's still untrue. The chromosomal make-up comes from the sperm and therefore a male foetus is male from conception.

People who argue there is a biological basis for transsexualism seem quite blinkered about where that line of thinking leads. You might find a biological cause for transsexualism but surely the conclusion would be that transsexuals have a type of intersex conditions, not that MTTs are actually women. You can't say an MTT is a woman due to biology being the length of an androgen receptor while ignoring the very obvious reasons the are not women due to biology being the presence of a penis and testes, chromosomes, Adam's apple, prostate gland, facial hair, flat chest, muscle and bone structure and every other biological point of difference between women and men.

so the mother is doing the right thing according the the expert Dr

when has been selling your childrens lives to the media been considered doing the right thing for them

so what he is dressing up in princess dresses at 4 means nothing but it gains attention for the mother more than anyone else

" would perhaps advocate electric shock treatment like the good old days"

Straw person - no one has said this but you.

Flora, I think coco is referring to the fact that the basic foetal structure has features like nipples.

Of course all foetuses, apart from those With chromosomal intersex conditions, are XX or XY so it's incorrect to say even a four cell organism is "female" before it develops as "male"

Thanks for the link, coco. I wonder if any further research has been completed since that 2008 study.

coco All foetuses start out as female, and in the ones that are to be boys, changes start to occur.

This is untrue. How do you think "the ones that are to be boys" comes about?

My son was like this. For a long time he would sob that he wanted to be a girl. Wanted feminine clothes and hairstyles. I just let him get on with it. Explained that being a girl or boy was something he didn't need to worry about until he was older and left it there (no discussion about changing anything but also no insistence that sex was carved in stone).

He's now a pubescent boy, happy in his own skin and confident in who he is (as much as any teen is!). He hasn't yet defined himself in terms of sexuality.

Young children say and do all sorts, you shouldn't begin to define a child by their actions when tiny. They change so much, so fast it's ridiculous to even try. Just keep an open mind and support them, like every other aspect of their life.

With the greatest respect to those who seem not to believe true transsexuals exist, your starting point seems to be that you or your kids never felt that way.
Which is a bit like someone with vision telling a blind person they must be able to see because they have eyeballs.
If gender is in some ways a societal structure, I very much doubt the transsexual population would have put themselves through what they have over the years.
I suspect some here feel they are mentally ill and would perhaps advocate electric shock treatment like the good old days.

That article is ridiculous in my mind. You need to distinguish between societal gender stereotypes and liking things that society tells us are for girls...and being a girl. When a story mentions what colour lunchbox a child will be allowed it loses all credibility.

My daughter wouldn't wear an Elsa costume, hates anything pink, wears a Spider-Man costume most days, plays football and wants in her words "to be a cool guy" when she grows up.

I wouldn't for a second think there was something wrong with the alignment between her gender and sex. She just likes what she likes and thankfully is young enough not to feel pressured into fitting a societal norm.

That is a little boy who enjoys princesses and wearing dresses. It is not a girl. That parent, whilst it's great she's letting him wear what he wants would be much better off explaining that liking pink and standing with your hands on your hips does not make you a girl . She needs to make him feel happy wearing what he wants, crossing gendered boundaries whilst also feeling proud to a boy.

Correct link www.new scientist.com/article/dn20032-transexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

And follow that up with new scientist.com/article/dn20032-transexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

Scallop you need to read up more before making emphatic statements like the one above. Start here: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7689007.stm

It could also be that an identical twin is searching for something to differentiate him from his twin, especially if he has been shoehorned into identical clothing etc.

As a kid, I was fascinated with penises. Pretended to have one by tying string round my waist in various ways. Was I trans? Absolutely not. Did I want to be a boy? Nope. No grown up did anything beyond a slightly bemused smile and eventually the fad passed. I grew up in a very female orientated family and life (all girls' school from age 5) so it may be a reflection of that.

Aside from the questionable decision to stick her kids in the paper, I think the mum is being fairly sensible. She's letting him dress and play how he wants, but isn't making any longterm decisions on name, pronouns, medical intervention etc. Kids are generally quite fickle but if he continues to persistently and emphatically insist he is a girl for his whole childhood then it would be wrong of his parents not to support him with that.
I personally don't believe in male or female brains and don't understand the trans experience in any scientific sense - but it's a real phenomenon and it's no skin off my nose if someone wants to change their gender.

Meh. I used to put a plastic incredible hulk down my pants to make a penis but I wasn't a boy. I was a kid who in a kid-like black and white way thought enjoying 'boys' activities must mean I was really a boy. I wasn't, I was a girl who liked insects. I grew up to be a woman with a keen interest in natural history who wears plaid shirts and brogues.

I think the mother would be better off telling her son there is more than one way to be a boy.

I think that a lot of kids go through a stage of trying out different things and to our adult minds that might look like gender roles. At two, children don't have an awareness that biologically boys grow up to be men and girls grow up to be women. But because of our culture they are aware of there being two "clubs" if you like and so they choose one. Most will happily take the group they are told they are a part of, but some will think, wait, but I like the look of that one. That's normal imo and parents can act in one of three ways: they can be quitecritical and attempt to persuade or force their child to conform, they can genuinely be indifferent, or they can - and I do think there is a danger of this - see it as a novelty or badge of their superior liberal parenting and run with it a bit too much, in quite the same way as some people seek out gay or black friends so that they can prove how liberal they are, rather than just because they have a friend who happens to be gay or whatever. Does that make sense? Accepting your child is always good but parading them as a badge of mc honour makes their identity more about you than about themselves, and its sad because its meant well.

I can't understand why you think the mother is sensible when she agreed to this being in the paper.

So you think there are male and female brains Coco?

There is no evidence for that. The 'latest science' doesn't show that at all.

To say "I've never questioned my gender so I can't see how someone else could have" is very presumptuous and a little arrogant.
The brain is organic matter. Every day people are born with 11 toes, holes in hearts, eyes and ears that did not form correctly.
There is no guarantee all brains will be as society expects.
In fact all men have had a sex change - they just don't know it. All foetuses start out as female, and in the ones that are to be boys, changes start to occur. But what if those changes only go so far and then cut out? The hormonal spin cycle misfires? The testosterone or oestrogen doesn't quite reach where it should?
The latest science shows that the brains of transsexual people are much closer in areas of development to the gender they identify with.
These people have been around since records began, and I find it very sad that in general society dismisses it as "a phase" or something they will grow out of.
Finally being trans has absolutely nothing to do with sexuality. It is not an extreme form of gay or lesbian. It's about people finding peace in their heads by becoming who they are.
This thread shows there is still a long way to go with public understanding.

i think the mom found a way to get attention and this will not be good for the children

im always cynical about people who put this in the papers i think its wrong my dd was always up trees in boys clothing she is not a lesbian as far as she is aware and at 15 she is comfortable in her own body so not trans ether? if i had labeled her at an early age i would be backtracking massively several times by now she went from tree climbing to barbie playing to trees again and hanging around with her "lesbian" friends (all but one changed there mind) today she is going out for coffee with a boy who apparently used to be straight but then had a boyfriend used to fancy her but is now her best friend

confusion is a natural state of mind you just go with the flow not call the newspapers!

MrsLeighHalfPenny If you ask me, he's found a behaviour that gets him a lot of attention, and he's running with it. It'll probably stop when he gets the piss taken out on him when he starts school!

This is incredibly ignorant. I grew up feeling different and acting different for reasons that I couldn't even express in myself until I was around 15. Once I managed to reconcile it in myself it was just as tough a struggle to reconcile it with others. Some people will never reconcile it in themselves, let alone with others.

I have since heard from numerous nasty people that they 'knew' who I was from a young age because of the way I 'acted'.
I believe young children are utterly incapable of acting in a certain way for long periods of time. If an adult can't do it, then how could a child.

So yes, let's all laugh at the possibility of a child being bullied in school and write off their self expression as attention seeking. This case is obviously very similar to all those hundreds of other well known people who pretended to be LGBT for attention.

As I understand it, many little girls have in the past said they wished they had penises and the root of this statement was often because they saw little boys doing things they wanted to do but weren't allowed. Climbing trees and jumping into mud, for example. Incidentally, Garrick, I expect approx the standard % of those girls grew up to be gay/straight.

I wonder if this is the same thing in reverse. I would like to think that children are seeing "boy things" and "girl things" of equal value more than they did in the past and so there may be more equal numbers of boys and girls saying this kind of thing.

But ultimately: yes he may turn out to be trans but it's too soon to be definitive and certainly there seems no reason to name and picture them.