Age 8 and wanting a sex change

[MuffinToptheMule]

On C4 now. Anyone else watching?

OK , another child shocked at the prospect of not being able to have their own children.

Girl to boy wanted their eggs frozen ? !

the children really dont realise the full consequneces of what their choice .

strange

I thought the girl in the green top and hot pants was the boy who had changed to a girl would never have guessed it was her brother

another child shocked at the prospect of not being able to have their own children. - meant to put it that another child was shocked at what would happen when they take these steps, shock at having jabs , shock at not having their own children .

It just seems too much for these kids to take in I feel.

I do. My son is very keen to have people approve of him, he loves to fit in - however - some things he will not be moved on no matter how much flack he gets for it. Things such as insisting on having long hair (it is about waist length). To him this is a major identity thing and he will not let it go. Other things I have to admit I have hedged a little - made easier in some ways by having older girls and strict schools. For example, nail varnish is forceably removed at school so I have the perfect excuse not to allow it out of the house. None of my dc have been allowed their ears pierced before the age of 12 so the same applies to him and so on.

I have been very careful to ensure he can fully explore his preferences at home and made sure that I have never said "you can't because you are a boy" I have given a valid reason that he can understand. At home he has the full run of dressing up clothes, clip on earrings, make up and so on. He plays with them less and less now. He took up ballet with a fab teacher - again he has now given that up.

WRT his hair, I did have to fight the school for it but I was lucky enough that, although the school are strict, they are also reasonable. I went to them early on and explained how important it was to him - and made my thoughts on male/female discrimination clear - and they agreed. Thank goodness!

Sorry, that was to Lockets!

How wonderful that their parents are so accepting of the situation and that they have the support of medical experts. I really liked this programme, really very good.

I found the whole situ sad for all those involved must have been a lot of tears shed

Have to admit thought this would be a mad programme but actually it was quite sensibly put forward and did make me think what if that was our situation, what would we do. Quite an interesting subject as I have to admit that yesterday I was thinking - how typically american (sorry!). Now I just feel sad for those parents as the kids quite obviously weren't confused! I just hope they don't regret any decisions at a later stage.

i think the 'lots of gay' relatives is interesting

Lockets, feel free to! How old are his brothers if you don't mind me asking? If they are starting to get stick then I would focus on getting them to feel comfortable with the way their brother is so that they can defend or deflect things that come up. It is not easy though, there is a balance that is obviously different for every person and family.

Our family has had other stresses to deal with along the way and, whilst they have been very difficult, one thing they have done is take the focus off ds a bit, I have had less time to sit and think about it all and worry about the future and so on (not that it stopped me but I couldn't fixate on it IYSWIM).

At this stage I am not ruling out something coming out at a later date but I am confident that he now knows that I am the parent for whom anything goes and that he will be able to come to me if he should need to - of course we all like to think that for our dc so I guess time will tell!

there is a girl in dd's school who has dressed like a boy for yrs, she is in late teens now
boys uniform ,hard to tell that she is a girl at all!

I have always admired the parents for supporting her.Must be hard.

we have two girls like that - both late teens although one moved away now

one has longer hair now but still looks as though she thinks she is male despite very petite girl

again massive respect all round

in the program Ky seems very mature

My 7 year old has just received his long awaited Wonder Woman outfit through the post.

He's who he is. He has put up with a bit of teasing but seems to rally pretty well on the whole. He does pull throughs to see what he'd look like and that makes me sad.

I want him to be happy with himself, willy and all. I don't mind if he wears dresses and heels or whatever he damn well chooses to wear, but the thought of him wanting to lop off bits of himself and take fake hormones to make him into someone he isn't worries me.

Lockets, so much depends on how other people behave and children can be decidedly difficult. My dc handled most things by being quite dismissive they had a sort of "yeah, that's the way he is, whateva" attitude to them. Most people fell in with that eventually so dc only had to deal with his direct peer group (which has not been easy, girls at this age can be particularly challenging!) Of course being such a large family has helped us as they are quite self-sufficiant and none of them are scared to turn their back on someone who is not being nice!

I was particularly heartened when dd came back from her first day at high school, her first piece of news when she came through the door "DS...ds...you will never guess what, a boy at high school has hair even longer than you and he is never told to cut it - you will be able to keep your hair at high school" and they all did a merry little jig
I thought it was lovely that this was the most important thing that she had taken from her first day at high!

Lockets my ds is also number three and I have 3 boys and a girl.

My DS has a big picture of Marilyn on his wall and he loves her music. He has a massive fancy dress box full of fab clothes. He has mainly girl friends and he gossips with them. He's very camp and really great to be around. He even dances in a really gay way. All the stuff I thought was learned, but it seems to come naturally through him.

He will also play guns and Doctor Who with his little brother (though he usually wants to be Rose) and will do typical 'boy' roll around fighting games.

I'm relieved he's gregarious and has lots of friends although I wish he could meet someone like him sometime as I know he feels very lonely because he has told me.

My DS read and re-read The Boy in The Dress by David Walliams.

spidermama he sounds good fun and hopefully in time he will meet like minded children

hesaysshesays that first day at high school thing is fabulous

didn't anyone else want to be a boy when they where little?

i did

i have 2 older brothers and a pudding bowl hair cut, never wore girly clothes
and if someone called me a boy by accident i was really pleased.

i really thought at 8 i wanted to be a boy.

i think looking back i just wanted to b like my brothers

started to change about yr6.
before senior school really

I think it's wrong.

I don't think it's wrong to be accepting of the way a child is, or to allow them to do the things they do, dressing up/ballet/whatever else, or even to be open to the possibility that when that child reaches adulthood they may decide that yes, they do actually want to change gender. But I don't think it's right to change the identity of such a young child who does not have the maturity to be able to make such decisions. And at eight no child is mature enough to know that they want to change their gender, not for certain.

And what happens if you change your little boy into a little girl or vice versa and when puberty hits they realize this isn't what they want? How much pressure will they feel to conform to what they have become?

Carrie, GD is a bit more extreme than what you describe, I think that is why people have such a hard time understanding it as they can only really draw on their own experience and most of us wanted to be something else at some point! (I wanted to be a horse although no-one was in a rush to book human/equine transspecies surgery).

Wannabe, to a certain extent I agree, it had never crossed my mind that ds would make any changes before puberty at the very earliest and even then it would have been a long discussion about whether that was too young. Of course my experiences make me feel even more strongly that children will often grow out of it before puberty meaning even someone like me who has some small experience of it is less supportive of making changes than I perhaps should be IYSWIM!

hesayshesays, well when i was 8 i really really wanted to be a boy.

didn't wear girls things, had short hair and played with "boys" things
all the things some people class as boys things

but i'm very glad i wasn't given the choice of being asked well do you want us to help you turn into a boy then, as i would have said yes

i'm glad i wasn't given testosterone aand everything else that comes with it.

8 is too young to decide this kind of thing imo.

Carrie, I also said it was too young, I am not disagreeing with that. I am however disagreeing that a parent would decide to go with gender realignment at such a young age based on what you have described. I could be wrong as I cannot speak for all parents and some can be rather odd, however, for me, you are describing a normal child.