Children of 12 to be allowed gender drugs to prepare for sex change

[femtastic]

Do you consider this to be a positive development?

Children of 12 to be allowed gender drugs to prepare for sex change

CHILDREN as young as 12 are to be allowed drugs to prepare them for changing sex.

The controversial treatment halts puberty, stunting sex organs and preventing the growth of facial hair and sperm in boys, and breasts in girls.

The injections, previously available only to over-15s with gender identity disorder, are being made available to younger people under an NHS study after pressure from families and doctors.

Doctors admit most children with the problem do not go on to have a sex change, often turning out to be gay. But blocking puberty hormones can make surgery easier if they need it.

Dr Polly Carmichael, who runs Britain?s only GID clinic in London, said several under-16s were prepared to sign up for the jabs, until now available only in the US, Holland and Germany at that age.

She said: ?The majority of our referrals are 15-plus. Of the children aged 12 and 14, there?s a number who are keen to take part.?

The study was approved by the ­National Research Ethics Service, which oversees hundreds of NHS projects.

Also I think this trans "I'm going to kill myself if you don't support me" is emotional blackmail

well let's just call their bluff then.

what kind of loony world are we living in where a 6 yo can be described as effeminate?

i am amazed that some people in minority groups can be so down on others in minority groups.

why not just let people decide for themselves what is best for them?

my uncle once made me roar with laughter - he is a gay man, who told me, without a flicker of a smile, that gypsies should be rounded up and shot.

pot, kettle, black! and so to this thread...

i appreciate a debate, but some people are so unable to even try to understand something from anothers point of view that to discuss it is pointless.

lockets, i hope your DN finds some peace.

Here here VicarInATutu.....

Why would it be directed at you? I didn't think that.....

Who is the minority being down on another group? Surely not women? Last time I checked, we weren't in a minority.

And yes, the whole point is that people should decide how they wish to express themselves. Eliminating the polarisation of gender (not sex) would allow transpeople to live in society without drastic surgery and potentially damaging hormone treatment. Sex is not a feeling, it's a biological fact. Gender is a different matter entirely and that is a societal (patriarchal, in fact) problem.

Sorry that your nephew is so troubled, lockets. Wouldn't it be lovely if society would allow him to express himself however he wants?

I find your views on transgendered people really interesting Dittany and thought-provoking.

Do you believe it's ever possible for a man (or boy) to undertake surgery and live as a woman, with all the richness of experience that is, all its annoyances and responsibilities? Would you see someone who looked and acted like a woman, had the physical attributes of a woman, felt like a woman, still as a man playing pretend?

I'll get out of my depth really quickly on this, but interested in your view. If the man has breasts - through surgery - and has changed his appearance so much that society treats him as a woman, then surely the only barrier to true womanhood is the ability to have periods and give birth? His experience of life is viewed through the lens of womanhood apart from this.

Ok but generally it's the whole package that people want to change, not simply sexual organs.

It's a switch of gender that transgender people want - do you think this is unachievable?

Yes, but remove the social construction of what it is to be a woman, how important/significant is the biological reality of being a woman...? Experience of periods/ breasts differ massively between women. We can give birth and be pregnant but physically this a tiny percentage of our lives....the other impacts are all created by society.

As women our actual reality and response to that through a filter of the performance of feminity a socially constructed reality...not a biological reality. I am still really struggling with why trans gender conflict with feminism.

I would think you were (a) mad.....

Actually re-reading your post, I think I understand your viewpoint now. If you believe all typically 'female' behaviour is not a given, and is a result of societal constructs, then I can see that it does seem impossible.