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.

I'm sorry this thread has got so cranky, because it's an important and complex subject. I have to be honest and say that I used to have very clear views (somewhat in line with dittany's) but I am so awed by the distress and conviction of TG children that I'm no longer sure what I think, or what I would do if it was my child...

All respect to you and your family, lockets. None of us have walked in your shoes, and I hope your dn has a happy life ahead of him.

It's a complete red herring as far as trans is concerned. Biological sexual ambiguity is one thing, wanting to change sex based on a feeling is another.

Being released from patriarchally designated gender roles would benefit all of us, trans included.

I think my question is very similar to k999s. I can't leave my female body behind...my question is what is the significance of that. If a man wants to live as a woman or vice versa...why do I care....the impact on my life of being a woman is for me a socially constructed reality in the main.

PonceyMcPonce wrote - "It might give them time to discover they are gay or straight."

Transsexuals can be homosexual, asexual, bisexual or heterosexual, which relates to their sexual identity, just like non-transsexuals. A child with a strong sense of their own sexual identity might still be unsure of their gender identity (linked to transsexualism), and vice versa.

I don't think the delayed puberty proposal is intended to help a child discover their sexuality. The idea appears to be to give a child as young as 12 about five years to decide if they are transsexual or not, and whether they prepared to e.g. have irreversible surgery and also become infertile in the new gender role.

Xposted! But I still think the fight against the men dominating in different spheres...is a different argument/fight to agreeing with trangender, that is about behaviours.

Dittany, if feminism is there to fight for women's rights, what about women who want to become men? Do feminists support that woman's choice?

FFS physical sex is NOT A BINARY DIVISION. Intersexuality and true hermaphroditism EXIST. Sex is a sliding scale. While I agree 100% that everyone would be better off if the rigid constructed divisions of gender were done away with, I am also in favour of support and understanding and possibly surgical/medical intervention for transpeople. The transpeople I know all say that they knew from a young age that they were not comfortable in their own bodies. Dittany, you state that you are your body, are comfortable in it, etc - now just try and imagine that you felt completely NOT at home in your body, that it felt alien to you every minute of every day. That's how a gender-dysphoric person feels.
Lockets, I wish your DN all the very best and hopes s/he finds a way to be comfortable in the world and his/her own body. FWIW I went through a phase of being concerned about my own DS and the people who were able to reassure me that he is not gender dysphoric were transpeople.

Not everyone can reproduce; does that mean they're not "real men" or "real women"?

Have you a link on that one, please, dittany?

"that sex is binary apart from a tiny number of exceptions"

It might not be tiny, it depends a little on definitions.

Using the broadest possible classification, 1 in 50 will not fit the dimorphic ideal.

If we use the strictest definition, we come up with a much smaller number, some 1 in 500.

I don't think anyone should say that 1.7% is overstated, it is accurate for the definition used.

You can say the definition is unhelpful and it might be, which is why I posted both ends of the spectrum (there are more interpretations within that range, as you might imagine).

But don't attempt to make this subject clear cut.

It is far too complicated for that.

Intersex people are not trans.

Transsexual people who consider themselves to be the opposite sex but do not want to have any kind of surgery are still transsexual. Most transgender people are not transsexual.