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.

Dittany, even 0.7 of the population of the planet is a fuck of a lot of people. And plenty of human beings are born sterile (non-functioning ovaries/testes), however they feel about their sex classification.
Throughout human history there have been societies able to accept and accommodate people who do not fit into the binary sex divide, the concept of gender as a sliding scale is not some nasty modern invention that was brought about by the internet. In the contemporary developed world, transpeople are one of the most victimized, abused classes of people around. Why do you think their suffering is no big deal, or justifiable?

There are trans people who want to be considered trans for their whole lives - they are not asking to fit into a binary sex divide.

There are trans people who see being trans as being something they go through before becoming part of the binary sex divide. After that they don't want to be referred to as trans. They want to be just male or just female.

So both groups of people aren't going to be accommodated by a society that doesn't believe in a binary sex divide. The second group are reinforcing the idea of a divide - they are simply moving that divide to be situated in the brain rather than they body.

Surely this thread isn't about victimising or abusing anyone; it is about questioning how children who are questioning their gender and sex are best served by the medical establishment. A lot of children who are questioning their sex will cease to do so as adults and will try to break down gender roles, or be transgender without being transsexual, or be transsexual without wanting surgery. But society objects to people who try to break down gender or sex without surgery, as in France where a Trans MTF was legally denied rights on the basis that hormones had not made their breasts female enough in appearance.

A person can go through gender reassignment surgery at any point in their lives. Doing it earlier will make somebody appear more like a stereotype of the opposite sex than if they didn't have it earlier. That is serving the needs of wider society to reinforce stereotypes of appearance. One of the reasons for giving these drugs earlier is to stop boys growing into the height of an average male (my height, in fact) because being that tall isn't feminine enough, or to stop them from having a narrow pelvis relative to their waist (like I have,in fact, and it functions adequately as a female pelvis) because having such a figure isn't feminine enough, according to society.

I don't see how that is supporting trans people at all. It is simply reinforcing ideas about what a feminine body is, despite the fact that humans have become increasingly less sexually dimorphic. It makes it easier for society to accept trans people, because those trans people look more how society wants them to look, but it does nothing to break down the sex binary or support the trans people who don't want to radically alter their appearance.

Dittany, I have no objection to a sex binary (with the exception of a third gender for intersex people); I object to physical characteristics that aren't binary being considered part of that binary. The binary should be based on reproductive organs, and that isn't what a lot of this hormone treatment is about. In fact, according to the US doctor who carries out these treatments on children, it will make most of them infertile. Given that some FTM trans people want to get pregnant post surgery, I don't see how that is justifiable.

My point is that these treatments are being justified by ideas about what trans adults want, but trans adults don't all want the same thing, and don't all have the same attitudes to the sex binary or the gender binary. Last time we had a thread on this topic, various people came on and argued things like a MTF trans person has always been born a woman and has been always had a woman's mind and body, just one with a penis. After the thread I went away and read various stuff written by trans people, and there is a huge diversity of opinion. The views put forward in that thread are, as far as I can see, a minority opinion among trans people.

surely feelings are also truth?

as true as gender

if i feel that i am a man - that is true to me
how can you dismiss anyone's feelings?

I am out of my depth with the talk of patriarchy, but I feel very strongly that just as a man shouldn't be allowed to tell me, as a person how I feel about stuff, I shouldn't be allowed to tell someone else how they feel.

Is good manners, no?

I had a very good friend at uni, born female - had crushes on guys but always felt uncomfortable being 'female'. She had a gender reassignment is now male (and is very happy) - she still fancies guys and is now a gay man.

I am delighted to live in a world that understands this can be the case.

Re-reading I should have used he in the final clause of the penultimate sentence. I think of him, talk to him as male. Albeit one who has a very good emotional vocabulary.

Feelings are as true as gender, as neither materially exists. Someone's sex does exist.

surely we are more than female or male.

if feelings are to be denied then what defines us?

What are you talking about Baskingseals? This is a thread about giving children hormone treatments so as to make it easier for them to change the appearance of the biological characteristics that are part of their sex through surgery and further hormone treatments.

It isn't about changing somebody's feelings or gender. It is about changing their body through medical intervention.

because of the way they feel about their bodies

But you have said that people's feelings define whether they are male or female. In that case there is no such thing as a female or male body, so what do they need to change their bodies for?

if children are experiencing these feelings about their bodies, then these feelings are as valid, whatever the reason for them.

to understand themselves better these feelings need to be expressed and acknowledged. changing their bodies may not be the answer to how they feel, but to deny their feelings, imho, is to deny who they are.

But nobody is denying them an opportunity to express their feelings. They receive counselling, just like any other group of children who have issues with their bodies - be that BIID, anorexia or self harm.

up thread a poster mentioned lack of proper counselling for people with transgender issues.

i think dittany also said that in dealing with trans people mistake feelings for truth.

obviously dismantling gender stereotypes is the way forward. but i think that the way people feel is central to their identity and how can anybody discover who they are and where they fit into soceity without accepting the validity of their own feelings.

He's six years old. Why is nobody helping him with this.

You're taking the word of a six year old that he shouldn't have a penis. I don't know what to say to that. Your family needs to get to the root of what is causing these feelings.

thats really offensive you're not a fly on the wall in that family, you don't know what is or isnt being done.
I know lockets already said this but it needs to be said.

Sorry, I can't follow your line of argument. Transsexual people feel their biological sex is untrue, not their gender. How does dismantling gender stereotypes validate their feelings?

I don't think any poster, including Lockets, should be posting about this six year old.

I don't think any poster, including Lockets, should be posting about this six year old.

I think she's valid to post thinfgs that she feels are relevant to her

if we lived in a soceity which was more accepting of individuals' interpretation of their sex it would be easier for people who questioned their sex, and soceity's expectations of them because of their sex.

What expectations should society have of someone based on their perceived sex?

well none really. in an ideal world.

So you don't agree with provision of women's health services then?

are women's health services an expectation?

An exception to what?