"Trans teen describes the war with his body which started when he was just 10 - as he nervously embarks on transition surgery"

[pisacake]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5100541/Trans-teen-s-war-body-started-just-10.html

"Theo Ramos learned how to cut himself when he was in fifth grade, when his body seemed to revolt.

Exploring online was easy, with hashtags like #scars, #hurt and #brokeninside.

Nothing made sense back then, but Theo absorbed what he saw on websites like a religion. "

"Back then, Theo felt that his body was rebelling in disturbing ways. He developed breasts and got his period. He felt like a boy, but every month, the cramps reminded him of reality.

He became a child at war with his body. He wasn't aware of words like gender dysphoria or transgender; those would come later."

"Ramos was bewildered — she saw no prior clues her child felt this way. And she was no stranger to transgender, gay, lesbian and bisexual issues — she worked in a clinic for HIV patients.

Theo was involuntarily committed for 72 hours so doctors could determine whether he was a danger to himself or others. Soon, therapists and doctors had a diagnosis: gender dysphoria, a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which they identify."

"Theo again turned to the internet. He started cutting around his thighs and hips — his 'problem areas.'

When Theo saw thin kids online, he looked at his own baby fat and, once again, didn't fit in. He wouldn't eat for days, or he'd force himself to throw up."

"If only Theo could become a boy through hormone therapy — that, he thought, would solve his problems."

"Theo insisted testosterone could bring peace with his body: 'If I could just start T therapy, I would know I was on the way to being who I'm supposed to be.'

Theo wanted testosterone, but his anxiety sometimes made him question his desires. It became a regular topic of conversation between mother and son.

'I'm nervous,' Theo said in the spring of 2016. He was 14. 'What if I do change my mind?'

'Well, what if you do?' asked his mother.

'I can always stop,' Theo said.

Ramos shook her head. 'The changes are permanent.'"

So basically this girl has gone from learning about self-harm online and being (rightly) told by adults that it's bad, to being told that the reason she self-harms is because she's actually a boy, and there is a cure for her condition ('gender disphoria'), and this cure isn't self-harm at all, oh no it's 'hormone therapy'.

Nonsensical of course but such is the current orthodoxy.

More here:

www.canadianinquirer.net/2017/11/23/years-into-journey-transgender-teen-still-finding-himself/

"Sometimes, Theo can’t handle it all.

He went months without cutting. But right before Thanksgiving 2016, something triggered him – not his gender dysphoria, he said, but a long-ago traumatic event. He relapsed.

The cuts on his arm were so deep that he ended up with dozens of stitches and was sent to a live-in treatment facility for six weeks.

When he was released, he went back to school — the arts magnet program, where he still felt embraced by the community. But at home, there was another crisis. His family’s house was in foreclosure, and they would soon have to move. Theo had lived in the home his entire life. The family was stressed, and Theo dreamed of the day he could help out financially.

Theo and his mom visited Starbucks one afternoon for an escape. Theo shook his head when Lori asked if he wanted anything. He wore teal press-on nails on nine fingertips. He sank into a chair, pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and drew a diagram.

“This is like my depression and self-harm,” he said, pointing at two circles. “They both tie in together. I self-harm because I’m depressed, and I’m depressed because I self-harm. It’s like a vicious cycle.”

Theo leaned over and drew a smiley face on his mom’s shoulder.

“Are you going to promise not to self-harm?” Lori asked.

Theo shrugged. “I’m not going to make any promises not to, because s— happens.”

Lori sighed. She said one blessing was that Theo didn’t end up getting hormone therapy."

"Lori said she believes Theo’s gender dysphoria is a component of the overall depression, not the root cause. Now, Theo said, he attributes about 15 per cent of his anxiety and depression to gender issues; it used to be 95 per cent."

So basically depressed, self-harming girl told she is actually transgender and this will solve all her problems. But she actually isn't.

Teen struggling with mental health and self mutilating told that medically sanctioned mutilation will solve their mental health problems - well of course... if you're living in the "upside down" that makes total sense channels inner Eleven.

Theo has now converted to Islam

And wears a niqqab

Fucking hell.

And laws being changed on the basis of this?

Bloody hell! I don't really understand, though... They diagnosed gender dysphoria, which is presumably a mental health condition. How did the "she's really a boy" bollocks begin?

How did the "she's really a boy" bollocks begin?

If I was clever enough, that would be the basis of a thesis to end all theses.

His mum sounds very sensible.

I know what you mean, Datun, but I really meant it's unusual to actually be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, isn't it? I assumed it was the medical professions way of telling the person concerned that it was a condition (like that thing where people imagine they're actually disabled when they're not) and they hadn't in fact been "born in the wrong body".
Am I making any sense?

Theo has now converted to Islam And wears a niqqab

It's a hijab. Niqab is full-face.

I don't really understand the full story.

Firstly I assumed she was Hispanic, but being Filipino makes slightly more sense as there is a Muslim population there.

But then it's all sort of glossed over as they centre everything on 'transgender'.

A hijab-wearing Muslim is not a boy. Hijabs are for girls.

But she has got this transgender diagnosis, and has apparently been followed by the AP for a year as a result. The real story is a confused girl suffering from depression, but nobody wants to say that actually maybe the transgender thing is just an attempt to deal with her issues and neither the cause nor solution to them, because transgenderism is a sacred cow that it's a criminal offence to deny.

I don't really know how she squares being a boy with wearing a hijab.

I read the last two lines as suggesting that she now recognised herself as a girl who's a bit uneasy about it rather than a boy in the wrong body. She hasn’t had testosterone etc.

This is so reminiscent of the body dysmorphia experienced by anorexics. As with anorexics, as long as the self-hatred goes on, there can be no solution. I find it impossible to believe that even after the operations etc that the person feels as though they are the other sex, just as it's impossible for an anorexic to think that once she's got down to a certain weight she'll believe she's thin enough.

pisa, yes, hijab, sorry, typing fast and not making much sense....

As you say, the hijab is specifically female so it's unclear why someone who identifies as male 50% of the time and gender neutral 50% of the time would feel compelled to wear one... Though TBH it's a rather confusing article, perhaps trying to cover a lot of ground in a short period, and the recent religious conversion was just tagged onto the end shortly before copy was filed

Ok so this seems to be the fullest version of the story:

P1 www.apnews.com/eae27698c2ce4e74adae360e27c2cb66/Theo's-journey:-A-transgender-child-at-war-with-his-body [the Daily Mail story above]
P2 www.apnews.com/1237bf0b914a46319849fabed81d4403/Coming-out-as-trans-just-start-of-journey-for-teen,-family

Theo knew he sometimes “presented like a girl” — like when he would Snapchat crowns of flowers on photos of his kitten, or how he colored his hair every shade of the rainbow. And he spent hours watching makeup artists on YouTube, because, he said with a shrug, “you can be a boy and like makeup.”

In those days, he longed to take testosterone to fully embrace his gender. He begged his mom. He contemplated “top surgery,” or gender reassignment surgery.

He also acknowledged his sexuality, or tried to, and grasped that his gender was separate from his sexuality. First, he landed on bisexual as a preference: “If I find you aesthetically pleasing, I probably want to get in on that aesthetic,” he joked.

But to Lori, it didn’t matter — she wasn’t letting him go on dates anyway.

“I date,” Theo insisted, rolling his eyes at his mother and shaking his turquoise pixie haircut.

Lori shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.”

In August 2016, Theo began eighth grade, already older than many of his peers — he’d been held back a grade — and he turned 15 two months later.

Soon after, he walked up to his mom as she read in their living room.

“I might be gender fluid,” Theo announced.

P3 www.apnews.com/6041e47aa1874274b87004bbb21fe0cf/Years-into-journey,-transgender-teen-still-finding-himself

Theo’s now 16. He prefers “he/they” pronouns and sometimes calls himself “the boy prince” on social media. He embraces his gender fluidity, meaning that whether he identifies as male or female can change, depending on day or mood.

Sitting in his bedroom, Theo snuggled a stuffed animal named Strawberry, and ran a manicured hand through blue and pink hair while singing to Disney’s “Moana” soundtrack. He said he surprised himself by liking the movie because he doesn’t normally enjoy such girly things — but something in the theme of self-discovery struck a chord.

These days, Theo’s father is more accepting, in part because Theo tries not to talk about gender or sexuality around him.

---

It's not clear if the issue is that she is simply that she is a lesbian, or bisexual, but that's problematic for her conservative father.

You can identify as male or female, flitting between the two depending on the day or mood??