Tuesday, June 03, 2014

While family accepts transgender child, ignorant folks just can't handle it

Excellent video, excellent family. More like them are needed:



Of course, according to Equality Matters, SOME people (such as Fox News' Keith Ablow) are being nasty about the situation:

“From a personal, not a professional standpoint, were my daughter to assert that she were a boy, not a girl, there is no chance we would be headed to a surgeon’s office without a trial of anti-psychotic medication,”

Equality Matters points out that Ablow has no expertise in sexuality issues.  Equality Matters also points out:

 According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, gender identity is usually established by the age of four. Medical professionals note that denying medical treatment to transgender children can be harmful; Dr. Norman Spack of Children’s Hospital Boston, for instance, states that many children who don’t receive treatment resort to self-mutilation in an attempt to change their anatomies. According to Spack, the earlier children deemed to need treatment start receiving it, the easier of a time they'll have passing as the gender with which they identify and the less likely they'll be to require more radical treatments later in life.

The American Psychological Association has stated that it is “not helpful to force [a transgender child]  to act in a more gender-conforming way.” Family rejection of transgender youth has been linked to a series of negative health consequences.

5 comments:

Erica Cook said...

This made my sister cry a little. We talked about what good it would do. My dad even chimed in with what good a sister she is. Yes, I'm bragging about my family, can you blame me?

Anonymous said...

The term expert depends on who is making the observation. In my opinion, Dr. Albow is the expert. How could anyone logically believe a four year old child can make a decision such as this one. My daughter until the age of seven would act like a cat all day long everyday....my wife and I didn't begin treating her like an animal. Plus, when I was a little boy, I decided I wanted to be a ninja, my parents didn't buy me a sword....they groomed me to be a wall st investment banker. Not one child at the age of four can make a choice like this....that's why we raise children and don't put them in charge of Fortune 500 companies. This issue comes down to poor parental guidance, and I bet these parents are doing this to somehow impress people by showing them how progressive they are to their liberal friends or they're seeking some sort if fame....the problem is that it's coming at the sacrifice of their daughter.

BlackTsunami said...

So you prefer the word of one person who has no expertise in the matter against an entire organization full of members who HAVE studied the matter. Based on the rest of your statement, I would say that you have a personal bias which precludes you from making a sound judgement in this matter. I for one am sticking with the group with the experience rather than the one guy who has none.

Rosemary Waigh said...

Antipsychotic medications have serious side effects which may be permanent, and should only be prescribed to people who are actually suffering a psychotic break. AFAIK there is no evidence that antipsychotics change a person's gender identity.

Erica Cook said...

Actually it's pure logic that shows a 4 year old can determine their gender. Also, equating gender identity with playing pretend is insulting. For one thing, the theorys of psycho sexual development show that 4 years old is about the time when children begin to identify with their gender. At this time there is no case of a child's identifying gender from this age not being the gender they identify with as an adult, because psychological gender is set at birth and like many other aspects of one's sense of self is not fully realized until later, in this case between the ages of 4 and 7.

The real truth is this doesn't pass. At best if not treated the child will only consider suicide at some point in their life. At worst they will kill them self before the end of highschool. So this is a bit like climate change. You can say you don't believe it, but in the end it will kill your children if you don't.

The reality is, a child can go through a phase where they pretend to be an animal, they don't go through phases where they want to change their gender. The emotional trauma ignoring such things is life threatening, and no parent has the right to ignore something that can kill there child for the sake of image.