FOX News: Transgender girl drops class after 200 protest for and against her.

originally posted by: poncho1982
a reply to: hounddoghowlie

So sad that they realized too late that you cannot change chromosomes. No matter what they "feel" like they are.

Again, biology is not that simple so we know that chromosomes are not the sole arbiter of gender either. Those of you who have taken advanced biology courses perhaps at college already know this but….

There are people born with XXY or XYY chromosomes for instance. There are also people with completely normal XX or XY chromosomes who have androgen insensitive syndromes.

1% of the population is the approximation of the kids who are Intersex, the ones whose bodies not just brains are a mixture of male and female traits, what they used to call hermaphrodites, or kids with CAIS and PAIS like several women athletes were discovered to be or many other ways a person can be born of mixed physical traits.


Please if you can, look this stuff up if you are not familiar with it so that we can discuss this stuff on an adult educational level.

Nature is never 100% exact with anything so this should not surprise you. Most people only have the most basic education with regards to biology based on the dumbed-down version which is taught in high school. Obviously the focus is on what is most common but that is not by any means the full picture.

The process which makes some babies male and some babies female is also never 100% perfect in every case.

I am sorry that I was born as one of the outliers to what normally goes on but no amount of wishing it away or pretending that there are real, physical biological reasons behind why I and others feel the way they do will make it so.

originally posted by: OpenMindedRealist

The boy in the OP is in high school and only now deciding he is transgender.

You need to read the Chaz Bono story. He "knew", but he didn't "know".

Bono was attracted to girls and decided he must be gay. “I didn’t know anything about transgendered people or transitioning or the difference between gender and gender identity of any of those issues,” he said.

During high school and after, Bono began dating women. He also formed his own conception of the varieties of lesbian experience to try to account for the desire he felt to be a man, based in part on observing a lesbian couple who were friends of his family and had what he called “a more traditional kind of butch-femme relationship.”

“I formulated the idea that there was a portion of the lesbian community who were more like men and wished that they were men, and tried to make the best of it,” Bono said.

But all was not well. “I still had this feeling of something not being right about me,” he said, referring to his failure to come to terms with his sexual identity.

Bono experienced a realization about his true identity in about 2000 at, of all places, “a big lesbian barbecue,” he said. He looked around at the diverse crowd. “You had all your major lesbian groups represented,” he said. “But no matter how they dressed, or how they expressed themselves, they were all comfortable with the core female identity,” he said. “And I was struck that this was something I had never felt, something I had never been.”

His old theory about lesbians who wanted to be men “went out the window,” he said. “That’s really the first time that I began to think that I may be transgendered.”

The realization came with a dose of fear about the risks of transitioning, especially as a lesbian activist, a public figure and a member of a famous family. “It really scared me a lot,” he said. “I sort of had this self-knowledge of who I was [but] I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Bono went into a holding pattern for several years, afraid to begin the change, though he did get clean and sober in 2004. His desire to become a man also affected his work as an activist. “I felt I was a fraud, that I was trying to pass as a lesbian when I wasn’t,” he said. “I felt like a hypocrite.”

weldbham.com...

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Annee

There's fat kid camps, too... doesn't mean that the existence of such facilities changes the reality. I've said this several times, and I'm not moving off of it: This is being driven by little more than politics and pandering. The biochemical difference in brain function mentioned multiple times in this thread is actually counter-productive to your argument because some (socially acceptable to call them what they are) mental disorders produce them as well.
Schizophrenia produces abnormal brain waves: news.mit.edu...
Schizophrenia and biochemical abnormalities: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Did you bother to read the research I linked at all?

Let me dumb it down if not:

The research has found that the actual physical structure of the part of the brain which deals with gender in girls like me matches the same in physical structure in the same part of the brain in girls who were born with female genitalia.

In other words. Despite being born with a penis, the physical structure of my brain, the organ which defines who we are and how we interact with and perceive the world, was always female and always was going to be female.


This has nothing to do with "abnormal brain waves" or schizophrenia but rather shows that the process to masculinize a developing fetus (since all people started out as female initially) is not always 100 percent effective in masculinizing the brain.

edit on 3-9-2015 by JadeStar because: (no reason given)

a reply to: JadeStar
I'm having to jump in here again and say this because i feel this is where it cannot be taken any further and i dont even understand how people attempt to argue against this.

Gender is an observation of what genitals someone has at their birth, it wasnt assigned to you. A doctor did not decide you were a boy or a girl, just like you did not get to decide. He made an observation of your genitalia. It is that simple.

Life is not as simple as gender. Throughout your life you feel differently because your brain is more like a females. Ok, so things arent as simple for you, but you were still at the moment of birth what gender that doctor observed, therefor born a male. How can you possibly argue that? Do we need to get the NFL replay rule so we can have them run back the tape to make sure he made the right call?

How about we look at this whole brain/genital mismatch thing in a completely different way and one which probably best underscores that having a penis does not make a person a man any more than not having one makes a person a woman if the brain of the person does not match the genitalia they possess?

Someone who was born with a penis but due to a botched circumcision was sexually reassigned to be female and was raised as a girl without their knowledge. Might their brain tell the real tale behind where our perception of our gender comes from?

I give you the story of David Peter Reimer (August 22, 1965 – May 5, 2004)

a Canadian man born biologically male but raised female following medical advice and intervention after his penis was accidentally destroyed during a botched circumcision in infancy.

Psychologist John Money oversaw the case and reported the reassignment as successful and as evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. Academic sexologist Milton Diamond later reported that Reimer failed to identify as female since the age of 9 to 11 and transitioned to living as a male at age 15. Well known in medical circles for years anonymously as the "John/Joan" case, Reimer later went public with his story to help discourage similar medical practices. He later committed suicide after suffering years of severe depression, financial instability, and a troubled marriage

So despite having a vagina and being raised as a girl David knew he was really male because his brain structure was that of a male thus proving gender is in the brain not in the genitals.

This doctor thought "ok no penis, no problem, make the boy a girl and they can have the closest thing to a normal life". So they raised that baby as a girl. But even as a baby he rejected it. As a toddler, rejected it. As a child rejected it, as a teen rejected it.

Sound familiar?

And eventually he found out the truth, struggled with depression for several years then killed themselves.

Just as many transgender people who are forced into adult hood in a body alien to their brain often do.

Because gender identity is hard-wired. They TRIED to make a baby change sex and they COULDN'T.

So when people like burdman and others act as though we aren't born this way or that it's some lets-pretend act they are just making up a lie for themselves because they aren't comfortable with the obvious demonstrable truth that gender is hard-wired in the brain and transgender people are an example of that.

Facts: gleaned from my parents in this thread where they talked about raising me:

according to my mom even before i was born she knew i was a girl because i didn't kick as much as boys do.

according to my dad i have always been very feminine and gentle.

according to older sisters and brother I was always playing with dolls, playing house, etc.

according to my Mom i was the most 'girly girl' of her three daughters.

according to me, i never was a boy. i never felt like a boy, talked like a boy nor acted like one.

i went to school as the girl i am.

i joined and was accepted into the Girl Scouts of Western Washington as the girl I am

because of medical intervention i never experienced a male's puberty. testosterone never coursed through my body

my puberty consisted of the intake of estrogen and my body developing accordingly

i socialized as the girl i am and became friends with other girls. my best friends always have been girls

i graduated high school (with honors) as the girl i am

i have a birth certificate, driver's license and passport which have an F on them. the only one which needed changed was the birth certificate.

i am in my 2nd year at a university as a young woman and am in a sorority.

the majority of my life from Age 7 on hasn't been much different than most girls and young women.

But some people would have wanted me going to the boys room or "just suck it up and be a boy"…..that unfortunately ignores the scientific reality that I never was one to begin with.

Ignore is the root of the word Ignorance.

Deny Ignorance even if it means looking within yourself at what you thought you knew.

originally posted by: Bundy
a reply to: JadeStar
I'm having to jump in here again and say this because i feel this is where it cannot be taken any further and i dont even understand how people attempt to argue against this.

Gender is an observation of what genitals someone has at their birth, it wasnt assigned to you. A doctor did not decide you were a boy or a girl, just like you did not get to decide. He made an observation of your genitalia. It is that simple.

Life is not as simple as gender. Throughout your life you feel differently because your brain is more like a females. Ok, so things arent as simple for you, but you were still at the moment of birth what gender that doctor observed, therefor born a male.

Because no one scanned my brain at birth. They went by a crude "ok lets look" body morphology approach which is like 99% accurate usually but not always and certainly wasn't in my case.

Doctors sometimes get it wrong and this happens more often than you probably imagine. Ask any obstetrician.

This is why my birth certificate says female on it today.

originally posted by: OpenMindedRealist
a reply to: burdman30ott6
You're not getting it. Emotional testimony supersedes facts and hard science.

You have to feel the magic.
Maybe psychadelics could help.

I've provided the hard science.

Ignorance and dogma on ATS seem to ignore it.

Maybe scientific literacy could help.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: Deaf Alien
a reply to: OpenMindedRealist

Nah. Comparing transgender people with people who believe and act like animals is an insult. Someone in this thread compared transgender people to sociopaths who cut off dogs and cats heads.

The clinical zoanthropy comparison DOES NOT equal the sociopath comparison, my friend. Do not attempt to lump the two together.

From a purely pragmatic approach (which is what science is all about) why is the zoanthropy comparison not appropriate? Are they not both examples of an individual believing they are something completely different than what the scientifically are?

No. Because no person who thinks they are a dog has the physical brain of a dog. In that case the science would say that person had a normal human brain therefore: not a dog and thus delusional

In my case the science says that I have the physical brain of a human female and thus am in fact a human female and thus not delusional in saying that's what I am despite my different anatomy at birth.

But people ignorant of that scientific fact or wish it didn't exist tend to want to make up ridiculous comparisons like you did.

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: burdman30ott6

There are differences between the male and female brain. Studies have been done comparing the brains of transgender male-to-females and female-to-males with the brains of cisgender females and males. The transgender male-to-females had brains that were more feminized than the cisgender males - and that was BEFORE any hormones. Same with the female to male brain being more masculinized.

I have yet to see any brain scan comparisons of anyone who is transpecies to determine if their brains are more "animalized" than full humans. If you've got any links to said brain scan comparisons, I would be willing to believe they are the same as transgender people. Otherwise, it's an invalid comparison.

Thank you… But you and I both know people claim to be all about science until it undermines their own personal dogma, political view or biases.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Annee

I understand...

If you answer it scientifically, then you're forced to acknowledge there is no difference. If you answer it emotionally, you're forced to state something utterly ridiculous and support a manner of equality which allows a human being to live out a mental fantasy of being a pooch, behaving like a pooch, and being provided accommodations of a pooch.

It's not an easy question to answer while toeing a politically motivated positional line.

So since you are a man of science why do you reject the wealth of research on this subject? I've put it all out there. Have you read it?

originally posted by: OpenMindedRealist
a reply to: Deaf Alien
And for two? For three?

Probably should come up with a few backups. Your excuse that "it's so rare" also applies to gender dysphoria, which affects less than half a percent of the population.

Gender dysphoria affects roughly the same amount of people as who are currently born with some form of autism.

See the following conversation from another thread:

originally posted by: joeraynor

I think knowing that the issue affects 1 in 200 is heavily useful. It allows us to know that it is roughly an order of magnitude less common than homosexuality / lesbianism, but also around the same prevalence as the HIV infection rate (which is not to say this condition is a disease or undesirable, but happens to occur in near identical numbers), and is thus in a very rough way a social and medical issue of about the same magnitude.

It should also be noted that:

Today, the CDC estimates that one in 150 8-year-olds in the U.S. has an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.

- CDC

So about the same as the rate of childhood autism today.


Also worth noting:

originally posted by: EKron
Transgender is a mighty broad spectrum of of different expressions.

Here is data from recent research compiled from Social Security and 2010 Census records on the likely number of post transition transgender people in this country

Likely Transgender Individuals in U.S. Federal Administrative Records and the 2010 Census

“This paper utilizes changes to individuals ’first names and sex-coding in files from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to identify people likely to be transgender. I first document trends in these transgender-consistent changes and compare them to trends in other types of changes to personal information. I find that transgender-consistent changes are present as early as 1936 and have grown with non-transgender consistent changes. Of the likely transgender individuals alive during 2010, the majority change their names but not their sex-coding. Of those who changed both their names and their sex-coding, most change both pieces of information concurrently, although over a quarter change their name first and their sex-coding 5-6 years later. Linking individuals to their 2010 Census responses shows my approach identifies more transgender members of racial and ethnic minority groups than other studies using, for example, anonymous on line surveys. Finally, states with the highest proportion of likely transgender residents have state-wide laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression. States with the lowest proportion do not.”

Source

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: MystikMushroom


I'm sorry, but I'm not on board with the constant changes expected in the masses to accommodate extremely discrete percentages of special needs people.

Finally the truth came out. You are afraid of change.

Unfortunately for you things such as the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed and signed in to law by George H.W. Bush before I was born. idk if you voted for him but he and those who voted for it in Congress thought it was the right thing to do, which of course it is.

I understand fear of change, especially among older people but nothing stays the same and the arc of history has been towards treating more people who may have been misunderstood with dignity and respect for who they are as more is learned about them by the majority.

That's only reason I bothered coming out to ATS or participate in these threads. (I'd rather be posting astronomy/space research tbh)

It's also why my mom and dad came here and answered some of your questions about raising me. They saw some of the ignorance in a thread about a transgender girl being raised and saw many ATS members ignorance of transkids, not as a thing to be mocked and laughed at but enlightened in the spirit of this site's motto: Denying Ignorance. They also held many of the same ideas about transgender people many of you do i.e.: "Its a choice", "they're delusional", "God doesn't make mistakes.", etc….Until I was born.

They also know it is easy for many to fear or hate people who they don't know, don't understand and whose experience is alien to your own. Both sides of my family have had their share of bigots and my parents had to deal with them.

I am from a conservative family, and a religious and fairly private one at that. We suffer no fools nor seek attention.

So I am not a "social justice warrior."

But I was also raised to be a critical thinker and question dogma and authority (which is why I joined ATS in the first place).

I am ok with people disagreeing so long as the reasons they disagree have a valid factual basis and are presented in a mature, level headed way.

What I have real problems with are people who perhaps out of fear, ignorance or something worse attack, belittle, disrespect, dehumanize and bully an individual or a group of people on the basis of how they were born be it "race"/ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or even the faith or religion someone is born into.

People can agree to disagree and everyone is entitled to an opinion but unlike people not all opinions are created equal or have equal scientific validity and merit.

originally posted by: Deaf AlienFirst of all it is illegal to give a sex reassignment surgery to children, rightly so.

No it isn't. It just can not be done without a parental or guardian approval and can not be done below a certain age (it was 16 when I last checked which admittedly was years ago and that too may have changed.)

I had mine at 17, technically still a child by law.

Secondly, children image themselves to be different kinds of things. That's normal. Those are called phases. Even if they consistently identify themselves as opposite sex,

Not usually if it goes on for years. That takes it out of being a phase and all psychologists will tell you that. This is why such children are evaluated by them to be careful that it isn't a phase.

puberty will decide that permanently.

The preferred action now is to prevent puberty in the first place in cases like mine where there was no doubt in my mind regarding who and what I was. If someone is truly gender dysphoric puberty is not a cure, its a curse and you can ask any transgender woman who went through male puberty how they liked their body going through permanent and quite often irreversible changes.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: DrakeINFERNO

Good job it isn't a mental disorder then isn't it....

Dude grows up in a male body. Dude has all the male equipment. After 13 years in this body, dude suddenly thinks he's not a dude and is in the wrong body.

Sounds like the dude is denying reality.

No but you are. The reality is some girls grow up in male bodies before they can change them. You know... unless they kill themselves.

No, they don't. We all grow up in our own bodies. It is up to us to accept the reality of the body we were born with.

Some people can't accept the reality and think they are supposed to be someone or something else. Some people kill themselves because they can't handle that truth.

What you said is like saying: "An autistic child has a choice. They can choose to be normal and suck it up or they can kill themselves but society should not accommodate them."


If you know anything about the history of how autistics were treated you should be appalled and if you don't know that history, start googling because it will sound all too familiar to where you are coming from in your post.

Again… This time in shorter words: Physical brain difference with body - female brain in male body or male brain in female body, not mental illness, nor delusion. Supported by peer reviewed and scientifically valid neuroscience of the last 20 years.

Let's give you breasts and a vagina and see how much you can "just accept it".

Jade you have to look at the other side of the coin. The girls in the locker room felt uncomfortable enough to stage a protest, in high school. A walk out protest. Serving the needs of one does not vindicate the need of the transgender. I hate to go into the law here, but the law says penis = boy. I understand that surgery is NOT available to a minor. I also understand that 100+ girls were NOT ok with it.

The result ended up the same in the end. Lila had her own locker room instead of staff facility room because everyone else left.

People could donate money for them to build a unisex locker room.

a reply to: JadeStar

I just got back and read the rest of your posts, and if you don't mind I would like to answer you.

First of all let us putt aside all that bigotry and ignorance accusations, so we can make the air more breathable and people more willing to get your point.
What is not ok about your replies in all of these threads is that you make everything so personally. We talk, here and in other posts about trans issues as a general topic, and people express their opinions, justified or not. But then you come in and make it all about you and your feelings and your childhood and your parents and so on; which I am sorry to say is a cheap and unfair tactic. Because further arguing with you will mean a direct attack on you. Can you see my point? And if everybody is willing to express their fair opinion about a general topic, most will restrain on expressing their opinion on you, personally. And if they do is a given that you will feel offended.

So let's put that aside too and make it clear once and for all that this is not about you. No matter how much you identify with the issue and how personal it is to you, I don't know you from Adam and Eve and I have no desire to discuss YOU. On contrary, I think you are brave and strong to put it all on the table like that, even if what it really does is restricting the logic in these discussions.

Now on the topic of the "scientific" part and the brain gender.
I understand that there are differences in the brain between male and female, which differences are set very early in the womb, and I agree with that. The brain scans show that. Ok.
But the same is available for schizophrenia, for ADHD, depression or any kind of mental disorder, big or small; their brain is working different from those of "normal" people.
What I don't understand and you failed to explain is how exactly the gender of the brain makes a person so compulsory wanting to be what it is not.

I am a woman, and for what is worth I always was a Tomboy of the highest degree. Always play with the boys, always acting and dressing like a boy, nagging my mother why she made me a girl cause I would have love it much better to be a boy. Even now, at the age of 44 and a lot more tame I hardly put a dress on, I never had long hair and I never get together with the girls. Everybody who knows me agrees that my head is often working like a man's head, whatever that means. Cause I surely love cat's pics in every way and form/

Is not a matter of estrogen, I look exactly like every other woman, I'm not hairy or strong boned, I don't have an Adam's apple. I've never been attracted to a woman, not even remotely, and believe me I tested myself.

But never even once in my life I was thinking that I am a man in a woman's body. I would have love to be a man, but I know beyond any shadow of doubt that I am a woman.
I never understood how could a person think like that unless there is a severe dissociation between perceived reality and the inner world of that person.

So let me understand this: what exactly in a persons brain makes him thinks the contrary of what it sees in the mirror?
Is not an overly gender-opposed behaviour and mannerism, because in that case I and the rest of Tomboys girls would be men and we are not.
Is not a sexual tendency because that will be simply homosexualism, and we will never talk about "5 years/old transgenders".

Let me put it other way. A woman knows she is a woman at first by seeing her body as compared with other children's body or with her parents; she get's it very early that she's more like mom and not like dad. Then she start feeling her body; the hormonal responses, the growth of breasts, the monthly period, the absence of hair on her face and so on. No matter how much she feels like a boy she can feel her body, and her body tells her ( and everyone else) what she is. Then later on the burning desire to become a mother, the feeling of a child in her womb, the milk accumulated in her breast, the birth giving and so on. Even her orgasma is different from a man.

Then again, how can someone deny and ignore all these real things and trust a fantasy existing only in its head?
I will quote that again:

The pro-transgender advocates do not want to know, said McHugh, that studies show between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Also, for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were “satisfied” with the operation “but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.”

So how exactly does a trans man knows he is a woman? What are the factors that contribute to his certainty, against all that is visible and sensory accessible?
Is that gender brain makes someone blind, or is this a compulsion so hard to restrain like Turrete syndrom for example?
Is this all about looks, pink nails and all that?
How strong must be that compulsion for a man to put on a wig and a skirt and make a freak show of himself? Is it really that uncontrollable?

And if it is, it doesn't look more like a personality disorder, where logic have no say at all? Which is, by the way, also very real and backed up by brain scans.

And how in the god's name can we start making transitions to a five y/o kid? Based on what kind of gender awareness?
All those science reports and links are meant to make this issue look set in stone; I mean, the brain is female so to hell with the body and all his complex functions, let's modify it to fit the image in the head. But maybe, just maybe is not so set in stone, and maybe there is a way to learn to live with it? Learn to be the gender the body was born with? especially at the age of five.

I don't know, and honestly I could never know what goes into a trans person head. I'm just wondering. At least in this boy's case it certainly looks like he is overworking it.

This is why most people tend to believe that being transgender is a mental disorder, specifically an identity disorder. The causes may be different, but the effects are strikingly similar.

I am glad that the medicine has a solution for this problem, and those people can finally find some relief, although someone posted links to show that transition doesn't really solve the problem. I have nothing against trans people, except the fact that they think the world should revolve around them, like this boy in the OP. And the fact that they are so readily offended about their condition, which is somehow understandable.
But there are much more serious medical conditions out there, that kill or disable people every day, and compared to that the problem of a confused boy who wants to shower with the girls seems really ridiculous. What he needs is not a cirque show in the media but parental love and guidance, psychological evaluation and if he is really trans, an appropriate treatment (transition or whatever).
And a serious dose of common sense as well.

a reply to: JadeStar

*sigh*

1. I'm in no way convinced the transgender stuff falls under the ADA, as it doesn't seem to be a disability. However, if it does, nothing in the ADA mandates pressing others into situations they flat out are not comfortable with. In other words, the right to equality does not trump anyone else's rights to the same.

2. No, I wouldn't say I fear change. Life itself is change. I resist change for the sake of change and change demanded of me merely to appease others. (This isn't me bristling at the concept that I feel fear, either. I'm pretty open and honest about my fears... I'm agoraphobic big time, HATE being around groups of people and large crowds in small spaces like malls at Christmastime and Airport security I can't even do. So yeah, I'm a big enough man to acknowledge my fears openly.)

3. You are absolutely correct when you assume that this is a topic I have no background or experience with. I grew up in the sticks, rural desert southwest with no internet, scarcely any TV, and have never been much of a man of the world. I'm not, however, an old dude... (at least I'm not gonna say 39 is "old") but I am Old School. A lot of the changes I've witnessed in this world, particularly over the past 10 years, have not been in my comfort zone whatsoever. I 100% support people's right to live THEIR OWN life however they see fit... but I 100% oppose any presumption of rights to force or expect others around them to change on demand. I hunt. I've been hunting since I was 8 years old... Interestingly, I've never drug a deer carcass or a moose haunch into a room full of non-hunters, flopped it down on a table, and started butchering it. I RESPECT THE FACT THAT OTHERS ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH ME FLAUNTING MY RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING IN FRONT OF THEM. Similarly I don't take a bag of donuts to a diabetes clinic and sit outside the place making a to do over them while the poor bastards who cannot eat them are coming and going. I have never gone into a Mosque or a Jewish temple with a shirt that said "Hey, eat more bacon!" I do not blare my music like an asshole even though Anchorage has no noise regulation. I don't prosyletize to people because I see no reason to rock their boat just because I can.

That's really what a lot of this crap boils down to. It's a respect issue. You're demanding respect... fine, I get that. Problem is, it ain't all about you. You gotta show a little of it too, and oftentimes that's going to include saying "Well damn, those folk over there aren't comfortable with sticking a transgendered individual into a setting like a locker room. I dig that and respect their thoughts because this kid in question isn't comfortable being in the other locker room for EXACTLY THE SAME REASON." The world sure as hell isn't going to lift even a finger to help you get respect if you don't grant them the respect of understanding that most people aren't going to immediately accept this relatively new phenomena and gracefully roll along with it.

originally posted by: WhiteHat
a reply to: JadeStar


And how in the god's name can we start making transitions to a five y/o kid? Based on what kind of gender awareness?

This single sentence encompasses my thoughts on childhood transgenderism (if that's a word)

Children are influenced. Mindsets CAN be influenced.

ETA - If it is hard to come out as a transgender, think of how hard it would be to come back from it. It DOES happen.