http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501367_162- ... -the-rise/

If they did listen after I said how I was Spiderman, maybe I could've received treatment to give me real Spidey Sense, and the genetics to spin webs and climb walls. I'm just a little jealous of 18 month olds that are capable of determining their sex. Not only is their brain apparently well developed enough to handle such a decision, but then they have parents with enough gullibility and money to pay a quack - sorry doctor to change them over before grade school is over.

What ever happened to letting nature decide and making the best of it? Nah, let's TOTALLY jack up a kid's hormones and genetics by rolling the dice with the latest medical technology. I'm sure they'll all turn out just fine, and will NEVER regret anything about it. We're all supposed to accept people as they are, and I would assume that means helping people, especially little kids, accept themselves for who they are. This just throws all that out the window, but at least a few quacks - sorry doctors are making a big profit.

Man, I feel pretty damned liberal, and i'm a scientist, so I guess I should be on board with this stuff...but it just FEELS wrong. Although, my brain and body agree that i'm a dude, so I dont know what it's like to live with them NOT agreeing, but that age does seem a bit young for KNOWING that, and taking such action.

It's different if you're an adult and you make that decision. This is just parents trying to control their kids lives WAY too much.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Sorry for the language but some people need a fucking shrink. I'm all for civil rights and have zero problem with transgender people but at 18 months? Hell at 8 years old? Yesterday my son saw a new pencil I bought that looks like a twig. I told him that it came from a pencil tree and he believes me.....and wants me to plant one in the yard. Now why would I let him decide, with all his child like impulsive behavior to get surgery? Hell, we don't let kids get tattoos unless they are 18 because of the same problem. Kids don't know what they want and are forever trying to define themselves. Some avenues burn out and are looked back on like a nightmare (anyone with high-school pics sporting that sweet mullet know what I mean) while some turn into a life long trait or interest. Thinking that anyone under the age of 18 (older actually IMO) should be indulged with this kind of serious treatment should never be allowed to raise kids. A decision that has life long consequences can't be made by kids that think that the opposite sex has cooties. I'm sorry but this is fucking terrible. What happens if that kid gets older and realizes that the whole thing was a mistake, a childish whim. I'd be pretty pissed if I had no working junk and was in a coed dorm at college. Hmmm.....wonder what the suicide rate will be for these poor kids. Disgusting.

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sorry for the double post.....but side note. My daughter has been raised by me with her two brothers. My wife works so I'm with her most of the time. When she was learning how to pee she was pissed that my son and I got to stand up and she told me she wanted a "wee wee". Should I have taken her to a counselor, learned about gender identity disorder and scheduled testosterone shots? Fuck no. I chuckled a bit and told her that she's lucky she doesn't have one because they are too easy to get stuck in your zipper. She laughed and I never heard a word about it again.

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The parents are the ones with the disorder.
Elective surgery of this nature should be illegal under the age of 18.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Um. Did anyone actually read the article? Because if you did, you'd see that these kids aren't getting any permanent treatment, at least not while they're still kids.



None of these kids, as far as I can tell by this article, are given hormone treatments that will permanently effect them. They're given hormone blockers. It prevents them from going through puberty, so that they have more time to decide what they want. Most doctors agree that yes 8 years old is too young for a kid to decide what they want. That's why they block the hormones to prevent them from going through puberty until the kid is older and has a better understanding of their body. These aren't parents forcing their kids to go through anything--in fact, I'd be willing to wager that most of these parents are having a difficult time doing this, but are doing so for the sake of their child.

Furthermore, elective surgery doesn't happen until the person turns 18. Again, read the article.



They aren't cutting of penises or putting them in when this kid is 8 years old. They're holding off puberty until the kid is older, so that they can decide what to do. In reference to my quote up there... only 1 out of 97 kids elected not to have surgery later on in life, which suggests that no... these kids aren't going to kill themselves when they're older, or at least not because they were "forced" to go through a procedure they didn't want to do (because, you know... they didn't). In fact, I'd be willing to wager there are much higher rates of suicide for transgender people who aren't able to have puberty blocking treatments when they're younger or aren't given psychological treatment for the way that they feel, due to them being forced by many people to "accept themselves" and think that they're a boy, when they really feel like a girl.

This isn't about just accepting who these kids are. These kids can't even accept themselves, because they feel wrong. And I'm not just talking psychological here. There's plenty of evidence available that shows that transgender issues are just as physical as they are psychological. You can't tell your kid to accept himself as he is, if he doesn't feel like a boy. Forcing a child who doesn't feel like a boy to just suck it up and learn to be a boy is so psychologically detrimental.

Yes, kids who are 8 years old should not be getting permanent, irreversible treatment on something they can't fully agree to yet. And hey, good thing the doctors agree.

boosh.

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Why should an 8 year old kid be held back from puberty again?

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Because, believe it or not, many kids are incredibly in tune with how their body feels. That's why when you bring a kid in for surgery, it's better for you to tell him what's going on rather than saying "oh, sweetie, it's all going to be okay don't worry", without telling them what's going to happen. Kids are smarter than you give them credit for. So, when a child says repeatedly... for YEARS that they feel like a boy, that's something a parent should probably listen to. Yes, if your little girl says "I want a wee wee" one day, that obviously isn't the cue to go block her hormones. However, if a child is continuously feeling this way, that isn't something to be ignored.

Furthermore, these kids aren't just shot up with hormone blockers right off the bat. They're given therapy first, and usually a psychologist/psychiatrist in tandem with a doctor will decide if hormone blockers are best... most often after years of therapy. These are experts in their field, and I'm pretty sure they know better than you or I whether or not it would benefit a child to be put in hormone blockers.

This isn't something that happens to every fucking kid. It's an expensive procedure, first of all, and one that requires lots of hoops to jump through. This kind of thing only goes on with someone who is 1. serious about it and 2. has been psychologically, medically, and physically regarded as requiring this kind of procedure. There is no harm done to a child for putting off puberty a few years, especially if that child requests it. You're seeing an issue here where there is none. This is a highly regulated system... not some gender switching game show.

Having hormones kick in is kinda part of the deal. And who is to say there are no long term physical developmental problems for kids who didn't hit puberty for a couple years 'just because'.

If a kid grows up and feels on their own that they want to have gender reassignment surgery, then be all means, support them and let them do it.

But medicating kids 'just in case' they might want to change their mind? Absurd.

Um...there's also this tidbit in the article



That's not just hormones to block puberty...

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Could there be physical developmental problems? Possibly, though I've never seen any research regarding that. It said in the article, that according to the research of one doctor, there weren't any permanent issues, but it's possible that more research is needed. However, again, I'd like to stress that this doesn't happen to every little kid who tells their parents they'd rather be a boy. It's regulated. There's years and years of therapy involved. It's not something that anyone--parents, children, or doctors--just rush into willy nilly. It takes a lot of time.

Furthermore, there can be plethora of developmental and psychological issues from forcing a child to simply "act the part". It's like telling a child/teenager (or, well, anyone) with depression that they should just suck it up, and refuse to offer therapy or anti-depressants which could truly help them. The same goes for anyone with any sort of mental or physical disease. It's stupid to refuse them treatment if they could end up worse off for not having it.

Obviously, it goes on a case by case basis. Not every kid should be medicated and not every kid is medicated. It all depends on what the family, doctors, and psychologists decide. However, to say that these kids shouldn't get treatment, just because they might change their mind is stupid. As it said in the article, only one out of 97 kids opted out of permanent treatment. I'd be willing to wager that most kids who go into this treatment stick with it, because that's what they want.

Also, Cross, it doesn't specify what kind of "sex-changing treatment", nor do we know what exactly they mean by that. Could it mean actual sex change? Yes. But sex-changing treatment could easily just be another term for hormone blockers. Or some other sort of procedure. It doesn't necessarily mean "sex change". I tried a quick google search for it, and haven't found anything yet of an actual physical, permanent sex change, though if you find evidence of such, I'll gladly admit I was wrong. However, just because there is one case of it, doesn't mean that's what happens to the overwhelming majority. For a majority of transgender patients, surgery does not occur until the age of 18. In addition, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it's happened, but I'd bet that it was most likely done under extremely special circumstances.

I assume since they distinguish elsewhere in the article between puberty blocking hormone treatments and sex changing hormone treatments, it's the latter.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

There is, however, a difference between sex changing hormone treatments and actual surgery. They don't perform surgery til the age of 18... as I said, since you stated that elective surgery shouldn't be performed under the age of 18, which they aren't. They usually don't give any hormone treatments to kids until they're about 12 or 13. Young, yes, but by 12 or 13, they aren't exactly children anymore. If, after years of therapy and discussion, a 13 year old transgender decides they would elect to have hormone treatments, I don't see why anyone should refuse that. If a kid can choose to knock someone up at the age of 13 (which plenty of kids do), they certainly should be able to choose if they want hormones, yes?

They said increasing numbers of "children" were getting treatment. Not teens or pre-teens, children.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Yes. Children get treated with hormone blockers, and then when they reach the age of puberty (12 or 13), they're given hormones. The article likely didn't go all that in depth, but that's how it's done. They only give hormones when the kid is reaching puberty... which, y'know... makes sense.

When I have kids, they're not getting drugs that only a single doctor has researched, whether it's for gender identity questions or a hangnail.

We don't legally allow children under age 16-18 depending on the state, to be tried as adults, consent to sex, or even be considered to have formed the required intent to commit a crime in some cases. Yet, under this "therapy", we allow young children to start down a road toward determining a sex change. It's going too far, imo, for adults to allow a child to entertain the notion, and then to block their bodies from a natural physical progression like puberty. Puberty may very well or probably change their minds about the whole process. Once hormone blockers have started, is it any wonder why only 1 in 97 kids have opted out?!? If they haven't been medically altered enough from changing their minds, maybe they feel like it's been too much time and money spent to stay as they are, especially seeing as they are unisex due to hormone blockers.

Pretty sure there's probably been plenty more research done, I'm just not aware of it. I truly doubt that doctor would have even been able to do the treatments had there not been prior research.