Will he be better off for having been treated as a girl, than he would if he’d been treated as a boy with some (perhaps temporary) sexual identity issues?

Maybe not.

There’s no evidence that it ever does any harm.

There is evidence that not doing it causes death in some cases, permanent damage in many others.

The following’s pretty typical.

Cemeteries can be pretty bleak places, but when it is on the outskirts of a faceless Dutch suburb under a grey January sky, it feel about as about as desolate as you can possibly get. When you are visiting the grave of a child who killed herself in her early teens, the feeling of despair, especially when accompanied by her mother, gives way to an urge to weep bitterly. It is an urge which I am unable to resist as I do the maths subtracting the date of death from the day she was born. It is one thing to be told Juliaantje* was only 14, but to see it carved in marble was too much to bear. Holding her photograph her mother sobs uncontrollably as I hug her while she in turn hugs a precious photograph.

The picture is of a sunny, smiling, apparently bubbly teenager, with long hair and a grey T-shirt. There is nothing in the picture to suggest that she was transgender, but that is the reason she took her life.

When she was 12 her mother tried to have her put onto hormone blockers to delay puberty. She didn’t want to develop body hair, a deep voice or have wet dreams. She had already self-harmed when young, trying to slice her penis off with a pair of scissors. However, in what was clearly a borderline decision, the psychologists decided to that she should not be given these drugs. She should be given counselling instead. In despair her mother, a single parent, tried to take her to the United States, but the air fare and the £200 a month cost of these drugs was way beyond her means. Her father had no money either and both sets of grandparents didn’t want to know.

Two years later the talking therapy failed. Juliaantje took a massive overdose and died, having self-harmed, abused alcohol and other substances for more than a year before that.

“She was an intelligent and lively girl.” Her mother tells me through the tears and a large glass of Genever in a nearby café, probably the only thing that can deaden the pain of losing her only child. “She had a great future ahead of her, she could have done anything, been a doctor, a lawyer her teachers said…” Her voice breaks. Her happy nature had disappeared when male puberty really hit. “Her voice broke and she started to get facial hair and hair on her chest. She wore make up and turtle-neck jumpers to hide it all, but she simply couldn’t deal with the way her body was developing…”

Did she blame the psychiatrists? No. Psychiatry is never going to be an exact science, there will always be people who don’t fit into their categories. She does however, feel that they could have given her the benefit of the doubt. “The effects of hormone blockers are easy to reverse, you just stop taking them…” There would have been no risk to her daughter if, at any time she decided that she did not want to be a girl she could simply have stopped, and male puberty would have started.

Hormone Blockers are essentially a way for young trans people and children to leave their options open. They open an extended open window of choice, which gives them time to think about their future, a time during which young people can decide whether they wish to remain the sex they were assigned at birth, whether that be male or female, or whether they need gender reassignment surgery after the age of 18. Talking to mothers of transgender children in the UK who have been prescribed hormone blockers, usually at great cost (£200 a month plus the cost of a consultation in and flight to the United States) one thing comes across loudly and clearly; “I would rather have a live daughter than a dead son.” One of them told me. One mother had remortgaged her house to pay the cost of these drugs knowing what her child was like, she realised that this would probably be the only way to keep her alive.

Another mother talked of how her young child had been prescribed a cocktail of a dozen drugs, including Ritalin, because of behaviour problems at home and at school. Yet when her child was recognised as transgender everything changed. As soon as she was treated as a girl, the tantrums, the bedwetting, the crying, the screaming, the hyperactivity, the violence, just stopped, as did the need for any of the drugs. “She became happy and contented almost overnight, just because we treated her like a girl! The psychologist who spotted this probably saved her life.”

Predictably the accusation of “child abuse” has been levelled at those who advocate prescribing hormone blockers to children between the ages of 12 and 15 (they already are prescribed to those over the age of 16) in the UK. This flies in the face of the evidence in both the United States and Holland, where these drugs have been successfully, and harmlessly prescribed for many years. It also flies in the face of the experience of parents of transgender children, who have lived a day-to-day existence, hoping that their child is still alive and in one piece. Until her daughter was prescribed hormone blockers at age 16 one mother told me of the anguish she and her husband felt when their child had gone missing for a few days when she was 14. “We really thought we would never see her again. Every time the phone rang we thought it would be the police wanting us to identify a body.”

Now that this technology has been developed, not making it available to all those children who need it is child abuse. Three years ago the trans community was shocked by the suicide of a transgender child who was only 10 years old. The allegation of “child abuse” has been levelled at parents who permit their transgender child to express the gender they prefer and who let them have hormone blockers. Yet this is effectively child abuse in reverse. Not to allow trans children to express their gender identities is actually child abuse. Those who throw accusations of child abuse around without knowing the facts are the ones who are child abusers by proxy; putting pressure on parents to force their children to conform to the gender they were assigned at birth no matter what the consequences
.
Hormone blockers save lives and extend trans children’s options. Whether you believe the studies which variously claim that “50%”, “66%”, “75%”, “90%” or “98%” of trans children become cisgender adults, the fact is that all these drugs do is keep their options open. The fact is that sociological research has shown that these (psychiatric) statistics are based on thoroughly unreliable data, wildly overestimated at best and downright misleading at worst.

Wittgenstein famously said “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” I wish some people would do some serious research before making up their minds.

The problem is that so many people hold strong opinions while knowing nothing about the realities of the situation. Conjectures are taken as axioms, evidence that goes against them ignored. And kids die as the result.

I don’t think you realise what the alternative is in such cases: Reparative Therapy (as was tried on Gays in the past). Dr Zucker’s treatment is one of the better ones, not involving “contingent skin shock” – use of cattle prods – as some courses do

It does seem to be the case that, at least in the short term, Carol’s son Bradley is struggling in some ways with Zucker’s therapy. Carol says it was particularly hard at the beginning.

“I mean, he tells us now that he doesn’t dream anymore that he’s a girl. So, we’re happy with that. He’s still a bit defensive if we ask him, ‘Do you want to be a girl?’ He’s like ‘No, NO! I’m happy being a boy. …’ He gives us that sort of stock answer. … I still think we’re at the stage where he feels he’s leading a double life,” she says. “… I’m still quite certain that he is with the girls all the time at school, and so he knows to behave one way at school, and then when he comes home, there’s a different set of expectations.”

See http://www.npr.org/2008/05/07/90247842/two-families-grapple-with-sons-gender-preferences

My point is that rearing pre-adolescent children according to their own ambiguous sexual tendencies, rather than the heterosexual norm, risks causing harm to those who would otherwise end up being normally-developed heterosexuals.

From the WPATH Standards of Care, Version 7:

Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly,
1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.

It’s been tried. It doesn’t work. It damages kids.

There’s no actual evidence that either gender identity or sexual orientation is malleable, the way you seem to think it is. You can’t make an exclusively gay kid straight, nor an exclusively straight kid gay. You can get Bisexual kids to behave straight, or gay, and not act on their attractions, but that’s a different issue.

Look at the David Reimer case. A boy who was castrated at age 2, told he was a girl, brought up as a girl, forced to have simulated sex as a girl with his brother… but never bought it. He knew he was a boy.

How? I’ll give two abstracts that tohether, give a complete picture (though one a bit over-simplified).

Number #1 – the anatomy.

Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35

The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Number #2 – the consequences of anatomy.

Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?” M.Diamond Sex Roles (2006) 55:589–600

A theory of gender development is presented that incorporates early biological factors that organize predispositions in temperament and attitudes. With activation of these factors a person interacts in society and comes to identify as male or female. The predispositions establish preferences and aversions the growing child compares with those of others. All individuals compare themselves with others deciding who they are like (same) and with whom are they different. These experiences and interpretations can then be said to determine how one comes to identify as male or female, man or woman. In retrospect, one can say the person has a gendered brain since it is the brain that structures the individual’s basic personality; first with inherent tendencies then with interactions coming from experience.

Both are available on the net.

I am a mom. Before I was a mom, I worked with children in preschools, elementary schools, and summer camps. I babysat and was a mother’s helper. I was even a nanny for a brief period. In my years of working with and raising children, I have found that it really isn’t that difficult to allow your children to be themselves. I have provided gender-neutral, “boy’s toys”, and “girl’s toys” to my sons, and allowed them to decide what they liked. When they wanted clothing from the girl’s section, I bought them that clothing. When they wanted to wear nail polish, I painted their nails. When they wanted to play Star Wars, I supervised their light saber battles. I didn’t stress that they had to wear certain clothes or play with certain toys. And they’re doing just fine at 4 and 9 years old. Neither are transgender, but they would be completely accepted if they were. Just as they’re completely accepted now. The secret is to step back, remove your own expectations from the equation, and let them express who they are. Love them and accept them, even if they aren’t the football players or ballet dancers you always wanted.

I see a lot mom-blaming here. Remember two things: First, except in cases when a woman decided to be a single mom by choice, there’s always a second parent. Even if that parent hasn’t ever parented, their absence affects the child. Second, children have their own personalities which are completely independent of how they’re raised.

Yup. The other part about free markets is that when people do stupid stuff within their confines, people like Radley, and me, and anyone else who wants to chime in, get to tell them that we think they are being stupid douches. We don’t get to stop them, or use government to force them to do something, or use force or coercion to dictate their actions, but by God, if they do something stupid we are going to call them on it.

@ #9 – Hmm. Knowing some women and how the desire for a child of a particular sex is so important to them, I can only wonder what the mother may have done to influence how the child thought about themself while growing up.

I’ve wondered that myself on occasion. The story of the two lesbian moms putting their son on puberty-stopping drugs so he could decide if he was a girl or a boy brought that into the front of my mind, also. What influence are parents having on these transgendered kids? I know that my aunt has forced her daughter to become very sexually confused because her daughter wanted to play with boy toys when she was very very little. Because she went through one phase as a 4 year old where she didn’t want to play with dolls, this aunt of mine has absolutely force fed her daughter through her whole life that she was gender confused and really wanted to be a boy. It has been worse than bullying. I’ve watched it and it is sickening. My aunt is absolutely enamored with how trendy it is that their daughter is transgender (it’s all she talks about in social situations, with a very sick smile on her face), when I do not believe at all that the poor girl is anything of the sort. The psychological damage the b!@#$ has done to my cousin is sickening.

I don’t believe that all cases of transgender are a result of this, but I do tend to believe that a lot of these “early emerging” cases are not a result of the kid being transgender, but really more the result of the parents forcing it on them because it is trendy. (All of the above is my absolutely pig-ignorant and uninformed opinion based upon watching one sad case. Your results probably vary).

@ #10 – Let me know whenever you want to be serious about politicians using children for political gain, rather than just be a political hack constantly angry with republicans, while giving democrats a pass.

Huh? Did I miss something? I don’t remember Radley jumping on the Trig Palin train at all. In fact, was it ever even mentioned on this blog? Or is that your point, that omission is an act of support? Because I’m not sure I get your point…

@ #14 …you’re a boy. If you have XY chromosomes, you’re a boy… …at least biologically…

I don’t think anyone, even advocates for the transgendered community, would argue with what you’re saying here. Nor is this an issue with this particular case. We aren’t talking about biology. Biologically, a transgendered male is a female. Period. No one argues that. The difference is that biology only accounts for a fraction of who we are as a person, and if you are biologically a boy but in every other way a woman, that is a pretty crappy way to live life. If this is a case of true transgenderism and not a case of a little boy being beaten and coerced into being a girl by sick-arse parents, then what you have is a physically malformed little girl that wants to be part of Girl Scouts. Should we really be making a big deal out of that?

@ #17 FWIW, I’m not gay or trans-gendered, so I can’t claim to understand how it would feel to be, but I seem to recall self-identifying as a honey-badger at that age

The point I was trying to make above. I don’t see how a 7 year old can be making that call, but what the hell do I know? (BTW, love your point about the honey badger).

@ #19 There’s nothing “transgender” about this kid. He’s a boy. Full stop.

Have you spoken with the lad? Do you know him? How can you possibly make this call? You do understand the phenomena of hermaphroditism, right? Where girls with vaginas also have penises or boys with penises also have vaginas, right? Is it so far beyond the realm of understanding to think that maybe, just maybe, there is a full-on form of hermaphroditism out there where the entire set (instead of just partial sets) of the wrong organs get built on a little boy or girl? Where this kid is in every sense except biologically and structurally a little girl who just wants to be a girl scout? Would you advocate banning little girls with other kinds of physical deformities from GUSA, or just ones with sex organ deformations?

I would give all kinds of weird favors for just once being pleasantly surprised at a bunch of people (with some kind of authority) having a truly enlightened view.

For example, a M2F post-op is not the same as a full F, and never will be unless we gain the ability to completely rewrite genetic code and rewire hormonal systems. They also are not a full M any more. Each subdivision of sex can also be masculine, feminine, or other, although I would guess (no personal experience here) that most people who go in for sex reassignment surgery have a gender that’s generally associated with the opposite of the initial sex.

TLDR version: exceptions exist to all systems of classification.

Given that most people don’t have any sexual ambiguity in development, the fact that 95% of the human race is heterosexual doesn’t imply that 95% of those who have some degree of ambiguous sexuality growing up will end up that way. I believe that the vast majority would, if steered in that direction, but that doesn’t imply “of course”.

My point is that rearing pre-adolescent children according to their own ambiguous sexual tendencies, rather than the heterosexual norm, risks causing harm to those who would otherwise end up being normally-developed heterosexuals. What’s going to happen to the boy in the linked story when he becomes a testosterone-flooded teenager? Will he be better off for having been treated as a girl, than he would if he’d been treated as a boy with some (perhaps temporary) sexual identity issues?

I believe that if an individual can be reared to be a well-adjusted heterosexual person whose sexual identity matches biology, that would be preferable to any alternative in cases where the person’s sexual identity might be malleable. That isn’t to say society should try to make life miserable for people with other sexual identities, but to use a *very* rough analogy, consider hearing. Deafness is not normal; that doesn’t mean deaf people should be stigmatized, but it does mean that one should avoid situations that might cause people to become deaf. Deaf parents might find it easier to relate to a child who was deaf than one who could hear, but that would not justify induce deafness in a child so as to further such interest.

It’s not an oversight either, every year a bill gets put forward to remedy this, and every year it faces fanatical resistance, not just from religious groups, but those opposed to the existence of transsexuality on ideological grounds.

The transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist feeds off woman’s true energy source, i.e. her woman-identified self. It is he who recognises that if female spirit, mind, creativity and sexuality exist anywhere in a powerful way it is here, among lesbian-feminists.

I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence.

From “The Transsexual Empire: the making of the she-male” (1979) by Professor of Ethics Janice Raymond.

The insane desire for power, the madness of boundary violation, is the mark of necrophiliacs who sense the lack of soul/spirit/life-loving principle with themselves and therefore try to invade and kill off all spirit, substituting conglomerates of corpses. This necrophilic invasion/elimination takes a variety of forms. Transsexualism is an example…

From Gyn/Ecology, a standard text in Gender Studies, by Dr Mary Daly. In it, she explicitly called for a “Final Solution” to be implemented.

Hence the growing number of states (New York being the latest), where same-sex marriage is permitted – but so is discrimination against Trans people (but not Gays or Lesbians).

Last year, a comprehensive survey was conducted, with over 6000 respondents, to try for the first time to quantify numerically the extent of the issues. Key findings:

Respondents were nearly four times more likely to live in extreme poverty, with household income of less than $10,000.

Respondents were twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the population as a whole. Half of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment or other mistreatment in the workplace, and one in four were fired because of their gender identity or expression.

While discrimination was pervasive for the entire sample, it was particularly pronounced for people of color. African-American transgender respondents fared far worse than all others in many areas studied.

Housing discrimination was also common. 19% reported being refused a home or apartment and 11% reported being evicted because of their gender identity or expression. One in five respondents experienced homelessness because of their gender identity or expression.

An astonishing 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide, compared to only 1.6% of the general population.

Discrimination in health care and poor health outcomes were frequently experienced by respondents. 19% reported being refused care due to bias against transgender or gender-nonconforming people, with this figure even higher for respondents of color.

Harassment by law enforcement was reported by 22% of respondents and nearly half were uncomfortable seeking police assistance.

Things are improving: last year, for the first time, it became slightly less likely that transsexual victims of rape or other assault would be arrested rather than their attackers. 30% vs 32% IIRC.

I think, for the most part, the commenters here are pointing out that there are legitimate institutional reasons for gender separation and that the borderline or cross-line cases are going to have to be treated as exceptions.

I think that, however much I agree that a person has the right to speak offensively, we also have the right to disagree, judge and censure (not censor!) their speech. And the Tennessee legislator, his ilk, and the bill they passed are vile, vile, and a violation of rights, respectively.

Their religious beliefs may influence their feeling that these instances are abominations but there is NO reason why they should be allowed to enact those religious beliefs into law, no matter how disguised. I can’t advocate changing their beliefs by force but we should repudiate them in the civil sphere.

They are one of the groups with the highest murder rate.

Not quite: the second-highest group is young urban black males, who have 5.2 times the average rate of being murdered.

The highest is transsexual or intersexed women, who have 17.6 times the average, For Black or Latina Trans women, the rate is much higher still, one estimate is that 1 in 8 will die by homicide.

As one Tennessee legislator recently said, if he saw a Trans woman in the vicinity of his family,

“I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him(sic) and then stomp him(sic) dry.

Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts.”

These are not the usual meaningless mouthings of an Internet kook or troll; he’s a Senator, and many in the legislature agree with him. Tennessee recently passed a state law making it illegal to forbid discrimination against trans people.

And I see a third trans woman has been murdered in DC in the last few months. All crimes unsolved, naturally, while the clean-up rate for homicides in the USA is 70%, when the victim is trans, it’s 30%.

What about if you’re born with one, but change to have the other? As with 5ARD or 17BHDD? Or rare forms of 3BHDD?
See http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

” If you have XY chromosomes, you’re a boy.”

Even if you’ve given birth to three children?

“Unless there are biologically mitigating circumstances here (such as hermaphroditism), then, at least biologically, there’s not much discussion about what sex this child is, and I understand the discomfort of other parents when faced with this issue.”

Thank you. My child is Intersex. Mildly. So am I. Rather radically (see 3BHDD above, hence my birth certificate saying “boy”, but my possession of a vagina and hysterectomy scar).

Transsexuality is a form of Intersex too. It’s an anatomical issue. We suspected that 50 years ago, but only gained the proof around 1996.

See for example
Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

or

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

“Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones”

This girl looks like a boy – except to MRI and PET scans of her brain.

Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism. by Luders et al Neuroimage. 2009 Jul 15;46(4):904-7.

Specific Cerebral Activation due to Visual Erotic Stimuli in Male-to-Female Transsexuals Compared with Male and Female Controls: An fMRI Study by Gizewski et al J Sex Med 2009;6:440–448.

etc etc.

Like this person:
“A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis”– J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9

What about if they have a bone marrow transfusion from an XY donor, so as stem cells replace senescent ones, even their ovaries gradually become XY? (See Bone marrow-derived cells from male donors can compose endometrial glands in female transplant recipients by Ikoma et al in Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Dec;201(6):608.e1-8 )

1 in 300 men aren’t XY. 1 in 650 women aren’t XX. It’s more complex than you were taught in grade school. We need to fix that, lest injustices like this sotuation continue.

In fact the evidence indicates that transexuality is a form of neurological intersex. Some aspects of the brain in transexuals are closer to those of the sex that they identify with than they are to that of their body.

Unfortunately there are those who for religious or ideological reasons find transexuals a threat. They want to believe that people come in two clearly distinct categories. They don’t. The vast majority are clearly one or the other. A surprisingly large group don’t fit into the two big clusters.

It is not just religious conservatives that contribute to the hostile environment. Some of the worst comes from some radical lesbian feminists.

What most people here don’t realize is the sheer degree to which transexuals are in danger of violent attacks from people who see their existence as an abomination. They are one of the groups with the highest murder rate. The treatment of many transsexuals is truely vile.

Gender can express itself from a very young age and often parents are not the root of this expression.

Please bear in mind that I am not attacking your position, just correcting what I see as anomalies in it. Consider this “Constructive Suggestions”.

It is very common for children to go through periods of ambiguous sexuality but, when directed toward what used to be unquestioned societal norms, end up with a clear and unambiguous sexual identity (which will, in many cases, conform to those norms).

Well of course the end identity will “in many cases” conform. 95% of the human race is hetero.

It would seem far safer to direct pre-adolescents toward their apparent biological gender roles than to direct them according to their present (pre-adolescent) inclinations.

Absolutely! And this is entirely a side issue. Is the kid actually coming up with this on their own, or did their parents program this into them? Even if you could know for sure… would it matter? It’s still not the kid’s fault.

And some people are biologically inclined to be miserable pretty much no matter what.

I don’t think anyone is biologically inclined to be miserable. Even people with the most heinous biological issues have stepped up and refused to be miserable. Misery is not biological. It’s mental. It’s a programming issue. People need to be taught how to program their subconscious to fix the issues that concern them in a negative manner.

As a corollary: People that are perfectly OK with themselves and aren’t hurting anyone else really don’t need to be “reprogrammed” at all.

I also suspect strongly that a lot of people who are miserable about various things, are miserable because they’ve been told that they’re supposed to be miserable about them, and they become more interested in attacking what they’ve been told (rightly or wrongly) is the source of their misery than in simply trying to be happy. And some people are biologically inclined to be miserable pretty much no matter what. Telling someone who’s biologically inclined to be miserable that the misery stems from having wrong-sex genitalia and that they should be “corrected” doesn’t sound to me like responsible medicine, but it seems to happen.

I’m sorry, if you have a penis and no vagina, you’re a boy. If you have XY chromosomes, you’re a boy.

Uh huh. Tell that to these women who are genetically male but never developed male sex organs.
http://www.indiana.edu/~ais/html/home.html

there’s not much discussion about what sex this child is,

Biological determinism. Lovely. What is in your head means a lot more then what is between your legs, however, and gender dysphoria means that your sense of self (who you know yourself to be) does not match your biological sex.

I agree with Robert … in the absence of other evidence, I’m suspicious of how the mother raised her son, and it’s blindingly obvious that the right isn’t the only group taking advantage of this child’s predicament.

Utter steaming crock of fetid bullshit.

There is no known medical evidence to suggest you can convince a child that he or she is another gender then that he or she wishes to be. It has been tried, and it failed spectacularly in the case of a boy whose penis was badly damaged in a circumcision.

I knew I was a ‘girl’ from a very early age even though I was born “male”, and my parents had nothing to do with that beyond my learning very quickly not to say a damned thing about that around them if I didn’t want my ass beat with a belt.