Kathryn wanted pants. And short hair. Then trucks and swords.
Her parents, Jean and Stephen, were fine with their toddler’s embrace of all things boy. They’ve both been schoolteachers and coaches in Maryland and are pretty immune to the quirky stuff that kids do.
But it kept getting more intense, all this boyishness from their younger daughter. She began to argue vehemently — as only a tantrum-prone toddler can — that she was not a girl.
“I am a boy,” the child insisted, at just 2 years old.
And that made Jean uneasy. It was weird.
“I am a boy” became a constant theme in struggles over clothing, bathing, swimming, eating, playing, breathing.
Jean and Stephen gave up trying to force Kathryn to wear the frilly dresses Grandma kept sending. Kathryn wanted nothing to do with her big sister’s glittery, sparkly pink approach to the world. (Her sister attends school with my son, which is how I came to know the family. This story is using the family’s middle names to protect their identity beyond their community, where their situation already is widely known.)
Kathryn didn’t even want to be around other little girls, let alone acknowledge that she biologically is one.
Jean tried to put her daughter’s behavior to rest. She sat down with a toddler-version of an anatomy book and showed Kathryn, by then 3, the cartoonish drawings of a naked boy and girl.
“See? You’re a girl. You have girl parts,” Jean told her big-eyed daughter. “You’ve always been a girl.”
Kathryn looked up at her mom, incomprehension clouding her round face.
“When did you change me?” the child asked.
Was something wrong with Kathryn?
Her little girl’s brain was different. Jean could tell. She had heard about transgender people, those who are one gender physically but the other gender mentally. Who hadn’t caught the transgendered Chaz Bono drama on “Dancing With the Stars”?
“But this young? In kids?” Jean wondered. She had grown up in a traditional family in the Midwest, with a mother who’d gone to medical school after having children. Jean considered herself open-minded, but this was clearly outside her realm of experience.
She went online to see if a book about transgender kids even existed. It did — ” The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals.” Its summary read: “What do you do when your toddler daughter’s first sentence is that she’s a boy? What will happen when your preschool son insists on wearing a dress to school? Is this ever just a phase? How can you explain this to your neighbors and family?”
Bingo.
When it arrived at their Maryland home, Jean ripped through it, soaking up every word. But she couldn’t bring herself to share with her husband what she’d read.
Jean, 38, and Stephen, 40, had met at a Washington area gym, where both taught classes. They married in 2001.
Jean eventually quit teaching to stay home with her kids and continue her education. Stephen, who comes from an immigrant family, teaches science at a public high school, where he is beloved by many of his students. His Facebook page floods with their hellos and happy birthdays. He is vocal about encouraging girls to buck the stereotypes in science.
Still, Jean wasn’t sure how he’d react to her suspicions that Kathryn might be transgender. She decided she wouldn’t voice them unless she was totally convinced herself.
She went back online and watched videos of parents talking about their realization that their child was transgender. They all described a variation of the conversation she’d had with Kathryn: “Why did you change me?” “God made a mistake with me.” “Something went wrong when I was in your belly.”
Many talked about their painful decision to allow their children to publicly transition to the opposite gender — a much tougher process for boys who wanted to be girls.
Some of what Jean heard was reassuring: Parents who took the plunge said their children’s behavior problems largely disappeared, schoolwork improved, happy kid smiles returned.
But some of what she heard was scary: children taking puberty blockers in elementary school and teens embarking on hormone therapy before they’d even finished high school.
All of it is a new and controversial phenomenon.
In the United States, children have been openly transitioning genders for probably less than a decade, said Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist who is a leader in the field of gender orientation. There is very little to go on, scientifically, to support that approach, and the very idea of labeling young children as transgender is shocking to many people.
But to others, it makes perfect sense.
“In children, gender solidifies at about 3 to 6,” explained Patrick Kelly, a psychiatrist with the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
That’s about the age when girls gravitate to girl things and boys to boy things. It’s when the parents who ban baby dolls or toy guns see their little girl swaddle and cradle a stuffed animal or watch in awe as their boy makes guttural, spitting Mack truck sounds while four-wheeling his toast over his eggs, then uses his string cheese as a sword.
And it’s the age when a child whose gender orientation is at odds with his or her biology begins expressing that disconnect — in Kathryn’s case, loudly.
The American Psychiatric Association has an official diagnosis for this: gender identity disorder in children.
Those who have it, according to the association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, experience “a persistent and intense distress about assigned sex, together with a desire to be (or insistence that one is) of the other sex. There is a persistent preoccupation with the dress and activities of the opposite sex and repudiation of the individual’s own sex.”
And, it adds, “mere tomboyishness in girls or girlish behavior in boys is not sufficient” to warrant the diagnosis. It requires “a profound disturbance of the normal gender identity.”
The manual is being updated this year, and a task force that Drescher serves on is studying whether to remove the word “disorder” from the diagnosis and instead call the condition “gender incongruence.”
Whatever it’s called, it can’t always be solved by letting girls wear pants or boys wear dresses, psychiatrists say. Many of the kids have gender dysphoria, a persistent dislike of their bodies. They may shower with their clothes on so they don’t have to see themselves. Or demand to know when their penises will grow in. Or, in extreme cases, try to cut their penises off.
Parents who ignore or deny these problems can make life miserable for their kids, who can become depressed or suicidal, psychiatrists say. Outside their homes, the transgendered are frequently marginalized and scorned, pushed into an underworld, outside of the mainstream. More often than the rest of the population, transgender teens and adults are harassed, assaulted, even killed. Remember that beating caught on video at a Baltimore County McDonald’s last year? Or the off-duty D.C. police officer who was accused of standing on the hood of a car and shooting a transgendered woman through the windshield?
Jean didn’t want Kathryn to hate herself or be subjected to hate from others. Maybe allowing her to declare herself a boy in preschool would make life easier in the long run.
Yet not everyone who treats gender identity disorder in children believes in allowing them to transition to the opposite sex when they are young.
Kenneth Zucker, a child psychologist in Toronto who is on the psychiatric association’s task force, advocates neutrality for kids struggling with their gender identity.
Children who see him get the Barbies or toy soldiers replaced by puzzles and board games. His theory is that kids should be allowed to grow into a gender and not be categorized.
There’s some evidence — most of it anecdotal because so little research exists — that gender dysphoria is a phase many children outgrow.
In the United States, it’s impossible to know how many children have gender identity problems because the condition usually goes unacknowledged by parents and pediatricians, said Edgardo Menvielle, who counsels transgender kids at Children’s National Medical Center in the District. About a dozen children from the area belong to his support group, and hundreds of families across the country are part of his online support network.
In the decade that Menvielle has been counseling such children, he says that about 80 percent end up switching back to what their biology tells them. The rest remain transgender into adulthood.
Was Kathryn going through a phase? After many hours of research and another full summer of bathing-suit fights, Jean didn’t think so.
Kathryn was 4 when Jean finally broached the subject with her husband.
“Have you noticed that Kathryn wants to be a boy?” she remembered asking one night as she and Stephen were washing the dinner dishes after putting the kids to bed.
“She’s just a tomboy,” Stephen replied.
Jean shook her head.
“No, Stephen, I’m pretty sure Kathryn is transgender. She’s not just a tomboy,” she said. “And I think maybe we should start letting her call herself a boy.”
Stephen thought she was nuts. “I told her she was making too much of this,” he recalled.
As a teacher, Stephen knew how cruel kids could be. He imagined his child walking into the social battlefield that is school, insisting she was a boy when under her clothing, she wasn’t.
What about bathrooms? P.E.? The prom? How would all that go?
Despite his resistance, Stephen promised his wife that he would pay closer attention to Kathryn’s behavior and really listen for her “I am a boy” anthem.
It didn’t take long.
“We were in the car. I was driving,” Stephen told me.
Kathryn was in the back and grabbed a book off the seat.
“Daddy, I’m going to read you a story, okay?” Kathryn said, opening a random book and pretending to read. “It’s about a little boy who was born. But he was born like a girl.”
Stephen nearly slammed the brakes, then listened as the story unfolded about how unhappy the little boy was.
“Okay. I’m listening, Jean,” he said after he got home.
They took Kathryn to a psychologist outside of Philadelphia who specializes in treating the transgendered. Michele Angello confirmed what Jean had long suspected: Kathryn had gender dysphoria. She recommended that Kathryn be allowed to live as a boy, a prospect that filled Stephen with dread but his 4-year-old with elation.
Kathryn wanted to be called “he” right away. And Kathryn wanted to be called Talon, then Isaac, but finally settled on a permanent boy’s name in the fall. (The Post is using Tyler, the name his parents say they would have given him if he’d been born a boy.)
“When we finally let Tyler shop in the boys’ clothing department, it was like the skies opened up,” Jean said.
They switched to saying he/him/his and stopped using the name “Kathryn” at home.
It was a huge upheaval, a change Jean and Stephen had to remind themselves of every day. Then came the next challenge: telling family, friends, teachers and other parents that their daughter had become their son.
Tyler made his public debut at Sunday school at their Presbyterian church.
The teenagers who help out in class laughed that it took Kathryn’s parents so long to figure out they had a Tyler.
The pastor there was so supportive of the family that she invited a panel from a transgender support group to come just before services one Sunday in January and explain what Tyler and his family were going through. The room was packed.
“We’re so happy to be here. They usually put us in the basement,” said Catherine Hyde, the leader of the group and the parent of a transgender teenager with a tough story.
At 4, Will told his mom: “Something went wrong in your belly. I was supposed to be a girl,” Hyde said.
She and her husband wheedled the Barbie dolls out of Will’s hands, told him over and over again that “You can’t wear tutus!” They put all their parental might into erasing his behavior.
In response, Will threatened suicide when he was 6. He hated the five years of relentless karate lessons they insisted on to toughen him up. Given the chance to decorate his own room, he came up with “the pinkest, pompomiest bedroom in Howard County,” Hyde said.
They went to therapists, who said Will was probably just gay. Hyde and her Marine husband could live with that.
“You can be as gay as you want, but if you go trans on me, it’s on your own money, your own time and out of my house,” she remembered telling her son, then 15. Hyde gives lots of speeches and presentations about her journey. Each time I’ve seen her speak, she still tears up a bit when she recounts what she told her child.
It was years before Hyde and her husband acknowledged their child’s agony. They finally asked Will if he wanted to take puberty blockers. He said yes. And eventually, a whole new child, now 18, emerged.
All those years of pain, therapy, suffering and strife — that is what Jean wants to avoid.
She hoped the people at the church would understand. Between cookies and coffee after the presentation, many came over to hug her.
When it came time for Tyler to make the switch at preschool, Jean and Stephen had to write a very uncomfortable letter to all the parents explaining what was happening.
“If I had a child with autism, I wouldn’t have to do this,” Jean sighed.
They struggled with whether to include the words “gender dysphoria.” “I didn’t want them to think there was something wrong with our child. Just something different,” she said.
They kept the medical term in there so other parents wouldn’t think this was just loose and creative parenting. “I don’t want people to think I’m just indulging a phase. That’s not what this is.”
Tyler’s sister, who’s 8, was much more casual about describing her transgender sibling. “It’s just a boy mind in a girl body,” she explained matter-of-factly to her second-grade classmates at her private school, which will allow Tyler to start kindergarten as a boy, with no mention of Kathryn.
Staff members recently had a training session on gender identity disorder to prepare not only for Tyler but also for other transgender kids who may be arriving. This year alone, at least two other families have contacted the school about enrolling their transgender kids, according to its director of admissions.
Not everyone has been accepting of what Jean and Stephen are doing. Some members of Stephen’s family were incredulous when he sent them letters about Tyler’s transformation.
Jean and Stephen got into a huge fight with Tyler’s gymnastics coach, who insisted he keep wearing a leotard to practice because his registration form said “female.”
Tyler was miserable pulling on a leotard when the boys in class all got to wear shorts and a T-shirt.
“Finally, we just got someone to change F to M on the paperwork,” Jean said angrily. “Why does the coach care so much about what’s in my child’s underpants anyways?”
More than once, Jean has come home from the gym infuriated because someone was gossiping about her child. Just the other day, she spotted a co-worker and another adult pointing and laughing at Tyler, who finally got to wear just swim trunks at the pool.
Jean marched over to them and said, “I can provide you with a lot of information about transgender children if you like.”
They clammed up.
“You never meant to, but you become this advocate. All day, every day,” she told me, clearly exhausted.
A recent family trip to Disney World raised the issue of how to handle the plane tickets. What if they booked the ticket in Tyler’s name, but the TSA did some kind of a full-body scan and saw that Tyler’s biology is female?
Like a peanut allergy mom with her EpiPen, the transformation of Kathryn to Tyler means the family always travels with a “Safe Folder.” It has birth records, medical records and the all-important diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the doctor recommendation that Kathryn be allowed to live as a boy. Jean never knows when an encounter with Tyler could result in a grown-up freak-out or even a call to Child and Family Services. It’s always a fear looming over the family.
Tyler doesn’t really like to talk about Kathryn or even acknowledge she existed.
“I’m not transgender,” he fumes when he hears the word, often spoken by his mom as she explains things. “I. Am. A. Boy.”
During one of my visits a few months ago, he showed me their family picture wall, full of pictures of two girls in lovely dresses.
“No Tyler,” he pouted.
Those are issues that are easy for Tyler’s parents to fix.
But in about five years, they will have to decide whether to put Tyler on puberty blockers to keep his body from maturing and menstruating. Using those drugs represents a leap of faith, psychiatrists said, though the effects are reversible if the puberty blockers are halted.
The much tougher call comes when kids are about 15 or 16. At that age, they can begin hormone injections that will make them grow the characteristics of the opposite biological sex.
That’s a method being pioneered by Norman Spack, director of one of the nation’s first gender identity medical clinics, at Children’s Hospital Boston, and an advocate of early gender transitions. Those hormone treatments essentially create a nearly gender-neutral being, making sex-change surgery far less painful and expensive for young adults. But the hormones also make people infertile — a daunting and irreversible decision for parents to make when a child is 15 or 16. Only a handful have opted to do so, Spack said.
Jean e-mailed me an article about the drug controversy late one night, the time that many parents stay up and fret about their kids. “See what we’re facing?!” she wrote.
She acknowledges anxieties about what lies ahead. But Jean and Stephen aren’t harboring doubts about what they are doing now.
“If Tyler wants to be Kathryn again, that’s fine,” she said. “But right now, this works. He’s happy. I just want my child to be happy.”
As for Tyler, he is reveling in his new identity. The constant nagging, fighting, obsessing about being a boy is gone. Tyler is just Tyler, a high-energy kid with a Spider-Man-themed bedroom.
On my last visit, he took a brief break from playing with my boys and their endless supply of space cruisers to show me a new addition to the family picture wall. It now features a prominent photo of Tyler in short hair and a red polo shirt. He is smiling.
I wish this information had been available for the family I knew 35 years ago. Their son struggled daily with being stuck in a female body. The family moved away in high school so that he could start over with a new identity without ridicule. We didn’t care, we were kids and that’s how we always knew him. Adults were incredibly cruel to him and to his parents.
I was wondering what people did 10+ years ago before being transgender was recognized? Did people just move and keep the gender they were born with a secret? How long can someone really do that, and what happened when they were “discovered”?
The answer is yes
Many of them continued to live a miserable life trapped in the body they were born with. Many took drugs for depression and anxiety to cope with their unhappy lives. Others attempted to or committed suicide.
And given 3 out of the 5 comments posted at this time, the “adults” remain cruel and clueless about human gender identity issues. With all the research published about these issues, there is no rational reason to cling to medieval notions about gender.
It just shows how little we have evolved , and the true ignorance in this country.
Uh-oh you used the “E” word, the Christians will be coming for you as well as these parents…
what a crock.
Yes, the child should be taken from the parents and placed with a family, preferably a religious one, that will make her behave like a girl, and punish her for this unacceptable behavior.
So what gives you the right to deem that unacceptable?
I’m pretty sure RoostokGuy was being sarcastic.
Maybe we should come up with a symbol that indicates sarcasm in writing. Ideas? Clearly, (apparently not to all) RoostookGuy was being sarcastic. Maybe ~~ before and after a sentence?
~~Yes, throw them to the lions!~~
I don’t know. Just an idea.
Sarcasm, satire, irony. Lost here. But I vote for the post being satircal. The comment should be reposted.
I was just doing the Christian thing, and agreeing with those I disagree with.
(snicker.)
An understanding of Nature and even a small amount of common sense should suffice.
I’m not sure who has said the behavior should result in punishment,but it should not be fostered or otherwise encouraged.
The
Mother is the one with an issue here, some would say an illness .
Sounds like a clever way to act out a little munchausen by proxy
action and find some agenda driven “expert” to back you.
Yes, by all means, the mother needs to be stoned for listening to her child, and for not punishing the child and forcing her to behave in a socially acceptable way that does not make adults (like yourself) that have absolutely no experience with such situations uncomfortable.
That would be the reasonable thing to do, since she is clearly to blame for this problem.
We agree on one thing, Mom is the cause of this baby’s woe’s .
this started at age two, so yes , She was a baby.
This is a form of child abuse. Parents looking for their 15 minutes at the expense of their child. I agree, what a crock!
Look for a new reality show to compete with Toddlers with Tieras, “Transgendered Toddlers”
What an informative, interesting story. So glad that this family found the strength they did and have educated themselves. I wish them all well and that the world around them continues to open up and accept everyone regardless of sexual identity or orientation. You are who you are regardless of sex, race, religion. Teach and live tolerance!
I’m a bit of a skeptic here. I’ll tell you why: Most children between 2 and 3 are told what their genders are, they really don’t know that instinctively. I suspect in this story the parents or someone of influence in the child’s background may have suggested the child’s gender to the child. Among the children who are either tomboyish or effeminate at a very early age, those who can be described as “transgendered” are anomalies and very rare occurrences. Unfortunately, many individuals and organizations like the American Psychological Association want to stir as much excitement about “transgenderism” as they can for political reasons in order to advance an ideology. Efforts such as these can only make the study and detection of “transgenderism” more difficult.
Suggesting a child’s sex starts when we put them in pink or blue blankets and hats in the nursery. Most of us buy gender “appropriate” clothes for our kids. We say “good boy!” A friend from Texas addresses her son as “Son” rather than his first name when asking him to do something for her. We’re definitely suggesting gender to children. I don’t see anything in the story that suggests Tyler’s parents told him he was a boy when he was a two and three year old little girl. His mom showed him pictures to explain to him that he was a girl. I don’t think I understand the point you’re making.
Stop calling this female baby “he.”
Stop calling a five year old child a “baby”.
He’s not female. He’s male. Did you not read the article?
A “transgendered” child whose parents are teachers (openminded of course) and father who “comes from an immigrant family.
B-I-N-G-O!!! This heartwarming saga contains the Left’s politically correct version of the Holy Trinity.
The problem is, you are just wasting your time.
Nobody who disagrees will listen to reason
More made up liberal crap ,what ? is Mike Barnicle and Patricia Adams from the Boston Globe writing for the Post now ? First the BDN writes a headline ,about the Surgarloaf couple ,to make people think it was 2 guys ,now this ,this paper is fast going to Tabloid style.
So, how is that article about the sugarloaf couple misleading? Why did you think it was 2 guys? The headline says ‘man proposes to running partner’…a running partner can’t be female? I know lots of people that have female running partners, so I’m not sure why you automatically think that it must be 2 guys…your bias does not mean that BDN is insinuating something or misleading readers. Partner is a very geneal word that can be used for lots of things..partners at a law firm might be male or female, a business partner can be male or female, a running partner can be male or female. Just because someone uses the term partner doesn’t mean they’re gay. Some heterosexual couples that choose to not get married become domestic partners or refer to themselves as partners…
I had no idea what aceman was talking about until you explained. And, until his post didn’t even give it a second thought about the ‘running partner’ , since I am heterosexual I just assumed it was a male/female couple. The ‘running partmers’ being gay wasn’t my first thought, altho if that had been the case, I have no problem with that. I’m wondering what aceman was thinking……since his first assumption was that the couple was gay.
Whaka…Whaka…Whaka….Tomboy no longer correct?
There is a difference between being a Tomboy, and feeling that you were born in the wrong body. I am a Tomboy- I prefer jeans, a t-shirt and flip flops to dressing up; I don’t mind getting dirty, going to the races, fishing and the like. I am however, very aware and comfortable with the fact that I am a female.
I have never once felt I should have been born a boy, that a mistake was made when my gender was determined in utero, or that God made me wrong.
Tomboy and transgender are two very different things.
Why do you have to call yourself anything other than female? Why do you need to qualify your enjoyment of fishing, races, t-shirts, and dirt? You shouldn’t feel the need to do so. No one should. “Girls stay clean.” “Girls wear frilly dresses.” “Bugs are icky.” “Girls scream.” This IS 1950, yes?
Let’s not lose sight here, that they decided their baby had a problem at age 2 – if not before. That’s insane.
I DON’T call myself anything but a female. I don’t run around saying I’m a tomboy. I was just saying that there is a difference between the two. I would be classified as a tomboy, but I am firmly aware of and comfortable with the fact that I’m female. I am a girl, that would be considered a tomboy, but I am not transgender.
Yup,one is a Mental illness(hint:it’s not Tomboy)
Go to another country and live the way you want — just don’t do it here in ours !!!! I am not predjudice against gays either but this at 2 ,3,4,5 years old –come on !!! So if children tell there parents they want to be this or that or do this or that at that age –no matter what it is –good or bad we should go along with it !!!! NOT — WE ARE SUPPOST TO TRY TO PUT THEM ON THE RIGHT ROAD FOR LIFE !!!!
The child is transgender – not gay.
The fundamentalist homophobe paradise of Iran awaits you.
yessah
Perhaps that is the country from which the father immigrated.
If a Girl dresses up as a boy and wants to make whoopy with other girls, then yes she is Gay.
I am happy that the parents have accepted their son. Good for them and keep strong! They are just like any parents in wanting their child to be happy and be able to be “himself”!
As I was reading the article and watching the video, I couldn’t help but think to myself “What would I do in their (the parents’) situation? How would I handle it?” To continue to read the article and read about Catherine Hyde and the story of her son, for any mother, it must be heart-breaking. You can tell that she is still bothered by the decision and the discussion that was had…
Whatever the outcome of this story is, it is nice to see parents trying to do best by their child and trying to understand their child VS saying “You’ll get over it… just put on this pretty dress and smile.”
Though, for what it is worth – the pic in the video of when she/he was younger and had the princess crown on her/his head, was absolutely priceless!
Waht would you have to “handle,” if a two year old girl says “I’m a boy?” Hopefully, it would mean nothing to you. You loved the princess crown – would you love it if the child in this story had male genitals.
I think at first they did just “play it off” and figured she was going to be a tom boy, but what I meant by my comment was that obviously going this route and allowing Tyler to live as he pleases is not a choice they came to lightly or quickly. It is a choice they will forever be questioned about or told they were wrong I would imagine. They are already seeing it from members of their family in addition to the women at the gym this mom spoke about.
In regards to the princess crown, I have numerous pictures of my nephew (who was 2 at the time) walking around with my daughter’s princess crown and he looks absolutely adorable as well! It was just a comment about a pic, nothing more, nothing less.
That’s the problem, they should never have tolerated this deviant behavior from a child.
The child should have been disciplined severely and beaten into submission.
That method has always worked well in the past, it’s traditional.
The child is “female.” It’s a matter of biology. She is their “daughter.” How she dresses, what she likes to do, how she thinks, etc., must not be anyone’s concern. The parents should not be praised for their own problems.
What do you mean “by their own problems”?
Read above.
Because the way the public at large treats the child is just the parents problem, right ?
The Bangor Daily Liberal news.At least you guys are consistent. Pathetic news and no,you didn’t shock me.Good try though.You are truly the blind leading the blind!
A lot of this paper`s liberal stance comes from the entertainment columnist, She has the paper convinced that an army of rainbow ponies will descend upon the wicked if they do not favor the GLBT agenda.
Those are not ponies, they’re Unicorns.
Sheesh, don’t you people know anything ?
Liberal Secular Humanists made this poor little girl choose her sinful “life style”.
Oh wait….
Never mind
It’s a sin to be who you are and not be ashamed of it?
Can a 5-year-old *have* a “lifestyle?”
Do not believe everything one reads from a Washington Post writer! Most likely, this is another madeup story to gain sympathy from the public.
Ya, Ed, it’s just that simple, isn’t it? Life is just waaaay simple, huh?
School teachers enough said there!
Obviously your teachers failed to teach you anything involving compassion or understanding.Oh wait-was that home school or parochial?
….
It is in the DSM IV, so yes it is classified as a mental health condition along with Autism, ADHD, depression, etc.
////
You notice I used mental health condition. DSM — Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Seems pretty clear to me. The trouble is you have a problem with the term “mental illenss” — and much of society does. A mental disorder is no different than a physical one and by definition those conditions which set you apart mentally from peers — results in a classification in the DSM. A physcologist needs to diagnose this condition. Your source is an informational site designed to sooth those dealing with this condition either themselves or with a loved one.
All that said, I would do exaclty what these parents have done. It makes no sense for kids to go through puberty and develop in the wrong body. I admire their support of their child and hope their community is able to see past their preconcieved notions at best and bigotry at worst to support the development of this young man.
….
uhhh, pretty sure Tyler is going to develop in the wrong body… therefore the parents did not do the kid any service
The thought of how this female child will react to menarche makes my skin crawl.
The father said that the child, “he” stole into his medicine cabinet, removed a razor and began shaving with it. These aren’t parents. I don’t know what they are, but they are not parents.
Children try on behaviors, speech, maleness, femaleness – whatever that means – whatever they see. This father believes that the child using his razor is further evidence?
Just when was it that they chose the bunk beds for Katherine, and the “princess” bed for the other female child.
The story is also very deliberately skipping over the culture and background of the (deranged)mother and father.
Someone should call CPS to have them check on the safety of that home.
If the child takes hormones menarche will not be an issue as it will not happen and shaving will be an issue as facial hair will happen.
THAT is batpoop crazy a thing to suggest, and absolutely unethical and probably illegal.
And nobody, but you, is even suggesting such a thing.
Did you read the article? I didn’t suggest anything. Just stated the truth. Sorry it’s a problem for you. But then this isn’t about you, is it?
Neither is autism…
….
gender dysphoria -unhappiness with one’s biological sex or its usual gender role, with the desire for the body and role of the opposite sex.
///
I’m not a religious person and quack “professionals” usually do have a problem with Science.
The “Science” you’ve shown not understanding of here ?
ROFL !
Science has nothing to do with what this Mother has done to this little girl.
Yes it is, and wishing it otherwise does not change that fact.
….
Not conforming to social norms or behaving in a typical manor about sums up Borderline Personality Disorder which is also in the DSM
I suspect I have a family member who has an issue with this, I’m not one to ever advocate for children to behave as if they are of the opposite sex, but there is definately an aspect to this that I think people aren’t looking at. BPA is a substance that acts like an estrogen in the body, and the highest exposure has traditionally been toward little kids due to plastics that contain BPA that children come in contact with. I think it’s more than likely that after so many years of children being exposed to BPA we are starting to poison our society and messing up our hormones.
oh yeah, this article really sensationalizes these stories, I find it a little bit over the top…
and the DSM II had homosexuality as an illness.
please do not tell us that the DSM is anything more than a popular guideline for the present “accepted” way of thinking… till the DSM VI tells us that all men have Aspergers and need treatment
..
I admire the parents’ courage to come forward to tell their story. It’s not a “15 minutes of fame” issue. It’s not a liberal vs conservative or mental health issue. It’s simply parents who love their son, no matter what kind of parts he has, wanting to tell other parents that they are not alone.
Perhaps we should all learn to be a lot more open minded to the idea that in life, nothing is black and white.
The child is female. What this is illustrating is that there is a bizarre mindset on the part of the parents.
You’re right, the child needs to be beaten, and the parents should be jailed.
~and the mother turned into a boy, and the father turned into a girl~
I support these parents. Just no surgery until the child is old enough to make that decision.
I am not sure if you did, but if you watched the video that went with the article – in it the little boy even says “mom and dad said no surgery until I turn 18″… so I am assuming by that comment the issue is already on the table and already being discussed.
I did not watch the video. Thank you for sharing what was said in it.
Maybe so, but at least they are responsible enough to wait until the child is able to decide as an adult.
look…I am a totally open minded person…I do believe that a person is born gay and they don’t “catch” gayness. But being born transgender? I don’t think God makes mistakes like that. I have a daughter that was the same as Kathryn. From the time she was born she has been (and still is) a tom boy. She used to tell me when she was 4 and 5 that she wanted to be a boy. I would tell her that she was a girl. Then she would say that she IS a boy. And I would tell her that…no, she wasn’t. Pretty soon I just would not say anything when she would bring it up and started ignoring it. And with in a month or so she dropped it too. I didn’t force her to believe she was a girl, I just didn’t pay extra attention to it. It sounds like these parents wouldn’t let it go when Kathryn would talk about it. If my daughter comes to me when she is older and says she still thinks she is a boy than I’ll change my mind about how I feel about this but for now my daughter is boy crazy ON HER OWN…no influence from either one of her parents.
God doesn’t make mistakes and there is NO PROOF a person is born gay.There is NO gay gene either.It is a snowscreen for he GAY agenda. I see nothing wrong with a tomboy or a guy that is a bit feminine but homosexuality along with adultery and fornication is wrong! Most of the gay influence is the lying deceived liberal media, like the BDN for one.
There aren’t genes that do specific things, they work together with each other, like a symphony. So there would be no specific gay gene to find.
wow.
There’s no proof – despite most gay people repeatedly telling you so ?
ANYWAY, this article has nothing to do with homosexuality; the child is pre-pubescent.
Are you obsessed with gay-sex so much that you have to bring it into EVERY conversation at EVERY opportunity ?
My gosh, you think about it more than a lot of gay people do !
I was a tomboy also. This world is nuts
The only thing that needs attention here is getting rid of the perception that results in the word, “tomboy.” Or, “sissy.” Pink baby blankets vs blue baby blankets.
Treat living human beings as human beings. The ‘Beckernumber’ poster had it right. Let it be.
There was no need to change this child’s name. Why can’t “Katherine” be whomever she “is.”
Too much media. Too much profit to be made. Stupid, stupid, sheep-like people.
I was a tomboy too. Loved all things that my brothers did. My father cut my hair just the same as he did the boys. I played with boys and never did like dolls or jewelery. But the difference is: I knew I was a girl. I never felt like I was a boy trapped in a girl’s body. I did wonder why I was different from the other little girls but my parents just told me that everyone is different and I believed them. The point is that I do believe that transgender people do “know” at an early age that they are NOT boys or girls just because they have a penis or a vagina. Kudos to these parents for listening to their child. This child is going to need all the supporters he can in his corner just to deal with society’s biases.
You mean, to deal with her parent’s psychological disburbance.
Absolutely. The parents need to be punished for listening to their child.
Children should be seen and not heard.
Parents that listen to their children, like these ones, should have the kids taken away from them, they are clearly unfit to be parents.
Yes just ignore the problem and it will go away, way to parent…ugh!
I wouldn’t say ignore is the correct word, but I can’t think of an acceptable word, but what I would do would not embillish on it with a child that young myself. I would let them say what they want to say and let it go. this child knew about surgery for such thing already. WOW!! that blows my mind. just let the child be a child and see what becomes of it, let it work out 1 way or another naturally with out pushing either way!
Thank you key_limey. Ignore may have not been the correct word to use. The few times my daughter say she wanted to be or was a boy I just didn’t embellish it. I just didn’t say anything. And she has never brought it up again. And to “itwasntmyidea” like I said in my original comment I never forced her to believe she was a girl. I just let her grow up and let her figure out who she is herself. So no…I didn’t just ignore it so it would go away. I just didn’t say “Ok, you think you’re a boy? And you’re 5? Yes, you’re definitely old enough to know that. Ok, let’s go shave your head and buy you boy clothes and change your name and tell everyone that you’re a boy.” sheesh…I’m sorry but 5 years old it too young to just let them do whatever the hell they want. So yea… I would say “way to parent” for me but not in the sarcastic way you meant it.
You have absolutely no need to defend yourself. You did beautifully not making any issue out of this. PS Some days I say I like to imagine I’m a literary genius. The thought doesn’t make me one.
who says it is a problem?
there is nothing wrong with being a tom boy… many turn out to be lesbians, many turn out not to be… so what
you are all JUDGING that “tom boy” is wrong… isn’t that equally closed-minded?
finally a reasonable response.
yes, tom boys exist, but they are not boys.
and adding gasoline to the fire does not help.
your daughter is not a boy and never was
just because some new pop psychologist says that gender dysphoria something to treat does not mean much to me.
it was not all that long ago that some psychologists told women that they had uteruses that migrated all over within their own bodies causing blindness and other “hysterical” illnesses.
those psychologists were wrong, but these new ones are right?
Completely agree.
A few weeks ago, the BDN showed a picture of a Portland area student protesting having to pay back her student loans because she could not find a job in her major which was the very lucrative field of “Gender Studies”. Many people blogged in that she had chosen a major with little potential. Well, I guess we were wrong. It looks like there is a whole new field out there to decide which of us are male and which of us are female…..It no longer is as simple as checking the plumbing for pointers or setters…….I am going to hire her to figure out what I really am.
….
take a look at this, and we wonder why people hate. http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/us/2012/05/21/ac-gaddy-rebukes-pastor-gay-rant.cnn
I’ve seen a lot of similar clips recently. Pastors and priests preaching hate and intolerance from the pulpit. His sermon sounds more like it came from another time. A time of concentration camps and mass genocide. And some people were actually hollering “AMEN!” Absolute bigotry and disgusting hypocrisy.
Write a few more words -so we can all see what MORE mental illness looks like.
Gender identity disorder (GID) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria (discontent with their biological sex and/or the gender they were assigned at birth). It describes the symptoms related to transsexualism, as well as less severe manifestations of gender dysphoria. GID is classified as a medical disorder by the ICD-10 CM[1] and by the DSM-IV TR.[2] It is likely that the new version of the DSM will replace this category with “Gender Dysphoria.”[3] Some authorities do not classify gender dysphoria as a mental illness, including the NHS which describes it as “a condition for which medical treatment is appropriate in some cases.”[4]Those enough words ,Westshores?
I see nothing wrong with this. Gender is a made up thing anyway. One hundred years ago pink was the “boy” color and now things have changed. Girls only gravitate towards dolls and boys to trucks because we teach them these things. These interests have nothing to do with nature.
you cannot possibly HAVE children if you think this.
a boy will make ANYTHING into a weapon and a girl will make the same thing into a baby
this is not taught
So true, with child #1 I tried to be very strict about the whole “weapon” thing, by 4, it didn’t matter, my son made everything he found into a weapon! And that was without any exposure to tv other than channel 12 programming!
How about video games. Playmates. Adult example.
Sorry, I disagree with you. Boys do that because they’re taught to do that. They see the way men behave (as result of their teaching), they see it in stories, etc. This is learned behavior.
Children with absolutely no influence would not automatically gravitate to gender prescribed things. I do not believe for a second that a boy would gravitate towards pants and girls towards dresses had they been uninfluenced.
Agreed.
and as I said… you do not HAVE children, do you?
my son “owned” an Anne of Green Gables doll before he was born. We have no television and I refused to allow him to watch anything violent on TV or in the movies. No guns as toys in our home
EVERY stick was still a sword, or at least something to bludgeon something else with… and my daughter… she would comb the hair of the same stick and cuddle it and tell it to go to sleep.
and… I never said anything about pants or dresses. I was looking at the aggressive/nuture/loving side.
but I am wasting keystrokes. I am sure you already know everything you need to know… no point in telling you something that does not jive with your belief system
You can only speak about YOUR kids, YOUR experience.
Why are you so threatened by people who have had compleatly different experiences with their kids ?
Closing your eyes and pretending something doesn’t exist does not make it go away, and doing so with such passion hardly makes your arguments compelling or based in reality.
Reality had little to do with what was going on in the head of this “Mom”
look I see what I see with MANY boys, babies, toddlers and bigger.
What I said was that I TRIED not to allow my son to have those sex-specific role models and to see the violence. and it did not matter
That said, i have NO problem with any person’s sexuality. Gay, straight, bi, asexual, frankly beastiality practice… don’t care.
And I have no problem with an effeminate boy or a tom boy… NONE. I am one of the few who believes to let children be who they are.
but Tyler is not a boy.
and to let Tyler believe that she is, is not doing Tyler any service what so ever.
and I am not threatened by any of this…. I really do resent how liberals know everything about me better than I do, and how anyone with a different opinion is a “hater” or a “phobe”
Orwell was so right!
That’s not true; just because YOU lack experience otherwise doesn’t make YOUR experience an absolute.
Stop imposing your LACK of experience on everybody else.
imposing?
what are you talking about?
I am saying that boys do things naturally… children do things naturally… I suppose Tyler liked playing with swords and NOT dolls. That did not make her a boy.
and i hvae no problem with WHAT Tyler wants to play with.
It is her parents who have the problem and have decided that Tyler MUST fit into this hole or that one. She does not fit into the model of what they expect a girl to be, so she must be a boy. That is MY fault?
last… how much do you wanna bet that this is a kid whose father made it abundantly clear from the get go that he was really hoping for a boy?
i betcha a nickel
I would argue that she is not being raised a boy but is rather being raised in a manner consistent with the societal norms for boys. It’s unfortunate that we can open our minds enough to accept that a person thinks that they are the opposite sex, but not open our minds enough to realize that just because she likes trucks, short hair, pants and wants to do what we would call “boy things” that she has to be a boy to do them. The problem is society making gender roles mutually exclusive not that she was born a girl.
best post on here
I have to wholeheartedly agree.
You can get help, though, if you really want it !
What an amazing story! Makes me smile to see parents that care & actually LISTEN to their children. Keep up the great work! Seeing a smile on your childs face is the best thing in the world!
at that age my son wanted orange soda and gum for supper.
I am glad I didn’t listen to him… I am the parent, it is my job to guide and to teach.
There is a difference between not giving a child soda for supper and not giving them the kind of toy they want to play with. Too much sugar is bad for a child. Tell me how giving a boy an Easy Bake Oven (for example) is bad.
It is not, until the point where the parent decides it is gender reassignment time due to excessive cake making and day time T.V psychology watching. these parents have gone way past Easy Bake oven time.
Mother: “Where do you get this ideas?”
It’s ironic that your USERNAME is the name of a character trapped inside another person’s body.
that is not what irony is… not when we are talking about Tyler from Maryland. Tyler is not trapped inside anyone else’s body, Tyler is a female and her parents have decided to acceed to the whim of a 2 year old who pronounced that she was a boy.
I have known many 2 year olds who claimed to be all sorts of things, magicians, lions, doggies, kitties, firetrucks… I can go on. I never changed the tires on my son the firetruck, nor did I make my daughter the kittie cat crap in a litter box…. nor would I have allowed it had she wanted to. I am the parent.
Perfect.
Unfortunately, children are often a much better judge of character than any adult, and see life from a much simpler perspective. Your judgmental response would be a good example. Apparently you believe your opinion trumps the advice of legitimate medical professionals. Too bad, if faced with a similar situation, you would ignore the needs of your child and try to force them to be something or someone they are not. You sound like another person who didn’t fully read the story. This goes beyond typical tomboy and girlish behavior. Yes, you are the parent. The parent that would judge and shame, rather than love and support their child, no matter who he or she grew up to be.
Again, it’s fascinating that you failed to actually comprehend what I wrote, and instead twisted it around to say what you wanted it to say. That kind of behavior would make the average person think you don’t listen or care what others say. But as you stated above your style is to hear it, but choose to ignore it. Your over simplification and weak comparisons to your own methodology of parenting are irrelevant to this topic. There’s a significant difference between a child running around making sounds like a truck yelling, “Where’s the fire!” for an afternoon, as opposed to a child feeling a daily conflict inside their own skin for years. This is obviously an uncomfortable topic for you which is making you feel so aggressive towards these people, but I’m confident this is just a phase that you’ll grow out of.
tyler durden was not trapped inside another person’s body.
Oh, I’m sorry. They weren’t trapped, they just had something else inside them that they felt couldn’t come out, and the only way they could release it was through abject aggression.
Even if they think they might rather be a Donkey or puppy or..ect ect.
15.000 words, when only 4 were needed:
“Modern liberalism = anything goes”.
Here come the Liberals
What a sad story. Hope the family is able to correct this.
Call it what you will, but when the hormones necessary to “become” the other gender at 15 renders the patient sterile, something biologically incorrect is occuring. All opinions and sentiments aside, this may offer a clue as to how Nature feels about the subject.
This is the most nonsensical post I’ve seen here yet. Congratulations.
I doubt that very much. Is it that you don’t enjoy being challenged by the obvious?
LOL. “the other gender at 15 renders the patient sterile” as this quote relates to this story means that if this girl were to take med’s to alter her gender to that of a boy, she would become sterile.
Nataure has nothing to do with this. In fact Nature , science nor conman sense have had much to do with this poor girls life, thus far.
“In children, gender solidifies at about 3 to 6,” explained Patrick Kelly, a psychiatrist with the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
Read as “enculturalization.” Parents and society in general terrified of both sexuality and sensuality. And this mother is taking her cues from the Internet?
What needs to be addressed — attacked — is the rampant social psychosis that gender, and following hypocritical claptrap is all-important. No one wants their child picked on for being different. Well, it’s time to stop worrying about it. It’s past time to be neurotically fearful of whether a boy plays with dolls or a girl plays with trucks.
Children raised without gender bias have had a tough time of it, but one has to ask why that is when no one in the 1950s had any trouble at all when, for example, it was the women who pulled and hauled rocks from new suburban developments, and hauled them away. Was this just fine as long as they had their pearls on when hubby came home.
The parents of this child need a psycho-social evaluation.
Oh believe me it happened in the 50’s, society was just better at hiding it.
I didn’t say that it didn’t. Do you ever think that maybe, just maybe, it’s not always a question of “hiding,” as keeping something private, because it’s nobody’s damn busineses.
What I wrote was that there was no gender bias regarding the mothers and wives who were digging and hauling out rocks. Nobody called them any other name. Not “tomboys.” Not – never mind.
Stop with the cliche political labels. Idiots are idiots.
If you’re incapable of loving and accepting your child for who they are, then you should never have kids.
Parenting should be a licensed privilege, not a right.
The haters will be out in force.Hopefully those with love and education will be out as well.I hope this child and family do well under challenging circumstances.
I knew girls who wanted to be boys, never played with dolls and hated dresses, and preferred to be around boys.
Most have gotten married and had kids. They were not the one’s to end up gay.
In fact, many still like and prefer the company of men. That sounds pretty straight to me.
I don’t know any who actually went through the transition.
It seems this child came into this world with the right parents. They will be there to support him no matter what life throws his way.
Mom is the reason this whole mess got started, poor kid.
Sounds like they let this kid watch too much Dr. Phil, or the parents are looking to sell a reality show.
This is ridiculous! Transgender-ness is a load of crock..this kid is a girl and should not be encouraged or treated like she is the opposite sex. And if she really has a crossed wire in her brain, she should be introduced to a therapist that can help her, liking boy toys or marvel super heros doesnt mean she is a boy. Seems to me her parents gave up and easily gave into her wishes with her “gender” choice. Maybe they should seek therapy as well.
I guess it could also be argued that you should be introduced to a therapist that can help you. If you read the article, that is exactly what the parents did. As stated, this was not a typical situation of tomboy or girlish behavior. Sounds more like you simply disagree with the opinion of the doctors and therapists they did see. Unless you are in this situation yourself, you are not in a position to judge or minimize the struggle these parents have experienced. I don’t think it would be easy for anyone. At least these parents are doing the right thing, by loving and supporting their child, despite his or her sexual identity/orientation.
Im actually in my 4th yr of school and im am headed to med school for psychology. Despite popular belief, the “gay” gene is also ridiculous. I did in fact read the article and i dont believe that the therapists they sought gave proper treatment or analysis. There are much different forms of therapy than simply talking it out. Those parents should seek an aggressive form of therapy if they truly cared about their childs future and well being. Instead they simply coddle her whims and wishes. Very sad and terrible parenting.
In response to the comment below: 1. Do some research before you embarrass yourself and call people liars because: medical psychologists are clinical psychologists who use their knowledge of medical, psychological and social factors to improve patients’ physical and mental well-being. Medical psychology typically is studied at the postdoctoral level. And #2 the “agressive therapy” i was referring to was some form of hypnosis, but i wouldnt expect some backwoods and unlearned ‘county boy’ to understand. Im sure the word agressive is synonymous with the beatings your daddy gave u behind the woodshed.
Yes, you are right, I’m sure as a real college student studying psychology you can tell us what “aggressive” form of “therapy” exactly this child should be receiving…
Strange that you can’t seem to name or describe the fictitious “aggressive therapy” you have in mind, though.
Look, you’re a liar, plain and simple – Psychology is NOT taught in med school; medicine is.
any child will argue, you say no they say yes ,what a joke ,i dont beleiev this ,i think its totally made up to advance the cause ,wouldnt be the first time someone has made up stories in colums ,the Boston Globe has fired two writers and the NY Times has fired at least one for total lies ! baloney !!!
Transgender people and children do exist. As the article stated, this goes far beyond normal tomboy or girlish behavior. I believe it is easier for people like you to deny the truth, than accept the fact that some people are just born with a different sexual orientation. People are born with different eye colors or can be born albino, but it is somehow impossible for some to believe a person’s sexual identity could be decided within the womb. As if anyone would choose such a tortured life for themselves or their children.
I thought the exact same thing this morning.
this is more gasoline for the “war on women” bs
This world’s getting sicker by the day…..
No thanks to bigots who don’t understand an issue. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour. Thinking before you pass judgement will lead to understanding.
A weak mind incapable of expressing a thought or making an argument , will label those who disagree as Bigots.Typical.
Only humans can invent an issue where this is none. Only a unbalance human mind could decide their 2 year old child might be having “Gender issue’s”. And only a human Society can be so self absorbed and arrogant to preach the Gospel of Science , yet ignore it when it interferes with the narrative.
This is a very interesting story, and I am always glad to read about strength and acceptance. I have to say, I was extremely turned off by the “If I had a child with autism, I wouldn’t have to do this,” comment regarding a letter home to parents at the preschool. No, you wouldn’t have to do that necessarily, but you would certainly have a lot of other things to do that you don’t have to do. Consider what laundry you throw into pile. You very well may want it back when everyone else’s laundry is thrown in with it.
I think that parents that make hard decisions based on the happiness and stability of their child’s life are the best kind of parents. This could not have been easy for them. They had in their mind a little girl – that is not who the child is. Many of us do not turn out to be what our parents pictured for us. The parents are not bizarre – they are loving. Did they feel embarrassment initially – you betcha they did. Most of the conversations and explanations could not have been easy and more likely created a very stressful time for them, but for their child it was the right thing to do so it was worth it. Should the child change again when hormones start making changes – the parents again will support their child. Male or female, what difference does it make? Whether dainty Suzy homemaker or hunky construction worker we love our children and our children love their parents – that’s the way it should be and what should matter. Seriously, it’s no one else’s business – it is offered here to educate us so that the children suffer less and are not judged harshly. There are so many know-it-alls with all the answers and of course God’s ear judging others.
This is a baby here. This time, I think it’s good that this matter was brought to public attention. And, hopefully, to the attention of Child Protective Services who will evaluate the parents for safety in the home – the razor access; cutting off the child’s hair, (even though many young boys wear their hair long), and taking the words uttered by a two year old to be permanent law. But pointless to reply.
I don’t see where this story would trigger a safety check of the home – what is unsafe? Should we do a safety check of everyone who has differing opinions from yours on raising their children? Also there is nothing permanent or a law enacted in this case. If the situation changes down the road so can the response.
LOL, as long as there are no visible scars, is that what you are saying? The crazy mom is already reading up on hormone therapies , was thinking gender identity issues when the child was 2. Like I said before, Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
When I was five years old – I wanted to be one of the Beatles. Thank God my mother didn’t push it.
The fact that Mom was worried about this when the child was 2 y/o should tell us all something.
Munchausen by proxy.
I thought the same thing
of course that means that i am a hater
Yup, surprised my post is still up. The moderator seems a bit trigger happy if you dare do anything but post the party line. Caving to the activist pressure she seems to be. Not quite so speedy to remove post that violate TOS if they are made by Lib’s, funny how that works.
I’m unsure as to why my comment was removed. It was in no way inappropriate.
I simply stated that I agree with the parents’ decision to allow the child to live as a boy but I hope that no decisions are made as far as surgery goes until the child is old enough to make that decision.
Probably because if you actually read the article, you’d have noted they said just that.
I love the line:
“There’s some evidence — most of it anecdotal because so little research exists — that gender dysphoria is a phase many children outgrow.”
This tells me that the pop psychology “journals” are not publishing information that contradicts what their party line is. This is nothing new. Nobody is allowed to puplish data that contradicts the idea that global warming is anthropogenic/man made.
You mean the “journals” that you’ve never read ?
ROFL.
you are guessing.
I have read plenty of journals and I have published…. unlike you, I am guessing.
so I am fully aware of how to slant my “research” so that it will be published.
Cell, Scient, and PNAS.. can I get your bibliography?
It is such a delight to see articles like this. Being a 50 year old post op tranny I delight finding that our society is finally coming ot have a place for us as well. I was aware of being trans. by age 3 as well and hid it throughout life until it was no longer possible to suppress. How amazing it would have been to be able to establish social learning and experiences in early life. congratulations and cudo’s to the parents who care.
Another good book is ‘Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog Tails: Growing Up Intersexed’ by Katherine Connella.
We may one day have laws that force parents to accept the gender their 3 year old son or daughter says they are or big brother will take them away. Gay marriage is step 1 on that agenda.