PSA: For parents of possibly transgendered children

[kirbyk]

Originally published at The Danger Room. You can comment here or there.

There’s a definite sentiment out there, expressed loudly whenever any media articles about transgendered children is written, that they’re too young to be making that kind of decision and nobody should do anything at all about such feelings until they’re 18. I think some of this

Comments

[marith]

Wow. I had never thought about it in that light, honestly; as a hypothetical parent I would be terrified of making a decision like that for my child, and instinctively want to put it off until adulthood. (What if they did change their mind later? What if my attempt to help and support ended up damaging them as adults?)

It never occurred to me that gender adjustments might be significantly medically easier before puberty, on top of sparing someone the ordeal of adolescence in the wrong body. It's still a scary thought - but definitely an option that parents and kids should be reliably informed and counseled about. Thank you for making me more aware! I will definitely pass this on.

[mizkit]

Completely aside from Kate's recent transition (I mean, I haven't been off looking up news stories to make sense of it all--I have too many transgendered friends to need to do that :)), I've seen a lot of stories in the news lately about transgendered children. What strikes me is the absolute certainty the kids seem to have, from a very young age, that something is *wrong* with their bodies. From what I've been reading it seems more like the terrifying thing is being able to trust a small child that deeply, rather than making the decision for them, because in the cases I've been reading about, the decision/truth/whatever is in fact *made*. I just hope it gets increasingly easier for parents and children to be able to tackle the subject.