News: "Many peers back cross-dressing student"

[AMM]

There have been some interesting reports on NPR's All Things Considered this week on transexuality in young children. ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=90247842
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=90273278

I read the articles. I found them profoundly depressing.

These children may have "gender dysphoria", they may be "transgender", but the adults around them have been hammering these round pegs into square holes for so long, it's hard to tell how much is intrinsic and how much is a response to the 24/7 brainwashing they are undergoing.

The way the therapists in these stories act and talk reminds me of The Child Buyer, or how children were raised in Brave New World.

I'm not sure we were talking about the same articles. These were IMHO quite sensitively and objectively reported. I found it encouraging that there were therapists advising parents to accept the likely gender orientation of their children. The only part that was disturbing was the mindset of that one therapist recommending that the clearly transgendered little boy be immersed in "masculine" toys and activities and denied his preferred "feminine" toys and clothes. That seemed morally antiquated and backward-thinking to me. And the fact that this mindset has been the prevalent school of thought on the issue and the treatment heretofore prescribed, I did find quite sad. ...

What I found depressing is the unspoken and unconscious assumption that if a boy is interested in "girlish" things, the only possibility is that he is transgendered.

What if he just likes dresses and Barbie dolls?

If a girl doesn't like dolls, and wants to wear jeans and climb trees, she's just called a tomboy, and nobody slaps labels like "gender dysphoria" on her. Yet if a boy is interested in "girlish" things, everyone goes bananas and worries about his sexual or gender orientation. And the process of training boys to be what they're supposed to be (and correcting any "deviant" tendencies) starts at birth.

I can remember being in love with dresses and girls' clothes when I was quite young. I didn't play with "girls' toys" or try to wear girls' clothes because there weren't any around (my only sister wasn't born until I was 9), and I never had the opportunity to play with girls, but I never had much interest in sports or the usual "boys'" stuff. Yet I never felt like I was anything but a boy. There were many other ways that I didn't fit into the cookie-cutter role that was presented as the only way to be, and I caught hell my entire childhood for it. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am incapable of being anything but who I am, so I retained some inner sense of who I was even as I constructed an outward persona to show to everybody else that more or less conformed to the demands of society. But I can see how someone who is more compliant (and less able to hide his inner self) might end up forcing himself into one of the roles that society permits to boys, to the point that he cannot remember ever having been any different. In my day there was only one such role; nowadays, they have added "transsexual," but the idea of being "male" and freely picking what you want out of both column "M" and column "F" is still inconceivable.

I'm not saying that there are no boys who would, if left to their own devices, decide they really felt they were girls. But I can't help wondering if there aren't a fair number of boys who, forced to choose betwen giving up their gender and giving up what is important to them, will (unconsciously) give up their gender identity.

[alexthebird]

I admire the student and her classmates.

What I find sad is what this says about the polarity of our culture. The student obviously doesn't identify with the qualities of what we traditionally consider a real man (whatever that is) and can't conceive of a social role as a man and as a result can't imagine a life without surgery and chemical (hormonal) supplements designed to change her body.

I have trouble understanding that. First, that someone would feel so out of sync with their own body that they would risk surgery and chemical side effects to fundamentally alter their body, but there's something even bigger. Why is it that someone with a body that has dangly bits down there has to act a certain way and look a certain way and live life a certain way. What is it about us that makes this so challenging?

There was a time that I was pretty involved in a transgender support organization, but ultimately I found it depressing. That started happening when I decided that I had to live my life the way I felt it should be lived, regardless of what anyone else (including my wife at the time) thought about it.

To this day, I think it is a preferable course of action to decide to embrace your own sense of who you are, instead of attempting to transform your body into an image that most of the rest of the world thinks is acceptable.

I'm puzzled, a bit depressed, but I still admire the courage of someone who is willing to live their own rejection of what everyone else considers normal.

[Sasquatch]

What I found depressing is the unspoken and unconscious assumption that if a boy is interested in "girlish" things, the only possibility is that he is transgendered.

What if he just likes dresses and Barbie dolls?

I think you misread the articles. That a very young boy would be interested in "girlish" toys, clothes, etc. is hardly unusual. Many boys display that interest for some period of their childhood. But they still identify as boys. In the NPR stories the boys clearly identified as and described themselves as girls, and were suffering gender identity crises not unlike many grown men struggling with transexuality. That's the difference here. The crises were resolved or at least abated when the boys were allowed (not forced) to express their innate gender identity.

If a girl doesn't like dolls, and wants to wear jeans and climb trees, she's just called a tomboy, and nobody slaps labels like "gender dysphoria" on her. Yet if a boy is interested in "girlish" things, everyone goes bananas and worries about his sexual or gender orientation. And the process of training boys to be what they're supposed to be (and correcting any "deviant" tendencies) starts at birth.

There is absolutely societal sex discrimination in that regard, just as there is with fashion. It's a vestige of the male dominated realm that says that anything feminine is to be regarded as weak, silly, or ineffectual. It's ironic that both men and women adhere to that awful unspoken standard, yet men are the ones to whom the yardstick is held.

I can remember being in love with dresses and girls' clothes when I was quite young. I didn't play with "girls' toys" or try to wear girls' clothes because there weren't any around (my only sister wasn't born until I was 9), and I never had the opportunity to play with girls, but I never had much interest in sports or the usual "boys'" stuff. Yet I never felt like I was anything but a boy. There were many other ways that I didn't fit into the cookie-cutter role that was presented as the only way to be, and I caught hell my entire childhood for it. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am incapable of being anything but who I am, so I retained some inner sense of who I was even as I constructed an outward persona to show to everybody else that more or less conformed to the demands of society. But I can see how someone who is more compliant (and less able to hide his inner self) might end up forcing himself into one of the roles that society permits to boys, to the point that he cannot remember ever having been any different. In my day there was only one such role; nowadays, they have added "transsexual," but the idea of being "male" and freely picking what you want out of both column "M" and column "F" is still inconceivable.

I shared many of these same characteristics, to a greater or lesser extent, after the age of ten or so, so I kind of know where you're coming from.

I'm not saying that there are no boys who would, if left to their own devices, decide they really felt they were girls.

I believe that it is the case that some boys know from the outset they belong to or are at least better emotionally adapted to being female. The NPR reports seemed to apply to those children.

But I can't help wondering if there aren't a fair number of boys who, forced to choose betwen giving up their gender and giving up what is important to them, will (unconsciously) give up their gender identity.

I think one could fairly ponder that possibility, but I suspect that it is a far more common case that decidedly transgendered children are browbeaten to suppress their innate gender. That may be what leads to the transgender crises that many men experience in middle age. I found it encouraging that some of the psychologists are looking for evidence of misengenderment (Now there's a word to amuse Skip! I just made it up!) at an early age when a child can be given the support to develop the gender identity nature dictates before lasting emotional harm results.

I think that gender identity, like sexual orientation, has a range of values between the poles of totally male<>totally female or totally hetero<>totally homo. What a disgrace that our society largely slaves under oppressive social conservatism that won't/can't recognize the in-between. For a lot of people, it seems that everything must fit into a pigeonhole - yes<>no, right<>wrong, good<>bad, black<>white - without ever allowing for the existence of shades of gray. I suppose that there have to be some moral absolutes in order for a society not to destroy itself, but not every aspect of life fits an absolute. Yet the world seems full of people who cannot function outside such a sorrowful system.

Sasq

[JRMILLER]

Alex,

...that someone would feel so out of sync with their own body that they would risk surgery and chemical side effects to fundamentally alter their body

Well said, thanks very much for your post.

[AMM]

I think you misread the articles. That a very young boy would be interested in "girlish" toys, clothes, etc. is hardly unusual. Many boys display that interest for some period of their childhood.

And 99% learn real fast not to.

In the NPR stories the boys clearly identified as and described themselves as girls, and were suffering gender identity crises not unlike many grown men struggling with transexuality.

I suffer "gender identity crises" myself (see some of my previous posts.) I have come to see them as gender role crises in my case. I have to keep re-examining my sense of who I am, and keep coming up with the same answers: yes, I like skirts, etc., and yes, I am male, because all around me, my culture is saying it is not possible.

I can imagine a boy doing this examination and coming up with the honest answer, "I am a girl." But I can also imagine a boy who is more responsive to social pressures and expectations than I am losing the ability to hear the "yes I like skirts" or the "yes I am a boy" and adjusting his identity to match what society says is possible.

The crises were resolved or at least abated when the boys were allowed (not forced) to express their innate gender identity.

They were allowed certain behaviors. It is our culture that says that certain behaviors "express [an] innate gender identity." And our culture that says that if they like X, they must be girls. Gedankenexperiment: if our culture said that playing with Barbies and wearing tutus was "boyish" and playing football and playing with trucks was "girlish", would these boys have preferred football and trucks?

My point is that our society cannot distinguish between gender identity and gender-labelled behaviors. Which means most people don't. And since people -- reporters, therapists, parents -- don't see what they don't expect to see, they (unconsciously) force what they see into the categories that they know about. The result is that both truly transgendered boys and boys who simply persist in "gender-inappropriate" behavior will get lumped together as "transgender."

[Peter v]

Hallo Sasquatch,
Quote:
There is absolutely societal sex discrimination in that regard, just as there is with fashion. It's a vestige of the male dominated realm that says that anything feminine is to be regarded as weak, silly, or ineffectual. It's ironic that both men and women adhere to that awful unspoken standard, yet men are the ones to whom the yardstick is held. end quote.

We all seem to have the same vision, only worded differently.

One point, "anything feminine is to be regarded as weak, silly, or ineffectual."
Is very suited to MEN being men, but enjoying the nuances in how they present themselves, and enjoy things that are deemed doubtful for men. That is also where prejudice comes in. Men arent allowed to show any feeling at all. but that is just being human, men aren't allowed to be human, they are, but then they are labeled in some negative way. Why can't men just be men with feeling? They can, but general public opinion, still does not easily accept that. That may also be why such boys who are actually girls... get pushed into a negative loaded definition of what they are.

We men who wish to dress in skirts are above all our true selves, with differing emotional reasons for wearing them, that is totally OK, for me, but there are still many out there who wish to label that with something THEY can accept, but which does us no compliment.

So who do we listen to? People like us with open minds or the others? I listen to myself, and others like myself, and like you guys ( and ladies ) who are also open minded and understand that there is more to people than their outer shell.

[Since1982]

They probably have a kluklux outfit as wel...

When I was young, in the 50's, very few people thought there was anything wrong with discrimination and owning a uniform of and being a member of the Ku Klux Klan was considered a first step to public office. In 1954, when I was 13, the Governor of Florida was not only a Klansman, he was the Grand Wizard of Tallahassee. My views of that time were not very popular as I couldn't convince anyone that, "skinned", everyone was the same regardless of color or creed. I had long heated arguments with my own father over that. He also was a card carrying member of the Klan. The Klan, to it's members, has a different name. They are known among themselves as "The Invisible Empire". I could tell my Dad, over and over that all humans were the same, regardless of color. He said, and you really couldn't argue with this very long, "There are differences". I'd say, what are the differences? He'd say, "We're better". I'd shake my head and wander away in a hopeless funk.

Thank the powers that be that things have mostly changed, although not completely yet...takes time...

[Sasquatch]

AMM, I'm still missing the source of the pessimism you seem to feel about the therapy the kids got. To me, it's a wonderful thing that parents and psychologists finally accept that gender orientation doesn't necessarily have to be made to adhere to an accepted norm for the set of genitals one happened to be born with.

I didn't read anywhere that they were forcing a choice from the kids, just allowing and accepting the choice the kids made. In our youth, there wouldn't have ever been a choice offered. And no one is telling these kids "Look, you have to decide right now if you're a girl or a boy, and this is a permanent choice - no going back, nothing in-between, ...and if you choose girl, then we going to cut off your penis." They pretty much just allowed the kid to hang with the group he/she chose.

Is there still social pressure to look or act like the group one chooses? Of course. The history of the human race is one of tribe and role. And the desire to fit in with the tribe is as natural and inherent as the desire to keep your head above water when you fall in a river. Some of these kids, perhaps many, will decide to alter their bodies to conform to the group they choose. Given that they had a supported choice, is that so terrible? No worse, I'd wager, than to repress the way one feels until it manifests itself in depression or erupts in a (self-destructive) gender identity crisis.

Will there still be kids who turn out like us, dangling in-between the poles of gender role/identity? Of course. And they'll have to make the choices we have to make. Despite our own raised consciousness, a few dozen skirted men gabbing on the internet won't dramatically change that aspect of society. But parents and professionals can make it easier for younger people to come to grips with their identity/role in ways that can make kids comfortable with their choices, be it GRS, androgeny, or whatever (I'm a whatever, personally). I wish I'd had that kind of support as a kid.

In gender orientation, like sexual orientation, it's kind of "Que sera, sera." What will be, will be...sooner or later. I'd say these kids are quite fortunate to have the support to deal with the issue in their own time and space. When we were kids, the subject was unspeakable; for many of us even unthinkable. That's why we find ourselves here in middle-age, doing what our instincts call us to do, post-denial. I couldn't find cause for anything but optimism in this new approach.

Sasq

[AMM]

AMM, I'm still missing the source of the pessimism you seem to feel about the therapy the kids got.

Because they still conflate behavior (e.g., playing with Barbie dolls, wanting to wear dresses) with gender identity.

There's still no room in their world-view for a person who sees himself as male and also likes dresses or dolls, so when they see a boy who (despite his upbringing) insists on dolls and dresses, they automatically describe it as "wanting to be a girl."

And since this is the world-view these kids have been immersed in since birth, this is how they are likely to interpret their urges to themselves.

I think the reason you are "missing the source of [my] pessimism" is that you also conflate the two concepts. That is what I see in all your posts in this thread. Or else you underestimate the effect of culture on people's self-image. Or both.

[Sasquatch]

I don’t care to belabor what I’ve already expressed, so this will be my last post on the subject.

It seemed, AMM, that you hadn’t listened to the articles because you keep stating that, under the new “acceptance therapy”, boys who like traditionally “girlish” clothes and play will be pigeonholed as transgendered. The problem is that’s not really who the articles were about. They dealt with boys who were identifying themselves as girls in fairly unambiguous terms; at least as unambiguous as pre-pubescent children can be. Is their early self-identification a response to greater social pressure applied in their home or pre-school environment? While the peer/parental pressure to define one’s self obviously exists, as it always has and likely always will, one would logically expect that the normal direction of such pressure would incline a boy to suppress cross-gendered feelings and embrace the traditional roles and activities of his boy peers. It seems, therefore, a pretty far stretch of imagination to think that, even at that tender age, a boy who absolutely saw himself as a boy and nothing other than a boy would identify himself as a girl simply because he wanted to play or dress in ways commonly associated with girls.

I don’t believe either of us could find evidence from these reports that acceptance therapy is or isn’t labeling these children or coercing them toward a gender-specific result, i.e. making self-definition a prerequisite to playing or dressing in accordance with their inner feelings. Certainly there are non-transgendered boys who like to play the roles that are traditionally “girlish”, like dress-up, dolls, and housekeeping. That behavior is hardly unusual; ask any preschool teacher. I can well recall from my own childhood two playmates very much like that. One is now the father of six and an engineer. The other man happens to be gay, but is also successful and happy. I don’t think either would have identified himself as belonging to the other gender, even if it had been socially acceptable in that era for them to consider the fact. Those kids are not the targets of early intervention; children who clearly detest living as their biological gender are.

If you saw some conflation of the two in my posts, I can only suggest that you may have been reading between the lines. But where I and those in the report seem to associate certain behaviors with gender identity, it’s probably because we live on EARTH and, across all human societies, throughout all human history, for better or worse, gender affects stuff. And gender role expectations exist in Society. They are a reality that all children will have to contend with. But "we" also understand that no rule is without exceptions, and no set of individuals identical. There is no "one size fits all" mentality here, as I discern. Perhaps in the future children can be raised free of gender influences, maybe in some vast gender-neutral utopian kindergarten, but I won’t hold my breath waiting.

AMM, since you saw fit to analyze my posts, please allow me to do likewise. First, I am aware of the struggles of your past to the extent that you have shared them. I am sorry for the emotional pain and personal losses you experienced in dealing with your own gender issues. And I can’t really fault you for wearing your pain, it seems, like a crown of thorns. But damning progress in the understanding of gender identity ostensibly because it won't fit every child (perhaps because it didn’t fit your own situation?) is akin to making the Perfect the enemy of the Good. And if therapists and parents are telling these boys that what they feel inside is okay, that it isn’t wrong or sick or wicked, then I call that Good.
Sasq

[Brad]

I disagree with the characterization of Brewster as "...(an) area doesn't have a reputation for open-mindedness". I grew up in the next town about 6 miles away. Although it is certainly not the sort of place where "anything goes", it is not a repressive ultra-conservative place either. After all, as it is only a little over an hour to midtown Manhattan by car or commuter rail, it is not that isolated and alot of progressive people live there.

[skirts4me]

Hello folks.

It's been a long (long) time since I've been able to post and this is only a quick visit while I take a break in preparing a sermon for Sunday.

What goes through my mind every time I come across articles about men choosing to have sex-change procedures, or just live en femme, is how much of what they are doing results from how society brainwashes us from birth and expects us to conform to a particular norm which doesn't fit us.

When we finally get to the stage where most people accept that we have as much fashion freedom as the fairer gender I strongly suspect there'll be far fewer men feeling they have to go through a sex-change.

Please don't mis-understand my comment though. I'm perfectly aware of the people, of both genders, who feel constrained in a body of the wrong one. We now know enough about the human genome to help us explain how this occurs, as well as explaining how hermaphrodites occur.

[Peter v]

I do agree withn the previous posting, as it is near impossible to fully explain yourself in a few sentances.

I know a few men who at first were brave enough to dress as travestites, by so doing be able to wear skirts, as they then thought that was the only way they could wear skirts and not be ridiculed for them wearing a skirt just as a man.

Meanwhile they have stepped back from that, and are wearing skirts as men. A man in a skirt.

There is however one other factor which practically prevents them wearing skirts now, not the general opinion of the public, and that is their wives.

I think that after having 'Nam"' and the flower power hippie revolution, we should finally recognise that people have the personal right to be themselves, with their own tastes, and do not have to "fit" into any box which others think up. Those boxes being though up often because those people themselves are not liberated in their way of thinking. It is those people who are the problem if any, those people who cannot accept what they see. Which is also their right, if they don't take that "shortcomming " of theirs and make it a problem for people who are not the same as them or do not fit in to their boxes.

[Departed Member]

I know a few men who at first were brave enough to dress as travestites, by so doing be able to wear skirts, as they then thought that was the only way they could wear skirts and not be ridiculed for them wearing a skirt just as a man. Meanwhile they have stepped back from that, and are wearing skirts as men.

Years ago, it was probably feasible to do the whole 'transvestite' thing (or, as it was then, 'cross-dressing'), because it was easier to 'blend in' with the majority of women still wearing similar outfits.

There is however one other factor which practically prevents them wearing skirts now, not the general opinion of the public, and that is their wives.

I agree with this observation 100%, Peter! It strikes me as 'odd', that other folk (be they friends or relatives) seem quite at ease, yet the one person you expect to back you, doesn't feel able to!

I think that after having 'Nam"' and the flower power hippie revolution, we should finally recognise that people have the personal right to be themselves, with their own tastes, and do not have to "fit" into any box which others think up. Those boxes being though up often because those people themselves are not liberated in their way of thinking. It is those people who are the problem if any, those people who cannot accept what they see. Which is also their right, if they don't take that "shortcomming " of theirs and make it a problem for people who are not the same as them or do not fit in to their boxes.

I'm not sure whether that's entirely true, you know. Most (the vast majority of?) folk seem to be decidely more at ease, being part of the contents of a 'box' - whether it's just as football supporters, members of a religion, or what some would regard as 'out of the box', such as hippies, goths or (modern) crossdressers. They can all get very objectionable, if they feel their 'box' is being invaded! There's even a distinct 'barrier' developing between (my definition of) 'crossdressers' & 'transvestites'. So much so, that I now regard the TV folk as 24/7 (i.e., fulltime) and 'crossdressers' as 'weekenders'. Neither grouping has any time for those of us who merely want to replace tr*users with skirts - there is definite hostility present, although not as much as between those groupings ('box dwellers'!) and the 'drag' fraternity amongst homosexuals (to say nothing of the 'wars' between the 'pro' and 'anti' drag scene which get somewhat explosive among those who have chosen that particular lifestyle!). At the end of the day, the actions of others will inevitably impinge on someone else's 'comfort zone', to the extent that sooner or later, up jumps some poor soul claiming they've been 'offended'!

[Uncle Al]

Well folks, I've read quite a few postings, most saying the same
thing but in a slightly different mannor. I do agree 100 % with
the statement of 'wives not supporting...' as this is the person
whom most men have to live with 100% of the time.

Now to digress a moment......

What has become of the lad in California?

Has there been any updates about him and his life choices?

Are his peers still supporting him or is it 'not the thing to do'?

Anyone???????

Uncle Al
Duncanville, TX