boy raised as a girl

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:48 am

This is interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11814300

Such a cavalier handling of a young persons life is a crime.

Mary Sanders · Post by **Mary Sanders** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:20 pm

I read that article and it's very sad.

I thought this might be a good place to share a story very close to me that is simular to that but not as tragic

My very best friend who I have been close to for over 40 years got married severl years before me. They had a baby but it was almost a week before anybody was told if it was a boy or girl.

It turned out the baby was hermathadite. This happened back in the late 70's They weren't very smart about gender issues back then. They felt the simpliest thing to do is to turn the baby into a girl and life would go on happly ever after. WRONG!

She had a lot of problems growing up. She wouldn't wear girlie clothes and you would never get her in a dress. Over the years she became very boyish and interested in girls. Today she is very into masquline sports. Wears mens clothes and has very slort hair. She even was best man at her fathers 3rd wedding.

I think this says a lot about genetics. You can't change who a person is desten to be. You can't force a born male to live as a girl and vise versa.

This being said, it makes me think about myself. I spend 90 percent of my time as a normal man and I have no problem with that. It's just I don't feel complete without my feminine side. I question if my parents chose to raise me as a girl, would I have been happy with that? I will never know the answer. All I know is the thought of being raised as a girl will always be a very exciting thought for me to fantisize about.

Andrea Elise · Post by **Andrea Elise** » Thu Dec 09, 2010 3:47 pm

I can' t understand how some people are so full of themselves that they feel qualified to decide "what is best" for someone else.

Just leave it alone. Let them decide for themselves. If they are too young to know, leave them be until they are old enough.

Andrea

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:00 am

An entire book was written about those two boys, which I read.

I think one of the saddest things about this was the idea that a boy without a penis is better off as a girl. We would not say that about the loss of any other body part. The idea that other boys would abuse him says more about the other boys. if I were to have made fun of a boy with only one hand, or one leg, I do not even want to think about what my parents would have done to me. So why would it be okay to abuse a boy missing his penis?

What's the next logical step? Turning war veterans with that particular wound into women?

The boy in question was not transexual, he was surgically altered from his biological state. As for the idea of letting babies wait till they are old enough to decide for themselves, that would require a far more dramatic restructuring of our society than merely teaching children not to be cruel to the deformed. It's an intriguing idea, but I wonder (and maybe I am completely wrong here) if for a 5 year old being told that unlike the other children we don't know your gender, you'll have to decide, might be as traumatic as being assigned the wrong gender. Certainly for some children being told they would decide what gender they should be might seem like too big a responsibility. But then again, the idea of respecting someone's autonomy in this area is very appealing to my sense of dignity. I'm very glad not to have to have made any of these decisions.

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:35 pm

There are more medical schools teaching that intersexed kids should be allowed to chose their gender as they grow up. I do know one young man who was born intersexed, and his parents were encouraged by their doctor (at OU's Health Science Center Medical School) to allow the kid to make up his own mind. Now 16, he lives as the boy he has always been, has a girlfriend, and intends to go to college when he is old enough. Ironically, he has a "sister" who though there was no physical evidence of being intersexed, is a F2M transsexual. He is older than the obviously intersexed kid, and they are very close. I strongly suspect that there is a genetic component in this, though evidence for the genes is not known at present. I give full marks to the kid's parents for their enlightened attitude, and their obvious love for their children.

Would have been nice if that was the attitude in 1942. I could have avoided a lot of emotional pain.

Carolynn

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:09 am

Carolynn that is something that is very good to hear. I would like to think this would become the norm, that intersexed children would be able to decide for themselves when the answer becomes obvious.

What age was he when he realized what gender he was?

Anita · Post by **Anita** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:34 am

It is a shame that boys in locker rooms are cruel, but they always have been. A boy without a penis would be ridiculed, or at least that is the common thinking. So the doctors in the past decided that they would spare the new baby that kind of trauma. The parents went along with that thinking, because they also knew how much pressure there is to fit into one gender or the other.

I am glad to hear that parents and doctors are now holding off the decision until the child has some awareness of gender. That's still not easy to do--I'm sure there's a lot of pressure to make a decision on this, right after birth.

I'm also not aware of how parents raise a questioning child; there is a need to present some kind of gender--parents have to decide which pronouns they're going to use, for example. That must be tough. I have a lot of respect for parents that are willing to go through with this kind of program.

As we saw in the posting about a mother who felt pressured by other mothers when she allowed her son to wear a girl costume at Halloween, it's not just the kids who can be intolerant.

Paula G · Post by **Paula G** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:22 pm

I remember the sports changing rooms from the all male school I was at during the 70s, anyone who was a little different was ridiculed, unmercifully. One friend who was not a physical type ended up with alopecia nervosa, possibly as a consequence of the bullying. If there had been a boy at our school in this condition I am sure that his life would have been made hell. Maybe he would have committed suicide earlier, while I was there at least one other pupil did. Certainly there was no way I was going to tell anyone about my taste in clothing!

I hasten to say that this was the local Grammar School ( for our colonial friends that is the supposedly "better" type of state school) drawing on pupils from the full range of society. At that time anyone who admitted to being Gay would probably have received a "good kicking" as "queer bashing" was nearly as popular a pass time in this part of London as "packy bashing".

I am glad to say that those times are now gone, although I am sure that some of the hostility and cruelness of youth persists. Given that this was the background for the decisions these professional were making, maybe they really were doing the best they could, certainly I suspect they thought they were acting in the best interests of the child.

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:45 pm

Absaroka wrote:Carolynn that is something that is very good to hear. I would like to think this would become the norm, that intersexed children would be able to decide for themselves when the answer becomes obvious.

What age was he when he realized what gender he was?

Hi Zari. He was pretty sure by the time he was 6 or 7, and just grew into the role naturally. What fascinated me was that his former sister is very male identified as well, but was all girl, externally.

The younger brother has been on T since his early teens, and is tall and very much a guy. It took longer for his former sister to tell the folks about how "she" felt. But they were accepting.

Carolynn