Monday, 1 September 2008

Today's Battle

Over at Catholic Answers Forum : what happens when theological dogma and biological reality collide?
at 9/01/2008 10:49:00 pm
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3 comments:

Theo Bromine said...

When “Ben Carson” was 3 years old, his favorite color was pink and his best friend at nursery school was a girl.

Here is a story of 2 boys who were friends: As young children, they both had pink as their favorite colour. They also liked flowers and other stereotypically "girly" things. Their mothers, both engineers, did not see this as a problem. (Neither did their fathers (also engineers).) As children and teens, one of the boys had mostly boys as friends, while the other one's friends were mostly girls.

These boys are now in their 20s. One of them is heterosexual and one of them is gay. The one who is straight still has mostly female friends (including a long-term committed partner).

I have to wonder what a 3-year-old understands about gender identity. Perhaps his confusion and dissatisfaction with being a boy was due to the fact that he really liked pink flowers and everyone was telling him that was inappropriate for a boy, rather than just letting him be a boy who happened to like pink flowers. Both his own gender and the gender of those to whom he is sexually attracted are matters for puberty, not preschool.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008 2:54:00 am
SnoopyTheGoon said...

I see you are taking on some tough hombres over there, Zoe. Good luck, and I shall be peeking over you shoulder then!

Thursday, September 04, 2008 1:29:00 am
Maddie H said...

I have to wonder what a 3-year-old understands about gender identity. Perhaps his confusion and dissatisfaction with being a boy was due to the fact that he really liked pink flowers and everyone was telling him that was inappropriate for a boy, rather than just letting him be a boy who happened to like pink flowers. Both his own gender and the gender of those to whom he is sexually attracted are matters for puberty, not preschool.

I don't know - I was certain of my gender identity by 3-4 years old. I mean, I knew and it wasn't because people were telling me that those were girl things - that's backwards, just as defining whether any children are trans based on whether they have "feminine" interests, as opposed to what the child believes about herself.

You only describe outside observations for both of those boys as well. You don't describe their own feelings.

Anyway: I think that kids should be allowed to be raised as whatever they prefer. This won't make them transition, since many never will. But those who do go on to transition will have a much better, much healthier childhood.

And at puberty, it's pretty easy to use drugs that halt puberty long enough for the teenager to decide whether or not sie wants to transition and change sex.

The fact is that delaying transition past the wrong puberty for trans people effectively damages their body and creates the need for more costly surgeries and procedures (a girl who never goes through male puberty never has to worry about facial feminization surgery, voice training, or electrolysis, while one who waits until 18 will probably have to do two of those, and some might be stuck with all three).

Basic harm reduction justifies this, and no one who doesn't want to is forced to transition.

Monday, September 08, 2008 2:46:00 pm

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