From the Boston Herald:
Methuen parents tell school their girl is now a boy
By Casey Ross
Saturday, March 5, 2005A Methuen fourth-grader who was attending school as a girl before February break has come back to school as a boy.
The parents of the 9-year-old said their child was born with the body of a girl but the brain of a boy and has struggled with identity from an early age.
The unidentified parents are now asking school officials to instruct teachers and students to refer to the child as a boy and begin using a new name to address him. The student has been attending the elementary school since first grade.
The sudden change in the child’s sexual identity has generated some concerned calls to the school, but administrators said they intend to comply with the parents’ request, according to the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence.
There are about 1,200 students in the elementary school, with nearly 150 in fourth grade. So far, school officials said, students are adjusting well to the change.
The mother of the child said the decision to change the child’s identity came after lengthy consultations with medical professionals. She said the child’s condition is the result of a birth defect that causes the body to develop as one gender, while the brain is hardwired for another.
The mother said the child began identifying as a boy at an early age and became so insistant that she and her husband sought medical help. The child has not undergone any medical procedure to change sexes.
I’m not sure I believe in the “boy brain in girl body” analysis; I realize that’s some people’s subjective experience, but I doubt real brains are that simply binary. Nonetheless, if it makes the child suffer to be considered a girl, and if considering him a boy makes him feel better, then I think this is probably the best course of action to take.
The way I hear it, the wrong-brain-for-the-body analysis postulates some sort of polarity or continuum.
..Here are some links you might find interesting:
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/2034
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm
http://www.tmin.ac.jp/sympo/98/shinoda.html
Hunh. I think that this is the most holistic and healty approach to transgender issues that I’ve heard of to date. I’m impressed that the school administration is in support of the parents’ request.
Regarding skepticism around the “binary brains” concept, well, I dunno. We really don’t know enough about the brain to have even a superficial understanding of what’s hard wired and what isn’t. I think that it’s entirely possible for gender to be hard wired and for sexual preference to be hard wired. I just hope that, should scientists prove this to be true, that it doesn’t result in a rash of surgical procedures to “fix” GBLT people.
What I love about the article was this:
There are about 1,200 students in the elementary school, with nearly 150 in fourth grade. So far, school officials said, students are adjusting well to the change.
What a great thing, how children have such an easy time dealing with stuff like this, whereas most in the adult world are so annoyingly stuck up on transgender issues. “So you were a girl, and now you’re a boy. What’s for lunch?”
Gives me some hope at least.
As far as the binary brain goes, I’m wayyyyy too tired to give Baubo’s links a good read-through, but I agree with Amp on this one (huge surprise there, I’m sure), but I’ll add that whether natural or societal gender differences to have a strong bearing on people’s psychology. I don’t doubt that there are people who are truly better off changing their sexual identity.
Spike found a thing about young transsexuals earlier this month… or maybe last month, I forget. (http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS-IIa.html) I recommend going there and checking out the pictures, especially of the handful who started taking hormones in their teens. (Although there aren’t any transboys involved in their survey, alas.)
At any rate, pretty much what Barry said. The “brain blah blah wired blah” talk is kind of unsettling, but the practical aspect of what’s going on here is the Right Thing. For trans kids who already have a pretty idea of who they are, it’s gotta be much much healthier to get these things sussed early. Think about it: avoiding the trauma of growing up as the Wrong gender, getting a working peer group AS a boy, and potentially being able to go through the Right puberty.
Anyway, rock on Methuen school district for getting on board with this. Indicative of how vital it is to have progressives on the board and in the offices.
There was an awesome panel discussion on NPR about the idea of gender and the multiple reasons why people’s outward seeming gender might not be the same as the gender they feel- and on the number of children who are born either with aspects of both genders or neither. The panels included a medical doctor and psychologist and it cited multiple studies which looked at hormone levels and brain scans and all sorts of other hard scientific evidence which points to A: gender being a continum and B: the idea that this kind of thing is true.
Among the most surprising things: 1. Doctors used to routinely assign female attributes to intersexxed childern at birth because: “it is easier to make a hole that build a pole.”
So, I would say, good for the medical community and good for the parents for looking out for and supporting what is best for their child.
Sam the girl
That’s wonderful that the parents and school are helping this kid. I feel so sorry of transgender individuals in this culture. I wish people could just be who they are without having to limit it with labels. It’s so sad that they feel compelled to mutilate themselves with surgery to suit a role. If we were more accepting, maybe they’d be able to live as they want while still working with the plumbing they have. Genitalia is only incidental to attraction.
Wow, what a good attitude on the parts of the school and parents both.
I personally do think that most (though not all) transgender cases are biological in origin, but as per usual with humans, culture, education and nurture probably play a big role as well.
Of course, with transgender people, it’s not a case of wanting to emulate the other gender or its preceived gender roles, but a genuine conviction that you are the other gender with the same deep conviction that anyone feels that they are male or female.
Which is why I think this is biological in origin, as it is such a deepseated feeling and often, as in this case, appears long before nurture, education or culture has had too much of an influence.
Morgaine: I feel so sorry of transgender individuals in this culture. I wish people could just be who they are without having to limit it with labels. It’s so sad that they feel compelled to mutilate themselves with surgery to suit a role.
Please tell me you meant that as a joke.
Of course it wasn’t a joke. I’ve heard far worse. There’s actually a “What’s the dumbest thing anyone’s ever said to you about being transgendered?” thread on an online community I belong to.
What role would that be, Morgaine?
Morgaine, certainly not all transgenders have genital surgery. Transmen, especially, may find the original equipment prefereable to the likely surgical ourcome.
There’s also a big difference between transgender and intersexed. I’m not intersexed and don’t know any intersexed folks well, so I won’t presume to teach class.
Thomas,
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that transgender and intersex are the same thing.
The panel was an interesting ranging discussion talking about the biological basis for gender identification. I was impressed to hear the medical establishment taking the issue seriously.
Regards,
Sam the girl
Samantha, I didn’t think you did. I thought Morgaine’s comments about mutilation more closely echoed what I have heard in interviews with intersexed people — that they were deprived of functioning genitalia because doctors mutilated them to make them appear to have culturally appropriate genitals, when they could have left well enough alone.
Transgenders, most of whom are adults before they really come to grips with their need to transition, either consciously opt for surgery or don’t. Some might not fully understand what they’re getting, but I think most are pretty conscious of the trade-offs they make in choosing to do, or not to do, genital surgery.
I always thought that if it were me, I would never trade the sensation I have now for a less-fully-functional set of genitals. But then, I don’t know what it’s like to struggle my whole life to make my body conform to the sex I think I should be, and look down and see the wrong set of genitals. So I can’t really know.
One of the requirements in the standards of care–even for the informed-consent model–is that the patient be fully informed of all available options and their effects and side effects. This is not to say that everyone involved, surgeons and patients both, can be completely realistic about outcomes. Most have a pretty good idea. Also, individual results are always somewhat up in the air. They depend on body type, health prior to surgery, aftercare, and a dozen other things.
Btw, loss of sensation is not a given, although it is a serious consideration.
…Although I suppose I should change that to, “Total or severe loss of sensation is not always a given.” Some numbness is pretty much universal.