How old before you know you're a boy or a girl?Follow

Is it your argument that a parent is truly more likely to be accepting of a transgender child than a transvestite child?

Accepting? Not really. But it sounds a bit better when you're explaining to the neighbors or being interviewed by the local paper--look, we're so tolerant and forward-thinking, and must support our son/daughter! It's not something that's really talked about a lot in kids, and so gets attention for being speshul and different. I do think I could see having a transvestite kid reflecting in a poorer way on the parents than having a transgender kid, at least with some people, where if the little boy likes to wear dresses the parents must have messed up pretty badly, but if he actually thinks he's a girl it's just fine, because he was born that way and it's not anyone's fault.

Again, if they'd given him the opportunity to wear pretty dresses and such outside of the house I wouldn't have so much trouble swallowing this. But they gave the kid a choice between being a boy and doing what he loved. It's like saying to a person who is not politically active but who still identifies himself with a political party, that he can't drive an SUV if he says he is a Democrat, or can't care about the environment if he claims to be a Republican, and then actually enforcing it.

or perhaps the parent of a homosexual who keeps trying to set them up with members of the opposite sex, having a hissy fit over "never being a grandparent" and BD's favorite term "unnatural".

Because of developments in education and technology we realize that sexuality involves more than a man and women in missionary position. (the military at some point, and may still, consider sodomy anything other than missionary...)

Nioba,



Other cultures mutilate women if they're raped. Just because another culture does something doesn't mean it should be held up as an example to follow.

Nioba,

Merely making the point that just because another culture does something doesn't mean we should accept that as their "normal" just different from us.

I think people forget that there is no road map for this and largely it is because only now in our dominant culture, the taboo around gender variance is lessening and people can view their child's wishes or behavior or anxiety around being cisgendered as something other than purely pathological. These parents are doing the best they can in a situation where there are few models, about how to act or role models, who can help them understand where there child is coming from.

I think we forget that many, many people have had to be in a major closet b/c we've been been so simplistic and puritanical around the gender binary. Having gender variations, regardless of what that means, needs to be addressed in an honest way--and I think anyone who knows anything about the transcommunities, knows it means a variety of different things on a continuum and in the future it'll include more and more people as we get more sophisticated in the way we think about gender.

There is a tendency to slough it off and act like it doesn't matter. It might sound more understanding to say, "Who cares?" That's a stance that someone with a lot of privilege or a lot of denial tends to take. Kids need support understanding and expressing their identities in the face of an overwhelming cultural mandate that tells them that unless they are cisgendered, they are damaged goods.

Edited, May 20th 2009 2:05pm by Annabella

Go talk to a trans-person then and ask them about their experiences. Seriously, they can tell you that it goes deeper and has a lot to do with their core experiences. It's an opportunity for education. Pick up her stuff. Get this book.

Edited, May 20th 2009 2:23pm by Annabella

Gender is not ones Sexual Orientation

How hard is it to get this through peoples heads. I know Trangender m2f's and f2m's that are gay, lesbians, strait and bi-sexual.

They have always known what Gender they were and their body image didn't fit into the body they were born in. Sexual Orientation tends to be more fluid and something that isn't fully develop until after puberty.

My gender and sexual orientation is all over the map. The important thing is that I accept and am happy with who I am in my body. The things I'm unhappy about have nothing to do with my gender or sex and I wouldn't change either. What I would love to have been born different, is all about my being dyslexic and prone to develop physical and mental health problems later in life.

A friend of my who is a Transqueer author, once told me that though I am very happy as a female in a female body, my liking to dress in gender neuter clothings for comfort and interests in far more things, that society feel men are better at, then women, makes me Transgender. But it isn't a label I use very often. Just when people get confused over my back ground as an Artist who loves science and math and favorite toys were Lego's and Think Sticks.

I know I have no problem with my daughters deciding what their sexual preference were as teens. They like many girls their age went through a period of experimentation and see themselves more bi then strait. Each of them had to learn how to deal emotionally, with the fact that their biological father wasn't happy as a male, and now lives as an woman. They have met and accept her girlfriend.

Elne,



So what you're saying is sexual orientation is a choice, gotcha.

This thread makes my head hurt. Humans are on this earth for the same reason as every other species, to procreate. If you can't procreate you are, in nature, really of no use. We have muddied up that basic fact with our advanced brains and the ability to create, such as the creation of the invisible man that watches everything we do. Naturally, if you can't procreate, your line dies off, and that's the way it should be. All of these things you are discussing are genetic defects. It doesn't make any of them right or wrong, they just are.

I knew from a very young age I was a girl. I can't think of a time when I didn't know. One of my first really vivid memories I was about 3 and I had this plastic beaded purple necklace and it was on a white yarn type string. I had thought I'd lost it and I remembered being sad. I was walking through the house pulling my dog on a string toy behind me when I saw my necklace on the floor between the washer and dryer. I remember being so happy and reaching my chubby arm into the slit between the washer and dryer and pulling out my dirty necklace. I remember the funny clear plastic tube that was it's latch.

Anyways, yeah, I think I always knew I was a girl.

he must have a foot fetish considering how often he stuffs his foot in his mouth...

not Joph, boonie.

Edited, May 20th 2009 1:06pm by niobia