Daughter thinks she's transgender; in desperate need of counselor to help us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank God

Exactly! Sounds like this household needs some Jesus and lots of prayer.

Lol, yup I'm sure prayer will fix it.

I think you all are responding to a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:can I just ask, there is a lot of pressure on our kids today that creates gender confusion. What if your daughter thinks she's transgender but actually is not? Who can help her?

She'll figure it out either way with support. I don't believe there are any pressures to create gender confusion, but there are opportunities for acceptance and exploration. There remain huge pressures to gender conform. No 13 year old wants to be transgender -- it is a tough today despite the recent public awareness. But when kids reach this conclusion in puberty it is more likely than not to stick, unlike with younger children. Protocols prohibit physical transitions before social ones (living as the opposite of one's birth gender) and some kids (and adults) reject binary gender Norns and treat gender as a spectrum between male and female. There is, unfortunately, no single medical diagnostic tool for this, but with assessments and counseling over time a relatively clear picture can emerge. I commend the Charlie Rose special that aired this week to anyone wishing to learn the hard scientific work going on at places like Stanford, Harvard, Cambridge and Wisconsin to better understand the biological underpinnings of being transgender.

+1.

Charlie Rose just did one of his "Brain Series" episodes on gender identity on 6/16/15. See http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60578677

You can also watch on the web or on Hulu.

Takeaways are --
1) biological gender, i.e. sex organs and sex chromosomes are different from gender identity and don't always match up,

2) everyone has male and female identity centers in their brain, one of which is usually emphasized during hormonal spurts during the prenatal or post-natal period (within the first year) and then again during puberty. Because of either atypical or absent hormonal surges, kids may develop gender identities that don't match up with their physical sex type. So, transgender feelings seem to be a result of biology, not necessarily "social" pressures.

3) many kids experiment with gender identity during the course of their pre-pubertal development, but kids who are still interested in a different gender identity by adolescence may very well be transgender. That is particularly true where they exhibit interest in wearing opposite sex underwear and sleepwear.

4)There is a protocol, developed and extensively studied by the Dutch and then copied and put into practice in the US by Boston Children's and being replicated in other major hospitals which delays puberty medically for a couple of years to give the adolescent time to consider feelings and decision options. At the end of that time, kids can decide whether to unblock their own puberty or to move ahead with a different hormonal/pubertal transition.

5) Trans kids have a SIGNFICANT suicide risk, and overall allowing them to develop according to their chose gender identity results in much happier outcomes with normalized suicide rates.

Very interesting program. Quick overview. Experts in research biology, medical treatment and a transgender person who happens also to be a researcher.

Number 4 sounds pretty drastic to me. Allowing a pre-pubescent child to alter their biology is not a choice I think I could ever allow my kid to make. These are kids afterall. In all other instances we accept that teenagers don't really know sh*t.

[Anonymous]

It's not a permanent alteration. If blockers aren't given, the kid will develop secondary characteristics of their natal sex. That can cause increased depression/dysphoria and makes it harder to transition later. If a kid on blockers later decides to go through adulthood with the sex assigned at birth, simply stopping the blockers allows that. This just puts a pause button on things, allowing the kid to go through puberty a few years later (as most people did several generations ago).

[Anonymous]

+1, although this can only work if the child and parents have some sense that this is a real possibility before puberty, and despite all the publicity about young kids transitioning I think this is still very rare. I appreciate 9:33's concern about it seeming drastic, but, of course, in a situation where this is more obvious of a possibility heading into puberty then it would not seem so drastic. And it can have huge benefits -- a biological boy at birth who later transitions can avoid having an revealingly deep voice for a girl and avoid some facial surgery (pronounced adams apple). A biological girl at birth can avoid breast surgery after puberty and other physical issues if he later transitions. And as 11:56 notes, if you stop the blocker things go back on track.

BTW, my complements to the poster who summarized the Charlie Rose episode. That is a great summary. I suspect you do a lot of writing/editing in your career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:can I just ask, there is a lot of pressure on our kids today that creates gender confusion. What if your daughter thinks she's transgender but actually is not? Who can help her?

She'll figure it out either way with support. I don't believe there are any pressures to create gender confusion, but there are opportunities for acceptance and exploration. There remain huge pressures to gender conform. No 13 year old wants to be transgender -- it is a tough today despite the recent public awareness. But when kids reach this conclusion in puberty it is more likely than not to stick, unlike with younger children. Protocols prohibit physical transitions before social ones (living as the opposite of one's birth gender) and some kids (and adults) reject binary gender Norns and treat gender as a spectrum between male and female. There is, unfortunately, no single medical diagnostic tool for this, but with assessments and counseling over time a relatively clear picture can emerge. I commend the Charlie Rose special that aired this week to anyone wishing to learn the hard scientific work going on at places like Stanford, Harvard, Cambridge and Wisconsin to better understand the biological underpinnings of being transgender.

+1.

Charlie Rose just did one of his "Brain Series" episodes on gender identity on 6/16/15. See http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60578677

You can also watch on the web or on Hulu.

Takeaways are --
1) biological gender, i.e. sex organs and sex chromosomes are different from gender identity and don't always match up,

2) everyone has male and female identity centers in their brain, one of which is usually emphasized during hormonal spurts during the prenatal or post-natal period (within the first year) and then again during puberty. Because of either atypical or absent hormonal surges, kids may develop gender identities that don't match up with their physical sex type. So, transgender feelings seem to be a result of biology, not necessarily "social" pressures.

3) many kids experiment with gender identity during the course of their pre-pubertal development, but kids who are still interested in a different gender identity by adolescence may very well be transgender. That is particularly true where they exhibit interest in wearing opposite sex underwear and sleepwear.

4)There is a protocol, developed and extensively studied by the Dutch and then copied and put into practice in the US by Boston Children's and being replicated in other major hospitals which delays puberty medically for a couple of years to give the adolescent time to consider feelings and decision options. At the end of that time, kids can decide whether to unblock their own puberty or to move ahead with a different hormonal/pubertal transition.

5) Trans kids have a SIGNFICANT suicide risk, and overall allowing them to develop according to their chose gender identity results in much happier outcomes with normalized suicide rates.

Very interesting program. Quick overview. Experts in research biology, medical treatment and a transgender person who happens also to be a researcher.

Number 4 sounds pretty drastic to me. Allowing a pre-pubescent child to alter their biology is not a choice I think I could ever allow my kid to make. These are kids afterall. In all other instances we accept that teenagers don't really know sh*t.

Umm. I think number 5 is pretty drastic -- if I had a child expressing transgender desires and who was depressed or contemplating suicide, I wouldn't really care what kind of gender identity they were "supposed" to have.

Listening to the trans (woman to man) person talking on this show was an eye opener for me -- about how he felt before vs. after. After listening to that, I would just want my kid to be comfortable with themselves, no matter about biological sex vs. gender identity.

[Anonymous]

People who transition are not happy after the initial euphoria. Just watch Jenner-

[Anonymous]

That's very misleading. Yes, there is often a natural let down period and all people - trans or not - have ups and downs. That doesn't mean they would have been happier had they not transitioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
People who transition are not happy after the initial euphoria. Just watch Jenner-

Honestly, if Jenner is not happy after his transition, will you attribute it to the transition itself or to the fact that he has chosen all his life to live a somewhat shallow and superficial lifestyle entirely on TV in the public eye, with family members who all seem to be engaged in the rather shallow pursuit of "achievement" as defined by money, cars, clothes and number of followers on whatever..... and his successive marital and familial breakdowns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
People who transition are not happy after the initial euphoria. Just watch Jenner-

Honestly, if Jenner is not happy after his transition, will you attribute it to the transition itself or to the fact that he has chosen all his life to live a somewhat shallow and superficial lifestyle entirely on TV in the public eye, with family members who all seem to be engaged in the rather shallow pursuit of "achievement" as defined by money, cars, clothes and number of followers on whatever..... and his successive marital and familial breakdowns?

Trans airforce vet Jess shipps just killed herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
People who transition are not happy after the initial euphoria. Just watch Jenner-

Honestly, if Jenner is not happy after his transition, will you attribute it to the transition itself or to the fact that he has chosen all his life to live a somewhat shallow and superficial lifestyle entirely on TV in the public eye, with family members who all seem to be engaged in the rather shallow pursuit of "achievement" as defined by money, cars, clothes and number of followers on whatever..... and his successive marital and familial breakdowns?

Trans airforce vet Jess shipps just killed herself.

I thought this paragraph in an article about her suicide was very interesting and conveys the complexity of both being trans but in the closet and becoming trans out in the world and how becoming trans won't instantly make someone happy but the unhappiness isn't necessarily inherent in the trans change itself.

"Ortega said Shipps had told him she loved her job in the Air Force and was "devastated" to feel like she had to leave. He also emphasized the difficulty that she faced in "becoming a second-class citizen" in a male-centric society, adding that the fact that she was a "tomboy" and not "hyper-feminine" — "she liked things like trucks, she liked the outdoors, fishing, camping, and those kinds of activities" — exacerbated some of her negative interactions in the wider world."

What woman can't empathize with "becoming a second-class citizen in a male-centric society"? What a shock that must be for a transitioning man!

[Anonymous]

Not familiar with the details of the airforce vet, but this underscores the potential benefits of young people figuring this out if they can sooner rather than later. I know of some adults who have had very successful transitions later in life, but I am sure for many others things can be rocky. And I am sure some of that relates to one's career -- e.g. Airforce vs. academia for the trans professor who appeared on Charlie Rose.

[Anonymous]

http://dcist.com/2015/07/childrens_national_opens_clinic_for.php

Read this and thought of this thread

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a good development. Children's is sometimes a bit disorganized administratively in some departments, so hopefully this initiative will also bring some needed attention in that area to deliver care in a manner where the overall experience (including billing, scheduling, etc.) is as positive as the quality of care/expertise. There is clearly a need for this -- especially for transgender youth (and adults for that matter).

[Anonymous]

Connect with other parents here


https://4thwavenow.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was 13 I went through a phase like this, I hated the idea of starting my period and was anoyed that my boobs kept getting bigger. The feelings passed though, I'm now happily married and love myself.

Same thing here. I also saw that boys had a lot more freedom and got to do more fun stuff. I actually cut my hair really short and refused to wear anything but jeans. Now I'm married and a mother of two. I really worry about girls at this stage being given hormones and sold the whole "trans" thing.