Did anyone watch 20/20 last night? transgendered children

[allantiques4me]

Last night on 20/20 they were speaking about transgendered children.The one child was born a boy and kept insisting that he was a girl.The family is raising him as a girl.What are your thoughts on this?Do you think there is some chemical imbalance?It was very interesting.

[justme1972]

Last night on 20/20 they were speaking about transgendered children.The one child was born a boy and kept insisting that he was a girl.The family is raising him as a girl.What are your thoughts on this?Do you think there is some chemical imbalance?It was very interesting.

I saw it. There was a similar case in England that I read about a few weeks ago that we discussed in our psychology class.

Granted, people with gender-identity disorder start extremely young, but I believe that parents should do everything that they can to raise the child as his born gender dictates until he is much older. I think this reaction by the parents sends the wrong message, and they could be "nurturing" this child into a FALSE gender-identity disorder, because they are raising him to live as the other gender.

Puberty brings alot of changes...that is why we don't do sex changes on children.

I know the parents want to be supportive, but the child is too young to have the diagnosis.

[my3sonslpn06]

Years ago I saw a 20/20 on transgendered adults, say 5-6 years ago. It really began to make me think differently. I also wondered how long it would take for the children to gain a voice. (those adults talked of their childhood feelings)

I think their future is going to be challenging unless they live in a progressive thinking area or country. Smalltown USA can be a bit smallminded and harsh. My heart goes out to these kids and their loved ones. I wish them all the courage in the world!

I also very much see a difference between transgendered and gay/lesbian. The gay individuals I know would never describe themselves as women stuck in mens bodies... they are men who love men.

[santhony44, MSN, RN, NP]

I once took care of a baby who was born with extrophy of the bladder. The sex organs weren't developed at all and you absolutely could not tell the gender.

Genetic testing showed this was a male, but the decision was made that this baby would be female- apparently the thinking was that it would be very difficult to "create" male sex organs but not so difficult to create a female. The surgery was going to be done in a different hospital, so I lost track of the baby and family.

This was over 20 years ago now and I've often wondered how the child, now an adult, has done. I wonder if being raised and treated as female, and I'm sure treated with hormones, has been successful or if this person really knows that she is genetically male, and does she feel male?

I'll probably never know.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

This thread is talking about two very different things.

Transgenderism is when a person is biologically male or female but feels they are of the opposite sex in a very strong way. This is what the 20/20 episode was about.

Hermaphroditism is when a child is born with ambigious sexual orientation or both sexes expressed in some sort of way and I understand there are may ways this can come about.

A friend from Greece once told me that it used to be somewhat common for a parent to make a male child female at birth if that was the wishes of the parent. This was many years ago and a elderly woman telling me she knew of many cases of this happening. Fortunately this is no longer a practice there but I wonder if it happens elsewhere.

[first_lobster, RN]

I find this topic fascinating, and this particular fthread refreshing. there is a transgendered (pre-surg) person who works in our hospitals crapateria, and I love her to death. She's just a really nice person, but it really fluffs my bisquits because I hear some of the nurses that I work with refer to her as a freak, and then say that she shouldn't be allowed to work in the public view, or deliver patient trays. I'm really not kidding about this. It really breaks my heart. I watched a couple of the documentaries on HBO and WE and Oxygen (Secret Lives of Women - really cool), ad It really helped me to understand that it's not about being gay. Many of the transgendered men (mAle to female) stayed with their wives, and werent interested in men. I wish people could just except people as people.

[Reno1978, BSN, RN]

I did watch this episode. I was happy to see that the parents were supportive of the gender identity of their children, even though it did not match their biological sex. One of my professors performs research in this area and talking with her, I don't think the prevalence of transgenderism in the US is fully understood because it is considered socially unacceptable. I hope this show was a positive step towards acceptance.

[07302003, ASN, RN]

MSNBC had a really great program on transgendered teens last week http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18250458/. What shocked me is that Children's Hospital in Los Angeles had a "Transgender Services" department, which is so badly needed by these adolescents and their parents. I can imagine it might be controversial, a target of hatred and intolerance, but wow, what a beautiful thing that they provide services to transgendered teens.

[Soup Turtle]

I think it's sad that there are only "male" and "female" categories in our society. There needs to be an "other" category, as well. People shouldn't have to choose. They should be free to be themselves.

[athena55, BSN, RN]

Good evening All.

Missed 20/20 last night (work third tour, evening shift).

Here is a website that might answer any questions you may have regarding intersexed people:

www.isna.org

athena

[Rach101]

Things can change as a kid gets older.

I knew a family- had 3 girls and one boy. The boy grew up and wanted to be like his sisters. He wore skirts, insisted on having ribbons in his hair, played with dolls out of preference, did ballet etc etc. All things a girl would be expected to do. Everyone wondered if this would continue into adulthood.

However, around puberty he changed completely- became very involved in rugby and 'boy stuff in general- cars, girls etc.

[RJ---RN]

Well, seems like the parents are part of the problem if you ask me!!!

[shellsincanada]

here in winnipeg there was a case of a botched circumsision that the parents ended up raising the boy child as a girl. The most interesting part of this was that this boy had a twin brother and therefore researchers were interested in it because basically the twin provided a control to the "experiment". The child ended up reverting back to how he was meant to be- a boy. He sadly ended up killing himself years later. His story was made into a book called As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=6586

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2004/05/10/reimer_obit040510.html