Did anyone watch 20/20 last night? transgendered children

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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.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I think it is a chemical imbalance of some sorts. Deep inside, these people believe that they are born of he wrong sex and many of them grow to be suicidal, frustrated and depressed because they are not taken seriously. I do support that if their physician can deem them to be sane that they should be allowed to have the sex change. IMHO, the nature vs. nuture theory is hard to apply here because they become more frustrated as they are being reared and treated as the sex that they really don't believe that they are. I had always hoped that I can eventually start working with patients like them because the curiousity has always stuck with me as to how they function and live with this horrible condition.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
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

I remember that story...a real sad one. Both brothers wound up killing themselves.

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Hi everyone. I live with a transgender male to female who is very willing to answer any questions that anyone has about this subject. She is 57yrs old and is very interested in educating the public-especially the medical community about being a transgender human.

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Specializes in nursery, L and D.
Hi everyone. I live with a transgender male to female who is very willing to answer any questions that anyone has about this subject. She is 57yrs old and is very interested in educating the public-especially the medical community about being a transgender human.

That would be great. Any thought, feelings, education, she is willing to share I would be interested in hearing.

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Specializes in Brain injury,vent,peds ,geriatrics,home.
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

This story is so sad.:o

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I find this type of thing very interesting, especially considering I am extremely interested in Medical Anthropology. From an anthropological perspective, western culture finds this type of behavior "odd" and perhaps even "disturbing" because we have very strict "guidelines" that distinguish and define the two genders (male and female).

Our gender is considered a trait that is culturally constructed, while our sex is biological.

It is not uncommon in other societies for a male (biologically speaking) to take on the role of a female (gender speaking). In fact, in many arctic inuit communities, many "males" prefer to take on the gender of a "female". In cultures such as that, they do not have words that distinguish males from females; and in many of those cultures an individual needs to see another persons genitalia or developed breasts to know for sure whether or not they are encountering a "male" or "female" because they don't have structured genders like most cultures around the world.

It sometimes bothers me that our culture (along with most others around the world) have defined the genders and if a male or female (biologically speaking) choose to take on the opposite gender, they are immediately labled and poked fun of. But unfortunately that is how our culture works and there really isn't anything anyone can do to change that.

There are things we can do to change this. We can start by teaching our children tolerance and acceptance of all other human beings. We can teach our children to love and accept. This is the only way to begin this change. It seems to be an impossible feat but can be done over time.

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Specializes in Psychiatric.

I watched the show and was happy to see the parents willing to let the children express themselves rather than try to 'stamp it out of them' as many would have done...It also broke my heart to see a 10 year-old child in such emotional agony. Transgendered people deserve the same dignity and respect as any other person in this world.

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.

Very interesting thread.

I'd like to point out (as others already have) that being transgendered is different than being a hermaphrodite. It is also MUCH different than a boy child "liking girl things" or vice versa.

Being transgendered is not something that you "grow out of", it's not something that you can cure either.

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