I agree with you Otis, it seems to me, that if an eight year old boy says I like long hair, the parents immediately think transgender and start treating him as a girl. Not really his choice, the parents push him/her into it.
It seeems some parents are mixing their young kids up as transgender. What are your thoughts we didnt have this problem back in the 60 70 80?
Two words: Poor parenting.
This, to me, is the next progression of failing, past electronic babysitting. Let the child run the whole show, no matter how ludicrous. We wouldn't want to upset him, now would we?
I think biologically boys just naturally become boyish and girls more "girly." For instance we have 3 girls and one boy. With the girls I noticed if there was a startling noise they hid behind mommy. When Jr heard a starling noice which made us all jump he leapt in front of me in a protective manner instinctively even though he was only two. It came natural to him. As a parent I am suppose to be "front line" but my boy felt instinctively protective. It's in their DNA to be different boys and girls. As a parent I wouldn't dream of trying to push my girls to be boys and my boy to be a girl! Kids have enough to deal with in the world today!
It's lunacy, and it doesn't help that this is being pushed by the media, transgenders, gender neutral, and the new one on me "bi-romantic" the list goes on and is added to all the time, I learn a new one every time I come on here or turn on the TV.
Children shouldn't be obsessed with labels, they don't care, they should be out playing just as we did when we were children, not worrying about gender identity. My brother pushed a dolly in a pram, and my sister and I played with cars, no big deal.
If a person feels that they may be transgender, it makes sense to wait until they've at least gone through puberty and reach adulthood, crikey life's hard enough as it is.
It's weird because psychologists use to be obsessed by making sure children go through the certain stages of develop and so they end up identifying with the same sex parent and facing the opposite sex, now apparently they don't even have to have a gender, and are constantly exposed to homosexuality, transgenders, sex and violence all before the 9 o'clock watershed, children copy what they see, monkey see monkey do.
This obsessive labelling is nuts and confusing for children. It appears heterosexuality is not to be spoken about in case we tread on people feelings, and so we have to keep everything gender neutral, they think that gender comes from external forces, no it doesn't it comes from what is between your legs and we have been doing it this way for thousands of years, the same as any other species, you don't get genderless cows, or pigs.
All this labelling doesn't make them feel more accepted it makes them feel lost. If you want to look at why the state of society is in the mess it is in today, look to the media and what is being promoted. Children are becoming more issolated due to the media and it's technology, and the family unit is disappearing.
There are kids who are legitimately 'born in the wrong body', and it's good that there is more knowledge of this by society, but sometimes, parents mistake their little boy's love of dolls as him being transgender. I think that parents think that transgender is more common than it actually is, and while it's good to recognise these 'differences', we need to make sure children aren't being pushed to transfer unless they really need to.
Children do have to go through testing to make sure that they are truly transgender, and they can 'turn back' until they go through the final stage in their teens.
There is a point where children are simply too young to have this kind of thing decided for them. Is it possible to see signs that a person might be transgender from a young age? Yes. But you could always be wrong. It's best not to make any rash assumptions.
Someone could've used my love of dollhouses, EasyBake ovens, and the color pink as signs I was transgender, but it really just meant I was gay ;)
In my opinion you are born what you are. There Is no mistake. A child shouldn't be allowed to be a transgender until he/she reaches 18 and is considered an adult. By then he/she has had time to think about making those kinds of drastic decisions. I've read/seen in the news kids as young as four becoming a transgender and for me, my thoughts are those parents should be put in jail.
its up to the kids to decide what gender they want to be.