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In private, we all know what we actually believe.

I didn't know the student personally, so I didn't know all that went into it, but I do know it wasn't a rash decision. Parents were on board and all that. We were called into a meeting, the situation was explained, and that was that.

All the students were really cool about it too, everyone just went on with their lives.

Imagine that.

You are doing something that on a number of levels cannot be undone. In this case, depriving them of normal development alongside their peers. Most of these kids would have eventually outgrown these fixations and you cannot go back in time and undo the stunts in their development brought on even by puberty blockers.

Children believe all sorts of things about themselves that they will not believe in a few short years, particularly at middle school age and younger. I get to see this everyday. When adults take the role of enabler instead of loving parent/guardian who places reason and long-term health paramount in guiding decisions about children, they abdicate their roles not simply as parents, but as mature, moral human beings. We're supposed to be wiser than this. Your sample size of one notwithstanding, it's haunting to watch a child who is obviously mired in psychological disorder, so in need of a parent or other close adult who will simply step up and say, "You're struggling right now and we're going to get you help so you fixating on this anymore," rather than abdicating and instead saying, "Let's get you on some drugs or some surgery that will superficially make you appear as what you imagine you should have been."

Anyone who thinks it's right to perform sex reassignment surgery on a child is in sore need of a recalibration of his/her moral compass.

This student just cut her hair short and wore gender neutral clothes. I didn't mention sex reassignment surgery because that didn't happen.

I take issue with people who turn these things into "lefty issues", when it's a personal thing that goes on between a family and close friends. She seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, and I was heartened that whatever she was going through, she wasn't judged, stigmatized, or made fun of. As far as I could tell, she enjoyed school.

With respect, telling a child "you're struggling right now, and we are going to get you help so you won't fixate on this anymore" is the last thing I would say and I hope you never do either.

I turned it into a moral issue. Not on the part of the child, but rather on the part of the parents and the adults who are complicit.

Your implication that any adult wants children like this "judged or made fun of" is silly and, frankly, stupid. There isn't an anti-bullying policy in this world that will ever keep a boy who dresses as a girl from being teased as they reach certain points in their lives. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise, just as you're kidding yourself if you believe that this is the variable upon which the continued mental health of most of these kids rests.

Again:
1. Most kids grow out of these fixations as they get older.
2. The self-harm and suicide rates remain extraordinarily high across cultures, suggesting that it is not primarily environmental stimuli at the root of the problem.
3. Self-harm and suicide rates remain extraordinarily high even after reassignment surgery, again reinforcing the notion that it isn't primarily environmental.

I doubt you have much training or education in what you say to a child with respect to psychological disorders. Neither of us do. Fortunately, others do and are able to broach such subjects properly while working towards dealing with these sorts of fixations through cognitive therapy.

Would your reaction be the same if a young person insisted that he was a black person trapped inside of a white body? Or would your judgment simply rest upon whether his peers accepted this delusion? Which delusions should be acceptable to parents and other adults with regards to teenagers and which merit intervention by parents and adults? Why is this one different?

You keep bringing up sex reassignment surgery for some reason. That is not a factor in this example.

I don't know the girls parents. I don't know the girl, other than seeing her interact around campus or in class. I do know that being a girl and wanting to identify as a boy is a pretty unique thing, and probably scary. This girl isn't an attention seeker, not a big personality. Obviously no one wants a child to be bullied, but it could have been met adversely by the student population. Kids could have kept their distance or thought she was weird. The opposite happened. I consider that to be a special thing, and I think everyone could practice a little more acceptance, and not see it as a "left/right" issue, as the original poster did.

To your core issue, I don't see these things as delusions I need to help them get over. I don't see this as an obvious psychological disorder. People felt this way about homosexuality, some still do. I'd find a professional for the whole family to talk to, and it leads wherever it leads.

This is typically one of the last things people say before they are taken away.

thank you.

And that they are the only rational ones. I suspect you are hoarding weapons right now.

Not really - It was a joke along those lines. Sort of trying to misdirect from another tedious culture war argument between intransigent culture warriors.

aliens are trying to abduct them by telling them that aliens are trying to abduct them. Caitlyn Jenner is not a dolphin, not a turkey, and not a women. Caitlyn Jenner is a biological male.

Weird.

Science defines sex very clearly. The redefinition is taking place in the political world, not the scientific world.

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I hardly think that is anti-science.

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Did you get a PhD in Gender Studies? Because if you didn't, you are out of your league guessing at what the experts in this field know.

What is the science on people who believe they were born with the wrong genitalia? What is their chromosomal makeup? Do a person's chromosomes determine their gender identity? That's the denial. It then goes off the charts when someone further argues that gender and sex are different, despite the fact that every single time a man identifies as "transgender," he chooses to make himself like a woman, and vice versa. Gender and sex are one and the same and the science on what determines your sex was long ago established.

Believing that you were "meant" to be the opposite sex is no less delusional than believing you were "meant" to be a different race or to be disabled, both of which have now become things in the midst of "trans-mania," as some have correctly identified it.

Indulging in the fixations of people struggling with this condition does them no favors. They self-harm and suicide at astronomical rates, across cultures, which suggests that environment does not explain these astronomical rates. In fact, the rates remain astronomical for those who have the surgery, which also undercuts the argument that the self-harm and suicide rates can be attributed to harassment and lack of acceptance.

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swim team.

and the WNBA by pretending to be something they are not. It's already happened in MMA fighting. Despicable!