The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
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For school officials in Haverford Township, the challenge was daunting: What do you do when a 9-year-old student, with the full support of his parents, decides that he is no longer a boy and instead is a girl?
Parents of a third-grade student at Chatham Park Elementary School approached the administration on April 16 to ask for help in making a "social transition" for their child.
The Haverford School District consulted experts on transgender children, then sent letters to parents advising them that the guidance counselor would meet with the school's 100 third-grade students to explain why their classmate would now wear girls' clothes and be called by a girl's name.
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Wow. What a mess.
If the parents really want to go forward with this, it seems like it would have been better for the poor child to quietly withdraw him from one elementary school and enter the student at another school.
(Hat tip: Best of the Web)
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Technorati tags: parenting, children, public school, public education, education
5 comments:
According to NPR, this is becoming a national problem. We may be seeing more and more cases of early childhood transgender issues. It breaks my heart to hear that kids are struggling with this, but even more so that parents may actually be considering supporting their child's "alternate gender."
They'd have to fire me if I were principal.
Oh, and as a parent, I'd be instructing my kid not to go along with it. Ever. And tell that principal to call me because I'm backing the kid up. I wouldn't be mean about it, but I wouldn't pretend to believe something I don't just to make the kid comfortable.
Our country outlaws children getting married. We don't allow them to vote. We don't allow them in the army. They can not enter into contracts. (All contracts?)
This is because most children are not ready to make mature decisions.
Yet some parents are willing to let their child make a life altering decision like a sex change operation?
Sad.
Parents should be supportive like this. I commend them.
I can't say for certain in ALL cases (obviously), but by and far, these children are not getting sex change operations at a young age. Most health professionals recommend waiting until puberty is finished before making such a decision except for in extreme cases.
Many mental health professions are coming to see that treating transgender and transsexual children like all they need is tough love and therapy is like the "treatment" they used to do with homosexuals. We've all seen how well that's worked. Basically, if the child didn't really need therapy before, they're definitely going to after this "treatment".
Not all trans- children and people are the same. To some, getting "The Operation" is very important. To others, not so much. Some want very much to 'pass'. Others feel it's unhealthy to have to get all bogged down in trying to fulfill society's gender stereotypes.
But what do I know? I've only been dealing with this kind of thing since I was a young child myself.
Oh, and one more thing: It seems pretty okay for girls to run around with short hair, play sports, wear pants and baggy clothes these days. See the double-standard and the misogyny yet? "Of course girls want to be like boys! But God forbid boys want to be like girls! Being like a girl is BAD!"
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