Parents transitioning their 3 year old boy

[mikeymikec]

I think at that age the parents or the boy can't know if it's a phase (induced by the presence of a bigger sister, totally normal), or if he's just gay and so likes girl stuff, or if he's actually transgendered.

I agree (though "gay" and "likes girl stuff" doesn't really make a lot of sense).

I think it's wrong that these parents took an input one day and then forced a binary switch of gender on a kid who's not able to understand it completely yet.

I didn't notice any evidence of forced behaviour/choices by the parents, please point them out.

A kid is not adult. If he sees his mum is happy and encouraging him to express his feminine side (because she's totally convinced he's trans since he said it), he will go along with it, and maybe not express his desire to revert the decision.

I think you're reading rather a lot into this article. From what I've read, the parents have done nothing more than what I'd expect if a kid had approached their parents and told them that he or she is an astronaut: Ask them if they want their spaceman helmet and call them Captain Astronaut or whatever. If the kid really wants to be an astronaut when they grow up, then be helpful and guide them in a non-coercing / non-forcing fashion. If on the other hand it's just the fantasies of a three year old, then they'll want something different a few minutes/hours/days later.

except the parents are doing exactly that by changing the name

If they got the kid's name officially changed then IMHO that would be going too far too soon (though if I were in the parents' position, once I regarded the behaviour to be "beyond a phase", I would seek professional advice, though I imagine that would be along the lines of "go with the flow, let the kid decide the non-official, non-permanent stuff, that can all wait until some time after puberty"). But IMO there's nothing in the article to say that the parents have done anything that might make it difficult for the kid to change her mind.

 

[dank69]

It's wonderful to be a liberal that can run around with soft science theories and encourage a situation where 80% of self-identifiers revert and the remaining 40% kill themselves.

Yeah, that's right, you've pretty much said that likely at a *much* older age 12% will have made the right the decision. And now you think that a 3 year old made the right decision, to the point you're going to irreversibly cut a sausage into a taco.

The other day my 4yr old son told me he was a rock.

You guys are fucking crazy.

120%? This is a bigger problem than I thought!

 

[TechBoyJK]

It must be wonderful to be in a position to make such absolute value/moral judgements about situations/people you know nothing about other than a few words in an online article.

When you're teaching your 3yo child to be act as if they are the opposite sex, you're fucked up, and it's an easy judgement to make.

 

[TechBoyJK]

This would imply that the legal guardians of the child and the ones who know and may love the child best, have done the best job they could as loving parents and everything is right with the universe. It would also mean that whatever opinion I might have on the matter is irrelevant and just me jacking off in public exposing all my emotional bankruptcy and rage?????

Love you Woofie, you always come off as sane.

Trying to justify teaching a 3yo to act as if they are the opposite sex just makes you look crazy.

All your words (bla bla bla) just make it worse.

 

[cbrunny]

I'm so hesitant about this sort of thing. I can't help but feel that we as a society know so little about gender issues. This is on some level an issue of mental health. Either the individual needs to change their gender to be mentally healthy or it is bad mental health that is causing the individual to feel like they need to change. I don't claim to be expert but I do not understand which it is. And I don't understand how anyone can be so certain that it is one and not the other.

 

[Atreus21]

It's wonderful to be a liberal that can run around with soft science theories and encourage a situation where 80% of self-identifiers revert and the remaining 40% kill themselves.

Yeah, that's right, you've pretty much said that likely at a *much* older age 12% will have made the right the decision. And now you think that a 3 year old made the right decision, to the point you're going to irreversibly cut a sausage into a taco.

The other day my 4yr old son told me he was a rock.

You guys are fucking crazy.

My 3 year old son told me he was a baseball a few months back. He was quite emphatic.

You have no idea how hard it is to find horse-hide that fits him.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I'm so hesitant about this sort of thing. I can't help but feel that we as a society know so little about gender issues. This is on some level an issue of mental health. Either the individual needs to change their gender to be mentally healthy or it is bad mental health that is causing the individual to feel like they need to change. I don't claim to be expert but I do not understand which it is. And I don't understand how anyone can be so certain that it is one and not the other.

I think that's part of the problem.

All of these idiot parents are going out on limbs because they're afraid of disciplining their kids.

It's easier to just let the kids make their own choices and say 'but that's modern psychology, right?'.

This article is about shitty parents and the potentially tragic effect on the child. Nothing more.

 

[Greenman]

I'm so hesitant about this sort of thing. I can't help but feel that we as a society know so little about gender issues. This is on some level an issue of mental health. Either the individual needs to change their gender to be mentally healthy or it is bad mental health that is causing the individual to feel like they need to change. I don't claim to be expert but I do not understand which it is. And I don't understand how anyone can be so certain that it is one and not the other.

Of course it's a mental health issue. No reasonably healthy man wakes up one day and decides he's going to have himself castrated and his penis gutted and turned inside out so he can pretend to be a woman. The people who do that are tortured, they have enormous personal issues that they need help with.

 

[waggy]

3 yr old? sorry. no.

just let the kid be a kid. IF when he gets older he still feels he is a girl great. go for it. that's the right thing to do.

but at 3? no. just no.

 

[TechBoyJK]

3 yr old? sorry. no.

just let the kid be a kid. IF when he gets older he still feels he is a girl great. go for it. that's the right thing to do.

but at 3? no. just no.

Yep. I pretty much draw the line there. Any 'psychiatric' bullshit to justify it just makes it worse in my eyes.

People will do anything to get out of feeling like bad parents. Even as far as not parenting at all and calling it 'giving the kid freedom'.

 

[BoberFett]

Ok, where did I?

"It must be wonderful to be in a position to make such absolute value/moral judgements about situations/people you know nothing about other than a few words in an online article."

Citation please. Irony doesn't relate to ironing in any way.

btw, remember who I am yet or are you still 'calling me out' as Democrat/Obama lover/etc.

I'm saying you and everyone else makes absolute value/moral judgments about people based on a few words in an online article ALL THE TIME. That's all this forum does.

 

[Jaskalas]

3 yr old? sorry. no.

just let the kid be a kid. IF when he gets older he still feels he is a girl great. go for it. that's the right thing to do.

but at 3? no. just no.

I think I understand their reasoning... do it as early as possible to make it easiest on the child growing up. Gotta take pills to suppress the hormones and natural chemistry before puberty - so they gotta make the permanent choice by age 10, or younger.

But all I see here is the older sister had items the young boy wanted to take. The parents put far more thought and encouragement into meaningless behavior than is warranted and now they've changed his name. They've fostered a mental disease on the child and have done considerable harm.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I think I understand their reasoning... do it as early as possible to make it easiest on the child growing up. Gotta take pills to suppress the hormones and natural chemistry before puberty - so they gotta make the permanent choice by age 10, or younger.

But all I see here is the older sister had items the young boy wanted to take. The parents put far more thought and encouragement into meaningless behavior than is warranted and now they've changed his name. They've fostered a mental disease on the child and have done considerable harm.

I'm trying to understand you.. what do you mean by 'do it as early as possible'? Wouldn't pushing a gender identity counter to their biological sex at such a young age be far more potentially harmful than helpful?

I can see 'not pushing the boy gender' on the child being one thing, but 'embracing the opposite gender' as a knee jerk reaction is far more damaging.

 

[waggy]

I think I understand their reasoning... do it as early as possible to make it easiest on the child growing up. Gotta take pills to suppress the hormones and natural chemistry before puberty - so they gotta make the permanent choice by age 10, or younger.

But all I see here is the older sister had items the young boy wanted to take. The parents put far more thought and encouragement into meaningless behavior than is warranted and now they've changed his name. They've fostered a mental disease on the child and have done considerable harm.

maybe. but at 3 the kid has no clue what he/she wants. it's even doubtful that they know the diffrence between girl/boy.

hell at even at 5-6 my son was wondering why girls got to were dresses and he had to wear pants. Pants suck. they are tight at all the wrong spots. a dress looks nice and loose. he also played with my daughters barbie dolls when she didnt. though granted they were usually in his tonka truck or fighting with the transformers.

kids that age have no clue. to make such a life altering decision for them is wrong.

my fear is what if they are wrong (and odds are they are). what then? you fuck them up badly.

not making a decision like that at 3. wait until they understand it. they do have time. IF at 10 they are still saying they are the other sex then fine by all means do it.

 

[cubby1223]

We as a society have come a long way.

"I'm sad because I'm a boy."
-We need to help support your choice to be a girl!

"I'm sad because I'm a girl."
-We need to help support who you are, help you be proud being a girl!



You cannot deny what I wrote

It'll be interesting the next phase of society when we start examining if children are being affected from common phrases like "boys are gross" or "boys are smelly" or the countless media depictions of women being the strong, rational, intellectual people and men the doofuses of the world

I find those movies and tv shows and commercials funny. But who knows how we're ultimately warping young minds!


(and, yes, I want to see the news report of parents transitioning Patricia into Patrick or the new report on parents forcing the schools to accept their daughter into the boys bathroom )

I wonder how the high-school locker room situation will be. Halfway through my stay in high-school showers became no longer mandatory, and actually it was fucking gross, 98% of gym class refused to shower, and everyone stank to high heavens afterwards, I wished they could have kept showers mandatory. Obviously this situation above is not going to fit in well, regardless of showers, just the changing into gym clothes, is that going to be waived off as unnecessary?

 

[Moonbeam]

I'm saying you and everyone else makes absolute value/moral judgments about people based on a few words in an online article ALL THE TIME. That's all this forum does.

You have been posting in this forum since before the invention of dirt and here you are making absolute moral judgements that that is all this forum does. If after all the thousands of posts you have read you can't see that isn't always so, try to stop projecting. Maybe if you stop picking your nose after scratching your butt, the world won't smell so funny.

 

[Moonbeam]

When you're teaching your 3yo child to be act as if they are the opposite sex, you're fucked up, and it's an easy judgement to make.

It's an easy judgment for a judgmentalist its to make, a butt head that sets up the facts in his head. The problem with your argument, of course, is that you impute the assumption the driver of this situation is that the child is being taught. Without any real knowledge at all you imagine that is what is going of. You introduced your own prejudice, your own fear and contempt for those who did that to you. You are an associative machine that thinks in its sleep. Empty your cup.

 

[TechBoyJK]

You have been posting in this forum since before the invention of dirt and here you are making absolute moral judgements that that is all this forum does. If after all the thousands of posts you have read you can't see that isn't always so, try to stop projecting. Maybe if you stop picking your nose after scratching your butt, the world won't smell so funny.

If someone wants to tell their 3yo boy they are a girl and start calling them jackie instead of jack, that's all the ground I need to start making a moral judgement.

 

[Subyman]

Oh no, this is a bit crazy. Kids are practically genderless until puberty. We teach them their roles as young kids. The only reason this 3yo wants to be a "girl" is because he looks up to his older sister. This is where parents needs to step in and say, "You are a boy, and this is what makes you different..." Parents are there to guide and teach, not pander to their child's every want or fleeting thought as toddlers. If the kid gets into his teens and still has issues then it might be time to think about it. But not at 3.

 

[TechBoyJK]

It's an easy judgment for a judgmentalist its to make, a butt head that sets up the facts in his head. The problem with your argument, of course, is that you impute the assumption the driver of this situation is that the child is being taught. Without any real knowledge at all you imagine that is what is going of. You introduced your own prejudice, your own fear and contempt for those who did that to you. You are an associative machine that thinks in its sleep. Empty your cup.

They're calling their 3yo jackie instead of jack. These are parents, and they're responsible for their child. Of course they are driving.

I don't give a shit about my 'cup, btw. These parents are fucked up. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Only some of us are willing to call a spade a spade and admit that this kid's development is being incredibly derailed by weak willed parents.

Nothing you can say changes that reality. None of the mental, superficial mumbo jumbo you post to obfuscate the truth changes the truth.

 

[waggy]

Oh no, this is a bit crazy. Kids are practically genderless until puberty. We teach them their roles as young kids. The only reason this 3yo wants to be a "girl" is because he looks up to his older sister. This is where parents needs to step in and say, "You are a boy, and this is what makes you different..." Parents are there to guide and teach, not pander to their child's every want or fleeting thought as toddlers. If the kid gets into his teens and still has issues then it might be time to think about it. But not at 3.

I disagree on the puberty part. I have raised both a boy and girl. by age 7 both pretty much had defined boy girl traits.

WE did our best to be genderless with the kids. we didn't buy pink stuff for the girl we didnt buy blue for the boy. In fact pink is my sons favorite color.

we had both gender toys for both growing up. My daugther is a tomboy in the sense she works out on her own and enjoys riding motorcycles, gocarts etc. she loves getting dirty. But she is also happy getting all dressed up and going out for dinner.

My son didn't understand why at 3-7 he couldn't wear a dress (to be honest i agree! lol). my daughter is in sun dresses oftne. they look much cooler then pants and not to mention comfortable.

but both were set in the sex by age 6ish.

 

[Moonbeam]

If someone wants to tell their 3yo boy they are a girl and start calling them jackie instead of jack, that's all the ground I need to start making a moral judgement.

Your sense of moral superiority is all you need to express yourself and get that self gratified superior feeling, and the whole reason you are as you are. The notion that two parents may have arrived at a different moral conclusion than you have, despite the fact that they are the parents and according to conservatives, should always have that right, and despite the fact that they know much more about the context in which they arrived at the actions they take, having lived them, we are given to believe the blow hard opinion of a no nothing like yourself who has a mechanically generated opinionshould carry weight. All I see is your asshole showing.

 

[Subyman]

I disagree on the puberty part. I have raised both a boy and girl. by age 7 both pretty much had defined boy girl traits.

WE did our best to be genderless with the kids. we didn't buy pink stuff for the girl we didnt buy blue for the boy. In fact pink is my sons favorite color.

we had both gender toys for both growing up. My daugther is a tomboy in the sense she works out on her own and enjoys riding motorcycles, gocarts etc. she loves getting dirty. But she is also happy getting all dressed up and going out for dinner.

My son didn't understand why at 3-7 he couldn't wear a dress (to be honest i agree! lol). my daughter is in sun dresses oftne. they look much cooler then pants and not to mention comfortable.

but both were set in the sex by age 6ish.

Haha, I agree with the dress. Logically, they are the best thing ever for summer

 

[Subyman]

Your sense of moral superiority is all you need to express yourself and get that self gratified superior feeling, and the whole reason you are as you are. The notion that two parents may have arrived at a different moral conclusion than you have, despite the fact that they are the parents and according to conservatives, should always have that right, and despite the fact that they know much more about the context in which they arrived at the actions they take, having lived them, we are given to believe the blow hard opinion of a no nothing like yourself who has a mechanically generated opinionshould carry weight. All I see is your asshole showing.

Eh, I see his point. The parent is indulging what could be a fleeting or misdirected childish thought. That indulgence could lead to a much harder life for the child. Living as a well adjusted cisgendered person is much easier than someone with an identity crisis or a transgender person. Putting an end to it at a young, impressionable age sets them up for a much easier life. If the issue is reoccurring into the teen years then its time to really tackle it and help with the transition.

Practically every child has questions about their gender. Confusing the situation at age 3 is probably the worse way to go and saying you can pick and choose (at age 3...) is not a good way to go about it.

 

[Moonbeam]

I disagree on the puberty part. I have raised both a boy and girl. by age 7 both pretty much had defined boy girl traits.

WE did our best to be genderless with the kids. we didn't buy pink stuff for the girl we didnt buy blue for the boy. In fact pink is my sons favorite color.

we had both gender toys for both growing up. My daugther is a tomboy in the sense she works out on her own and enjoys riding motorcycles, gocarts etc. she loves getting dirty. But she is also happy getting all dressed up and going out for dinner.

My son didn't understand why at 3-7 he couldn't wear a dress (to be honest i agree! lol). my daughter is in sun dresses oftne. they look much cooler then pants and not to mention comfortable.

but both were set in the sex by age 6ish.

Do you think that at age three there can appear signs of something odd you could recognize? It seems possible to me but I don't know.