The Most Difficult Thing About Having a Transgender Child
Thursday, December 15, 2011 5:28AM
Eight-year-old Danann was born a boy, living today as a girl. In this extended clip from Wednesday’s show, Danann’s parents, Sarah and Bill, tell Anderson what the most difficult part has been.
“I think telling people that we've known for a long time, friends and family, sharing with them,” says Sarah.
Bill continues, “You never know how they're going to react to something or how supportive they are until you present them with something like this. For a lot of people, it's hard to swallow.”
Filed Under: As Seen On The Show
Comments
To all the parents who have a child who feels that they are "born" in the wrong body, Please do not feel ashamed of your child or think it's your fault somehow that your child feels this way. Embrace that child! Know that God did not make your child this way, but due to the sin and imperfection of our original parents, Adam and Eve, humans have inherited biological situations that have created us not the way we should have been. Transgender IS NOT being a lesbian or a homosexual. Sometimes people call transgenders gay, but they are not gay. They were simply born with the 'wrong' genitals. For everyone who may not be aware of this, a ****oris is an undeveloped penis. From the beginning of conception and when that embryo/zygote, etc, growing, then that is when the body parts are forming. Your gender is not determined until after a certain time has passed. (sorry, but I don't remember how far into the process that the sex of a child forms.) Danann is a very pretty little girl, and should have been born a girl.
This show has been on twice and for some reason I have missed both times. Which I don't usually miss your show. So looking at the clips of Danann and her parent's make me cry because their whole story could be mine and my husband's. Our 8 year old son asked at 4 year old "why god made him and boy when he was a girl" He told me when he gets older he too wants to cut off his penis. He "loves and adores" Lady Gaga so he dresses up like her and dances like her all the time. In the past year he doesn't really talk about being a girl even though everything he likes is girly. We love our son no matter what and we don't care who he/she is as long as he's/she's happy with who he/she is. I'm not sure what to do or where to turn to, to find out more information, we are in Canada and it's not a really big issue here from what I try to research.I am really hoping that this show will be aired again so this time we can see it. Thanks Laurie-Ann
As a 40 year old transgender male who's only transistioned 3 years ago I can really indentify with these children and I am so happy that their parents are on board with them. Watching I thought I really could have used those hormone blockers. I had been on the fence about what I felt about children on them. I think I would have wanted to be on them when I was young. However, I admit I'm stronger for have taken the journey that I have. My parents have journeyed with me, it was not easy for them but they are supportive of me. I'm an artist who's working on a book on my transition, My art has saved me when I was younger and in to my early adulthood. Having an imagination was key in transgender because so often you are the only one who can see you as you really are. There is an incredible sense of invalidation that happens to trans and a feeling of being an alien. I realized that I have 20 years of self portraits paintings and drawings that I have done and these portraits really tell a very clear story of how I felt in each portrait. I have decieded that I want to put this out there so people can see how important it is that the rest of the world gets it and with how important this is to start to understand, even if they have no one in their lives who is transgender. My art has also transitioned. my friends have commented that my work has become more realistic and my thoughts were only that mayeb it is becasue I'm happier with my reality. I'm working to make the stories I include in the book about more within my experiences within the three years of my transition. I have some very funny stories to tell. I wrote about the differnces like; what it's like to be pulled over by a police officer as a man ratehr tehn seen as a woman, or even seen as a lesbian. It's a very differnt experience and socity needs to be aware that the way in which we as people pit gender and relate to one another well within that lies the key to understanding how very human we are and different within our gender. I had experiences of both male and females saying very interesting things to me not knowing I am a transgender male and it has opened me up to realizing that people have a whole lot of limits and expectations based on gender and gender alone. It's oddly interesting to me. I like my autonomy and in genseral pass as male so people say the strangest stuff to me. I once had a police officer confess that he had top surgery only it was because he was doing roids. And he asks me what my scars were for then he confess. Anyway, I think humor can be a way into getting folks to understand the very complex reality that we ar Transgender peeople experience on a daily bases. Trangender folks I feel are a bridge to the sexes to understanding. Eeveryone experiences are different but there are very specfic common element trans express and if people could know more about those common elements we share then it could free other limitations that they have on genders as well. "Words hold us accountable and images set us free." -Mac MacDougall
I'm a 54 year old post-op transgender woman. I watched your program with tears in my eyes. Young people today have more resources today to aid them along with there transition and to educate society. During the 50's thru the 60's support was non existence. School was a living nightmare. I was thrown into many school psychologists to be evaluated of why I acted like a girl and would never associate with the other classmates. I was pulled out of class many times from not wearing the correct clothing to school. Kids in grade level of elementary and junior high were very hateful toward me. Now years later nothing has really changed much. I work for a major Television Station and most of the people are very hateful there as well. I was hired in as a woman and yet my co-works off and on seem to address me as a male. These days I have a super major low self esteem problem. I'm very quiet, and don't like to be around people at all. I think I am extremely ugly and not passable as a woman. The only time I find piece is when I am at home with the door closed and locked. I have never been happy through out mylife. My self esteem is so bad that the transgender community rejects me (go figured). I have research extensively and found no one with this similar problem. I don't being like this and I think I am beyond repair and will carry this to my grave.
My sister watched your show recently about transgender children. She knows my daughter struggles with being a girl for 2 yrs. now, She would rather be a boy and it hurts her psychologically. Her doctors have been aware of her struggles and she has had crisis moments where she wanted to " cut off her breast " etc We had to move to a different state due to a family bereavement. As I tried to get her another doctor they kept telling me that she had no problems. Ignoring her past history .While at home my daughter lamented daily over how unfair it was for her to have to look like a girl, etc. i took her to the ER because I know it could be potentially life threatening with numerous somatic complaints. The hospital said they would monitor her for a few days, the next thing I knew I was restricted from seeing her and DCFS was called. they took my daughter away from me and accused me of causing her " gender identity disorder " .My daughter is without the love & emotional support she needs and was use to. They will not acknowledge the truth , They are trying to prove that I caused this but she is worse off without me . I have not seen her in 1 1/2 yrs. They said I was making up the complaints , not her. She is the one suffering as they put her on medications that do not agree with her and has been hospitalized several times in their care. She is more distaught / confused than ever. Still they won't listen to a child in seemingly " transgender crisis " . My daughter started her crisis at age 12 and is now 14 yrs o****e. Do you have any suggestions?
ARE YOU OR A LOVED ONE "TRAPPED" IN THE "WRONG" BODY?
For over 3 decades I’ve worked as a counselor, assisting thousands of people from all walks of life. Unfortunately I have noted that many persons in my profession are, at times, more concerned about their image than about your well-being as a client.
Most counselors (medical or otherwise) find it easy to embraces your proclamations about gender-identity, encouraging you to live your “truth” — even if doing so may eventually mean having your genitals and other organs carved up.
Transgender self-identification is the only medical condition wherein MD’s routinely DEPEND PRIMARILY ON A PATIENT’S SELF-DIAGNOSIS, rather than making the effort to achieve an in-depth MEDICAL diagnosis — which is DESERVED by EVERY PATIENT WHO SEEKS HELP.
There are REASONS why many professionals are eager to support the patient’s definition of his/her own dysfunction. First, doing so is soothing to the EGO of the professional, as it enables him/her to appear, superficially, as sympathetic, open-minded, and enlightened with regards to modern medical ethics and procedures. Second, the professional is (a) busy (b) afraid to be accused of being a bigot who is out of step with his/her fellow practitioners. Thus, there is little incentive — and much disincentive —that would motivate a counselor or physician to invest his/her time, effort and those of his/her peers, towards the task of studying your needs in a manner that is COURAGEOUS, THOROUGH, and CARING. Practitioners should be endeavoring to unearth the issues that are FUELING the SELF-LOATHING that prompts the DISCONNECT and DISGUST you feel towards aspects of your body that signal GENDER.
Gender reassignment promises what it can’t deliver: For one thing, the patient RETAINS THEIR ORIGINAL GENDER. NO hormone “treatment” or surgery will alter the fact that every particle of DNA in his/her body is INCAPABLE of ALTERING the X or Y chromosomes the individual possessed at birth, WHICH DETERMINE GENDER. Thus, the post-surgery “transgendered” individual retains, in EVERY CELL throughout his/her body, the SAME GENDER DNA s/he was born with, the only difference being that now s/he possesses a body that is surgically mutilated and artificially pumped full hormones.
The kicker is that many post-surgery transgendered persons suffer permanent loss or reduction of sexual function / sensation in their altered body parts.
Studies DO NOT reveal a lasting improvement in post-surgery patients’ mood, self-esteem, or anxiety levels. Thus on precisely WHAT SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE does a sex-reassignment surgeon base his/her ongoing, mutilating surgeries performed on male or female organs of numerous patients?
Fashions come and go with regard to clothes and cars. The same occurs in medicine and medical ethics. Procedures, such as electro-shock treatments and routine tonsillectomies, both of which were very popular for a number of years, have largely fallen out of favor.
Lobotomies OUT; breast and penis mutilations IN.
Let’s not forget that, during the Victorian era, many female patients who complained to their doctors about sadness or anxiety, were “treated” by having their reproductive organs, including uterus and/or ****oris, surgically REMOVED.
If history has taught nothing else, it has revealed that we should all FEAR crude, misguided, PERMANENT procedures that seek to apply PHYSICAL “cures” to difficulties that are SOCIAL and EMOTIONAL.
If you or a loved one are considering initiating (or stopping) the sex-change process, you’ll find the website listed below fascinating.
Meanwhile, be bold, holding your head high, taking pride in the marvelous, complex body nature has crafted for you and you alone. You’re on-of-a-kind. You are not a mistake. Neither is the gender which nature has bestowed on you.
Your malady is NOT that you were born in the “wrong body;” but rather that a portion of your brain has CONVINCED ITSELF into BELIEVING you were born in the wrong body. Such a difficulty DESERVES to be explored with a therapist who possesses intelligence, patience, and compassion.
If you are struggling with gender identity, you need to find a therapist who is not hamstrung by political correctness. S/he needs to courageously and objectively help you explore significant events and relationships that have contributed towards moulding the attitudes you hold towards yourself. If a prospective therapist brushes away concerns about your perceived gender identity, glibly “reassuring” that you simply need to embrace your “true” gender, run, don’t walk. Continue searching for a counselor who cares sufficiently about you as a patient and human being to provide you with gentle, insightful, respectful support as you examine the threads that comprise your life and inform your perceptions.
What individuals who identify themselves as transgendered often receive are superficial platitudes from the professionals who should be serving them. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself being offered “solutions” such as: “Next week we can split and invert your genitals,” or: “We can excise your mammaries on the eighteenth of next month.”
You deserve help that is deeper, richer, and more insightful.
For a fascinating look at transgender issues I highly recommend the following:
sexchangeregret.com/research
Read more: http://www.andersoncooper.com/episodes/children-and-teens...