I will admit this is an area where I struggle. When I read a lot of articles about transgendered children or listen to the pieces NPR ran a while back, I can't help but think the difference is more gender than sex. The parents always talk about how their (born) sons wanted to "play with dolls all the time" or dress in "girl" clothing. That seems to be the proof for the parents that the children are really the wrong sex.

For me, it suggests the children don't buy into culturally-sanctioned gender stereotypes. If you hand my daughter a doll, she tosses it and heads for the trains. My son has said he wants a vagina instead of a penis (or in addition to sometimes). I don't think that means they understand the gender/sex divide and are making proclamations on their reproductive systems.

There's a distinct difference between being feminine gendered and believing you should be sexually female, and I'm not sure how I feel about this decision for pre-pubescent children.

I've never spoken to a transgendered adult who said, "hell, I like skirts, so I thought I'd become a woman!" Being transgender (as I understand it) is far deeper than that, and I struggle with the idea of a child being prepared to make this kind of decision.

That said, it's not something we've encountered with either of our children (as I said I don't consider the above statements by my son as indications he actually wants to be a girl), and I know from parenting that's it's very easy to sit outside and make comments without living with the daily reality.

If I sound like I'm waffling, it's because I'm truly ambiguous on a lot of transgender issues, and I'm sharing (in hopes that I'm not being offensive) the gist of those struggles when it comes to children.

It's a good article. I like the way it reports 3 different angles on it in such a way that you can get a reasonably good feeling as to who is really paying attention to the children, and who has an agenda.
That said, it made me cry. I'm lucky enough as a late transitioner to be passable enough to live in society - but I so wish I'd had blockers and started proper puberty at 11. Wasn'tr going to happen, and I did my best with my life and pretending to be a man for a long time.
It was close between suicide and transition - I was so sure I would never pass I couldn't really see why it was worth trying - but I'm glad I did.
On a relatively trivial level, for transwomen, the blockers save hundreds of hours of painful facial electrolysis - and if there was a choice not to do that, it would be great.

I haven't read the whole article in depth, since I'm at work and just skimmed it.

Anyway, I do think that while children may or may not be able to really make the decision about who they are, and undergo irreversible procedures to bring their physical body in line with their identity, the ability of doctors to delay puberty is a TREMENDOUS benefit. It gives the children time to really consider what they need, but without going through all the trauma of developing incompatible secondary sex characteristics.

I knew 100% who I was at 14. I was terrified to admit it, so I didn't say anything, and now (at 27) I've been in the process of trying to undo all the "damage" that testosterone caused. Had I been able to start sooner, or just delay puberty until I was able to come to terms with everything and be certain of my decision to transition, I wouldn't be in this mess now. I wouldn't have nearly as much trouble covering up the things I can't change, spending money on all the things I can change but wouldn't be that way without testosterone, etc. I can't change my past, but I can definitely hope for and support the things that give children the freedom to determine who they are.

First of all, the article isn't new to me. This is not the first article about Brandon, possibly it's a rehash of an older article.

Knowing several transgendered and others with Gender-dysphoria, I find that the article is making a rather clear-cut division into the well defined roles of male and female cultural and sexual identity. In my eyes this is an overgeneralisation, which excludes all sorts of identities, including the more androgynous ones.

That being said, Brandon very clearly identifies as female. Starting her on hormones before puberty will help avoid the onslaught of male hormones with all their physical changes during these years and be much easier on her physique in the long run.

As for the choices that adults make over such a young life:
Consider what would have happened if Brandon's genitals had not been "up to par" at birth. She would have been "helped", which would have resulted in her not knowing why she had to take these hormones, and why her body didn't function like the other girls.

At least Brandon gets the choice in this.

One thing I found most bothersome about this article is that it didn't make any distinction in meaning between Brandon playing with a Barbie and pretending he didn't have a penis.

I think that's a crucial distinction, because otherwise the assumption is that wanting a vagina and liking dolls and baking are both hardwired, that they're connected genetically.

Now, I don't think they aren't connected. But what I can't believe, and what I don't see research showing, is that they're connected biologically. I know transsexuality is 100% real, and I'd be curious to see if transsexual children raised in a culture with few or very lax gender roles would act the same as one raised in a typical American culture with many gender roles. Unfortunately, it would be so difficult to find or manufacture such a gender-role-neutral environment that I don't see studies like that happening any time soon, especially since many people seem perfectly happy accepting that vaginas and baking go hand-in-hand.

I'm certainly a standard, satisfied cis-woman, biologically; my voice is high, I'm heterosexual, got breasts and all that. But I've always felt uncomfortable fitting into female stereotypes. I don't like decorating or baking or dealing with long hair; I like technology, math, puzzles, and lifting heavy objects, and my classmates growing up thought I was really weird. I don't necessarily dominate in relationships (have in the past), but am certainly not submissive. Fairly frequently people assume I'm gay. So, I strongly feel that I am a woman, but I've never felt like a girl. That doesn't make me trans, because there's a difference between how I feel about my sex, and how I feel about my gender. Right?

What I see in kids like Brandon (and in a kid I babysat for who had a similar experience, although his mom dealt with it quite differently and I'm not sure what he's doing now, he must be 11 or 12) is what I see in the other girls around me who feel like females and also feel like "girls" and are comfortable with both. Once you identify as one sex or another, you start reacting to the gender cues aimed at that sex. Just like Brandon was confident in telling his mom that no, God effed up, he's not a boy, no amount of pushing is going to make him react to the social cues for boys, because he isn't one.

I don't think it should be hard for people to grasp that skirts and the color pink and knitting aren't genetic (I mean, as far as colors, pink and blue were gender-reversed a century ago, so yeah, obviously not genetic). I think on some level, most people do understand this. But I think a lot of the way research of transgendered kids is structured and phrased doesn't make that distinction between knowing that despite having a penis, you're really female, and then continuing to accept that you are therefore a "girl" (or vice versa).

One of the best examples I can see of this in the article (but which they don't present as an example between sex and gender) is John, the transsexual kid whose parents forced him to be a boy. He's gained comfort with boy activities and boy clothes, but he isn't "cured" of his transsexuality. For all his parents' efforts, they managed to make him a "boy," but not to make him male.

Similar with Chris, the girl; her parents totally succeeded in making her act and apparently feel comfortable being a "girl," but I gotta wonder, does she feel FEMALE? She may love her hair, but does she love her breasts, her vagina? It seems the writer gave these two examples to show that maybe transsexual children aren't really transsexual at all, but to me, it reinforces my hypothesis that, putting phenotypes aside, there's still a difference between sex and gender. In your brain.

So this is really long... I wish there were more research that directly related to my hypotheses. Does anyone know of any? Like I said before, it seems like they'd be difficult studies to conduct, with the oppressive nature of gender roles all around us.

And basically, I'm pissed that the article addressed the feminist theory of gender-as-a-social-construct as just flat out wrong, outdated. Hush you, answer my questions before you spit on the theories to which I subscribe.

Judith:

I think you make a lot of good points, and raise some interesting questions.

It's just my opinion, but I think the reason people have such a hard time separating sex and gender is because they're almost always considered the same thing by "mainstream" society. But at the same time, I do think there has to be something more to gender than just a social construct, based on my own feelings and experiences. But since we exist in a society where gender is so pervasive, I don't know that we can ever really get an unbiased view of the relationship between sex and gender. But I do think your definitions of "male" as opposed to "boy", and "female" as opposed to "girl" are really interesting.

So, anyway. As I stated a bit earlier, I'm a transwoman, and I have a mixture of qualities and interests. I'm very technical, working as a computer programmer, but I also consider myself to be "girly" in many aspects. So who knows? I figure I'm just me, and that's all that matters.

IM really sick and tired of hearing about how my 'female brain' prevents me from having good spatial abilities. and the 'tests' that these researchers use are pointless unless they from birth raise children and give them the same opportunities and toys and education, then i will find that claim valid. that "boy" wouldn't need to claim he is a "girl" if we didn't have those words/definitions/expectations in our society. i think the gender debate is too deep to be just classified in one article hence why i recommend "sexing the body" i'm reading it right now. it is an interesting look at how we have developed gender and sexual preference.

also female to male transgender people are more likely to commit suicide because their surgeries are not as successful as the other way around

Wait, I forgot if Betty Friedan said anything about bein trans. She wasn't super stoked about queerness, though, was she? Let's pretend I didn't write her.

(Um, let's pretend I know how to use the internet properly, and that I posted this first:)

This is nitpicky, but I feel done with the way that transitioning gets portrayed as this, like, refutation of second wave feminism. There was definitely a vocal element of folks who hated transsexuals in the seventies, but man, it makes me feel a little nauseous to think what transsexuality would look like in 2008 WITHOUT seventies feminism. There was a lot of really good work done in the seventies! Amazing, brave, hardcore feminism, without which, this society would look really different. So while Janice Raymond was a part of that (and she is obviously, um, a person with a chip on her shoulder), so are(and of course these are arguable) Betty Friedan, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, bell hooks- a lot of awesome folks doing awesome work that doesn't have anything against transsexuality at all.

I also think it's weird when people conflate 'letting kids present and identify how they feel most comfortable' with 'mutilating their junk.' (Ok nobody said the word 'mutilate' in that article, but still.) It seems like the folks who are so against letting kids do what feels okay to them are worried about kids ruining their lives. Right? But if you let a kid change their pronoun and presentation once, why would you not let them do it again if they wanted to? Like J7Sue said, I think it's pretty clear in that article who's looking out for the kids and who's got a transphobic ("If these kids are trans, they are totally fucked omfg! Let's do everything we can- including inducing self-harm- to make sure they don't transition.") agenda, which is nice.

iphisol:

I don't know that it's your intended meaning (I'm assuming it isn't), but I get the feeling that you're say transgender people, especially transwomen, have to have an explanation for why they display the gender-related behavior they display. It can't be because that's who they are. There has to be a reason. Yet there's no similar expectation of cisgender people.

Just an observation.

A few things to consider. For instance, she quoted Louann Brizendine's "The Female Brain" which has been rebuked for, essentially, making things up and then citing unrelated references.

As well, I just can't get past this part: "Hanna Rosin is an Atlantic contributing editor and the author of God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America (2007)."

As a Christian, I am well aware that the idea that gender lies outside of the genitals is terribly frightening to many Christians out there. Most believe that God made women to be this and men to be that and the idea that everything from cooking to needlepointing is not decided at conception is deeply threatening to these people. Thus, they have such contempt for feminism that many feel its their personal duty to wage war on all that feminism stands for.

As far as gender identity disorder goes, I'm no expert, but I've read many places that children begin to identify as male or female very early in life (even at a little over a year). Soon after, they begin to develop ideas about what that means. It seems that at least part of "gender identity" is indeed in the brain, the part that tells us "I am a woman/man". But just because a girl realizes she's a girl, or a boy realizes he's a boy, are we to also assume that they automatically know what being a girl means? Are they born wanting to wear dresses or are they born thinking they are a girl and thus they should wear dresses because that's what other girls do?

This is such a complicated issue that I'm a little afraid to comment on it, but one particular point of this article really disturbed me. One of the doctors mentioned that a girl experiencing breast budding who cuts herself is probably transgender and should be given the "blockers." I recognize that the struggles that transgender children go through are substantial, especially at puberty. But somehow a violent reaction to puberty doesn't seem justification enough for making such a radical medical decision. A lot of kids entering adolescence go through a period of discomfort with their bodies that is sometimes expressed through behavior like cutting or alcoholism. Some of them are trans, some of them aren't. I starting cutting at my breasts when I was 11 because I hated my body for a whole variety of reasons, but that was in no way a sign that I wanted a male body in its place. I could easily see 10-12 year old kids who don't understand their own bodies or have other body-related issues getting inadvertently labeled as transgender by well-meaning parents and doctors, then choosing the blockers therapy just because it seems like an easy solution for everything bothering them.
I'm not saying that this therapy shouldn't be available. Clearly there are people out there who would benefit. But at the same time, radical hormonal therapy can't be set up as an easy way for parents to fix or avoid dealing with a difficult pubescent child. Blocking puberty to prevent certain self-destructive behaviors seems like a dangerous precedent to set.

Re: rootedwillow and suicide rates

I think its good to appreciate how anti-trans attitudes (cissexism) can effect FTMs and MTFs differently, but i'd caution against making direct comparisons like this. MTF vs FTM experiences is kinda apples and oranges for complicated reasons i can't quite fit into this comment box ;-)

But its worth mentioning that from studies i've read suicide attempts are about 30% for FTMs and MTFs alike. Some studies indicate a slightly higher suicide rate for MTFs.

While certainly having a body that does not conform to one's internal image of self can be a source of discomfort and even trauma, the financial nor technological barriers to surgery do not account for the high suicide rate among transgender folks nearly as much as the extreme societal prejudice, including everything barriers accessing jobs, housing, and public services to people not being able to even get your name and pronouns right!

It just seemed worth mentioning, since transgender rights involves pushing for a consciousness of "genitals do not define gender," period. Respect has more to with allowing people to participate in everyday life as the gender they actually are than just access to quality medical care (which is certainly also important :-) )

Allie,

No, not at all! I feel weird that I gave that impression. I was just trying to say that it's pointless NOT to let kids express whatever gender they want, and that committing to one gender at any point doesn't have to mean anything except that they're committed to that gender at that time. Identifying as (say) a girl for a while doesn't mean a kid is going to have to identify that way for their whole lives, although I imagine that, often, somebody assigned male who chooses to identify as female will identify that way for the rest of their life.

I mean, the only reason you wouldn't support your kid in that situation is that you don't want them to be trans- and, as a parent, you are not in charge of whether your kid is trans, regardless of what you want. Y'know? You're in charge of supporting 'em and helping them figure out who they are, and, if who they are is hard, you're in charge of helping them deal with that.

Of course it's a complicated situation in a real world with other kids, other parents, schools and governments, but I'd like to think that I could support my kid through whatever gender stuff they found themselves going through, no matter what a psychiatrist told me. Especially if the psychiatrist was telling me "do things that make your kid miserable."

iphisol:

Okay, thank you for the clarification! I feel better about that now. :) I think I got the feeling from talking about what transsexuality would be like without 70s feminism. Though, I suppose the meaning of that is a little open to interpretation, I took it to mean, "Just think of the crazy things these people would be doing if feminists hadn't broken through so many ridiculous stereotypes!". I am a little sensitive about such issues, so I thought I'd voice my concern. I'm glad you clarified what you meant. :D

iphisol
I feel done with the way that transitioning gets portrayed as this, like, refutation of second wave feminism.

If the claim of second wave feminism is that gender identity is absolutely socially constructed then yes, transsexualism does indeed refute it. My experience of feminism as well as many of the comments here confirm that attitude is alive and well. All that has done is to succeed in alienating me and other transwomen. In real life I do ok but it's especially bad online. I just can't relate to the extreme ideological stance many feminists take online. Even worse, it seems it's impossible to even have a conversation about this issue. I have to go to more science based forums for that. Here, what I expect is a wall of hate simply for questioning a central dogma. It's sad.

brenda:

I just can't relate to the extreme ideological stance many feminists take online. Even worse, it seems it's impossible to even have a conversation about this issue. I have to go to more science based forums for that. Here, what I expect is a wall of hate simply for questioning a central dogma. It's sad.

I feel the same way at times, though not so much about this site as I do others. It comes and goes. To me, a lot of the radical feminist views simply provide a different set of preconceived standards to which women must adhere, lest they be shunned. How is that not just as wrong?

I think feministing is a fairly welcoming and nice place for all feminists whether male or female, cis or transgender. I have disagreements with people and with articles, but I have them with everyone in my life at some point. But, when other feminists start throwing the "gender is a social construct, therefore you don't exist" crap in my face, they can kiss my ass.

Thank you Allie. Sometimes I know it is me so I try to moderate how I put things. Sometimes it is the internet, there is a great separating out going on. Everyone seems to be dividing themselves into their own enclaves and digging trenches. This article came up on Digg today and I was arguing the opposite side earlier today. That was pretty ugly.

I'm no expert but it does seem a good deal of who you are is written in your genes and not easily changed.

That Atlantic article is heavy. I wish people (in the world) would read it. Great issues are raised, like how comfortable should parents be about children (or themselves) making decisions about children that young? Do I understand the certainty of the people who have transitioned? No, I don't. But I consider it meaningful that relatively few people recognized with gender-identity "disorder" while young actually did transition when older. In fact, the so called "most extensive study on transgender boys" found that three quarters or more of the "sissy boys" that the researcher followed, presuming they would be transsexual, were actually gay or bisexual. He said tellingly, “We can’t tell a pre-gay from a pre-transsexual at 8." The case and anecdotes of the so called most published researcher on transgendered children, Dr. Zucker, are also interesting. "Zucker says that in 25 years, not one of the patients who started seeing him by age 6 has switched gender." Zero. In the examples, the boy turned out to be gay, and the girl is an athletically active teen girl. What?

Is this just the writer's bias?

Maybe someone can explain this to me, but I just can't get over the thought that transgendered children are the ultimate expression of gender norming and stereotyping.

When a child that young who was born with a penis says that they are girl, doesn't that indicate some pretty rigid gender roles? At that age it isn't about sex or reproduction, so what can the kid possibly want to do that they can't because of gender? In the article, Brandon wants to play with dolls and wear sparkly clothing. Why can't he do that as a boy? By saying that he must actually be a girl, aren't we really saying that it isn't acceptable for boys to exhibit stereotypically female play behaviors?

The title of one of the scientific studies they mention really said it all, "The Sissy Boy Syndrome" They identify possible "pre-transexuals" on the basis of wanting to play with dolls, wanting to play with girls, and avoiding "rough and tumble" play. Does anyone else have a problem with that? A child has to be gay or transgendered (i.e somehow flawed in their minds) because he wants to play with dolls? Doesn't that seem like the most idiotic type of stereotyping and prejudice?

I think Brandi said it well above, being transgendered is much more complicated than clothes and hobbies. So why does that seem to be all it is about for these families? One parent said she wanted her (born male) child to be treated "like any other girl." Isn't that a declaration that in her world girls and boys are treated differently?

And I absolutely believe that gender messaging starts at birth or before. I went to a baby shower for a woman who knew she was having a boy. The place was a see of blue, and all of the toys were sports related, trucks, army, etc. So from the moment that child is born (and pretty much every other kid in America) his experience will be affected by his gender.

I am not trying to be a jerk here, I just really don't understand it.

Analog,

It's definitely complicated. You're making an argument that's been made against trans folks forever, though, which has never made trans folks go away; specifically, 'why can't you do all thoes things without being trans?' The subtext is, 'the worst possible thing is to be trans.' What would your question look like in a culture where there was no stigma attached to transitioning?

Also, you're reading an article written by somebody who's not trans, who's writing for a(n assumedly) not-trans audience that's not super invested in smashing gender binaries or patriarchy. So what you end up with is: girls wear dresses and have long hair, boys don't grow boobs. It's pretty problematic. Like, how is a kid who's been assigned male but who identifies female going to talk about being trans? When they are five, they're not going to say, 'gender is totally performative, and women can literally be and do anything they want, including astronauts or butches or princesses or boxers;' they're going to say, 'I am a girl.' And since we live in a wal-mart society that crams gross sexist images of what a woman is down everybody's throat, and since they're five and don't much have a filter for it, that's going to tend to look like pricess dresses and ponies and long, blonde hair.

So yeah. A boy who likes to play with dolls, he tends not to have articles written about him. A boy who likes to wear dresses tends to learn pretty quickly to repress that desire, unless he's got some pretty amazing parents. A kid whose gender is an issue at home, at school, all day and night, that kid is the one folks are writing articles about. And the fact that there are doctors arguing 'just be mean to them enough and they'll repress it away' about those kids, to me, is the grossest thing about the situation.

And the fact that the scientists named their study 'the sissy boy syndrome' does kind of say it all, although maybe not in the way you're meaning it. Those scientists are coming from the place where these kids are, a priori, boys. Not girls. Sissy boys, not transgender girls. Science around transsexuality has kind of always been fucked, y'know? And continues to be, as evidenced by mr. zucker.

I dunno. I just think it's pretty straightforward: if your kid is having a tough time, you support your kid. You don't contradict them. You can try to give them some perspective; you an help them understand that gender is complicated and that changing it is a difficult thing with lots of implications. But you have to accept the possibility that your kid IS trans, and do everything to destigmatize that for yourself and for him or her. Otherwise, why disagree with your kid about their gender?

Haha. Apparently I have a lot to say about this. :)

analog,

I agree with you that children are socialized in all sorts of ways to adhere to gender roles; that's why I don't get it when you say that trans children are the "ultimate" result of such a system. Isn't it equally valid to say that "when a child that young who was born with a [vagina] says that they are a girl, doesn't that indicate some pretty rigid gender roles?"

I'm not the best person to speak about this, because as a kid I was generally into gender neutral-ish things like nature and puzzles, but I can imagine that for some young trans girls they're internalizing the same messages that cis girls get; be into pink, play with dolls, don't act rough. So it's not that you must be a girl if you ascribe to patriarchally defined gender roles, it's that you first have some reason to identify as a girl (which I guess most people call gender identity, but I'm not going to talk about it here as people seem disinclined to trust our own experiences), and then everything else follows. In Bridget's case, her enjoying stereotypically girly things really has no bearing on whether she identifies as a girl or not - the fact that she apparently does identify as a girl means she can do whatever the hell she wants (in my humble feminist opinion), and if that's what she likes then more power to her. Same for trans boys too, though I'm even less suitable to speak for them.

But yeah, it is disturbing how the parents and the doctors in the article are all QUICK QUICK! WE MUST FIX THIS CHILD LEST THEY TURN OUT GENDER NON-CONFORMING! OR WORSE, GAY!!! I think a lot of that is how the writer has framed it though, because transition is hardly the easiest thing to do and there are so many barriers like getting access to medical treatment (if that's what the person desires). And as iphisol said above, it's not like anything at this stage is irreversible if the child decides not to continue.

I hope any of that makes sense as I'm generally not known for my coherency skills.

I thought the part about "family noise" was interesting. All the examples in the article had chaotic home lives with one parent having a "stronger personality" than the other or whatever. I wonder if they have found any transgender children from families that are doing fine and that don't tell their kids they have to play with specific types of toys in the first place?

I'm a girl, but my parents were really big on telling my sister and I that girls can do anything boys can. When I was a kid I had dolls but I also had racecars and other typical "boy toys," and I loved them. If I had been told that only boys could play with those things I might have tried to announce I was a boy, but I was told that girls can do anything boys can, and so that was fine. I also went through stages of refusing to wear dresses or brush my hair and I always wanted to play sports with boys, but I never thought that meant I should BE a boy because no one ever told me that girls couldn't do those things.

I think that its harder for parents to say that boys can do anything girls can. These days in the states at least, most poeple don't have much of a problem with girls playing with racecars or wearing pants, but they have much more of a problem with boys wanting to play with dolls or wear dresses. I'd like to think that if I'd had a brother my parents would also have told him he could play with whatever toys he wanted, but it IS more stigmatised in our society. I can see a little boy thinking only girls can play with dolls, so I want to be a girl. But I wonder if any of these little boys they're studying who say they want to be girls come from a family where they're taught that girls and boys can do anything each other can do?

I'm not trying to argue any point, I'm really wondering if they have this data.

I'd like to thank Feministing for linking to this article. I'm glad society is becoming aware of the issue.

I am 22, born female and living as a bisexual female. When I was a child I had extraordinary difficult accepting that I was a girl. There was a period of time (2-3 years I think) where I insisted on being a "boy." I would only wear my brother's hand-me-downs. I refused to wear girl underwear. I had a pair of the light-up sneakers -- the black ones with yellow lights not the white ones with pink lights. I played soccer, was into math and science, computers and ham radio (pre internet days!) and wanted to be a boy scout more than anything in the world. I insisted on being allowed to have my hair cut super short and wear an earring in just one ear. I even took a gender-neutral nickname. In all respects I passed as a boy in public.

My parents must have been worried. I remember my mother crying when I cut off my hair. I'm not sure what they thought it really. We've never talked about it. I had a younger sister born with a traumatic genetic disease when I was 5, so maybe they just chalked it up to being related to that. Maybe it was. My parents basically just let me wear and be what I wanted. I can only imagine that if anybody said anything about my gender to them they would just shrug and change the subject. In middle school I was an absolute mess. I buried myself in fictional worlds-- novels and television. I had an absolute obsession with Star Trek. In three years I watched every Star trek episode and read every star trek book I could get my hands on. What helped me switch from being boy"ish" to girl"ish" or at least androgenous, were the intense, strong female role models in Star Trek. Belanna Torres was a strong female character and there was absolutely nothing girly about her. She was an engineer, she got into fights, she did her own thing AND she was a woman and beautiful and the cool hot pilot guy falls in love with her. She was my role model. She was the example that said "you can be into all the 'boy' stuff, be 'tough' and get to live happily ever after (excellent career + respect from peers + wonderful life partner) as a woman.

I moved to Europe and am a scout leader (scouting is coed here). I am a scientist pursuing an advanced degree. I date men and women and enjoy a fairly normal social life.
This article made me wonder how different my life may have turned out if my parents had decided to put me in some sort of gender-dysphoria therapy or if Star Trek hadn't come along to supply role models with which I could identify. I probably would have been happy to live as a man, but I am relieved that I am able to live as a woman -- on my own terms.

In the article, Brandon wants to play with dolls and wear sparkly clothing. Why can't he do that as a boy? By saying that he must actually be a girl, aren't we really saying that it isn't acceptable for boys to exhibit stereotypically female play behaviors?

"We" aren't saying Bridget has to be a girl. Bridget has been saying she's a girl. Every day. For years.

One of the doctors mentioned that a girl experiencing breast budding who cuts herself is probably transgender and should be given the "blockers."

From the context, I doubt the doctor meant cutting alone, but cutting combined with strongly identifying as a boy.

There's a distinct difference between being feminine gendered and believing you should be sexually female, and I'm not sure how I feel about this decision for pre-pubescent children.

This is not a decision being made for pre-pubescent children. All the supportive parents are doing is letting their kids dress and interact with others the way that feels most naturally to them. The blockers don't start until 12 or so, and hormones don't start until 15. No one is making any irreversible decisions here. If Bridget goes to her parents six months from now and says being a girl doesn't feel quite right any more and she wants to try being a boy again, all she's gotta do is take a trip to the mall for some new clothes and cut her hair. Somehow I doubt the parents are going to insist that she remain a girl if she doesn't want to.

I thought the part about "family noise" was interesting. All the examples in the article had chaotic home lives with one parent having a "stronger personality" than the other or whatever. I wonder if they have found any transgender children from families that are doing fine and that don't tell their kids they have to play with specific types of toys in the first place?

There are tons, but they're inconvenient to Zucker's model, so they're ignored. Zucker is basically running the same scam that "ex-gay" therapists do. Comb through everything in the person's family background to find something to be force-fit into his paradigm. If anyone goes back over their family history with enough of a fine toothed comb, you can ALWAYS find some example of when your mom exhibited a forceful side of her personality or your dad didn't feel like playing with you that day or whatever.

I'm surprised that no one at this feminist web site has yet mentioned this lil gem of misogyny:

They turned their house into a 1950s kitchen-sink drama, intended to inculcate respect for patriarchy, in the crudest and simplest terms: “Boys don’t wear pink, they wear blue,” they would tell him, or “Daddy is smarter than Mommy—ask him.” If John called for Mommy in the middle of the night, Daddy went, every time.

With a little luck, these kids will grow up hating not just themselves, but all women!

Iphisol-
I know this was all written a few days ago but I just wanted to share. I work in a childcare facility and met one of those few "great parents" you refered to. One child brought in 3 princess dresses to share/dress up with the other kids. When a set of twins came in the boy lit up. But then he said "dresses are for girls". Then mom said but you like to play pretend and dress up, right? She told me he dresses up with his sister and plays pretend princesses at home. And sure enough 2 minutes later he came up and asked for a turn in the party dresses. When mom came back she asked if he had changed his mind and wanted a turn, and smiled when i told her he had. All in all a very understanding and open reaction to what would traditionally be shamed.

Whenever I read or encounter a situation when parents are trying to make their children fit into some ready-made form, I get goosebumps and wonder why the hell they just don't let them be. Does it matter whether any given person has this or that set of chromozomes, wears skirts or has lots of chest hair? No. If someone is to teach me French, it's important that the person knows how to do it, not their genitalia - or marital status, shoe size or general attitude to large dogs. I always wanted to be a scholar, even at times when I wasn't too sure what the word means I wanted to poke into things to find out how they work. For this, I need my brains, the colour of nail paint, secondary sexual characteristics or length of my hair is irrelevant. So... why all that fuss?

I'm female, or at least it stands so in my passport and I have such overall shape. I always thought of it as of some incurable disease one ha to live with. When I was a child, I didn't care or at least I don't remember. It seems to me that issues started when puberty hit. I was totally disgusted by the physical changes. I was equally disgusted by the changes happening in my buddies - they started to show interest in dating and related activities and I wondered why they need to do something so repulsive instead of reading a nice book. I wanted the universe to take the stuff back and stick it up its arse. Or at least to take the stuff back. I remember how humiliated I felt when mom bought me a bra and brought it home, announcing that I need it. I refused to touch such a thing because I just refused to have anything to do with the pieces of ugly fat sticking out from my chest. But, I was just sitting in some quiet corner feeling disgusted with the world which soon changed into accusing myself that I'm the bad one and if I tried harder, things might change. I thought I was a lesbian but upon some pondering, I realized that touching a fellow human repulses me regardless of their sex. I thought I may be transsexual but I didn't want to be a man. I just didn't want to be a woman. I just hated every bit of my body - in my late teens, I wanted to be mind. I loved to observe how I think, learn and make my brain work. I was aware of the physical reality in the sense that mind cannot exist without body but still, one can dream. I spent years intensively hating my body until I started doing ballet and discovered that dance is thinking done via the body and another way of creating beauty. Not that I would be happy with bits of ugly fat sticking from my chest or any other female characteristics with whose details I won't bother publicly, no damn way, I hate them the same as when I was 13. I just learned to twist my mind so that it all gets depersonalized. It happens to my body but not to me.

At a certain point, especially my mother put lots of pressure on me - to be more feminine and to be a good girl and proper young lady and what the hell else. There was quite some brainwashing - you have to have a husband and children or else you'll die all alone. Or if you want to be a scholar of some merit, then you'll have to go to social gatherings and such and for that, you need a husband, you know, or else they wouldn't let you in. I actually believed some of the stuff, not all of it was sheer nonsense, which added more load to the already existing heap of crap in my head. I somehow survived it all.

If I was left alone - no relatives, teachers, friends, schoolmates nagging - I would not have wasted plenty of time trying to figure what was I doing wrong and I would be spared all the feelings of guilt. The overall result would be the same - sooner or later I would find out that I'm not a woman, I'm nothing. It doesn't hurt anyone so why does it matter that much?

/rant

Whenever I read or encounter a situation when parents are trying to make their children fit into some ready-made form, I get goosebumps and wonder why the hell they just don't let them be. Does it matter whether any given person has this or that set of chromozomes, wears skirts or has lots of chest hair? No. If someone is to teach me French, it's important that the person knows how to do it, not their genitalia - or marital status, shoe size or general attitude to large dogs. I always wanted to be a scholar, even at times when I wasn't too sure what the word means I wanted to poke into things to find out how they work. For this, I need my brains, the colour of nail paint, secondary sexual characteristics or length of my hair is irrelevant. So... why all that fuss?

I'm female, or at least it stands so in my passport and I have such overall shape. I always thought of it as of some incurable disease one ha to live with. When I was a child, I didn't care or at least I don't remember. It seems to me that issues started when puberty hit. I was totally disgusted by the physical changes. I was equally disgusted by the changes happening in my buddies - they started to show interest in dating and related activities and I wondered why they need to do something so repulsive instead of reading a nice book. I wanted the universe to take the stuff back and stick it up its arse. Or at least to take the stuff back. I remember how humiliated I felt when mom bought me a bra and brought it home, announcing that I need it. I refused to touch such a thing because I just refused to have anything to do with the pieces of ugly fat sticking out from my chest. But, I was just sitting in some quiet corner feeling disgusted with the world which soon changed into accusing myself that I'm the bad one and if I tried harder, things might change. I thought I was a lesbian but upon some pondering, I realized that touching a fellow human repulses me regardless of their sex. I thought I may be transsexual but I didn't want to be a man. I just didn't want to be a woman. I just hated every bit of my body - in my late teens, I wanted to be mind. I loved to observe how I think, learn and make my brain work. I was aware of the physical reality in the sense that mind cannot exist without body but still, one can dream. I spent years intensively hating my body until I started doing ballet and discovered that dance is thinking done via the body and another way of creating beauty. Not that I would be happy with bits of ugly fat sticking from my chest or any other female characteristics with whose details I won't bother publicly, no damn way, I hate them the same as when I was 13. I just learned to twist my mind so that it all gets depersonalized. It happens to my body but not to me.

At a certain point, especially my mother put lots of pressure on me - to be more feminine and to be a good girl and proper young lady and what the hell else. There was quite some brainwashing - you have to have a husband and children or else you'll die all alone. Or if you want to be a scholar of some merit, then you'll have to go to social gatherings and such and for that, you need a husband, you know, or else they wouldn't let you in. I actually believed some of the stuff, not all of it was sheer nonsense, which added more load to the already existing heap of crap in my head. I somehow survived it all.

If I was left alone - no relatives, teachers, friends, schoolmates nagging - I would not have wasted plenty of time trying to figure what was I doing wrong and I would be spared all the feelings of guilt. The overall result would be the same - sooner or later I would find out that I'm not a woman, I'm nothing. It doesn't hurt anyone so why does it matter that much?

/rant

I figure this discussion is more or less over, but, after reading through the rest of the comments, I felt I needed to say one more thing.

Being transgender is not bad. While the physical dysphoria is very distressing, my opinion is that society's negative reaction causes us more grief and pain. None of this would be an issue if people weren't so concerned with either shattering gender stereotypes or reinforcing them.

Through all of this, the common theme seems to be that these children have to be something that somebody else determines. The child may say, "I'm really a girl" or "I'm really a boy", and then they're psychoanalyzed repetitively, given or denied hormones, whatever., all based on what other people feel they should or shouldn't be. The problem is not that the children are or aren't transgender, it's that everyone else has expectations for them and won't let them be themselves!

I knew I was supposed to be a girl at a young age, and I knew I was transsexual at 14. I was terrified to do anything about it, because I thought either everyone would say I was crazy, ridicule me, or worse, abandon me. I didn't feel these things because I was transsexual, but because of how I felt others would treat me based on what I'd learned from others, the comments my friends and family would make, etc. The grief and suffering I faced until I finally was able to begin my transition was not brought on me by myself. It was inflicted on my be society, by people who would be more interested in "understanding" than accepting.

Anyway. It just bothers me how much analysis is going on. If you feel your child is aware enough to tell you that they're the sex or gender to which they were assigned at birth, they should be aware enough to tell you that's wrong. Accept it and help them to be who they are, not who you think they should be.

All I can say is WOW. Did you all read the article? I mean really read the article? Not read it from how it applied to you. Get outside of your self and your needs and your agendas and read what it said?

It wasn't a great article. There was some good information and there was some mis-information and there were some very unfortunate descriptions of transgender people.

Parents of transgender children were referred to in some pretty harsh ways.

The fact is we are parents. Parents who are doing the best we can to help our children live healthy and productive lives. I don't care what the statistics do or don't say. I don't care what society thinks is 'normal' or what social conventions dictate. When you are faced with the possibility of your child taking their own life because they are so miserable and you find out that there just might be a way for them to survive and be happy wouldn't you consider opening your mind to that possibility?

Folks can talk till they are blue in the face about this and can throw out all the theorys they want, but one thing will not change...keeping children alive is the bottom line. That is never mentioned in the article.

One of my best friends lost her child last October and I nearly lost my own. This really isn't a debate for us. This is our reality and we choose life for our children.