Regendering your child
May 13th, 2008 by Treena ShapiroAs a mother, I do as much as I can to smooth my children’s paths.
I want them to know what it feels like to succeed.
I want them to be comfortable with themselves.
I want them to be willing to take risks because they know there’s a safety net to catch them if they fall.
What kind of parent doesn’t want her child to be happy?
As I listened to a story on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” though, I wondered how far I’d go.
Alix Spiegel’s story about a family’s decision to give their child treatment to delay puberty was one of the more compelling parenting dilemmas I’ve come across.
What do you do if you have a son who has believed since the age of 2 he was meant to be a girl?
The parents of this particular child accepted that he had a gender identity disorder and let their son become their daughter.
That’s not the interesting part.
According to Spiegel’s story, sometime over the next year, the child will begin a treatment to ward off puberty.
To put off puberty, children –- usually between 10 and 13 — are injected with hormone blockers once a month. Spack explains that the blockers only affect the gonads, the organs responsible for turning boys into men and girls into women.
“If you can block the gonads, that is the ovary [in women] or the testis [in men], from making its sex steroids, that being estrogen or testosterone, then you can literally prevent … almost all the physical differences between the genders,” Spack explains.
Without testosterone, boys will not grow facial or body hair. Their voices will not deepen. There will be no Adams apple, and height growth will slow. Without estrogen, girls will not develop breasts, fat at the hip, or menstrual periods. And since most growth happens before puberty, if you block estrogen — and therefore puberty — girls will grow taller, closer to a typical male height.
– Alix Spiegel, “Parents Consider Treatment to Delay Son’s Puberty,” National Public Radio
Having avoided puberty, the children will have an easier time if they decide to take hormones and mature into the opposite gender. According to researchers, they could be almost indistinguishable from someone born that gender.
On the other hand, the treatment could buy a family time to let the child grow old enough to decide what course of action to take.
It’s an interesting issue. I’m one of those people who believes that you just love whatever child you’re blessed with and don’t try to pump ‘em with hormones to make them bigger, better or smarter.
But what if they’d be happier?
What if they’d feel whole?
How far do you take it?
Tags: hormones, transgender
May 13th, 2008 at 8:29 am
wow Tree that is a STRANGE thing to do! how old is their son anyway? i’m guessing he has to be very close to puberty age if they’re sticking him with hormone blockers every month….until what, he’s old enough to decide which he wants to be? i also don’t get it when people say that they “knew from the age of 2…” that they were gay/transgender i mean, at that age does a child even have the cognizance to understand “hmm i like other girls” or “being a boy just doesn’t feel right” because honestly, i can barely remember late elementary school days let alone my toddler years! besides at that age boys play with dolls, girls will throw a ball & pull ribbons off their hair but it doesn’t mean (to me anyway) that they have a gender disorder.
no knock on those who are in that sort of situation, but i just think that parents should accept the blessing of a child and love it unconditionally. what they decide to do when they are adults and FULLY understand what the outcome of their decisions will be should be something held off till adulthood. i sure hope that the hormone blockers don’t have any long-term side effects just in case the child decides to stay “as-is”
May 13th, 2008 at 9:18 am
i agree with munch on this…i just don’t buy it that 2 year olds know they are in the wrong genders body. i mean they don’t even know what they want to wear or eat. by allowing children to grow in age, but not in puberty seems so off the wall weird to me. i mean, how are they going to feel at age 14 or 15 with the body of a 5 year old, just taller? i don’t know…maybe these doctors or scientist should work on more helpful things, like alternate fuel sources or a cure for cancer or diabetes???
May 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I’ve always been told to be happy just to have a healthy baby. I’m sure those parents who have “special needs” children would much rather trade that “special need’ for gender confusion. In this new time, gender will be a trait placed a lot lower on the list of importance to people due to media and such…look at Tila Tequilla’s show.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Many children believe that they’ve been born to the wrong parents. Are we to let them choose another couple to be their parents? Many children believe they should be bigger and stronger. Should we let parents give them HGH and anabolic steroids?
Personally, I find it disturbing that parents would consider regendering a child so young or delaying puberty just to take more time to think about it. Let the child grow up and decide for himself when he turns 18 what he wants to do. This reminds me of the case of the family who had their developmentally disabled child cut by surgeons and given hormones so that she would remain a manageable size. Interestingly enough, the doctor who was involved in that case committed suicide.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Yikes, I find this to be treading dangerous waters. While I cannot imagine being in that situation, I also cannot imagine choosing to delay puberty. Generally, I don’t believe in artificially disrupting things that happen naturally. We don’t know what kind of problems could be caused by hormone blockers later in life, just in terms of general health.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Tila Nguyen Pic
Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts !