On the Treatment of Transsexual Children

[justanormalgirl.livejournal.com]

(This was written as a letter to my mother. It is reproduced here for your benefit. Hopefully this is far less controversial than my last post.)

I apologize for constantly talking about trans stuff. I know I've spent the better part of the last decade doing so. It goes in cycles, where I don't really do anything related to trans stuff or talk about it and then times when I get very involved in (mainly online) conversations and debates.

I don't want to upset you but there was a recent story out of Australia. This post-op TS woman was in a relationship with a man, they had only been together for about two months but he was already physically abusive. While he was in jail (overnight, I think, I don't remember what for), a couple of cops looked up his girlfriends records. They discovered that she was a transsexual and started mocking the guy. As soon as the guy was let go, he went over to his girlfriend's house and beat her half to death (it stopped when she fell over the balcony). She had been living as a woman for most of her life and had surgery 12 years prior. Certainly, she should not have gotten involved with a man who was that unstable and violent but it brings up a couple questions: "When is someone no longer a man?" or "Is it possible to move from being 'a transsexual' to being 'just a woman'?" Obviously, this guy didn't think so. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23167492-2,00.html (what a horrible, slutty outfit!)

I believe the best way to combat this sort of ideas is by educating people about what it means to be transsexual. But of course, people will be cruel to anyone who is different, whether they are disabled or of a different race or whatever. Everybody knows that Black people are born Black, that's never been a question yet some people still are vicious, violent racists. What makes people think that if we can prove homosexuality or transsexuality are inborn and immutable, some people won't still act that way towards us?

I think of homophobia more like persecution based on religion, not race. It's possible to pretend to be a Muslim pretending to be Christian or a Protestant in a Catholic country in order to fit in and to not face sometimes violent assault and discrimination. Some gay people pretend to be straight but just as the Protestant doesn't truly believe in Catholic dogma, the gay person truly isn't straight. Freedom isn't necessarily based on having an immutable characteristic that people pity you for, it's about being free to do what your heart tells you, whether it's how you pray and understand God or who you are attracted to.

For transsexuals, we are both born with or develop an understanding of ourselves as the gender opposite what was assigned to us for whatever reason (we don't understand it ourselves). Freedom for us is the freedom to live in the way that we see ourselves. It is incredibly depressing and upsetting to have a body that doesn't jive with what we believe we "should" have. Even worse is that people keep trying to tell us that we are the opposite of what we think we are. Most of us are really trying hard to live as "normal" people in spite of what anti-trans propaganda portrays.

So how do we make trans people more comfortable with who they are? How do we make society more comfortable with who trans people are? What is the most psychologically and physiologically healthy way to deal with transsexuals? The best solution is to do what we can earlier in their lives. The past several years have led into world-wide research (most of it from Europe but also in South Asia) into treating transsexual children earlier and earlier. But how do you separate out the actual transsexual children from say, tomboys who act like boys and sometimes say they want to be boys but will probably go on to live relatively normal female lives as an adult? When is it a phase and when is it a fundamental part of who the child is?

Studies on children living as the opposite gender have shown that those who are going through a gender program at a clinic do not regret their decisions and are much happier and healthier being allowed to do what they need to do. I know things are different looking back but I can only imagine how much healthier I would have been if I had been listened to at an early age instead of corrected. Based on girls I've met online who have transitioned in middle and high school, this is true.

When I came home for Christmas, I was so happy that everyone tried very hard to remember to call me "Tamara" and "she". I went to bed that first night and I felt so relaxed and loved. I felt more comfortable with myself, more like a normal girl than I ever had before. For the past 15 years we've been struggling with this, I've always just wanted your acceptance, for you to listen and to try to understand.

In some countries, the average age of transition is much lower than in the United States. Thailand, The Philippines, Mexico, Brazil and other South Asian and South American countries have a fairly visible population of transsexual women. They tend to get find ways to transition, even obtaining hormones off the gray market or over-the-counter without a prescription (some countries you can buy many things OTC you can't buy that way in the US), saying it's for their menopausal mother or something. Just like in the US though, they either end up with supportive parents or they get disowned and kicked out. They tend to turn out looking very similar to women born female since they went through puberty about the same time and had minimal skeletal differences at that age.

Unfortunately, the legal and social status of transsexuals in those countries is pretty pitiful compared to the US, Canada and Europe. For example, even though Thailand is well recognized to have some of the best genital surgeons in the world, Thai women are not allowed to change their legal gender. Thus they are permanently marked as being transsexuals and commonly discriminated against when trying to get professional jobs. The law needs to recognize transsexuals' transitions.

Washington State is good about this. After genital surgery, you can apply to have your birth certificate changed. In some states, the birth certificate is amended with a note but that makes it obvious what happened. In a couple states, birth certificates are immutable. Part of what we need is the ability to hide embarrassing and potentially harmful information like that. With increased government recording of personal data, it becomes harder and harder. I will probably never be able to get to the point where a simple background check won't reveal my trans status.

Of course, one solution is simply to do it earlier. For example, I didn't change my name until I was 20. I waited a long time until I had the money together to do it. This is now a matter of public record. If I had changed my name three years prior, before I turned 18, it would have been sealed. Now at some point I should probably go back and change a million places where my name has not been changed. The fewer places this happened, the fewer ways I could be outed.

Further benefits include the physical fact that if my body had not been allowed to masculinize, I wouldn't be faced with dealing with masculine features. Some people get plastic surgery to correct them and make themselves look more like other women. Laser hair removal or electrolysis is expensive and a hassle. Many women who transition as teenagers look pretty indistinguishable from other women.

More important, I think, are the psychological and social benefits to early transition. Living in the wrong body and role is damaging to a person. Clinical depression is nearly universal and suicide is very common. It's torture, it really is. With transition, people can become more comfortable with themselves socially and be more outgoing. I was very introverted before transition but that has improved a bit. I know I wasn't a very good son to you but I could have been and want to be a much better daughter.

One problem that gay people and transsexuals face is that we are minorities in a scary world but unlike racial/ethnic minorities, we are often strangers in our own homes. Home should be a safe place but homophobia and transphobia occurs even there where kids are subject to verbal and physical abuse. A few studies have looked at homeless youth and one estimated that nearly half (42%) of all homeless teenagers are LGBT. One-quarter of gay teenagers were kicked out. One girl I met, a friend of my ex-boyfriend Andy, was kicked out at 14 for being a lesbian. Parents that support their gay or transsexual children need to be supported themselves. To a certain degree, PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) has filled that role.

I read these stories of children transitioning in elementary school and delaying puberty with Lupron (used for preventing precocious puberty) and it's amazing. I couldn't imagine having done that 15 years ago. The world has changed a lot since then. But still, these sorts of cases are enough to make the news and to cause a big upset with some of the parents who don't understand what's going on. I remember being very frustrated in high school because I needed resources to help me deal with this but the best I could do were websites and chatrooms on the internet, usually oriented to people twice my age. Physical, real-world resources are important and training teachers and school counselors and such to deal with children who are going through these sorts of problems is important to their health.

So, I can't go back now. I want to, now that I think you understand a little bit more than you did when I was 8 (elementary school - trying to break out and be accepted as a girl), 12 (middle school - some despair and depression, feeling trapped), 14 (high school - lots of despair and depression, self-injury, suicidal tendencies/attempts), 16 (coming out as transsexual), 19 (starting hormones), 20 (abandoned). I'd go back to any of those points now and redo what I've done with your love, support and acceptance. But I can't. I'm here now. I'm 23 and still fighting the hormone war, still very much in transition. It's a far cry from when I was 16 and dreaming of being able to have SRS by the time I was 21 and move on to just being normal. I fell apart in many ways and it takes a lot to recover from what I went through. I have survived though and I keep pressing on, hoping that some day things will improve.

What I want to do is to live vicariously somewhat, however. I want to apply myself to provide help for transsexual kids in high school and earlier. I've met a few online and befriended them.

One girl I still talk to fairly often, is 17 and is graduating this year. In June, shortly after her 18th birthday and high school graduation, she is getting SRS. Another friend is 19, she transitioned at 16. I like her because she and I are into the same kind of music. A third friend started going to therapy for this issue when she was only 12. When I met her online she was still only 15. She went through the gender clinic at rather notorious Clarke in Toronto (they set their own guidelines for treatment, which some people consider too conservative, instead of the commonly-accepted WPATH, née HBIGDA, Standards of Care). There is a boy at her high school going through the same thing.

I don't know any high school TS in real life. But we did talk about it when I was in high school. The very first person I told in real life (actually using the word "transsexual") was Christina, a lesbian friend I met in 11th grade (also, the first gay person I met IRL too). She said that she had struggled with a lot of gender issues as well but at that point was just living as a masculine, or "butch", lesbian.

Then, of course, there was Harvey. I told him soon after I met him because all of my friends knew I was trans and he needed to know that I was more than just a girly bi boy. He surprised me by telling me about his own deep struggles with having a female body and we struggled with our issues together throughout our relationship. I still wish I could have been with him while he was living as a boy but he kept thinking he could find ways to mitigate his dysphoria. I don't know exactly what pushed him over the edge but for many people, including myself, the road of living in the assigned role is over -- it's unbearable to continue -- and it's either transition or end it altogether.

I get rather jealous of my friends who transitioned in high school and all those with parental support for their treatment but it's also a good sign of change in the world. Slowly, transsexual people have moved from "Jerry Springer" to "Oprah" and people are starting to recognize that this condition doesn't appear when a middle-aged man decides to become a woman but is something that exists from early childhood and in both boys and girls. Still, I feel like I need to do more because I wish someone would have done more to help me. We can literally save lives from suicide and significantly improve individuals' lives who are suffering from the same condition I am. I feel that I need to do something.

Thank you for listening. It means so much to me.
~ Tamara

Resources

http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=10795

2008 - Recent story on an 11yo girl (note, they later apologized for the use of male pronouns and name in this story)

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=85989

2008 - Recent news story on a 2nd grade girl

http://radicalguy.podomatic.com/entry/2007-11-26T16_13_11-08_00

2007 - Article by the director of TransYouth Family Advocates about her 15 year old son.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3088298

2007 - Barbara Walters 20/20 story on a 6 year old girl.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Netherlands/Wrong Body.html

2003 - A Dutch article on different trans kids, both MTF and FTM

http://www.antijen.org/boy/

2002 - A 13 year old boy has a secret

http://www.transproud.com/pdf/beagirl.pdf

1998 - Mom, I Need to Be a Girl is a freely available book about a 15 year old girl, written by her mom. I read this a long time ago, back in 2001.

http://www.antijen.org/

A rather scattered site and associated email discussion list that helped me a lot when I was starting out.

http://www.tsroadmap.com/early/netlinks.html

Andrea James' list of links for young TS.

"Ma Vie en Rose"

1997 - A movie (I have the DVD) about a very young girl and her struggles with her peers and her parents. Rated R for no particular reason, the rating was much lower in other countries. Probably because the subject matter is unpopular.