Quote:
Originally Posted by TMAllison
Only that it pertains to KIDS who haven't even reached puberty yet.
Let em make a decision when they have lived with it a while and are 30 or 35. They'll still have 60 or 70 years to enjoy whatever decision they make as informed adults.
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I thought he isn't talking of picking a kid off the street but rather kids who have problems living in the gender they are born with and seem more comfortable in the opposite gender?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/qa_with_norman_spack/
Last year, the pediatric endocrinologist started a new clinic at Children's Hospital Boston; it is one of a few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies. Working on a model borrowed from Dutch researchers, Spack uses drugs to delay the first stirrings of youngsters' puberty, granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female. The effects of these puberty-blocking drugs are reversible; that is, patients can later change their minds. Unfortunately, this is not the case with hormones. Therefore, Spack prescribes estrogen and testosterone to only a few teenagers - after months of consultation with the patient, his or her caregivers, and psychiatrists. When kids take this step, they are rewriting their own future: The hormones have a powerful, pervasive effect, changing their height, breast development, and the pitch of their voices.
IDEAS: When are children old enough to declare what gender they will be?
SPACK: All I know is that when I see preadolescents, they have been dressing in the underwear of the other sex for years. These kids are almost certainly transgendered. They're a unique population of patients. By the time a kid comes in to see me, both parents have agreed that the child is in danger and needs some form of intervention. And that has led to heavy-duty counseling for the child and parents. Therefore I see young people and families who have been evaluated by skilled professionals.