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Mom hopes transgender child will help others ‘be free’
The Toronto Star ^ | 06/23/13 | Francine Kopun

Posted on 06/23/2013 7:19:55 AM PDT by mkleesma

Danielle Sheridan, age 8, was born a boy. Before she was 3, she began telling her parents she was a girl. It wasn't a phase. She was insistent. She identified with Cinderella. She wanted to grow up and marry a prince. She began dressing like a girl at home. “We kept it in our home only because of our fear of society. We wanted her to be happy, but we wanted her to be safe,” said her mom, Leah Sheridan, 35. Finally, her daughter said she didn’t want to live if she had to live as a boy. “She said that God made a mistake and that she was born with the wrong body parts,” said Sheridan. “We waited to see if it was a phase, but no, it’s deep in her heart, her soul and her brain.” Danielle is a transgender child. Once utterly taboo, transgender children, even young children, are finding it easier to live their true lives. After seeking counselling with a gender therapist at Family Services of York Region, Danielle’s parents allowed her to decide whether she would choose to live as a girl or a boy. In a flash she was off, stuffing all her boy clothes into garbage bags. She had picked out a new name: Danielle. A couple of the boys at her school didn’t understand, but they came around. Teachers in the school bought books to help her classmates understand the change. Danielle’s brother was and remains her biggest supporter. Danielle is happier, bubbly and now doing well at school. She no longer talks about not wanting to live. On Saturday, Danielle led a colourful mermaid float in the first pride parade in York Region, winding through Richmond Hill. The family had worked on the float for weeks with friends. “My daughter had the time of her life,” said Sheridan. Richmond Hill Mayor David Barrow threw his support behind the event. “We’re a very inclusive community in Richmond Hill, whether it’s faith, gender or sexual orientation,” said Barrow, after the parade. He was unable to attend this year due to a scheduling conflict — the parade was put together in about three weeks. But he said he plans to attend a pride week barbecue in Richmond Hill on Sunday and will participate in the York Region pride parade next year. With two floats and some 200 people, the parade traveled west on Lorne Ave. then north along Yonge St., past the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. It ended at the Falcon and Firkin pub, where organizers celebrated over brunch. “It was a historic event, Day One for a journey that is just starting,” said one of the organizers, Jacob Gal, who lives in Vaughan. Fellow organizer Dave Williams said they wanted to make the point that residents don’t have to pretend to be heterosexual when they’re north of Steeles Ave. — there’s a diverse community north of Steeles too. “One reason we wanted a parade this year is there’s nothing like a parade for visibility,” said Williams. Mayor Rob Ford has been noncommittal about whether he will attend any events at this year’s pride celebration in Toronto, which began June 21 and runs 10 days. It’s the largest pride celebration in the world, drawing an estimated 1.2 million participants, according to organizers. It ends June 30, when the 33rd annual pride parade will march through the city. According to organizers the event celebrates the history, courage, diversity and future of Toronto's LGBTTIQQ2SA communities, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, Queer/Questioning, 2 Spirited and Allies. Leah Sheridan knows there are other families with transgender children in the region. She felt it was important to support Danielle publicly by taking part in the parade, so she would know how much support is out there for her. “There are other people suffering the way she did. Maybe her courage will let them be free and be who they are,” she said.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: childabuse; culturewar; disorders; genderiddisorder; homosexualagenda; lgbt; mentaldisorder; paragraphs; pinkjournalism; psychology
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To: mkleesma

Transgender is how the child was born. The child was born bearing both sexual organs, typically one more than the other. They will live with this for the rest of their lives, unless they get mutilation sugery, which I have seen people criticize when someone undergoes a sex change.


41 posted on 06/23/2013 8:45:48 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: mkleesma

Jeeze, I reread the article. My appologies. Very weird indeed. It was only inn the child’s mind that she was transgender, not in the actual physical way associated with what a transgender really is.


42 posted on 06/23/2013 8:49:14 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: castlegreyskull

A person with both sets of sexual organs is a hermaphrodite. “Transgender” means a person of one sex is pretending to be the opposite sex.


43 posted on 06/23/2013 8:51:37 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The world understands that Putin means it and Obama doesn't." ~Mark Steyn)
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To: mkleesma

I am ignorant. I was confusing transgender with a hermaphrodite.


44 posted on 06/23/2013 8:54:10 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: Tax-chick

Your right. I appologize. I looked it up after my second post.


45 posted on 06/23/2013 8:55:04 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: smartymarty

“Does the name Maddeline Murray O’Hair come to mind in any of this...???”
________________________________________________________

Yes indeed!


46 posted on 06/23/2013 8:55:10 AM PDT by Artcore
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To: mkleesma

Child and mom need to get to OA pronto, for starters.


47 posted on 06/23/2013 8:56:36 AM PDT by GSWarrior (When someone points at the moon, don't stare at his finger.)
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To: The Great RJ

Seeing the picture explains a lot. The mother is an obvious flake and the poor kid is being messed up by his mother. I expect the kid will be a burden on Canadian taxpayers his whole life, first with “therapy”,then with sex change surgery, then more “therapy” all the time living on welfare because he cannot get a job because of his “condition”.


I foresee suicide in this kids future - or serial killing


48 posted on 06/23/2013 9:00:16 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: mkleesma

Toronto is the messed up “Brave New World” of ridiculous secular thought. No surprise stories about “LGBTTIQQ2SA” youth coming out of there.


49 posted on 06/23/2013 9:07:11 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Tax-chick

I still think it is funny, in a day when a large number of women I know where men’s clothes, that there is some “disorder” that makes men want to wear “women’s clothes”.

Frankly, I don’t care what clothes you want to wear. You should be allowed to wear anything you want. I don’t see why pants would be “female”, or dresses “male”, except for culture. There’s nothing about the male sex organs that requires one to wear shirt buttoned one way, while the woman has to wear a shirt buttoned the other way.

So if a transgendered person is still attracted to people of the opposite sex, all they are saying is that their mental makeup is more like what culture associates with “female”. Who cares if a boy wants to play with barbie dolls, or a girl wants to play with monster trucks.

Or if a guy wants to see a “chick flick”, or a girl likes to watch “Saw”.


50 posted on 06/23/2013 9:08:52 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: mkleesma
That is hilarious. What could possible be next?

LGBTTIQQ2SAUSCMPZ9TUJENMWQS2B;>(--WTF?

51 posted on 06/23/2013 9:24:43 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: cripplecreek; mkleesma

Good God! Why hasn’t this kid been fostered into a family with the knowledge to deal with normal childish fantasies? Anyone with a brain should be able see this is s form of child abuse, like Munchausen by Proxy- and apparently has been going on awhile. Some family member should have insisted that the MOTHER go to therapy, never mind the kid.

Unless a baby is born a hermaphrodite, or its sex organs do not match its DNA as male/female, then the child is not “transgender”, period-a person can convince themselves that they are a space alien, but that does not make it reality...

And plenty of kids are enamored of being of the opposite gender-hell, I work in a male dominated profession, prefer the company of men at work and as friends, etc- I also wear makeup, have long hair and I’m totally heterosexual when it comes to the physical stuff.

I was a tomboy, and said I’d rather be a boy as a little kid, too, but I had real parents, so that my liking of cars, playing sports, physical work, etc co-exist quite nicely with perfume, high heels, having been married to a man and being a mom. Parenting is apparently no longer a necessary or respected skill...


52 posted on 06/23/2013 9:28:08 AM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Texan5; cripplecreek

53 posted on 06/23/2013 9:29:27 AM PDT by Lazamataz ("AP" clearly stands for American Pravda. Our news media has become completely and proudly Soviet.)
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To: mkleesma

Ever since I was three years old, I knew that I was an African-African, about 6 feet 4 inches tall, with rippled abs and a mean hook shot. Sadly, I was discriminated against throughout my childhood. I was denied a spot on the high school basketball team. I was not allowed to check the box asking for race as “African-American.” In college, they blocked my entrance into the black student fraternity. My health plan does not allow me to get the racial reassignment surgery I need so I can feel complete and centered. Instead, I am cursed with pasty white skin, which can and should be darkened to the proud hue of my ancestors, and my height, which can be fixed by the simple expedient of adding some bone structure to my legs, isn’t allowed because bigots call such a change “disfigurement.” In a world that embraces prejudice, my own sense of self is constantly under attack. Hopefully one day society will be tolerant of transracial people like myself.


54 posted on 06/23/2013 9:35:22 AM PDT by redpoll
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To: Texan5

One of my highschool friends was a hermaphrodite who chose female early on with no interference from her parents. When she became an adult she finished the process surgically.

She was always reasonably well adjusted because no one interfered with the direction she chose. She was just one of the hometown crowd to us.


55 posted on 06/23/2013 9:36:10 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: redpoll

“It was never easy for me, I was born a poor, black child....”


56 posted on 06/23/2013 9:36:56 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Lazamataz

The mother is overweight and doesn’t look overly bright, which is fine, it is her right to be a fatassed space cadet if that is where her comfort zone is-but I don’t think much of her parenting skills-look at how fat the poor child already is, not to mention dressed up foolishly and (literally) paraded in public to feed the woman’s need for attention-that is just sick and wrong...


57 posted on 06/23/2013 10:11:33 AM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: mkleesma; Revolting cat!; Slings and Arrows
Would've they have offered reconstructive surgery if he said he identified with being a cat?


58 posted on 06/23/2013 10:12:10 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: Texan5

Sound’s like these people will be permanently on the dole.


59 posted on 06/23/2013 10:13:12 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Proud2BeRight; Revolting cat!; Slings and Arrows
I’m trying to determine who is more mentally disturbed, the kid or Mom. The kid might respond to reason and maturing. The Mom, probably not.

I had Peter Cushing's autobiography. Early in the book it says his mother raised him in girl's clothing and he was lost one day. The police held him at the station until the mother could be located. When they took him to the restroom, they made the discovery that he was really a boy.


60 posted on 06/23/2013 10:15:54 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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