[cwiz24]

All I have to say is: WHA???

This poor kid. These parents should be shot

[walden]

This is child abuse, plain and simple. These parents should be taken out and shot.

[The Great Yazoo]

Massachusetts.

[GraniteStateConservative]

In 4 years... "Nice rack, dude."

[Hat-Trick]

I wanna know what bathroom/locker room it will use.

[little jeremiah]

Looks like one for the list.

Uck.

(Still wretchedly ill, btw - haven't updated my list yet...)

[dcnd9]

Child Abuse!!

[Right Wing It]

Arrest the parents... what they're doing is sick!

[Teacher317]

Didn't a Harvard prof recently get a teeth-gnashing liberal war-cry for daring to say that men and women have different brains? And yet now they say that one brain can be male and another female... ie that they are fundamentally different?

[little jeremiah]

An important question, which may or may not have been answered on the thread (only read the first page of comments):

Are the parents of this unfortunate child a man and a woman? Two women? Two men? Is this their biological child?

After all, this is Massachusetts, so one wonders.

[Landru]

Check it out.

"The parents of the 9-year-old child said the youngster was born with the body of a girl, but the brain of a boy."

Facinating.
These "parents" have the body of a human being, but the brain of a wild turkey.

...what's the correlation, I wonder.

[stevio]

Stupid, stupid liberals.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... The parents of the 9-year-old child said the youngster was born with the body of a girl, but the brain of a boy."

Wouldn't it be less hassle just to get her into Volleyball?

[Cowboy Bob]

What the parents have is a girl who will be good in math. They ought to shut up and concentrate on getting the kid a scholarship to MIT.

[Marysecretary]

How sick is this? I know that this happens, probably more frequently than we'd like to know about. I saw a feature on this one night and a five year old boy thinks he's a girl. It's really sad. It's hard on parents, not knowing what to do. I think it's a demonic spirit attacking these children, but try and convince anyone of that--whew.

[TheOtherOne]

METHUEN -- A fourth-grader who was attending a city school as a girl before February vacation has returned to school as a boy.
     The parents of the 9-year-old say their child was born with the body of a girl, but that his real gender is male. They have asked that he be referred to and treated as a boy by teachers and other students, and school officials are accommodating the request.
     The child's mother told The Eagle-Tribune newspaper that the family made the decision after consulting with medical professionals. She said the child has not undergone any medical procedure to change his sex physically.
     "My child has the brain of a boy," said the mother, who asked that her family not be identified. She said that her child has never identified as a girl and at 2 years old did not want to wear girls' clothing.
     The mother said that she and her husband at first thought of their child as a "tomboy." But as he kept insisting he was a boy they sought medical help. Eventually, they reached the decision to change his gender identity at school, including his first name.
     School Superintendent C. Phillip Littlefield said the Comprehensive Grammar School is making "reasonable changes to accommodate the child." He said parents, some concerned, have called the school as they learned of the change.
     Littlefield said the school is being "open and honest" with parents with questions.
     "There is nothing harmful about this youngster being in school," he said.
     The mother said that she hopes her child is accepted for who he is. "These few parents who are upset about it, I'd love to talk to them," she said. "My child is not a threat."
     "I've never dealt with anything like this before," Littlefield said. "But we have unquestioned responsibility for dealing with the specific needs of this youngster."

[GovernmentShrinker]

Wait 'til the pissing contests in the boys' restroom . . .

Seriously, though, unless it has been conclusively determined that the girl is physiologically and/or chromosomally of mixed gender (and the article sounds as if that is not the case), this is an extreme step which is bound to cause her serious harm. Why not just be supportive of her tomboyish tendencies, let her choose her own clothes, and let things develop as they may? Even if she's being taunted for not acting like a normal girl, it's not like she won't be taunted even more by the little boys who clearly already know that she lacks the obvious signs of being a boy. And switching her official gender in the middle of the school year, without even changing schools?!?!?!

Legendary transsexual/tennis player/ophthalmologist Renee Richards wrote and spoke extensively about her experiences, and always said she would never really be sure that the sex-change was the best approach, and while she felt that most likely there really was something physiologically abnormal about her gender status, she hoped that medical science would eventually find a better solution. Richards, however, made her drastic choice as an adult, and one with a world-class medical education (Yale) and reputation as a leading ophthalmological specialist. Having a bunch of adults basically impose the idea of a sex-change on a pre-pubescent 4th grader is really outrageous -- even though no surgical steps are being taken (yet), the psychological impact will be irreversible.

[caseinpoint]

My 2-year-old always wanted to wear her clothes inside out. Should I have done something back then? She dresses like a modest fashion model now (17-yars-old). Kids outgrow a lot of phases if the parents just take it in stride.

But going back to this child. IF, and that's a big IF, there was a good reason to allow this child to start pretending to be a boy, any parents who cared for the child would, IMHO, wait until summer to begin the transition, let the child get comfortable acting and dressing as a boy, legally change the child's name to a neutral one in case she wants to go back to being feminine (Kim or Kelly springs to mind), move to a brand new school district, if not community or state, and then enroll the child in her new school. That they didn't, that they made the transition so quickly and with little other change, says to me that they might be more interested in forcing the issue in that school or community than in the best interests of the child.

Even if the child had objected to all those changes and preferred to stay, I would have said "Sweetie, when you change, everything changes. Your friends will not be the same as you love and it is better to have great memories of good friends." And we would have moved.

That said, I don't believe the proper treatment is to pretend a child is a sex other than what her genes say. I would say that psychological and hormone treatments should be tried long before this charade started. I recall when the "medical profession" thought the proper treatment for psychological problems was a lobotomy. You can ask the Kennedys about that. Medical professionals have been wrong in the past and will continue to be wrong on some matters.

[TexasCajun]

Sex Chromosomes:

XX Normal Female

XY Normal Male

Now how do you reckon them doctors modified the sex chromosomes from XX to XY? Now that's tricky!

[Old Professer]

Enrol her in advanced algebra and shop class and we'll soon find out what sort of boy she is.

[mlmr]

I can't believe they are sending him back to the same school.