Posted on 01/28/2007 9:53:56 AM PST by wagglebee
A German boy, now 14, is believed to be the youngest patient in the world pursuing gender reassignment after convincing doctors two years ago he wanted to live as a female.
Doctors say the boy, born "Tim," has considered himself female since he was two.
According to his parents, Tim tried on his older sisters clothes and played with her Barbie dolls, announcing, "I'm a girl." The boy was distraught after every haircut, they said, and at four, he took a pair of scissors and threatened to "cut off my thing!" After that incident, Tim was called "Kim" by his family.
"We always saw Kim as a girl, but not as a problem," the father, who was not identified, told Der Spiegel. "In fact, our life was surprisingly normal."
Puberty brought about a drop in Kim's voice and concern for the child's future.
"At that stage we realized that she was terrified of growing facial hair and her voice breaking," said the father.
The family sought medical advice about a possible sex change for Kim, with mixed results.
"Hormone treatment! Gender adjustment! How could you possibly do this to the child?" the family's pediatrician asked the father. Some psychiatrists suggested Kim be placed under observation in a psychiatric hospital.
Eventually, the family contacted Dr. Bernd Meyenburg, the head of a clinic for children and adolescents with sexual identity problems at Frankfurt University. He concluded that Kim represented the "rare ... clear-cut case" for intervention before puberty initiated irreversible changes to his body.
"It would have been a crime to let her grow up as a man," Meyenburg said.
According to Dr. Achim Wuesthof, the endocrinologist who is treating the teen, the procedure to arrest the course of male puberty has been successful thus far. Even though children under 16 are not permitted to undergo sex change in other countries, he and his colleagues thought it best to start early in Kim's case.
"To the best of my knowledge, Kim is the youngest sex change patient in the world," Wuesthof told the London Sunday Telegram. "According to German law, two independent psychiatrists must confirm that the child is indeed transsexual and approve the sex change. Once that has been done, it is best to start as early as possible."
For legal reasons, surgery to remove Kim's male genitals cannot be performed until age 18.
"From a purely medical standpoint we are dealing with the mutilation of a biologically healthy body," said Meyenburg. "We face a real dilemma. If we do something about it, it's irreversible. And if we allow nature to take its course, that too is irreversible."
Meyenburg said he had mixed feelings about the fact that more and more – and younger – patients are seeking him out for advice.
My body has had metabolism imbalances since I was 16. Due to possible damage created by Undiagnosed Diabetes!
I had unreal hormone imbalances that effected my cycles for years, not to forget huge amounts of rapid weight gain every other year.
Then when it finally took me to the hospital at spring of 05, right after a doctor finally diagnosed the imbalance in my system, she gave me a prescription for estrogen/hormone therapy. That weekend was in hospital, before I even had the prescription filled.
In the next four weeks, my appetite changed, and within 6 months I lost 45lbs, and had less fatigue and my diabetes numbers became more regualated! Not to mention some normalizations to my cycles.
Who knows.. maybe this young man has inherited a damaged hormone/ or weak gene from his fathers seed too!
Could be plenty of basic explanations, with solutions. Doesn't always have to be serving the "fantasy" this boy has alotted himself too!
His parents are his enemy right now, as far as I can see!
Can you imagine being the guy who ends up courting it?
Sex is a biological fact, not a social construct. People must learn to accept that.
I could not agree with you more. It's certainly a challenging and sad situation but I don't think the parents are helping matters. I read a book a few years ago - just a horrible story - I think it's called "The Way God Made Him" or something about a boy who has his penis destroyed in a botched circumcision. The parents, at the guidance of a psychiatrist or psychologist, raise him as a girl and he grows up, (now here's where you have to guess - think hard now), liking GIRLS. Gee, what a shocker. Anyway, he feels like a total freak and thinks he's gay. They finally fess up to him. I think people need to read this stuff so they see just what all of our little experimentation really does to people.
I read about this earlier today on Fark and was too disgusted for words.
Its too insane for words......
I read about that kid; he was in Canada. IIRC he was a twin. Didn't he commit suicide?
The boy from that disturbing experiment in gender bending has since committed suicide.
Rebel rebel, your face is a mess
rebel rebel, how would they know
hot tramp, I love you so!
When the boy was 2 the parents should have taken him for behavior modification and to check for hormone imbalance and correct the problem... NOT succumb to his desire to be a girl at 2!
At least the pediatrician has some sense.
The boy is still a male with the XY chromosomes....you can't change that!
Perhaps the first clue that "Kim" is not a "her."
When the pediatrician is the "voice of reason" you know it's bad!
There are no sex hormones at age 2. Of any type. In the womb their is, while the baby is developing into its gender but by birth it subsides until puberty.
I think Adam Corrolla put it best when he said "if your son asks for a Barbie Doll for Christmas, give him a bb gun and a bible."
What if he would have thought he was an old man? A cat? Winston Churchill?
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There's one guy who is getting changed into a leopard and another who is getting changed into a lizard. I am looking forward to seeing how the PC State will regulate rest rooms when this becomes more popular. ;-)
A sad story. Probably already too late to fix things, since his parents have been treating him like a girl since he was just a few years old.
Evidently his father sees nothing strange about having brought up their boy as a girl: "In fact, our life was surprisingly normal."
So, now he will be mutilated.
The book ended with him marrying and living a rather satisfying life but that was a number of years ago. You are right though, they are Canadian. If he committed suicide, I would not be shocked but it would be very sad. And Yes, he was a twin.
That is so sad. I cried reading his story. May he rest eternally in God's arms. I think God reserves a very special place for these people. The cruel injustice of what happened to him medically was bad enough but the psychological harm was probably beyond anything we could ever comprehend.
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