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.
I knew someone who had gone from male to female when they were in their late teens/early 20s and their life for years was miserable. Thankfully, she came to know Jesus which not only saved her soul but also her life.
It truly is a privilege, and a heaven honoring task! It is a job! Truly it is, and the only reward is that our children grow up honoring their foundation and Gods basics for their livelihood!
I used to think that if my current major problem were taken care of, then I'd be happy, until one day I realised all it would do was allow #2 to become the new #1.
Changing his gender isn't going to solve his problems. It'll just take care of the one that's bothering him the most now and when that's gone, #2 problem will move into first place and he'll have new issues to take care of.
It's never over.
It took me a long time to understand that EVERY problem in my life was at one a solution to a previous problem.
I'm not saying it isn't sick but when my kids were little, preschool, we had neighbor who played at our house a lot. They referred to him as she... not because anyone told them to. It was sort of weird.
We're on the same side here. I misconstrued an earlier post due to the ambiguous word "sex" in its broad meaning.
Amazing how quick we citizens are to criticize other cultures for genitial mutilation when we do the same here and then form alliances (ie the GLBT, and GLSEN) and seek more children for recruitment. This is sick and what is even sicker is the sexually mutilated and mentally deranged are collecting money for their cause, the GLBT alliance, on every college campus in the country.
What are you saying?? Hormones are present at all times.
In very small quantities. Rising sharply at puberty. After initial gender and genital development in utero, hormones are pretty much a non-factor until puberty.
It is abusive to let this child like this and not seek counseling. How would a child even know to think or act this way. It is a spiritual thing.
Sex is a biological fact
What about gender? Is there a difference between gender and sex?
Why not give the boy testosterone
He would go through precocious puberty which might cause his bones to fuse and stunt his growth if he hasn't reached his full adult height
Correct, there aren't any. The few differences in the male and female brain follow a rigid XY/XX pattern of differentiation. There are a couple of extremely rare endocrine diseases - for instance, androgen insensitivity syndrome - which can play havoc with development but in virtually all these cases of "trangendered" identities the issues are psychological, not biological.
They'll give him one out of a test tube.
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