If that's true ... if this is a boy being turned into a girl for political reasons, that is a ghastly thing, and all of the adults involved should be dealt with as criminals.
But I think it is wrong to pretend that we know what the real deal is, based solely on this article. We shouldn't automatically assume anything about the boy's condition simply because of who has taken up his cause.
My suspicion is that there's something real going on here. Whatever the motives and goals of the TYFA group, I seriously doubt that the parents are trying to score political points at their own kid's expense. They may be misled ... or they may have tried everything, and this seems like the most appropriate solution.
What I do not want to do, is simply dismiss for political reasons the possibility of there being something really different about this one kid.
Absent any physiological problem, I don't understand why this kind of situation is not treated as delusion. Does the medical community indulge delusional people or do they try to ascertain why the person is in denial of reality and try to fix it?
I'm concerned that politics is interfering with treatment for mentally ill people. I have all the sympathy in the world for people who are ill. It can't be at all easy to not fit in your universe. I'm not even sure whether delusions can be well treated!
I'd feel a whole lot better if someone with knowledge and authority came forward and explained that delusions are stubborn things and in cases where people can function relatively normally, we've decided it's better to just go with it.
First, is that the article doesn't indicate that he's anything but physically normal. They clearly call him a boy and don't make any mention of gender confusion at birth and that his parents made the wrong choice. I would expect them to do that to play the sympathy angle. And also this from the article, Transgender children, who are born as one sex and identify with the other,
It clearly calls him transgender, and defines it, not hermaphrodite.
Second, the article says this about him-The parents of an 8-year-old boy who wants to live and be treated as a girl... .
I says it's the boy's decision and it's what HE wants.
Last, any information about the parents is strangely missing. I would expect the media to really play it up if Dad was defending this decision.