Parents: 4th-Grade Girl To Become Boy

WCVB-Boston ^ | 3/4/2005 | Associated Press

[cwiz24]

Parents: 4th-Grade Girl To Become Boy Mom Says Youngster Has Male Brain

METHUEN, Mass. -- A fourth-grader who was attending a Methuen elementary school as a girl before February vacation has returned to school as a boy.

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.

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 parents have even changed the child's name.

The child's mother told The Eagle-Tribune that the family made the decision after consulting with medical professionals. She said the child is still biologically a girl.

The mother has requested that the family not be identified to protect the child.

School Superintendent C. Phillip Littlefield said there is nothing harmful about the child being in the school.

[Ellesu]

OMG! My 4 year old girl insists she is going to marry her 3 year old brother when she grows up, maybe I should encourage it, let them date, etc...that poor child, what a shame is all I can say, a real crying shame on the parents, the school, just sad.

[Aquinasfan]

Vatican says 'sex-change' operation does not change person's gender

By John Norton Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After years of study, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that "sex-change" procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the church.

Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone "sex-change" procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text.

The document was completed in 2000 and sent "sub secretum" (under secrecy) to the papal representatives in each country to provide guidance on a case-by-case basis to bishops. But when it became clear that many bishops were still unaware of its existence, in 2002 the congregation sent it to the presidents of bishops' conferences as well.

"The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female," said the source.

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S. bishops' conference, sent a brief letter to U.S. bishops in October informing them of the Vatican document and highlighting its instruction not to alter parish baptismal records, except to make a notation in the margin when deemed necessary.

"The altered condition of a member of the faithful under civil law does not change one's canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth," Bishop Gregory wrote. of those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the opposite sex. In some cases, the urge is so strong that the person undergoes a "sex-change" operation to acquire the opposite sex's external sexual organs. The new organs have no reproductive function.

The document's conclusions close one area of controversial speculation that arose in Italy in the late 1980s when a priest publicly announced he had undergone a "sex-change" operation.

Given church teaching that only males can be validly ordained priests, the question posed in newspapers at the time was whether a priest who undergoes a "sex-change" operation remains a priest -- the answer is "yes" -- and whether a woman who undergoes the procedure can be ordained -- "no."

A Vatican source said the text was prepared largely by Jesuit Father Urbano Navarrete, now a retired canon law professor at Rome's Gregorian University.

In 1997, Father Navarrete wrote an article on transsexualism in an authoritative canon law journal and has been consulted by the doctrinal congregation on specific cases involving transsexualism and hermaphroditism.

The priest, citing confidentiality rules, declined to speak on the record to Catholic News Service for this story.

The Vatican document's specific points include:

-- An analysis of the moral licitness of "sex-change" operations. It concludes that the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases if a medical probability exists that it will "cure" the patient's internal turmoil.

But a source familiar with the document said recent medical evidence suggested that in a majority of cases the procedure increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance. -- A provision giving religious superiors administrative authority to expel a member of the community who has undergone the procedure. In most cases of expulsion from religious life, the superior must conduct a trial.

-- A recommendation of psychiatric treatment and spiritual counseling for transsexual priests. It suggests they can continue to exercise their ministry privately if it does not cause scandal.

-- A conclusion that those who undergo sex-change operations are unsuitable candidates for priesthood and religious life because of mental instability.

-- A conclusion that people who have undergone a sex-change operation cannot enter into a valid marriage, either because they would be marrying someone of the same sex in the eyes of the church or because their mental state casts doubt on their ability to make and uphold their marriage vows.

-- An affirmation of the validity of marriages in which one partner later undergoes the procedure, unless a church tribunal determines that a transsexual disposition predated the wedding ceremony.

It seems to me that the idea of a male soul informing a female body is as impossible as a human soul informing a a dog's body (possible only miraculously). But the Vatican statement that "the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases" implies that this is not the case, unless these "extreme cases" refer to hermaphrodism, which presents its own philosophical problems.

[Aquinasfan]

Also, the article doesn't state (as I mentioned earlier in the thread) whether this poor unfortunate girl's parents are a man and a woman, whether she is the biological child of said male/female couple, or whether the "parents" are two men or two women.

Hmmmm... Can't rely on the Globe or local TV stations to report this. Maybe the Herald will.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Wow. You're claiming there is no effect on the brain. That's ludicrous.

Not in the way you wish to propagandize it. There's no such thing as a "male" brain...and if you should EVER read any scientific literature on intersex disorder it only affects the size of the brain, NOT the "sex"/"gender" of the brain. If you think brain size denotes brain gender, I'm pretty sure Star Jones is more of a man than you are.

because reality is not in line with your interpretation of the Bible.

That just goes to show how ignorant you are, I've never, ever, argued on FreeRepublic, EVER, that religion has anything to do with homosexuality being a paraphilic disorder and a burden on society. Wager ya $100 if you can prove otherwise, Susan. Your blind allegiance to the homosexual agenda makes you say stupid stuff, doesn't it?

[Senator Pardek]

WTF?

[August West]

You write as if "homo" is a legitimate condition, rather than the socially enforced perversion it is. Transgendersim?; another totalitarian attempt to force people to tolerate, accept, and embrace the most bizarre, illogical, and immoral concepts. (Just like North Korea.)The child in question is a girl; no amount of fanasy, social conditioning, or barbaric mutilation can change this fact. From your posts, I suspect you have your own agenda. Hands off this child!

[August West]

How can a child be "fundamentally homosexual". Puhleeze! But even if we accept your perverted arguements; post-"reclassification", the kid is still a girl.

[Landru]

"And it's 41's fault. There thats 2 for a buck!"

Think you're slick, huh.
Well be advised my friend, I just bought Boardwalk.

Guess what?
You owe me $400.

...for rent. {g}

[Landru]

>These "parents" have the body of a human being, but the brain of a wild turkey.
"Wild turkeys are pretty darn smart. Now, if you had said domestic turkey, I would have agreed with you."

HA!!
Thanks for the correction, Mom.
I've been told that -- privately -- several times now, already.

Truth is I made the comparison based on the move my bride & I recently made to a state in the upper mid-west, wayyyyyy out in the country.
One morning I looked to the rear of my 3 acre parcel and see *9* wild turkeys feeding on the seeds under my bird feeders.
I've had an opportunity to study the creatures -- up close & personal -- since, quite a thrill for a city boy.
So you're absolutely right, I disrespected the wild variety with my comparison to the MA dorks, huh.
I'll redact my statement to read chicken. {g}

"What WERE these idiots thinking?"

*Thinking*?
Just the PC crap that's been drilled deep into their empty heads over the past couple decades, it'd appear.

"Even assuming this young person is actually a transexual (and that looks to me like a big assumption), why not move and transfer schools so the poor kid doesn't get made fun of?"

Good question.

Y'know it wasn't all that long ago flakes like these *parents* would've been brought up on charges of child abuse by the *state*.
Seems MA is looking the other way on this though.
Very telling about that place, MA, as any other in this strange case.
Is it any wonder MA has repeatedly elected the likes of Kennedy, Kerry & Barney "My Boy Lollipop"?
Nuts, just *nuts*.

"P.S. I was a tomboy too, a hellacious one, now I'm a matronly mother of two (but I'm still a tomboy!)"

HA!!
I [highly] doubt one with a spirit like yours could ever be called "matronly", Mrs Mom.

FWIW my bride was considered somewhat of a "tomboy" too when she was a kid, & still is in some ways, today in her adult life.

...I'd have her no other way. ;^)

[Boardwalk]

For the record Harvard sits on the largest socialist camp in the USA, Cambridge aka The People's Republic of Cambridge. It never gets any more liberal and whacky than around Harvard Square. Down the Charles River a a few miles is Boston proper.

[swordfish71]

Unreal, positively unreal

[JoeV1]

Check out home prices in North Carolina. If hubby is in the medical field a good job is a cinch and living costs are a fraction of MA. WE just bought a brand new 1960 sq ft Townhouse with a loft,2.5 baths, master b/r downstairs, 2 b/r upstairs, Corrianne counters, gas fireplace, and on and on. Total price was under $150k, taxes about $1100.00 and assoc fee's $125 month. It's 30 miles outside Charlotte and there is a airport 20 miles away.

[gidget7]

NC is one option. Also an option is WV and KY. I have family in KY and it would be very nice to be closer. His folks are here in MA. I think there is a bit of reluctance to be too far from them, which I understand.

Hubby is an electrician, who works at a hospital. I doubt no matter where we end up, that finding work with his background, will be a problem.

[Polybius]

As a tomboy, I find this hysterical!..........rintense

When you were little, did you think of yourself as a boy rather than as a girl? That's the real issue, not whether the boy in question has female chromosomes, was born with female genitals, or likes sports. It would be amazing how small-minded, ignorant and cruel religious people can be in enforcing their delusions on the rest of us, if we didn't see it happen so often. In this case, many religious people don't want to acknowledge the obvious truth of the situation--that the child may have the body of a girl, but the brain is that of a boy. Cnservatives like to go on and on and on about how boys' brains are fundamentally different from girls' (they are) and ridicule radical feminists for claiming that there is no inherent difference. So if there is such a thing as a "boy's brain" that is different from a girl's brain, why is it so impossible that a boy's brain would exist in a girl's body?............xm177e2

From a purely scientific viewpoint, I agree with rintense on this one and I don't see what religion has to do with any of this.

Sex differentiation is not a simple matter of two X chromosomes or a Y chromosome. There is, for example, Klinefelter Syndrome where the individual has both two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome.

In mammals, the inherent embryological development is female. That is to say, if left without androgenic hormones or the biochemical ability to respond to those hormones, the embryo will develop as a female. The androgenic hormones will be produced by the activation of the Y chromosome in an (XY) individual.

Messing up this process can lead to all sorts of sex differentiation abnormalities and the severity of outcomes spans the range from anatomical hemaphrodism to brain changes without outward anatomical manifestations. Specific Syndromes of Sex Differentiation

Androgenic hormones stop the inherent feminization process (defeminization) and commence the masculinization process.

In an (XX) fetus, androgenic hormones introduced either endogenously (as from a fetal adrenal tumor) or exogenously (as from hormones in the maternal bloodstream from whatever source) or the biochemical inablity to respond to androgen hormones due to androgen receptor function deficiency can result in a defeminization and masculinization process in the brain of the (XX) fetus.

Brain masculinization requires androgen receptor function

Be that as it may, however (..........and this is the crucial point in this particular case...........), as the above linked scientific research paper states, the "Brain Masculinization" phenomenon is defined as:

"male-typical behaviors in the adult"

Those are the key words:

"in the adult"

Neither a 9 year old human child nor the age-equivalent lab rat who is 9 "lab rat years old" has the post-pubertal hormone environment necessary to determine if either one actually has a true "Brain Masculinization" syndrome.

To claim otherwise is pure psycho-babble.

For the record, when dressed in casual jeans and a top, my 14 year old daughter is dressed in clothes purchased from the Boy's Department simply because the Boy's Department is the only place we, the parents, are able to find clothes that do not make our daughter look like a member of the Future Sluts of America.

Maybe this 9 year old girl is merely rebelling against the sexualization of pre-teen girls she see all around her and would prefer to act like a "boy" in order to escape from that.

That, however, does not make her a case of true "Brain Masculinization" syndrome. That merely makes her a tomboy with a very good reason for being a tomboy.

[bigLusr]

These kids WANT to change their identity/sex. It's not the parents who are at fault.

Is that supposed to be a joke? Because a nine year old WANTS to do it the parents aren't responsible for the negative repercussions? Sheesh! And the kid who WANTS to skip doing his homework? The kid who WANTS to go to the movies instead of school? The kid who WANTS to run with knives?

Sheesh. Once I have my own kids... please remind me not to let you 'sit.

[k2blader]

Not that I'm biased, but I think tomboys make the most charming women. ;)

We quite agree. :-)

[xm177e2]

Maybe this 9 year old girl is merely rebelling against the sexualization of pre-teen girls she see all around her and would prefer to act like a "boy" in order to escape from that.

To put it nicely: that speculation has no support from the article. The way the boy's behavior is described, he has for years insisted to his parents that he's a boy. That has nothing to do with being a tomboy or being afraid of his vagina.

as the above linked scientific research paper states, the "Brain Masculinization" phenomenon is defined as: "male-typical behaviors in the adult"

So why not expand the definition to include children? If in fact this boy is not going to change his mind between now and adulthood, and will continue to see himself as a man at that point, why should we wait until then to acknowledge it?

[Boardwalk]

I hope you enjoy your new home, it sounds great! In MA you couldn't get a duplex in a bad part of a suburb for that!

[Boardwalk]

Maybe this 9 year old girl is merely rebelling against the sexualization of pre-teen girls she see all around her and would prefer to act like a "boy" in order to escape from that.

Plausible!

[Polybius]

"Maybe this 9 year old girl is merely rebelling against the sexualization of pre-teen girls she see all around her and would prefer to act like a "boy" in order to escape from that."..............Polybius

To put it nicely: that speculation has no support from the article. ............xm177e2

Which article? The scientific article I linked to or the newspaper article?

When I quote a scientific article, I reference that article.

When I speculate, I insert the word "maybe" in the sentence.

A scientist does not blindly regurgitate data or findings from prior studies and treat prior studies as a sine quo non. He raises alternate explanations for consideration and for future study.

Is my statement a plausible alternative explanation to this particular case or is it not?

If it is not, then provide your scientific data to document why it is not a plausible hypothesis.

If it is a plausible hypothesis, then what does any other article have to do with the price of tea in China??

If you are referring to the newspaper article, it merely quotes "medical professionals" which means absolutely nothing without clarification as to who they are and what they based their conclusion on.

as the above linked scientific research paper states, the "Brain Masculinization" phenomenon is defined as: "male-typical behaviors in the adult".........Polybius

So why not expand the definition to include children? If in fact this boy is not going to change his mind between now and adulthood, and will continue to see himself as a man at that point, why should we wait until then to acknowledge it?........xm177e2

Because it is scientifically unsound to attribute sexually-specific behaviors to mammals, be they humans or lab rats, who are not yet sexually developed.

How would you classify "male-typical behavior" in a sexually immature lab rat?

Aggressiveness or passiveness in the litter? That can merely be a function of who is or is not the runt in the litter?

What other "male-typical" or "female-typical" behavior would you test in a sexually immature lab rats? Would lack of "Come and mount me" behavior (as used in that study) be counted as data demonstrating that the sexaullly immature lab rat's brain had been masculinized? If so, then all the sexually immature lab rats will be classified as "masculinized".

How would you classify "male-typical behavior" in a sexually immature girl?

Dominance?

When they were pre-teens, my now 5' 4" wife regularly kicked the butt and completely dominated her now 6' 2" little brother who recently returned from a combat tour in Iraq.

How would you classify the following traits and behaviors in a sexually immature 9 year old child? Are they male or female?

A love of sports

A disinterest in sport.

Playing with dolls. (Is an "action figure" a doll?)

Reading poetry.

Reading adventure books.

Emotionalism.

Loving to go fishing or hunting with Dad.

Loving to bake cookies with Mom.

Having the only penis in the girl's locker room even if the parents demand the child be called Jack.

Having the only vagina in the boy's locker room even if the parents demand that the child be called Jill.

A child's "male-specific behavior" or "female-specific behavior", before hormones kick in, is extremely non-specific in comparison to what it will be after puberty sexually matures that individual.

This 9 year old girl may find herself to be a perfectly normal young woman by age 18 when she is sexually mature. Insisting that she be treated as a male in her home town when she is a 9 years old child can have serious psychological consequences down the road.