Boy, 12, Preparing to Undergo Sex Change Operation

It is entirely possible that this is an intersexed individual who was simply assigned gender at birth for convenience sake, and it has become apparent that the wrong gender was assigned.
 
JamieLynn said:
I have seen several documentaries about Kim (Liebling's posted thread above) and truth is... I was very skeptical about this at first hand which lead me to watch the documentary. Tim... was definitely a girl! And I'm glad to read now that Kim has had her surgery at age 16! :D I didn't know that yet...

Age 12 here though is far too young in my POV. It would be "smart" to start off with hormones first before making official and final decision. Can't go back and forth afterwards! I hope the child has had sufficient support / POV's etc... (the list is endless) because this surgery will affect his/her life more than in just one way!!!!
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This person is undergoing hormone therapy now. It will take approximately a year before reassignment surgery is attempted following hormone therapy.
 
jillio said:
It is entirely possible that this is an intersexed individual who was simply assigned gender at birth for convenience sake, and it has become apparent that the wrong gender was assigned.
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It is possible but, at 12? Perhaps there's more to it than what the story is telling.
 
jillio said:
It is entirely possible that this is an intersexed individual who was simply assigned gender at birth for convenience sake, and it has become apparent that the wrong gender was assigned.
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One of my friends is intersexual and was raised as a female. I've known her since childhood, since kindergarten. She never knew she was intersexual for a real long time but she knew since childhood that she would never be able to bear children in the first place anyway but did not know why, never questioned it until much later. In her high school years she began to dress as a male and began identifying as a "butch" lesbian and has been dressing like a male ever since and even later she began to consider herself a male. Then later she came to a point where she had to start to deal with her different gender feelings and went to therapy and everything and also underwent tests to figure out why she could not bear children and why she liked dressing like a male or rather why she liked being a male than a female, and it turned out that she is intersexual, and had both female and male parts, but the parts such as fallopian tubes and ovaries and stuff that are responsible for sending eggs down and stuff to make babies was not there and instead had male parts in its place, which explains why she is sterile and cannot bear children. She also has OTHER female parts such as the uterus and also had breasts as well. She also even went as far as to change her name to a male name and is legally a male now, still dresses and keeps his hair as a male person would, and seems so much happier now than ever before. He still wants to have a sex reassignment surgery sometime when he can afford it though so he can become completely a male. I am happy for him. We now all refer to him as a him and a he, not as a her or she anymore. I only called him a her and she in the beginning of my paragraph and then began calling him a him and he towards the end to indicate the transition she went through from dressing and living as a female to dressing and living his life as a male.

Also, I thought we were supposed to refer to them as intersexuals instead of intersexed but I might be wrong. Intersexuality was a term I learned about in my first year of college, and to hear someone else use the term "intersexed" instead of "intersexual" is a bit confusing.
 
jillio said:
This person is undergoing hormone therapy now. It will take approximately a year before reassignment surgery is attempted following hormone therapy.
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I re-read article... :ty: I still think that the boy is too young to undergo surgery out of pure moral aspect. I'm not a doctor nor psychologist but during Kim's procedure to go from boy to girl, they doctors and psychologist said it was best for him to wait to become physically a girl (reason why it was done at age 16 I gather) :shrug:

I just hope that whatever they decide, the boy won't suffer later on about his decision... :cool2:
 
I think it's great the school was so accepting of her. As a parent I would be thrilled they had an assembly at all. Personally I don't think it's too young. It's common for transsexuals to know they're transsexual by the age of 4 or 5. If you think about it, a lot of parents elect CI surgery in children 12 and younger. I don't see why it would be any different with sexual reassignment surgery. There was another article about giving hormone therapy to transgendered children to hold off puberty until they're sure of their gender identity. I think that's definitely the ideal solution, but this would be the next best thing. Many transfolk are sure by age 12. I know I was.
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
One of my friends is intersexual and was raised as a female. I've known her since childhood, since kindergarten. She never knew she was intersexual for a real long time but she knew since childhood that she would never be able to bear children in the first place anyway but did not know why, never questioned it until much later. In her high school years she began to dress as a male and began identifying as a "butch" lesbian and has been dressing like a male ever since and even later she began to consider herself a male. Then later she came to a point where she had to start to deal with her different gender feelings and went to therapy and everything and also underwent tests to figure out why she could not bear children and why she liked dressing like a male or rather why she liked being a male than a female, and it turned out that she is intersexual, and had both female and male parts, but the parts such as fallopian tubes and ovaries and stuff that are responsible for sending eggs down and stuff to make babies was not there and instead had male parts in its place, which explains why she is sterile and cannot bear children. She also has OTHER female parts such as the uterus and also had breasts as well. She also even went as far as to change her name to a male name and is legally a male now, still dresses and keeps his hair as a male person would, and seems so much happier now than ever before. He still wants to have a sex reassignment surgery sometime when he can afford it though so he can become completely a male. I am happy for him. We now all refer to him as a him and a he, not as a her or she anymore. I only called him a her and she in the beginning of my paragraph and then began calling him a him and he towards the end to indicate the transition she went through from dressing and living as a female to dressing and living his life as a male.

Also, I thought we were supposed to refer to them as intersexuals instead of intersexed but I might be wrong. Intersexuality was a term I learned about in my first year of college, and to hear someone else use the term "intersexed" instead of "intersexual" is a bit confusing.
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could he make sperm? just wondering.
 
Jolie77 said:
It is possible but, at 12? Perhaps there's more to it than what the story is telling.
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Many kids start to suffer hormonal flucuations and changes as young as 12. If this is an intersexed kid (meaning has both male and female), then the hormonal changes experienced at puberty will make the dominant gender much more apparent. If she indeed is dominantly female, but male was simply put on the birth certificate for convenience, then it is just a matter of correcting the mistake they made at birth.

Most parents of intersexed babies are given a choice whether to identify their newborn as male or female on the birth certificate. Whatever the parents choose is what is listed. Many, many times, when puberty hits, it becomes apparent that the wrong choice was made.
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
One of my friends is intersexual and was raised as a female. I've known her since childhood, since kindergarten. She never knew she was intersexual for a real long time but she knew since childhood that she would never be able to bear children in the first place anyway but did not know why, never questioned it until much later. In her high school years she began to dress as a male and began identifying as a "butch" lesbian and has been dressing like a male ever since and even later she began to consider herself a male. Then later she came to a point where she had to start to deal with her different gender feelings and went to therapy and everything and also underwent tests to figure out why she could not bear children and why she liked dressing like a male or rather why she liked being a male than a female, and it turned out that she is intersexual, and had both female and male parts, but the parts such as fallopian tubes and ovaries and stuff that are responsible for sending eggs down and stuff to make babies was not there and instead had male parts in its place, which explains why she is sterile and cannot bear children. She also has OTHER female parts such as the uterus and also had breasts as well. She also even went as far as to change her name to a male name and is legally a male now, still dresses and keeps his hair as a male person would, and seems so much happier now than ever before. He still wants to have a sex reassignment surgery sometime when he can afford it though so he can become completely a male. I am happy for him. We now all refer to him as a him and a he, not as a her or she anymore. I only called him a her and she in the beginning of my paragraph and then began calling him a him and he towards the end to indicate the transition she went through from dressing and living as a female to dressing and living his life as a male.

Also, I thought we were supposed to refer to them as intersexuals instead of intersexed but I might be wrong. Intersexuality was a term I learned about in my first year of college, and to hear someone else use the term "intersexed" instead of "intersexual" is a bit confusing.
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The medical profession and the mental health profession both refer to the condition as intersexed.
 
JamieLynn said:
I re-read article... :ty: I still think that the boy is too young to undergo surgery out of pure moral aspect. I'm not a doctor nor psychologist but during Kim's procedure to go from boy to girl, they doctors and psychologist said it was best for him to wait to become physically a girl (reason why it was done at age 16 I gather) :shrug:

I just hope that whatever they decide, the boy won't suffer later on about his decision... :cool2:
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When the decision is made is really based on individual cases. A transexual, for example, most likely would not get a medical professional to begin treatment prior to age 21 or so. But an intersexed individual might begin treatment at puberty if it becomes medically and biologically apparent that the wrong gender was assigned at birth.
 
jillio said:
When the decision is made is really based on individual cases. A transexual, for example, most likely would not get a medical professional to begin treatment prior to age 21 or so. But an intersexed individual might begin treatment at puberty if it becomes medically and biologically apparent that the wrong gender was assigned at birth.
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Hmm, I had been wondering if the person undergoing this surgery was intersexed because I have always been under the impression you can't undergo SRS till you're 21 years old. You seem to be much more familiar with this stuff than most people.
 
deafskeptic said:
Hmm, I had been wondering if the person undergoing this surgery was intersexed because I have always been under the impression you can't undergo SRS till you're 21 years old. You seem to be much more familiar with this stuff than most people.
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Part of my training. We deal with gender issues as well as mental health issues. I became particularly interested when I was still in school and had an intersexed client as part of my DV work, so I did quite a bit of outside research to familiarize myself so I could be a greater help to my client. I don't particularly subscribe to the concept of gender confusion being diagnosed as a mental illness, but these individuals certainly endure enough trauma during their lifetimes to create all sorts of adjustment disorders. The intersexed individual is even more misunderstood by society as a whole than the transgendered or transexual.
 
jillio said:
Part of my training. We deal with gender issues as well as mental health issues. I became particularly interested when I was still in school and had an intersexed client as part of my DV work, so I did quite a bit of outside research to familiarize myself so I could be a greater help to my client. I don't particularly subscribe to the concept of gender confusion being diagnosed as a mental illness, but these individuals certainly endure enough trauma during their lifetimes to create all sorts of adjustment disorders. The intersexed individual is even more misunderstood by society as a whole than the transgendered or transexual.
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It must have been a confusing experience for you at first.
 
deafskeptic said:
It must have been a confusing experience for you at first.
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Yes, it was. And the abuse she had endured as the result of her intersexed condition was so horrific that it threw me into an existential crisis. I seriously had to discuss it with a mentor, because I got to the point where I was questioning the basic humanity of man. I had never encountered a situation that had made me question my belief that man is basically empathic and humanitarian. However, it was a growth experience for me, and that is always a good thing.
 
jillio said:
The medical profession and the mental health profession both refer to the condition as intersexed.
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Ok. I've been involved in the GLBT community for a long time since I finished high school and I began hearing the term "intersexuality" while in college and in the GLBT services I was involved in while in college. I just go by what I've learned among my professors and peers in GLBT services and in sociology as well as human relations classes in college (yeah I took so many classes as I changed majors a couple of times). I guess some people just have different preferences of what they want to be referred to as. My friend asked me to refer to him as intersexual. *shrugs*
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
Ok. I've been involved in the GLBT community for a long time since I finished high school and I began hearing the term "intersexuality" while in college and in the GLBT services I was involved in while in college. I just go by what I've learned among my professors and peers in GLBT services and in sociology as well as human relations classes in college (yeah I took so many classes as I changed majors a couple of times). I guess some people just have different preferences of what they want to be referred to as. My friend asked me to refer to him as intersexual. *shrugs*
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Yeah, I guess its a matter of preference. For my profession, intersexual refers more to the behavior aspect, while intersexed refers more to the biological condition.
 
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