There are serious problems with the whole issue of transgenderism (sex change). Two women of my acquaintance, one in NC, the other in the southwest, are living with men who’ve decided to become women. The former is rather advanced in his search for an identity — he’s been on hormones for a while, has legally changed his name, but I don’t know whether he’s undergone any surgery yet. The other has announced his intention and has begun taking hormones, and that’s as far as it goes.
Here’s what I’m seeing as a laywoman:
Both of these men demonstrate other mental health issues which have not been in the first instance addressed by the very professionals who are supposed to be taxed with screening the individuals for mental health soundness and for the appropriateness of any sort of procedure. Depression, possible bipolar disorder in at least one of them, gender identity confusion (a strong absence of identification as male), general emotional immaturity, an inability to see how such a drastic step would affect them or others, a total single-minded determination to do what they want and the hell with the consequences.
And the consequences are pretty severe. Once you’ve cut it off you can’t put it back on. The incidence of severe depression in transgendered persons is reported much higher than the general population, and nearly 1/2 will attempt suicide at some point in their lives. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the mental instability fostering an insistence on gender re-assignment or the re-assignment itself, is still being hotly debated.
These are NOT good odds for something that is really only a cosmetic bit of pretense, while not altering the genetic makeup of the individual at all. Genetically, these two men will still carry a Y chromosome, which means they will still be male.
And now we have a terrifyingly large number of parents foisting gender re-assignment off on their children. Frankly, for a child to be put in this position is nothing less than abuse worthy of having a child permanently removed from the home and placed in a stable environment. I’ve noticed with great dismay that many of these children are boys being raised by lesbian couples; why THAT little detail hasn’t rung any alarm bells in the psychiatric community is worthy of more consideration.
Surviving The Rainbow 