Not so thrifty parents let their 7 year olds get sex change
Ok, so I might be just too prudish or cheap, but I was watching Fox News this morning and heard a story about a doctor (I am using that term loosely) in Boston, Dr Norman Spack, who not only approves of offering sex changes for children as young as 7, but performs them. Now I might be old fashioned but I had no idea what a sex change was at 7, much less want one. There is a reason why you have to be 16 in most states to operate a car, 18 to vote and smoke, and 21 to drink. Your ability to make decisions grows with your maturity.
Am I missing something? There are no 7 year olds that I know of that are responsible enough to realize the gravity of the situation. Most 7 year olds are just trying to learn how to match clothes and bring home all their homework. They usually think the opposite sex has cooties still. Why would they even be thinking about a difficult surgery like that? Curious about the opposite sex, of course. We all have heard of kids playing “doctor” at this age or even earlier and we try to protect our kids from that. But what parent in their right mind would let their kids have this surgery this early in life? Where are real parents these days?
Now, besides the absurdity of the issue, HELLO!! No insurance company is going to pay for a sex change for a 7 year old. Why would these parents give up that money?!?!?!
I would much rather see parents spoil their children with solid gold toilets than to spend that much money on a sex change for a 7 year old. At least spoiling kids can be reversed with less tragedy to the child. That should tell you about how I feel about this issue.
You are going to have to show me a really good reason why this should be ok because I am only seeing the negative side of this issue.
That is horrible! The article also said something about giving them drugs and hormone therapy to delay puberty.
As a “thrifty” move, it isn’t smart. It’s an expensive surgery. And while I personally disagree with getting this surgery that young, it is certainly a surgery that should be covered by insurance. I have two friends who had female to male surgery, and one who is undergoing hormone therapy and plans on eventually getting the surgery when he can afford it.
wow!!! that’s all i can say. in my experience with young children this age, they’re still almost…and i say almost, gender neutral…the little girls will play with the boys toys and at times vice versa (i’ve seen many little boys who are just plain enjoying playing with their sisters or female friends…playing house or what not)…and by the way, i am very pro “daddy role play”…i see absolutely nothing in the world wrong with a little boy holding and cuddling a baby doll on ocassion. after all, how in the world is he supposed to learn how to hold and cuddle his own child someday? the same way little girls do…by imitating their parents. anyway (i have a way of getting off track at times)…the only feasible reason i could see for a sex change in a child of that age…and this is a great big MAYBE…. in extreme rare incidents where a child may have the gentials of one sex but all the makings of the opposite (organs etc.) on the inside. in such a case, i could see doing the transformation early on to avoid later problems and trauma. to be absolutely honest…i don’t know if these cases are true or if maybe i saw it on a tv show or something. other than that, where there is a medical reason, i think such an operation should be against the law. if that’s what a person wants then when they’re of legal age to make the decision for themselves they could have it done. good grief…my 7 almost 8 year old son still can’t pick out his clothes in the morning; get the shower water going; clean his own room (ok, i think he’s pulling my leg on that one); make a decision on a video game rental within a reasonable amount of time;etc.
I think people should wait till at least 16 or 18 before making such a decision. I’m all for it if thats what someone wants but at the age of 7 I think it’s to young.
There are some cases when a child may have a genetic disorder that causes them to have female genitalia, but they are truly a boy or male genitalia and they are truly a girl. Perhaps after some genetic testing they found out that their child should have boy genitalia and they want to raise their child as a boy not a girl, or vice versa.
That is however the only way I could see this justified at such a young age.
Children are not capable of making the right decision for themselves at this age, and I don’t think parents should have the right to make the decision for them. I understand that they may think it is easier to make the change before puberty sets in, but I don’t think that a child will be able to know what sex they are or think they are at that age. Even if a boy exhibits feminine behavior at a young age, it doesn’t mean he will always be feminine.
Man, you guys are fast!
Allison, your friends are adults. That is a completely different issue. My main objection, setting money aside, is that at that age, kids don’t have a clue as to the consequences to that decision. They are still elarning that if htey yell and scream, they don’t get their way (hopefully).
Being a bit less polite about this, my opinion is that the PARENTS are the ones that need their freakin’ head examined.
There is NO child that wants to make this sort of quest… as you point out, this is not even something that is in the child’s realm of thoughts, because at this age, there is no reason other than a parent’s bias, that a child of this age would technically be doing anything that is not “normal” (boy playing with a kitchen, or dolls, girls playing with trucks etc). It is only the bias of the parents that can decide there is something “amiss” with the child and feed this train of thought.
So, any child that is having this “thought” I would find a way to charge the parents with some sort of child endangerment or “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” (that is not to say, I think there is anything wrong with this… for somebody of proper age… 7 is NOT proper age).
I remember when I was about that age, I commented that I would like to be a boy. The reason? Because they could pee outside while we were playing and I had to go in to use the bathroom.
Great reasoning skills, those kids have.
What child is in touch enough with his body and thought process to know that is what he/she wants….and what parent is trusting enough of that immature thought process to actually allow it?
Kellys,
Yes, I absolutely agree that surgery at age 7 is too soon. At that age humans are not mentally capable of making long term decisions about ANYTHING, especially not something as important as their bodies and their gender!
1. If insurance companies “should” pay for this, they “should” also pay for any and all cosmetic surgery. I think that this money is better spent on things such as, say, cancer.
2. This, and many other things, come from a parent letting their child decide what they want to believe, and whatever the child “feels” must be right. FEELINGS ARE NOT INFALLIBLE! THEY CAN BE WRONG!!! Yes, I realize I’m going out on a limb here and actually declaring something to be wrong.
I hope that others will boldly start stepping up and declaring SOMETHING to be wrong!
This is against the law in Massachusetts and is yet another example of Fox news lying, distorting the truth, and making a huge splash about nothing. Dr Spack, who is a respected and noted specialist on gender, has NEVER performed sex reassignment surgery on anyone 7 years old. Instead of just accepting what Fox says, how about doing some research on Children’s Hospital in Boston, just about the most ethical hospital in the world when it comes to children. Geesh!
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3072518
20/20 did a story about transgender kids. It was very eye-opening. We have NO IDEA what some of these children are going through.
I don’t know what I would do in this situation.
Margalit: We get our information from the same place that you get your Bush hating information from . . . the news. Like you, we believe the information that reporters give us . . . well usually anyway.
I would love to see where in that article you read that this man is performing these surgeries on children. I couldn’t find it.
However, I think the work he IS doing (counseling and hormone therapy) is a great step for children who seriously identify as another gender. He is right- these children are often bullied mercilessly by other children who don’t understand their “choices.”(And also, if you are going to bring up how a child would even KNOW about identifying as another gender, you should maybe stop to consider how other children know that this is something to be made fun of) He is starting them, through counseling (and possible hormone therapy as another option), on the correct path to make a safe, educated, decision later- when they are old enough to.
Nowhere in the Fox News story did it say that this man had performed gender reassignment surgery on any child. You should listen better.
Oh Karen, how naive you are. Have you never heard of a partisan press? A one-sided only opinion which we receive all the time? Please don’t be so naive to think that the news media is always giving us the bipartisan facts; it’s simply not the way things work.
Amanda: I don’t believe everything I see or hear on the news. That was the point of my comment.
I personally take anything I hear on the news and run it through a salt grinder. That is how much I feel the news shares the truth.
9 years ago this summer, the local news channel did a butcher job on my church. What happened should have been a private family matter. The truth was bad enough but this particular local news channel sensationalized it so badly that I still won’t watch their news. I somply can’t trust what they say.
On the other hand, another news channel in town has done a fabulous job of reporting honestly an dwith integrity on some stories that I have unfortunately been privy to. I will watch that news cast.
As far as the cable news channels, they all slant one way or the other. You just have to decifer how badly and if you agree with their slant. I personally jsut want the news but you can’t really find it anywhere. There is one channel that I trust more than others but I have lesarned to try to hear the story from mulitple channels before I make my own informed opinion.
Laura, in the first paragraph, it states that he “opening his doors to patients as young as 7″. It also stated in the news report that I watched that he was willing to do the operation on pts as young as 7.
These people are not well,please can someone help free this child from these freaks before they destroy this innocent child??