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Topic : 10/29 Gender Confused Children

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Created on : Friday, October 24, 2008, 02:51:47 pm

Author : DrPhilBoard1

Dr. Phil tackles the sensitive topic of children who identify more with the opposite sex. What do you do if your son wants to wear dresses and play with dolls? Or if your daughter tells you she wants to be a boy? Should parents chock it up to being a phase that their children will grow out of, or should they intervene right away? Meet Melissa and Tim, whose 8-year-old son declared himself to be a girl when he was just 3 years old. Now, they allow their child to live as a girl and wonder if and when they should begin hormone therapy. Then, when Mary’s son was 8, he told her he felt like a girl, and Mary allowed him to experiment with dressing as a female. Now a teenager, her son is more comfortable living as a male -- but Mary wonders if she caused his confusion. Joining the discussion are experts with differing points of view: Dr. Dan Siegel, professor and clinical psychiatrist at UCLA School of Medicine, and Glenn Stanton, author and research fellow with the organization Focus on the Family. Is gender identity something we’re born with, or is it influenced by parents and environment? Don’t miss this heated discussion, then talk about the show here..

Find out what happened on the show.

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jewelsf

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October 29, 2008, 8:14 pm PDT

Guess what?

Quote From: locksmith

Hi,

The child seemed coached by the Mother and did not speak as a child. Kids love attention from their parents and I saw this as more of a way for the child to get love and attention from the Mother. This child seems to get lots of strokes from the Mother with this behavior. So I am not sure that this is real for the child and their future?

My son saw me wearing eyeshadow when he was four and wanted to wear it too but I said no. If I made a big deal and gave him lots of attention for doing this he would probably have wanted to do it more.

You are way too paranoid! My husband caught his, when he was little, wearing his sisters tutu. My husband found it so funny that he even took pictures of it. This son, who wore that tutu, is the biggest "macho" man that you have ever met! And no, he's not acting macho because he's trying to hide anything. His son was into dirt bikes, snakes, and every other "boy" thing that he could get himself into. If I had a son who was 4 and wanted to try my eyeshadow I would never have a problem with it. It's just natural curiosity. There is nothing wrong with that and it certainly would make him identify with the "other" sex. I can't even believe that you wrote that!

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cari1216

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October 29, 2008, 8:18 pm PDT

To the Mom who thonks she made a mistake

You accepted your child for who he was, who he wanted to be. That was not a mistake. It was unconditional love.

However, it may not have been just a stage he was going through. Just from the short clip I saw of him, he seemed very effeminate. The fact that he has lots of girlfriends is a red flag. He is likely to feel more comfortable with girls than boys. Does he have any male friends? I have seen similar situations twice.

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havasumoma

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October 29, 2008, 8:21 pm PDT

10/29 Gender Confused Children

Quote From: chelsea181990

i dont think a 3 year old can actually determine what gender is, and so i dont think they can say i want to be a girl/boy. they r only 3 !! its like child progodies, they r pushed to much and so its like them saying oh sure i do want to do this but really it was the parents urging to say it, it wasnt in there heart but there parents.

and when they grow up transgender is like being gay, if a boy was a girl and he marries a girl when hes older well thats being gay same with being born a boy. it was adam and eve not adam and steve !!

and how can any one question god ?? god made a mistake....i dont think so, thats a lil harsh.

when ppl say a person is just born gay, ppl cant be born gay its the same when ppl say ppl r born smokers, u dont see a baby born with a ciggertte in his mouth do u ??

lik OMG !!

like the poor kids what they have to deal with in this world today, there is alot of peer presure !!

and so im saying it is sort of the parents fault because they arnt wreaing there kids straight.

Please do some research into how and when children understand their gender identity. I suggest the American Academy of Pediatrics as a good source of information. They state that children of this age are very aware of gender and that by age 5 their gender identity is fully developed and fixed.

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nohsp4u

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October 29, 2008, 8:23 pm PDT

simple thought

Here is a simple thought, as a child i was raised in a household where my step father sexually abused me for several years, after my mom finally left him, i was left with a mom and two sisters to grow up around> Gender confused? no! it is called no positive male role model. My mom started me into the Big brothers/big sister program. I still have some female charactoristics, but i am all male and love being a male and i love women. Any parent that would foster an 8 year olds desire to cross dress etc, should be taken aside and have their heads checked. I think they left their brains at home.

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nb_tween

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October 29, 2008, 8:24 pm PDT

NO HRT FOR CHILDREN

I'm 34 years old, and was born with a sexually ambiguous genteic makeup (47XXY.) I always felt like a girl growing up but was never verbal about it. Growing up, kids and adults teased me. "You act like a girl, you talk like a girl, you wear makeup, etc..." I played with any toy I was given because I was poor. I wasn't given girl toys but I did want Barbie and all the Cabbage Patch dolls but again wasn't verbal about it. At the age of 10, all the redicule I was getting from people drove me to a state of not wanting to live...so i wrote a letter to God wishing to die. My mother found the letter and took me to a child psychiatrist.

It was a rollercoaster ride from then on.

I went from child psychiatrist to family doctor to geneticist.

I was put on male hormone replacement therapy at the age of 13 for life but rebelled at 15 and stopped at 21. During the 10 years of being testosterone-free, my goal in life was to become a woman. I never dressed as a woman per say (except when going out at night) but some people addressed me as ma'am because of my appearance, voice, and mannerisms. I was even hit on by men but I never showed interest.

To make a long story short, I saw your show on confused gender identity disorder kids and agree with the man in the audience with glasses to an extent. Children should NOT be put on any type of hormone therapy until they are old enough to decide for themselves because HRT is irreversible. I feel that hormone therapy is necessary for children with life threatening issues. My situation wasn't life threatening, it was at the time medically standard and deemed "a better way of life".

I regret taking HRT because I hate my body now and eventhough I am not on any type of hormone, I know that I can never blend in as a boy or girl.. I try so hard to blend in but they wont let me. I identify as intersexed now .

I know people think I'm gay but there is a difference between sexual orientation and sexual identity. I've never been in a relationship, dated, been to a dance...nothing. Do I regret it? No...but I do regret my body being hormonally altered just to fit the society we live in's standards of what is deemed male and female.

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efffy_

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October 29, 2008, 8:28 pm PDT

10/29 Gender Confused Children

Quote From: locksmith

Hi,

When my son was 18 months old he saw me paint his dad's toe nails pink. That's what you get for falling asleep while I'm talking to you. A few days later I found him with a bottle of my Vamp nail polish wobbling on one painted foot while painting the other. He looked up at me, grinned and said, 'Daddy?' He ruined my new comforter, but it was so cute. He got lots of giggles, hugs, and attention from both of us. He's 8 now and thinks he's Link from the Zelda games. He runs about with swords with a long pointy hat on his head. None of this has anything to do with anything.

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havasumoma

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October 29, 2008, 8:33 pm PDT

10/29 Gender Confused Children

Quote From: jewelsf

I disagree with you with this response. It doesn't muddy the waters at all. This person went through pretty much the same thing that the child is going through. An identity crisis. Luckily this person now knows who he/she is and is comfortable in his/her own skin. But most importantly, this person pointed out that parents had nothing to do with this and they aren't to blame. This topic should be open to all people including the ones who are now adults. If you read it thoroughly, you would have noticed that this person plans on becoming the boy/man that she has always felt she was meant to be.

I didn't disagree with what the person said and I didn't say it did not have value. The point I was making is that when you try to compare the experience of an adult and the experience of a child it gets confusing to those who don't understand these finer differences. Folks lump sexuality and gender indentity together and it confuses the discussion. The parents aren't to blame. No one said this person didn't have a right to post. I simply stated my opinion that the poster probably further confused folks who were already having difficulty understanding the topic. I work doing education on behalf of gender variant and transgender children and I am all too aware of how hard I have to work to help people understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. People are afraid that this is about young children being sexual (that is why they think it is somehow immoral) so it is essential that this distinction is always made clear.

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x15gal

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October 29, 2008, 8:39 pm PDT

Transgender is no mistake

I too was disappointed in how Dr. Phil ran this show. Having a religious personage as the counter to scientific evidence was pretty ridiculous. I myself am transgender male-to-female, post-op, and all that. When I was a kid I knew my mind and body did not match just like the kids on the show, when I was about 3 years old. This was not some phase that I would grow out of. Instead, at the time I grew up, I had to do exactly what the idiot from Focus on the Family said to do: I forced myself into a male role and never told anyone of who I really was underneath. All this led to were depresion and suicide attempts.

For a transgender person, there is no confusion whatsoever about the question of nature versus nurture. Environment has not one wit to do with what is going on in our brains. All those so-called experts like to spout off what they "know" to be true about transgender people, and yet they rarely ever actually ask the transgender person themselves what it was like for them, and if they were ever confused about if it was who they are genetically versus how someone raises you. The lives of transgender people are constantly being controlled by people who do not understand and this practice must stop. Talk to the people who are actually transgender, like the parents did on this show. They are inherently better parents than those who would follow the advise of Dr. Phil or the people at a group like Focus on the Family. When Dr. Phil said not to prevent puberty through hormones as his advice to those parents, I got very angry because all this will do is ruin another transgender person's life. A three year old transgender kid knows better than Dr. Phil in this case, believe me.

I wish that Dr. Phil would have the courage to put someone such as myself on his show. I often speak at colleges and universities on transgender issues, and I guarantee I know a lot more about what's right for a transgender of any age than he does. I would hope he would be open to learning the correct way to handle the transgender issue.

Michelle

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nikkidane

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October 29, 2008, 8:42 pm PDT

10/29 Gender Confused Children

Quote From: mizzymac

I think that there is gender identity issues with children, but to say whether a boy really should have been a girl or a girl really should have been a boy cannot be determined until they are much older. I know many boys that had girl like tendencies growing up, but are straight men with some very feminine characteristics. What happend if their parents had decided that they were really girls and decided that they should have been raised as girls. Do you think that maybe they could have become suicidal, drug using, depressed teens. We need to protect our children and educate them on how they really feel and how society behaves. When they are old enough to decided whether they can deal with the negative issues that will come along with their decision then their family should be there to support them and advocate for them.

I believe early intervention with hormonal therapy and psychological counselling can be crucial for these Transgender kids. If there is ANY dount that the child may be acting out a "phase" in their life then it is appropriate to delay hormonal theraly. When it is painfully clear after years and years of identifying as the opposite sex, hormonal therapy should be strongly considered to prevent the deveopment of secondary sexual characteristics and allow the child's physical body to develop ain allignment with their mental gender identity.

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tiggerst67

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October 29, 2008, 8:45 pm PDT

Not sure where to start on this reply

Quote From: renschi

Children are not born gay or lesbian, they are made that way by people and that is so sad for everybody involved. Some one close to the family circle hurt that child emotionally on a very young age. Without sometimes parents knowing it and without professional help when needed. It is an emotionally block that this children have to help them cope with a much delicate and painful experience. (most of the time without realizing themselves)

Parents, please just love your child and accept him or her the way they want to be, reject the lifestyle (sin) not the child.

RW

I 'll keep it simple for you. You need to do some serious research on this subject. When you have, then come back and post again. You are either misinformed, or uninformed, I don't know which. I know quite a lot of people, gay and straight who have had bad childhoods, yet it did not have any effect on their sexual orientation. You used the word lifestyle, as if it involved making a conscious choice. Did you decide at a young age to be heterosexual? Or did you just wake up one morning and decide to try it and see if it took? If you look at it from that perspective, your comment loses its luster a bit. By the way, the topic today had nothing to do with being gay or lesbian. That would be an entirely different show. This show was about children with gender identity disorder.

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