At two years of age, a child who is anatomically a girl tells a mother that he is a boy. The number of people in this country who would respond to that by suppressing the child's identity is huge. But there are some parents who do listen.
After all, don't all parents want their child to be happy? At least, shouldn't they want their child to be happy?
Sadly, too many parents shut off any hope the child has.
The Washington Post has a story of one such child and his parents. There is video at the link which is failing to embed.
They have a supporting story about the "controversy" of using hormone blocking
drugs to buy time for the children involved to grow into themselves.
There’s no question that everybody is seeing more of this now.
--Norman Spack, director of gender identity clinin, Children's Hospital Boston
Children have to depend on their caregivers to make treatment decisions on their behalf. And it is often the case that the decisions of the parents and medical professionals involved are colored by their own long-ago developed opinions about gender.
Suspending puberty gives the kids more time to decide who they are and whether switching genders is the answer to their problems, psychiatrists say. The effects of puberty blockers are reversible if the treatments are halted. Spack has treated about 140 kids this way in Boston.
Spack's most renowned patient is Jackie Green,
a semi-finalist for Miss England. Green went on puberty blockers at 12, after 5 suicide attempts and a threat to cut off her own genitals. She went on female hormones at 14 and had surgery in Thailand at 16 to become the world's youngest sex-change recipient.
In most countries, one has to be 18 in order to receive sex reassignment surgery.
There is a live chat at the Post that began a few minutes ago, featuring the columnist who wrote the story (Petula Dvorak), the mother of 5 year-old Tyler, and Dr. Edgardo Menvielle.