We interrupt the normal gun owner control coverage here for an equally perplexing take on reality:
A transgendered student is in the middle of a civil rights controversy (warning: annoying auto-play vid at link)
From the headline it sounds a bit odd, maybe a bit 21rst century-ish or something right? You probably envision a high school student who is being made fun of for his/her switching up his/her gender role right?
The kid is six. Six! Not sixteen, but six!!! Great jumping Vishnu on a pogo stick!
The parents say that.. oh I'll just quote them:
"When she was about 18 months old and started to talk, as soon as she was able to, it was that she was a girl, and she liked girl things,' her mother, Kathryn Mathis, said."
There's more:
"After she did transition and was able to live as a girl, as her true self, the difference was amazing. Her anxiety went away, the depression went away, and she was finally happy,' Mathis said."
Look, if you ain't happy with the plumbing and/or wardrobe options you were born with, that's cool. I've known a lot of folks who participated in, as they say, alternative lifestyles and like any other group, some were nice people, some were bad people and the rest fell somewhere in between. I've had homosexual friends, some of my girlfriends were bisexual and in general as long as the activity is consensual I really don't have an opinion on it.
But a 6 year old (did I mention the child is only 6 years old?) cannot be transgendered unless taught so. Now it could very well be that the kid actually chooses to be transgendered, but until said kid reaches the age of majority, or at least is old enough to get a friggin' learner's permit, then I'm gonna say this is a result of parental choice, not the kid's choice.
To put it plainly, the parents, not the kid, chose to raise their child as transgendered. And now they're lawyering up because an exception to the bathroom assignment isn't being granted?
The kid ain't mine so I can't dictate how he is to be raised. I've entertained arguments about the various gender based roles we all have in society and I'm open to listening to reasons why this more or that traditional role should be ignored. But before you announce that your kid is actually transgendered and expect me to take your arguments seriously, wait until the kid actually is of age to make the choice his/herself. Or at least admit you thought it'd be hip and trendy to raise a kid outside the traditional role he/she was born with. And for Freyja's sake don't go suing anybody over the way you choose to raise your kids.
As an aside, a pre-6 year old has anxiety and depression? If that was truly the case, I'd tend to think either the kid has some sort of chemical imbalance that should be treated, or the parents are having a negative influence on the kids' behavior (i.e. the kid sees the parents as anxious and/or depressed and mimics their behavior thinking that's normal). But I'd stand by my initial reaction; the parents are just projecting their anxieties onto the youngin', or their perception is off base.
I will note that there are fewer men in the world than is ideal. There are a lot of males, but not all of them are men, or act like men should. So I would prefer that every male was raised to be a man, hopefully a good man at that. But I'll just be happy when parents stop trying to raise good kids and start trying to raise good adults. That though is a rant for another time...
Posted by Publicola at February 27, 2013 11:21 AM | TrackBack