Adults often have difficulty interpreting
While those agonizing years (or decades) were full of suffering, they also guaranteed that the decision to transition was not a whim or an act of passing rebellion.īut adolescents are, well, adolescent. Transgender pioneers like Renee Richards, whose sex change in 1975 made headlines around the world, had navigated the mental health system for years before
Taking their fate into their own hands and changing the face of gender shifting. Ina and Christian are part of a new generation of transsexuals who are Harm them," says Jayne Jordan, a physician assistant in the Callen-Lorde Torn between wanting to empower my patients and wanting to be sure not to Their word and let them begin hormones during puberty? "Every day, I feel They want to switch sexes? Should we make them wait as long as possible, toīe sure their decisions are not simply adolescent rebellion? Or take them at The social workers and medical providers who work with them are confrontingĪ new frontier in gender ethics. Hours away and has introduced him to a group of trans guys who meetĪs more young transsexuals push to begin transitioning at a younger age, Transsexual in person - a 21-year-old he'd met in a chat room, who lives two Name for the way he felt, he "went online and looked up anything andĮverything about transsexuals." To his astonishment he found chat roomsįilled with "people just like me." Recently he met his first fellow At 16, after learning from the Jerry Springer show that there was a Western Pennsylvania who was born female but is just starting to live as a male, is a Eighteen-year-old Christian, a college freshman in Kid today with "gender dysphoria," the catch-all term for disconnectīetween body and gender identity, will likely know about transsexualismįrom puberty or younger. Partly this is the result of increased access to information. Program at New York's Michael Callen-Audre Lorde Community Health Center has tripled.
The number of transgender people under 22 in the "gender reassignment" Them agree that their numbers are rising. No one compiles official statistics on transgender youth, but those who work with (Estrogen produces breast and hip development, while testosterone brings facial and chest hair and increased muscle mass.) This way, in case she changed her mind, permanent alterations wouldn't have taken place. Least, Ina would be prescribed hormone blockers, which would stop the path of testosterone without giving the feminizing effects of estrogen. Medicine, allows exceptions in cases of "clear maturity." At the very The treatment protocol of the Harry Benjamin International Genderĭysphoria Association, the standard-bearing organization for transgender If Ina were 17 today and near a big city, she'd probably be able to find aĭoctor willing to make her an exception to the 18-year-old threshold for Unnecessary burden added to an already painful existence. But the years sheĮndured living as a burgeoning adult in the wrong body still seem like an In American studies living in a small Oklahoma city. Things turned out OK for Ina: She's now 24, post-op and a graduate student High school and found hormones on the street." Happy letting my body masculinize on and on. Synthetic hormones, the first step to altering theĬourse of sexual development, became her holy grail. Eighteen is the accepted age for beginning to transition, and Particulars of "transitioning" from one sex to the other. She soon found another doctor who explained the Having finally worked up the courage to talk about it, she was still Gave her a book about gay and lesbian youth, which Ina found devastating. Psychiatrists, Ina finally confessed her secret. My own body was staging a mutiny,Įven." At 16, after an eating disorder had brought her to several Remembers a childhood spent "tending to my inner awareness of myself and avoiding other "It was alwaysĬlear to me that this boy identity and body were incorrect." She Her early years, even though her body seemed to be a boy's. During an isolated childhood in rural Oklahoma, Ina knew she was a girl from Ina's story may be unusual but it's no longer guaranteed to shock.