Many years ago, my wife and I attended a one-day seminar on recognizing child sexual abuse and legal reporting requirements. Most of the other students were health professionals. Over lunch, we talked with a young woman whose husband had decided to get a sex change. Her husband was the only child of a very macho Marine and a woman who desperately wanted a daughter--and so she had dressed her little boy in girl's clothes until he was ten years old, painting his nails, applying makeup, etc. As you might expect, especially back then, the father's reaction to his son was quite negative. This isn't normally what we think of as child sexual abuse, but in terms of creating a very gender-confused young man, it worked.
Okay, adults screw up. They damage kids. The problem was that when this confused guy tried to get help with his problem, both a psychiatrist and his pastor recommended a sex change--rather than admit that perhaps his gender confusion had something to do with Mom's playing dress-up with a living doll, and Dad's extremely negative reaction.
What a screwed up world this is.
UPDATE: I just remembered that I had linked to an article couple of years ago about people that keep changing sex--and are never happy with the results.
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Related previous posts: And in the Mental Health War News... the fight for the right to change and to know that people can change from homosexuality to heterosexuality; this very tragic story.
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