Posted on 01/28/2007 9:53:56 AM PST by wagglebee
A German boy, now 14, is believed to be the youngest patient in the world pursuing gender reassignment after convincing doctors two years ago he wanted to live as a female.
Doctors say the boy, born "Tim," has considered himself female since he was two.
According to his parents, Tim tried on his older sisters clothes and played with her Barbie dolls, announcing, "I'm a girl." The boy was distraught after every haircut, they said, and at four, he took a pair of scissors and threatened to "cut off my thing!" After that incident, Tim was called "Kim" by his family.
"We always saw Kim as a girl, but not as a problem," the father, who was not identified, told Der Spiegel. "In fact, our life was surprisingly normal."
Puberty brought about a drop in Kim's voice and concern for the child's future.
"At that stage we realized that she was terrified of growing facial hair and her voice breaking," said the father.
The family sought medical advice about a possible sex change for Kim, with mixed results.
"Hormone treatment! Gender adjustment! How could you possibly do this to the child?" the family's pediatrician asked the father. Some psychiatrists suggested Kim be placed under observation in a psychiatric hospital.
Eventually, the family contacted Dr. Bernd Meyenburg, the head of a clinic for children and adolescents with sexual identity problems at Frankfurt University. He concluded that Kim represented the "rare ... clear-cut case" for intervention before puberty initiated irreversible changes to his body.
"It would have been a crime to let her grow up as a man," Meyenburg said.
According to Dr. Achim Wuesthof, the endocrinologist who is treating the teen, the procedure to arrest the course of male puberty has been successful thus far. Even though children under 16 are not permitted to undergo sex change in other countries, he and his colleagues thought it best to start early in Kim's case.
"To the best of my knowledge, Kim is the youngest sex change patient in the world," Wuesthof told the London Sunday Telegram. "According to German law, two independent psychiatrists must confirm that the child is indeed transsexual and approve the sex change. Once that has been done, it is best to start as early as possible."
For legal reasons, surgery to remove Kim's male genitals cannot be performed until age 18.
"From a purely medical standpoint we are dealing with the mutilation of a biologically healthy body," said Meyenburg. "We face a real dilemma. If we do something about it, it's irreversible. And if we allow nature to take its course, that too is irreversible."
Meyenburg said he had mixed feelings about the fact that more and more – and younger – patients are seeking him out for advice.
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Everytime I think it can't possible get much worse, it does.
Yeah, we should emulate Europe..
Where the hell is this world heading?
And I keep expecting the worst - and keep being surprised by even WORSE. Something's up.
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Ich bin merkwürdig
I wonder if he doesn't already have a metabolism/hormone imbalance that could lead him to feel he should be a girl, because of his positive responses and likeness to "girl like" lifestyles.
Probably they should give him small doses of male hormones instead of hormone replacements to encourage a female metabolism.
Once he feels the testosterone and male hormones surging through his system... will be a matter of months before he starts to feel like a young boy.
Just a thought
What if he would have thought he was an old man? A cat? Winston Churchill?
Why would thinking you were those things, which you clearly are not, qualify you for the funny farm, but thinking you are a girl, when you clearly are not, does not?
I already know the answer.
Look out Serena!
Your suggestions make A LOT of sense!
He/she's gonna take a bottle of pills or jump off a cliff when he/she finds out they can't babies.
LOL! (slapping my knee!)
It's not only sick it's scary and horrific.
Cripes - 12 years old! A 4-year-old threatens to do ANYthing and the parents give in to that? No wonder the poor lad is messed up. I'll bet the father is a weak and shallow man, and the mother rules the nest around there. Disgusting.
Why would thinking you were those things, which you clearly are not, qualify you for the funny farm, but thinking you are a girl, when you clearly are not, does not?
I already know the answer.
===============================
Yes, and some very good observations! A tip o' my hat to you.
Such a good point. Years ago I had a friend and her cousin, several years our junior, was a very athletic girl and pretty boyish, but she liked boys so she wasn't homosexual or anything; just very athletic and not the most feminine girl. Well.... she never said anything to us (wonder why her mom never wondered though) but she never began menstruating. She later told us she'd heard so many horror stories about cramps and stuff and since she was such a jock, she liked not having a period. But she fell in love sometime around 25 or 26 years old and finally decided maybe she'd better check it out since she wanted to have children some day.
Well... it turned out she had some kind of growth on her pituitary gland. I don't recall what type. They removed it and she started having periods. Unreal.
You never know.
The parents encouraged this. They should be arrested.
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