Posted on 05/11/2008 4:06:45 AM PDT by Man50D
A Pennsylvania elementary school has angered parents by giving them one-day's notice of planned counseling sessions with 100 third-grade students to explain that one of their male classmates would soon begin wearing girls' clothing and taking a female name and to ask that they accept him as a girl and not make unkind remarks.
The exercise in "social transition" was initiated by the boy's parents who approached the administration at Chatham Park Elementary School in Haverford Township asking that the school help in having their child's female identity find acceptance among his peers. After consulting experts on transgender children, the Haverford School District sent letters to parents advising them the school guidance counselor would meet with their children, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.
While some parents contacted the principal asking that their children be excused, others took their anger out online.
"Why is the school introducing this subject to 8- and 9-year-olds?" wrote an angry parent who started a discussion on the Haverford Township's blog site. "Why were we not notified sooner. We received the letter today, the discussion at school is tomorrow."
The Haverford Township blog is not currently viewable.
In the letter to parents, Chatham Park principal Daniel Marsella assured parents the counseling would use "developmentally appropriate language" to explain "how we need to help this student make a social transition in school."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
What exactly is girl’s clothes for a third grader? Until my daughters got bras, they dressed little differently than their male counterparts at school. Of course they do wear dresses to church. I can’t say they ever wore a dress to school unless it was for pictures.
How the heck does a 3rd grader have any sort of gender identity. Gender identity comes with sexual maturity. Are they planning on having the kid go through hormone therapy and surgery at his age? The parents must really be loony tunes.
I am so going to home school. She’s only 6 months old now but I don’t want these freaking people robbing her of a childhood so young. OMG. I remember being that age, and that would have freaked me out if the adults acted like they encouraged it.
I bet this kid still gets beat up for it. Despite the “appropriate” counseling.
I'm uncertain what the girls reactions will be, but the boys? Good luck with that.
“The boy” needs to be removed from that household and “the boy’s parents” need to be sterilized.
Excuse me? Just WTF is Gender Idenity anyway? Until we STOP excepting these looneyass toons stupid assbackward premises don't even talk about GI at any age!!
Hemorphidite perhaps, but that's where is ends!
“What exactly is girl’s clothes for a third grader?”
Pink...with lots of Barbie!!!
ASAP... then replace the principal so this type of nonsense doesn't reoccur.
thank you...
What a bunch of caca.
Chopping off body parts and attaching new parts with stitches does not change a person’s sex (not gender).
Absolutely wrong; you can see a difference even in boy and girl babies (heck, you can see it in kittens). And the kids themselves certainly see a difference, which is why boys play with boys and girls with girls.
I doubt many here will agree, but as far as this 'experiment' goes, I say "try it." It may do some harm but it may also do some good and it's worth knowing what happens. I realize it's an unspeakably moderate position, but let's leave the "right's right and wrong's wrong and we know what the difference is" to the Liberals.
Catholic schools are good. And you don’t have to be “catholic” to attend...
The poor boy is being manipulated by well meaning parents. Leaving well enough alone is the best medicine. The trauma of feeling “different” in ones own skin is common place and as old as the hills. Making a big deal out of it is the crime.
They’re all of them insane and living is some warped Disneyland on Jupiter.
They are not robbing the children of their childhood except in matters of sex (which is pretty appalling). They are actually prolonging childhood right up to time to draw Social Security.
The school is throwing that sex identity up in their faces and will be hustling them to have sex before 4th grade. They won’t directly promote it but they will warn incessantly about the dangers of doing it wrong so that the kids get the idea.
not only can't accept the reality of having a male child, they demand that everyone else must believe in and play along with their sicko fantasy.
Millstones must be on backorder, but they'll get theirs eventually. Ditto for the educrat enablers.
Then again, it is a WNutD article, so there is hope that the report is nonsense.
Anyone who still has his children in government school is ipso facto and prima facie giving them up to child abuse. Adults who don’t know that probably have children as dull as they are and it doesn’t matter quite so much.
or because of it.
“I doubt many here will agree, but as far as this ‘experiment’ goes, I say “try it.” It may do some harm but it may also do some good and it’s worth knowing what happens. I realize it’s an unspeakably moderate position, but let’s leave the “right’s right and wrong’s wrong and we know what the difference is” to the Liberals. “
You’re missing the point. The issue here is not whether the kid and the parents want to try this, it’s whether the rest of the school is required to go along.
It’s high time that people just live their lives and not expect the rest of the world to always accept, aid, and enable their choices.
Do you really think what is probably just an effeminate boy should be encouraged to think he’s really a girl? Parents influence “gender identity” and it seems to me this poor child’s parents decided for him. There are ranges of what we would term masculinity and femininity, and the “sissy” boys and “tomboy” girls should not be encouraged to believe they were somehow born the wrong sex. And I say sex because these “gender identity” changes are certainly all about ignoring someone’s biological sex and seeking to somehow make gender whims the determiner. I’m sure this poor child’s parents, and all the “counselors” et al are telling the boy and everyone that his happiness depends on this “gender change”. The boy is in for a lifetime of misery IMHO.
The tyranny of the minorities continues unabated. 100 third graders have to sit through a boring lecture because one f’ed kid wants to wear girl’s clothes and have a girl’s name.
Horse hockey - kick the kid out of PUBLIC school,fire the Principal for being a horse’s rear and report the “parents” to Child Services for child abuse.
Heard yesterday that in the past year, FIVE THOUSAND kids in Philadelphia schools were caught with weapons. TWO were expelled. And you wonder why the schools are failing to educate our children. And why they are killing each other on a daily basis.
I’m all for kids being home schooled or going to a good private school, but unfortunately not everyone has that choice due to a variety of factors. Personally I am tired of people making statements like yours, it adds nothing to the conversation.
There’s waaay too much tolerance in this country. The perverts should adjust to the majority, not the other way around.
There's got to be a better way than to turn the whole town, let alone the school into a Nationally observed freak show.
The parents and the principal look like lunatics.
Here’s hoping he gets call a “fag” and beat up by the Girls....
This is absolute nonsense. Parents should never allow this. And I would see that the teachers and school officials were fired pronto. We pay the taxes.
Just thinking back to the 3rd grade, this boy should be riding his bike, playing with toy trucks, playing army, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, catching frogs, throwing rocks, building tree forts, etc.
All the afore mentioned activities are probably illegal.
They will go into Alpha-girl mode. That can be just as painful.
Of course they do. Normal children don't wake up one fine day and decide or figure out they are a girl or a boy. It's inherent in their biological make up, to know your gender.
Gender identity comes with sexual maturity
So based on that logic, people don't know their true gender until they reach puberty???
Little boys look at their genitals and ask themselves, am I supposed to have one of these?
I would think this child was likely born with both male and female parts and possibly doctors are guiding the parents that it is time to go with the dominent sex for the child- this surely is a birth defect type situation- I hope anyway. I can't imagine that any doctor would go along with doing this at this age otherwise.
As to the issue of talking to the other kids- these parents have to be morons to think this poor child can make this transiton smoothly at school. There is just no way that will happen- IMO 3rd and 4th graders are some of the most cruel as far as teasing, ect..not old enough that they have really been clamped down on for that behavior and sure enough not old enough to begin to understand something like this- no matter how you talk to them about it. If I had a child that for whatever reason had to change gender- I would either put that child in a new school or more likely homeschool until the transition is made- just sending him/her back to the same school is crazy. I also don't think the others are ready to even begin to understand such a thing and don't think they should have been brought into this at all. If I were a parent of one of the other students I would be raising a stink about them trying to educated my 3rd grader about this type of thing.
Arthurus's comment adds plenty to the conversation!
So?...Where is your line in the sand?
I honestly believe there are parents so addicted to the government schools that they would **willingly** allow them to be marched off to concentration camps! They would justify their lack of action by saying that unfortunately not everyone has the choice of private or home schooling due to a variety of factors!
There comes a point when it would be better for a child to receive NO education whatsoever...NONE!..than to ever set foot in a government school. The school in this article is one of them.
There is probably a legitimate point here.
Science has long known that, in mammals, about halfway through fetal development, if a fetus is male, it is *supposed* to emit a small amount of testosterone from its testes, that goes to its brain, which tells its brain that it is a “male brain”.
If the testosterone does not get there, by default, the brain thinks it is female.
Animals do the mating behavior their brains tell them to do, no matter what genitalia they have. However, people are more complex. So if a male human has a female brain, he may still be heterosexual, but have strong feminine traits in his personality, and visa versa. Human sexuality is far more complex than having a “male” or “female” brain.
However, today there are lots of chemicals in our environment that can screw up this process. A major one is plant estrogens, which are sprayed on plants to enhance their growth. They are very similar to human estrogen, which can interfere with that bit of fetal testosterone. Two foods, especially, are loaded with natural plant estrogens, tofu and yams.
The government has been aware of this since the 1960s, and has been very concerned that these chemicals could cause the widespread feminization of American male children. But they have done nothing to stop it. And while there has been *some* increase in femininity in a few male children, the effects have not been widespread, yet.
However, there are now more male children being born with very female brains. This implies that their mother got either a big dose of estrogen during her pregnancy, or some other chemical that inhibited the testosterone from reaching her male child’s brain during gestation.
In this case, this 3rd grader is psychologically a girl, even though he has male genitalia, and well before sexuality is an issue.
It is hard to imagine what a normal girl would feel if she was forced to dress, behave and associate with only boys, and to act like them, even though she saw other girls and how they behaved, and wanted to be like them.
In past, there have been cases of children who were forced by their mentally ill parents to cross dress and behave as the opposite gender, which often resulted in severe anguish in those children.
So in this circumstance, more than anything else, I would suggest a lot of sympathy and consideration before taking sides. If the child is utterly female psychologically, it may be in their best interest to receive gender modification. But this is an intensely difficult decision.
And one that it may be best to decide before the onset of puberty.
Amen...sadly!! What is with parents these days??? What happened to decent parents who had some common sense!!
Get the kid some COUNSELING instead of a new DRESS!
That was my husband’s reaction, and he added that the school officials that thought it was a good idea to discuss this with the other students without any parental input should be fired and never allowed a job around children- even as janitors.
“The boy” needs to be removed from that household and “the boy’s parents” need to be sterilized.
The parents need the counseling not the students at the school
Well, we may see what happens right away -- like the first time this gender-bent child uses his chosen student bathroom.
Having said that , I agree with many here that the school's other children shouldn't be involved--or even aware of the situation at this young age.
Had I been the parents and known that this was in the future, I would have found a way to move out of that school district so that when the child was ready to return to the class room, the new identity would be in place from the beginning.
Also, since this obviously isn't an emergency situation, why could the surgery not be done during the summer recess, which is less than a month away? In the fall, the patient would be in a new school, and none of the kids from either school would know anything about the kid's (should be) private medical history.
It seems to me that this would make it much easier for the poor little child to make the adjustment.
Really, not all government schools are that bad... I went to one for a bit, and my siblings are currently enrolled in the same one, and nothing remotely like this, or any other school horror story you hear, ever happened (unless you count the guys who dressed up as disney princesses for Halloween one year, but nobody took that as more than being ridiculous with costume choices).
Kiss my arse.
If I was the parent of a child in that school, I’d tell the school to go F themselves and put my child in private school.
When I was in kindergarten in the very early 50s there was a boy who played with dolls with the girls. I have no idea how the girls felt about him—who talked to girls?—but every 5-year-old boy knew that something was terribly wrong. I also remember our teacher doing her best to smooth his way, telling us that fathers had to know how to hold babies, etc. but none of us boys were buying it. I know that some gays choose their lifestyle, but I doubt that this boy did. Your explanation makes as much sense as any.
The kid’s life is going to be hard enough, I think my kindergarten teacher did the right thing, she let us know that she wouldn’t tolerate anyone picking on the kid.
Well, without knowing any of the facts, but with a reasonable working knowledge of Children's Hospital, I call BS.
Facts, please.
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