From birth, transgender children insist that they were born into the wrong body. What they experience is not just a phase; experts diagnose them with gender identity disorder or GID for short, the causes of which are unknown. Many are rejected by their families, ostracized by their peers, and grow up hating their own bodies, so children with GID are at high risk of depression, thus placing them at a higher risk for drug abuse, violence, and suicide.
What Is Transgender? Everyone has a gender identity. Gender identity is our internal sense of being male or female. For most people, our basic awareness that we are male or female matches our physical body. When we’re born, people decide if we’re male or female based on our genitals. But for children and adults who are transgender, their basic sense of being male or female – their gender identity – does not match their body. So a transgender person may have a male body, but feel inside that they are female. Or a transgender person may have a female body, but feel inside that they are truly male.
Can a Child Be Transgender? Children and adolescents can be transgender, just like adults. In fact, a small percentage of all children are transgender. Children understand gender differences from a very early age. And transgender children strongly identify with the other gender, often from age two or three. Because we don’t talk about transgender people with children, adolescents or even adults, children who are transgender lack basic information about who they are, and struggle with feeling like they were born in the wrong body. And adults typically react as if there were something wrong with these children, as well.
In truth, there is nothing wrong with these children. But since very few people understand that it is natural for a small percentage of the population to be transgender, people don’t know that you can have male genitals and still be female or have female genitals and be male....