5-Year-Old Zach Avery: I Want to be a Girl
A five-year-old boy in England has decided he wants to be a girl, and everyone from his parents to his school to doctors are accepting it -- he has been officially diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID), one of the youngest people ever to be diagnosed with the disorder in the United Kingdom.
The Telegraph reports that the mother of Zach Avery said her son was a "normal" little boy until a little more than a year ago when he suddenly decided he wanted to be a girl. He became obsessed with girls clothes and all-things girly.
"He just turned round to me one day when he was three and said, 'Mommy, I'm a girl'. I assumed he was just going through a phase and just left it at that," said his mother, Theresa Avery. "But then it got serious and he would become upset if anyone referred to him as a boy."
She added, "He used to cry and try to cut off his willy out of frustration."
The parents took Zach to specialists who diagnosed him with GID.
"They told us that although he had a male body, his brain was telling him he was a girl," Theresa said.
His parents started dressing Zach as a girl, even at school.
"We explained to the other kids at the school that Zachy's body was that of a boy but in his brain he was a girl. We said Zach was just happier being a girl than a boy," Theresa said. "But the other kids haven't batted an eyelid, they've accepted Zach as Zach and there's been no problems at the school with bullying."
The school went so far as to make its bathrooms unisex to accommodate Zach.
British officials say only seven children under the age of five were diagnosed with GID last year, making Zach one of the youngest.
It's not known what will happen with Zach in the future, but whatever he decides, he has the support of his parents.
"I would love to have my son back, but I want him to be happy," his mother said. "If this is the route he wants to take - if this is what makes him happy - then so be it. I would rather him have my full support."
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I see that there are many experts on the subject of trans-gender participating in the discussion so I would like to ask a question. In case you think it is too simple to be sincere, I would assure you that it is sincere. I want to know if, and when, the child would have the hated penis removed from his body? I also wonder if/when that happens (and I suppose it would have to at this point) would the body experience "phantom limb" syndrome as happens when other amputations are done? Please do not be sarcastic about my questions as I am trying to get the facts. Thank you.
Transgender surgeries, such as genital revisions, mastectomies, etc., do not take place until the individual is at least 18 years of age and able to give legal consent to such a surgery. As for "phantom limb" syndrome, I'm not aware of anyone who has had such a symptom, but I can't say whether anyone ever has or not.
Children are not given transgender surgeries. However, you should be aware that until the last decade or two, it was common practice for doctors to either declare a sex for a baby who is born "intersexed" (i.e., with ambiguous genitalia) or to coerce the parents into doing so, and to do surgical revisions on such children in infancy and early childhood, often resulting in painful and debilitating conditions which would lead to sometimes dozens of surgeries to correct issues related to the original surgery. Many times in adulthood, such persons end up feeling that the sex to which they were randomly assigned by parents or doctors is not the sex with which they identify themselves.
Decisions about gender/sex assignment are really best left to the individual who experiences the gender issue, rather than to those who would interfere and tell the person what gender they "ought" to be.
I'm not an expert; and that's a very good question as to whether "phantom limb" syndrome exists only when lost bones are involved.
(My understanding is that "phantom limb" syndrome occurs when the body is haunted by the deceased limb's ghost.)
You what's troubling??? That a preschooler understands gender identity well enough to try to cut off their own genitalia.
been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding; the cretins cloning and feeding, and i don't even own a tv
I'm guessing that you may not have children, if you believe that preschoolers are unaware of the physical difference between boys and girls. I'd be worried about a preschooler who was *not* aware of the difference. Developmentally speaking, that would be really odd.
Marlene Bomer, I believe the gentleman posted as John - not "Johnny". I think you should be very, very careful about your criticisms since you most certainly live in the glass house. It is not nice to call someone a fool because they differ in their opinions - you may be the fool you know. I hope you are safely settled in your gender and delighted with yourself because I would think your life decisions have been most difficult - still no reason to lash out - calm down and just be a woman if that is what you need to do.
It is very very sad.
The boy needs real parents with enough intelligence to bring him up properly. Talk about messing up a kid! It is like a black kid thinking he is white and the parents telling him he is. Transexuality is such a shallow delusion that even a bunch of whacky fundies can 'cure' them. I refer to:
Abel, G., Barlow, D., & Blanchard, E. (1977). Gender identity change in a transsexual; An exorcism. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 6(5), 394.
Psychologists working with transexuals getting surgery to make them look like they had the opposite sex genitals to match their delusion had a bunch of people including a male transexual. Because things are so screwed up right now he had actually undergone psychotherapy to adapt to his new gender not to get him to realise he was a man and had even been prescribed female hormones. The unfortunate fellow was going through life pretending to be a woman and was about to get his genitals mutilated. Instead of going ahead he didn't continue with the surgery or the study and didn't keep in contact with the researchers. Coincidentally the psychologists crossed paths with him later on and asked why.
His relatives were whacky fundies and had dragged him into an exorcism with them. He informed the psychologist that he was cured. The stunned psychologists managed to convince him to take their psychology tests. By all what they considered to be scientific standards his biological and psychological genders matched. In other words the psychology tests agreed with him.
They noted in their paper:
"What cannot be denied, however, is that a patient who was very clearly a transsexual by the most conservative criteria assumed a long-lasting masculine gender identity in a remarkably short period of time following the apparent exorcism."
In other words given a bit of support to get out of their delusion by a bunch of fundies they can put it behind them but psychiatrists will counsel them to adapt to their chosen new gender. Very very sad that these people get let down so badly in our messed up society. Particularly so when they are kids and their own parents let them down.
We've come a long way in diagnosis since 1977. We also know that follow-up is needed for 5 years or more, not less than 3, as here. These days, the first thing that would be done is a set of tests for an Intersex condition.
Tests that didn't exist in 1977, for conditions such as 5-alpha-reductase-2 deficiency, a syndrome we didn't even know existed in 1977, but which could account for the reported changes.
We also know a bit more about this congenital physiological problem which we call "transsexuality". First, that it *is* physiological, not psychiatric. Second, the nature of it.
See for example:
Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041
"The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder."
A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.
"Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones"
A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.
We propose that the sex reversal of the INAH3 in transsexual people is at least partly a marker of an early atypical sexual differentiation of the brain and that the changes in INAH3 and the BSTc may belong to a complex network that may structurally and functionally be related to gender identity.
White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. - Rametti et al, J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Jun 8.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the white matter microstructure pattern in untreated FtM transsexuals is closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity (males) than those who share their biological sex (females). Our results provide evidence for an inherent difference in the brain structure of FtM transsexuals.
We even know some (not all) of the things that can cause this cross-sexed neural anatomy in the womb. Foetal exposure to the drug DES for example - see
Prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol(DES) in males and gender-related disorders:results from a 5-year study Scott Kerlin. Proc. International Behavioral Development Symposium July 2005
Rather than it being "so fragile that fundies can change it", this condition is remarkably resistant to all the tools in the psychiatric arsenal - much as other congenital physiological conditions such as cleft palate, congenital blindness etc are. There is no "talking cure" for missing limbs either.
None of the handful of anomalous cases in the literature from 20, 30, or 40 years ago would be diagnosed as "transsexual" today.
Wonderful post, Zoe. Thank you for that.
I have friends who are raising a transexual child. By the time she was four, she had already been showing a marked preference for being called a girl, and for dressing in feminine clothing, and she began experiencing clear gender dysphoria, including extreme anxiety about the fact that she had a penis, and wanting to cut it off, demanding to go to the doctor and have it removed.
To forestall the risk that she would actually take a knife and cut it off, herself, her parents sought treatment with specialists, who diagnosed the child with transgenderism, and she is now living exclusively as a girl, with the cooperation of her school and several very caring specialists in the field. Her parents are intelligent, professional people -- mom is a nurse, studying for her doctorate as a nurse practitioner.
Should the child decide at some point that she no longer perceives herself as female, her family will be accepting of this, but it does not seem likely at this point. If she wants to continue in a female identity when she reaches puberty, her medical specialist will use medications to suppress puberty, and she will be allowed to go through adolescence as a female, using hormonal treatments.
The fact that she has the opportunity to go through puberty as a female is an amazingly wonderful thing -- most transgendered persons up to this point in history have had to go through puberty as their physical sex, and consequently have had to live their lives with secondary sex characteristics of the sex with which they do not identify -- women with large bones and musculature, low voices, unwanted facial and body hair -- men with breasts and feminine bone structure, musculature and fatty deposits.
I am so very proud of this child's parents for loving their child enough to recognize her psychological need to manifest the gender which she perceives as the correct one for her and be accepted and socialized and live within the gender that is most comfortable to her. That takes guts, because (as is so clearly seen in the comments on this thread) people can be awfully cruel and ignorant towards the parents of such a child. God bless the parents of young transgendered children who are trying to do what is best for their child, and are willing to live with the social abuse they suffer as a result in order to protect and help their child.
Given how strong her cross-gender identity seems to be, and the extreme unlikelihood that others socialized her into being girly, it seems to me that the feminists of the 1970s were UTTERLY WRONG about sexual differences being the merely the result of socialization.
If feminist writers could get something like this so very wrong, who knows where else they also went spectacularly and tragically wrong.