I'm VERY much against LGBT hatred (it is horrible just like any group based hatred), but at the same time I agree with Mario Lopez:
I think he's right.
He said, "if you're 3 years old and you're saying you're feeling a certain way or you think you're a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it's dangerous as a parent to make this determination then, well, okay, then you're going to a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be ... It's sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on."
"He then conflated gender identity with sexual orientation, saying, 'When you're a kid... you don't know anything about sexuality yet. You're just a kid.'"
"'I think parents need to allow their kids to be kids but at the same time, you gotta be the adult in the situation,' Lopez responded. 'Pause with that and—I think the formative years is when you start having those discussions and really start making these 'declarations.''"
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Bottom line for me: What the heck does a 3 year old, even a 6 year old or, heck, even a 10 year old about gender identity/sexuality? When I was that young, I didn't even know anything about those things. I just wanted to play with my friends, have fun like a kid should, look forward to birthday presents and family trips, enjoy Sat AM cartoons, look forward to going out to eat, etc. You know, kid kind of things. Come on people, use common sense!
Gender dysphoria
Clinically significant distress caused when a person's assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify. According to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the term – which replaces Gender Identity Disorder – "is intended to better characterize the experiences of affected children, adolescents, and adults."
IMHO, the real danger is when the parents verbally and/or physically discourage what they consider aberant behavior.
Larry,
Thanks for bringing up this extraordinarily fascinating and controversial topic!
Being a parent is a tough job. It's the most important job that any one of us will ever do, so we try to get it right.............and most of us with on the job, self taught training.
We had 3 kids and they were all completely different. The first was a piece of cake, the last the most challenging.............so experience doesn't always make it easier because each child is unique.
As scholastic chess coach at 5 schools to 3,000 kids the past 25 years, I've been blessed with the opportunity to observe some extreme versions of "unique".....and the varying degrees of how different parents apply their parenting skills.
Some have powerful gender identifying personalities in kindergarten, with others not so much even in high school but it's all good with chess because the objective is just to maximize the potential of each child based on who they are, while they have fun exercising their brains.
Parenting is not always fun......especially if a child has an issue that may require special attention.
I agree with Mario on this topic and here's the thing. Each set of parents is coming into this relationship with their own different views and expectations, often with no previous experience or expertise in discerning the significance of behavior that even professionals might have a tough time identifying.
There are a hundred different elements to raising a child, some are easy.......picking bed time, doing homework, using appropriate behavior, picking your sex orientation............NOT.
This condition is not well understood, even by the top authorities. The chances of a parent with zero experience being able to properly address it is small and even if they took their child to a specialist, that person might not be able to address it properly(since many professionals don't understand it) and based on the parents misdiagnosing it, could actually give counterproductive treatment ideas to appease the parent.
What strikes me as odd with regards to diagnosing a young child with this condition is how would somebody know that the child is transgender and not gay?
It would be impossible.
If your little boy likes to dress up in girls clothes but also is attracted sexually to little girls they are trans? vs being attracted sexually to other little boys, they are gay? How can you know this at 5 or 6? You can't know this.
With many its clear, even before puberty that they are preferring to do things and act like the opposite gender, so just steer them in the direction that would allow them to fit in best with society(while allowing them to make their own choices along the way as much as possible and never with judgment) and when they are old enough to start making their own choices based on an understanding of the world, if it's different than the conventional choice, then support them if that's what makes them happy.
Another huge element to this is the parents view of the world.
Being very political, as most people are, a liberal set of parents is going to treat their trans child growing up completely different than a conservative couple.
A conservative couple, for instance might be more likely to reject the notion of this possibility, ignore signs and force gender acceptable behavior on the child(I'm stereotyping)
A liberal couple may go the other way and misdiagnose a kid with a wild imagination as being trans and cause them to get even more confused.
The point is that parents and even experts are subjective and will often see what they think they see or what they want to see or ignore what they don't want to see.
They only way to know if what they are seeing is authentic is to give it lots of time......years of time of observing the childs behavior's, preferences and choices.
We still don't understand a lot about this topic:
The largest study involving transgender people is providing long-sought insights about their health
The research examines once taboo questions about the impacts of gender transition.
Thanks, Mike. Good stuff.
Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder and should be treated as such.
After enormous backlash for his comments, Lopez apologizes:
https://deadline.com/2019/07/mario-lopez-misses-extra-apologizes-transgender-remarks-1202658515/
We live in a world where anything you say or do can be heard/seen by millions within minutes.
If some people disagree or don't like what they see/hear, they can interpret a meaning from it that spins in a diabolical element to destroy you.
He caved to political correct nonsense. There's way too much of that these days... But being in the entertainment business, I guess he had little choice.
Next, we'll be attacking people for questioning folks who "Self identify" as Napoleon.