WTF: Sex Change at 12 years old

[Rooster]

Unhappy as a boy, Kim became youngest ever transsexual at 12

By Bojan Pancevski in Vienna, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:12am GMT 29/01/2007

A boy of 12 is believed to have become the world's youngest sex change patient after convincing doctors that he wanted to live the rest of his life as a female.

The boy - originally called Tim, but now known as Kim - has started to receive hormone treatment, in preparation for the operation that will eventually complete the sex change.

Tim was diagnosed as a transsexual two years ago, when doctors and psychiatrists concluded that his claims to be "in the wrong body" were so deeply felt that he required treatment. The therapy involves artificially arresting male puberty, with a series of potent hormone injections before the administration of female hormones to initiate the development of features such as breasts.

Now aged 14, and officially registered as a female, Kim looks like a typical girl of her age. She dresses in fashionable clothes, has long blonde hair and blue eyes and dreams of moving to Paris to become a fashion designer. Her parents, who initially assumed their son was going through a temporary phase, eventually grew accustomed to seeing him as a girl.

The family's full identity has not been made public. But Kim's father, known as Lutz P. – speaking to the German publications Der Spiegel and Stern – said that as a child, the boy liked to play with Barbie dolls, enjoyed wearing dresses and, from the age of two, insisted that he was a girl. "We saw Kim as a girl, but not as a problem. Our life was surprisingly normal."

Kim reacted badly to the first signs of puberty, he said. "At that stage we realised that she was terrified of growing facial hair and her voice breaking."

Kim's parents consulted psychiatrists across Germany. Some condemned their support of their child's desire to undergo a sex change, or suggested that Kim be kept under observation in a closed psychiatric ward. But others agreed that the child should receive therapy, because growing up to be a man would have damaged her personality.

Dr Bern Meyenburg, the head of a clinic for children and adolescents with identity disturbances at Frankfurt University, concluded that the child was serious. He wrote in his diagnosis: "Kim is a mentally well-developed child who appears happy and balanced. There is no doubt of the determined wish, that was already detectable since early childhood. It would have been very wrong to let Kim grow up to be a man. It is rare to have such a clear-cut case."

Kim is reportedly fully accepted by her fellow school pupils and teachers. The costs of the procedure are being covered by health insurance, as the condition qualifies as an illness.

Dr Achim Wuesthof, an endocrinologist specialising in children and adolescents, who is treating the teenager at a clinic in Hamburg, said the procedure had been a success so far. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, he said that even though under-16s were not permitted to undergo a sex change in other countries, he and his colleagues felt that in this case it had been best to start earlier. He said: "To the best of my knowledge, Kim is the youngest sex change patient in the world. 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.

"Transsexuals experience the onset of puberty, and the physical changes it brings, as a serious trauma. But there is a general lack of empathy with cases like Kim's, mostly because people know little about the condition. Imagine a man that suddenly starts growing breasts or a woman that starts growing a beard against their will – that is how Kim and people like her experience puberty.

"They are not freaks, nor do they suffer mental illness. They are simply trapped in the wrong bodies. That is why it is best to help them as early as possible and reduce the trauma for them and their families."

The problem that Dr Meyenburg and other psychiatrists faced was distinguishing a true transsexual personality from a temporary gender identity crisis. Dr Meyenburg quoted an example of a 15-year-old girl who wanted to change her sex, but who revealed during counselling that she had suffered brutal sexual abuse by her father – a case for psychological, rather than hormonal therapy.

Should Kim change her mind before the surgery, the procedure could be reversed. Doctors admit that the treatment involves a risk, however, and that its effects on children as young as Kim are not fully understood.

For legal reasons, the final stage – cosmetic surgery to remove the male genitalia – cannot take place until Kim is 18. Britain's youngest transsexual is Angel Paris-Jordan, who was granted an operation on the NHS at the age of 17.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../28/wkim28.xml

[BIG_DADDY]

I don't think anyone is taking me seriously.

[boogblaster]

Over-payment for services, medical or other is a disease in this country..as far as some 12 year old kid getting his balls whacked is fricking sick ....

[Thig Lyfe]

I wonder what Believer thinks about this.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

Holy crap... me, too. I didn't know I was a wolf, though.

If you lick your own balls, you've made a commitment.

[booger]

with or without peanut butter?








Here Fido!

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Braincase

Gender identity is a very complicated thing. We have the physical, the psychological and sexual issues to deal with.

My gender identity is that I am physically male, I am psychologically male, and sexually I prefer women, making me heterosexual.

The problem is that society wants everybody to follow that norm. We impress it on all as "Right", when in reality there are any number of known and unknown factors that affect gener identity. There are those that are physically male, psychologically male, but choose a male partner. There are those, like this poor kid, that identify themselves as being psychologically female despite being physically male. This creates a tremndous conflict and source of depression and anxiety to the point of being suicidal or worse.

Yeah, it's too bad that nature screwed up and made this kid a victim. Don't pile on, 'cause this kid has enough to deal with. UP does too, as have others on the board. I try to empathize, and I hope that this same sort of conflict doesn't happen to any of my kids or grandkids or any other kid I know, but the reality of it is that it does happen.

Then the real problem lies not so much in the treatment of the condition, but in society's ability to accept it.

This is an excellent post that fully sums up my thoughts on the issues as well. We live in a society that preaches the illusion of binary sexual identity to such an extent that to be anything else is to be null, a non-human. There is a plethora of excellent literature on the subject, if anyone cares to inquire...

[booger]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

When I was 12 I felt like a wolf trapped in a mans body. Every time people looked at me and called me human I felt uncomfortable. I just wanted to tell them, I'm a wolf, I'm not human. At night I would lay in bed and cry and ask god, why did you do this to me? Sometimes I would wake up and find myself eating out of the dogs dish. TO this very day I still piss on trees outside and have hurt my back several times trying to lick my own balls.

Kinda like Michael J. Fox in teenwolf?


I bet that's why you didn't post in the what animals are you afraid of thread.

[RealSNR]

If this happened in America, I'd say "yeah, excellent. Good for Tim/Kim. You were able to make the best of a bad hand and give mother nature the middle finger. Nice going."

It's wrong that people have to pay for that operation, though.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

That doesn't apply if someone else licks my balls... does it?

Not according to my wife.

[Ultra Peanut]

Transsexuals have two options, basically:

1) Transition and live life in the gender role they're actually, get this, comfortable in. EWWWWW, GROSS!
2) Therapy, and only therapy. This has the added benefit of ending up in a massive number of suicides by the patients. WOOHOO, less freaks to potentially make you uncomfortable!

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

This is an excellent post that fully sums up my thoughts on the issues as well. We live in a society that preaches the illusion of binary sexual identity to such an extent that to be anything else is to be null, a non-human. There is a plethora of excellent literature on the subject, if anyone cares to inquire...

****ING GROSS DUDE EWWWWW LOONY WHACKO PERVERSEWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Originally Posted by SNR

It's wrong that people have to pay for that operation, though.

Yes, because someone's core being and how they experience every single ****ing day of their life is a total non-issue.

[Ultra Peanut]

Originally Posted by go bo

the operation is not ridiculous...

it's an established medical procedure...

with good results, sfaik...

water u sum kinda faggot!!!!!!

[go bo]

no, i'm too fat to be a pillow biter...

i think the doctors and her parents are doing the right thing in this case by going along with the kid's wishes before the onset of puberty...

more power to her, i say...

[Ultra Peanut]

The earlier, the better. The thing that's impossible for those who haven't experienced it to realize is that, in a lot of cases, you already know exactly what you want. The problem is, unless you're completely socially reeruned, you've noticed all of the signals saying how horrible and wrong it is for you to feel the way you feel for your entire life up to that point, making it extremely difficult to do anything other than bottle up and be miserable.

Do you people think someone just wakes up one day and says, "Hurrrr, I'd love to be a part of an irrationally feared group that people know next to nothing about! The high suicide rates are a bonus!"

Life is enough of a bitch without that sort of burden, and the quicker you cast it off, the better you are. Until society progresses to the point where kids can feel open about it and at least delay puberty until they're "sure," countless people will continue to suffer and many will kill themselves simply because it looks like a better alternative than either living a complete lie and never being able to be honest with anyone, or reaching the point where you're able to be open too late and being unable to fit into the role you would have found yourself comfortably fitting into if the situation had been different (sure, some people are able to transition at later ages than others; it's a matter of pure chance, basically, but the unlucky ones who look like linebackers are pretty much ****ed when it comes to just blending in).

Letting kids take control of their gender identities at an early age, and not looking down upon or scorning them for doing so, would quite literally save many, many lives.

But saving lives is less important than making sure a bunch of woefully uninformed others don't feel icky about it, I guess.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

Yes, because someone's core being and how they experience every single ****ing day of their life is a total non-issue.

So if someone's core being is so ****ing upset about having a penis they should get their ass up early every day for a few years and save the money they need to get the operation.

People making their own personal issues everyone else's problem is BS. In SF the tax payers have to pay for sex changes. That is wrong any way you look at it. MOF it's completely ****ing assinine.

[StcChief]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

So if someone's core being is so ****ing upset about having a penis they should get their ass up early every day for a few years and save the money they need to get the operation.

People making their own personal issues everyone else's problem is BS. In SF the tax payers have to pay for sex changes. That is wrong any way you look at it. MOF it's completely ****ing assinine.

Wouldn't castration be just as successful?

The Europeifican of Kalifornia....