Your thoughts on Nicole and Jonas Maines

[Josh Goodman (imported)]

Please forgive me, I'm simply trying to understand this situation. If Nicole is indeed a girl with a birth defect than her male genitals are really no deffirent from other birth defects such as a cleft lip. Is anyone here suggesting that an underage boy or girl should wait untill the age of 18 to have a cleft lip repaired because the child might later change his mind and decide that the cleft lip represents his true identity?

We have also been told that Nicole should wait five years for the quality of the surgery to improve. Well there may be something to that, but does that mean that five years from now children as young as 10 or 12 will have the operation because the results will be so much better than today? In otherwords, do people oppose preteen castration just because the procedure is not yet good enough? Once again, I'm not trying to star a fight, I'm just trying to understand the mindset of the people on this forum.

Finely, I've been asked to name even one doctor

who does GRS on children's genitals.

But if Nicole is already a girl as people here say than the doctor would not be reassigning her gender by removing her male genitals. She'd be just as much a girl before the surgery as she would be after.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

You're talking about irreversible surgery. Once it is done, there isn't any going back. It's a lot more complex than a cleft lip. By the time she is 18, the blockers and female hormones will have done most of the work as far as her appearance is concerned. By that time the surgery will be the FINAL piece of the puzzle.

Doctors aren't (and shouldn't) go cutting into a child's genitals to irrevocably change them. It should be the last thing done...for that matter it should be the last thing done for an adult going through the process of changing from their birth sex to their mental gender. There is no need to jump the gun and go right to permanence.

Also in young adults, the bodies are still growing and changing, it is best to let the body finish all its changes of puberty before SRS. Also the doctors and parents need to be 100% certain the child is really mentally the opposite sex. That's why the start with just blockers and no hormones. You can't be too careful in rushing things. She'll be a girl/woman the rest of her life and the important thing is she will get the female puberty she needs to have a better quality of life.

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Please forgive me, I'm simply trying to understand this situation. If Nicole is indeed a girl with a birth defect than her male genitals are really no deffirent from other birth defects such as a cleft lip. Is anyone here suggesting that an underage boy or girl should wait untill the age of 18 to have a cleft lip repaired because the child might later change his mind and decide that the cleft lip represents his true identity?

We have also been told that Nicole should wait five years for the quality of the surgery to improve. Well there may be something to that, but does that mean that five years from now children as young as 10 or 12 will have the operation because the results will be so much better than today? In otherwords, do people oppose preteen castration just because the procedure is not yet good enough? Once again, I'm not trying to star a fight, I'm just trying to understand the mindset of the people on this forum.

Finely, I've been asked to name even one doctor

who

does GRS on children's genitals.

But if Nicole is already a girl as people here say than the doctor would not be reassigning her gender by removing her male genitals. She'd be just as much a girl

before the surgery as she would be after.

Even though the surgery could in theory be done on a young child, the results would not be as good in the long run. Transforming a penis into a vagina is not that difficult a concept to understand, but there is a very real need for the resultant vagina to be large enough and able to accomodate normal sexual activity. While her male puberty has been suspended, her penis is probably not growing at a normal rate or ultimately to a normal size, so to complete the surgery they will probably require a grafted segment of her intestine tissue to give her a normal sized vagina. All things taken into consideration, penis skin available for transformation, the patient's body and pelvic cavity growth, and emotional maturity level, I think it is clearly in the best interest of the patient to hold off on the surgery until she is at least 18.

I may be completely wrong in my assessement of you Josh Goodman, but is seems to me that you find it particularly irritating that someone who thinks, looks and acts like a female, might have a penis under her skirt, I have to ask WHY do you have a problem with this? I know, a female with a penis is clearly the exception to the rule, but what is so disturbing and disagreeable about this exception? Most everyone I know, well, most every intelligent person I know, would agree with me when I say that the most important sexual organ you have is BETWEEN YOUR EARS, NOT YOUR LEGS. If I, this very day, feel that I am female, then I am, (I would be a very very UGLY female to be sure), and any physical appearance that says otherwise, well it is just what I would have to deal with. I feel sorry that this little girl has to deal with some of her sexual organs not being in agreement with her personality, but I see no need to make things even more difficult for her by prematurely performing surgery that will leave her with inferior results for the rest of her life.

And even if she chooses to not get the SRS when she is 18 or 88, she is just as female as she herself thinks and feels herself to be.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

And even if she chooses to not get the SRS when she is 18 or 88, she is just as female as she herself thinks and feels herself to be.

Not to mention, not everyone can afford the cost of getting SRS

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Not to mention, not everyone can afford the cost of getting SRS

A very good point, the last I heard about it, MtF SRS alone costs $10-20,000, and OH MY GAWD FtM SRS costs around $100,000. I just don't think it is right to compel someone to give up their life's savings so that their genitals appear the way I think they should appear. I think the only person who has the right to have any opinion on the matter is the transgendered person themselves...

Think about it maybe this way: IF some evil socerer were able to magicaly transform your genitals against your wishes into the wrong genitals for you, and leave you with a penis you did not like or a vagina you did not like, would you pay $100,000 to get a marginally functional penis back? (if you were originally a male) -or- Would you pay $10,000 to get a marginally functional vagina back? (if you were originally a female). IF I found myself in that perdicament, having been a male, born a male, raise a male, and then because of some evil circumstance waking up one morning with my genitals transformed into a vagina... well I would just live with it and KEEP the $100,000 (that I don't have anyway). If anybody that I loved could not deal with that problem, well that would be too bad for them, I just cannot see myself spending my child's college fund so that I could have a marginally functional penis back between my legs. And even though the FtM SRS is much less expensive, $10-20,000 is a LOT of money to ask someone to spend so that other people will see them as a "real woman."

[devi (imported)]

You're talking about irreversible surgery. Once it is done, there isn't any going back. It's a lot more complex than a cleft lip. By the time she is 18, the blockers and female hormones will have done most of the work as far as her appearance is concerned. By that time the surgery will be the FINAL piece of the puzzle.

Doctors aren't (and shouldn't) go cutting into a child's genitals to irrevocably change them. It should be the last thing done...for that matter it should be the last thing done for an adult going through the process of changing from their birth sex to their mental gender. There is no need to jump the gun and go right to permanence.

Also in young adults, the bodies are still growing and changing, it is best to let the body finish all its changes of puberty before SRS. Also the doctors and parents need to be 100% certain the child is really mentally the opposite sex. That's why the start with just blockers and no hormones. You can't be too careful in rushing things. She'll be a girl/woman the rest of her life and the important thing is she will get the female puberty she needs to have a better quality of life.

Some of us may not completely mature or be able finish all of the changes of puberty. Then either tesosterone or estrogen is required. In my younger days, I was required to have had to take testosterone in order to fully be a "mature male" and therefore "qualify" to have tg therapy. This was WRONG! Wrong, wrong, wrong! And I walked away.

In my thinking these younger persons need that surgery and should be able to have it right away. A lot of people regularly reproduce unfortunately by the time they're thirteen, even earlier. So why cannot this type of procedure be done by then? They don't need the full monty. They just need to be able to get rid of enough of male bits (which could be considered as a eunuch, if you will) in order not to have to live with the fear and dread of somehow ever ending up in prison or other places... with a bunch of horny men.

[janekane (imported)]

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but the kid has a penis and he has balls. What does that make him? A boy.

Opinions are known to vary, and people develop their beliefs in response to inner and outer environment experiences, or so I have come to understand.

Until I was 47 years of age, I had testicles, scrotum,and penis; and was generally regarded as a boy or man. But I knew, was familiar with, and understood better than that since rather early infancy. Except for social gender assignment purposes and for gamete fertilization purposes, I have never been a boy or a man, because my gender identity is not a property of my genotype or my genotype-based phenotype. My gender identity is an aspect of my innermost identity, which some folks may deem to transcend what is purely physical.

Suppose someone with one X and one Y chromosome and with penis, testicles, seminal vesicles, scrotum, and all the other features, properties, and characteristics of being a boy and/or man regards self as being a boy or a man? Fine with me, it is not for me to decide the identity of another person.

Penis an testicles and the rest of traditional male physicality do not necessarily make someone a boy. Oh, boy!, do I ever know that for sure. How so? By living it.

Real life experience...

Lots of folks tried to teach me that I was a boy when I was not yet of adult age. Not one of those folks had a hint of an iota of success in their efforts of so teaching me.

As far as I am concerned, you may decide who you are, without objection from me. Alas, you may not decide who I am.

[SplitDik (imported)]

Please forgive me, I'm simply trying to understand this situation. If Nicole is indeed a girl with a birth defect than her male genitals are really no deffirent from other birth defects such as a cleft lip. Is anyone here suggesting that an underage boy or girl should wait untill the age of 18 to have a cleft lip repaired because the child might later change his mind and decide that the cleft lip represents his true identity?

That's a false analogy. No one regrets getting a cleft lip repaired, but there are lots of people including adults with full consideration that regret proceeding with SRS for a number of reasons. Secondly, as already mentioned the SRS surgical options are more complicated, not as satisfactory, more painful, more dangerous and more costly. Like I mentioned before, I know two transsexuals who ended up with very bad results from SRS -- instead of a working vagina they basically ended up with painful, scarred holes in their body.

[punkypink (imported)]

Okay, Punky and I have had our disagreements before but on this thread I'm on her side -- the guy she was responding to was SO out of touch, which is especially surprising considering he is on a eunuch-oriented web site, that he needed to be confronted and even provoked.

I find there are two types of disagreements on these web forums. There are sparring discussions like Punky and I have, where at the end of the day I still enjoy her being here and value her contributions and get a (nice) laugh out of her feisty irritability. Then there are other disagreements where the person is really off-base and hurtful or simply doesn't fit with the culture of the forum.

Especially note that Punky is the most qualified out of everyone who's participated on this thread to speak on this issue how choosing to or to not undergo SRS plays into a transgendered persons' life. Go Punky!

Thank you for this. I believe it is pointless to try to talk any further to Josh. Some people's ignorance just cannot be combated, since they simply do not have the mental capabilities to comprehend and process what is being pointed out to them. Maybe he does not realise that women can be male and female and that having male genitals as a woman is not a birth defect unless one has BDD or BIID. Even then, it technically isn't a defect. For that matter, his example of a cleft lip is only a defect because it prevents a person from even eating properly, whether male or female.

I'm also glad I'm not the only one who thinks Josh

doesn't fit with the culture of the forum.

Still I guess, we won't have discussions like these where everyone else get some education or validation without someone posting nonsense.

Off topic: It's cold here in Chicago!