It’s a boy! (or is it?)

By Kelly Boggs - Jun 27, 2008 - comment

If you discipline your child by spanking, the so-called progressives in our world say you are guilty of child abuse. If, however, you take your child to a doctor for medical treatment in order to delay puberty in preparation for sex reassignment surgery, many of these same liberals will applaud you as a brave and caring parent.

Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric specialist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, has opened a clinic for transgender kids (boys who believe they were born in a girl’s body and vice-versa) and he is planning on treating children as young as seven, according to a story in The Boston Globe.

Spack will offer his younger patients counseling and drugs that will delay the onset of puberty, thus allowing them more time to decide if they eventually want to undergo sex reassignment surgery.

For teenagers who believe they are transgender, Spack (which, by the way, rhymes with quack) will offer hormone therapy. These treatments are considered drastic and will alter the way a teen will grow and develop. Long–term hormone therapy cannot be reversed.

While Spack’s treatment of patients as young as seven might seem radical, there are some who believe children far younger can know they are transgender.

Dr. Irene Sills, a physician and senior professor of pediatrics at the State University of New York, told FoxNews.com that she had a case of twin girls where one of them showed signs of being transgender at age three.

If you are alarmed that young children are being labeled transgender at ages when gender and sexuality are not even on their psychological radar screens, you should know that it has been occurring in Europe, Asia and Australia for a few years now.

I find it criminal that impressionable young children and teens are led to believe they are biological accidents just because they exhibit interests that are deemed more appropriate for the opposite gender. Dr. Sills told FoxNews.com that the 3-year-old the physician deemed as transgender insisted she was a boy and mimicked masculine behavior.

I wonder if Sills has ever encountered a 3-year-old who insisted he or she were an animal or super hero? Some young children become jealous of a parent and insist they are married to their moms or dads.

I wonder how Dr. Sills would handle such cases.

The story, though, confused me because I thought liberals wanted to do away with stereotypical gender roles.

I thought they wanted little girls to play with fire engines so they could grow-up to be female firefighters. Now it seems some progressives think little Sally playing with a fire engine indicates that she really wants to one day be Frank the fireman.

I am not trying to make light of the fact there are people who are psychologically confused when it comes to their gender – and some of them are children. However, these people and kids are in need of prayer and counseling, not hormone therapy and a surgeon.

What if a young child or teenager insisted he or she was born the wrong race? Would Spack and Sills suggest some sort of pigment altering therapy? I doubt it. They likely would conclude the kid was confused or delusional and recommend counseling – the very thing they should do with their so-called transgender patients.

And what about the parents of these “confused” children? It is the parents who deem their children’s behavior as somehow disturbing. They then initiate consultations with the likes of Spack and Sills. I think anyone who sexualizes every choice a preteen child makes is the one in need of a psychological evaluation – not the kid.

If the medical community in America ever embraces the thinking of Sills and Spack, protocol in birthing rooms will have to change. Upon the birth of a baby the doctor will need to say to the parents, “Congratulations, it’s a boy – that is unless he decides he is a girl.”

Spank a child and you are abusive in the eyes of many progressives. Believe a child is transgender and provide medical therapy and you are caring in the eyes of the same. It’s insane. “And only the insane take themselves seriously,” someone once observed. I couldn’t agree more.

This article is reprinted from the June 5, 2008, issue of the Baptist Message, the newsjournal of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

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