Boy, 10, the youngest Australian to have sex change

One one hand, i understand how important it is for a transsexual to understand their own gender identity early on before puberty, to maximize the effectiveness of sex-change precedures and to prevent any confusion or stress on the part of the transsexual.

But at the same time, I find it hard to believe that someone so young would have the wherewithal to understand that they were in the wrong body

 

Honestly, I think that transsexualism is a lot like sexual orientation, in that you always really know, and it's always really there. And, since gender identification starts much earlier than sexual attraction, it's possible that a kid just knows much earlier than somebody who is gay would.

(feel free to correct me if there is actual proof telling me I'm wrong, and they work completely different than each other. Because there is a really good chance that that's true...)

 

My cousin's kid is trans. She has known since she was around 5 something. She is 7 now and she dresses and acts like a boy, plays with boys, identifies as a boy, openly, at school and everything. She insisted to my Aunt (her grandmother) that she was in fact born into the wrong body. This was at age 6.

 

Apparently young children don't have a sense of gender-permanence so they don't understand that they won't grow up to be a different gender than what they are now. I would expect them to know that something's wrong as soon as they realise that their body isn't going to change by itself.

 

My only concern with this isn't because of the knowing or not knowing, as I too believe it's like being gay, it's more the early therapy. On one hand, it's happening before they go through the hormones of puberty, at the same time however, I'm wondering if it's physically possible to go through the sex change surgery when the boy is only 10, I mean for one thing, the penis hasn't even fully developed yet :S

 

^ They wouldn't do the actual operation until after puberty, if at all. Many transsexuals never get it. They aren't even giving him(her) female hormones until 16, so I don't think that should be a problem.