Legit question for the transgendered in this thread: Did you always have a feeling that you were a girl on the inside, even as a child, or was it a realization you came to during adolescence/adulthood? For example, gay people often say they always knew even as young children what their inclinations were. I'm wondering if it's the same for trans people.
The reason I'm asking is because there seems to be an increasing amount of children, even the younger ones, that are now identifying themselves as transgendered. There are enough of them now that some schools have had problems arise over which bathrooms they should use. There's even been controversy over using the words "boys" and "girls" at all, as if they're offensive words because it's considered "labeling" the kids. (Anyone else remember the news story a while back about how some school started a policy where the teachers were told to refer to all the kids as "purple penguins" instead of "boys" and "girls"? I thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard... LOL)
And then there's
this article below, which equates calling a child "boy" or "girl" is the same as referring to them based on things like race, religion, etc:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by tolerance.org
Imagine if a teacher used race labels in similar fashion: "Good morning, whites and blacks." Or used ethnicity as a way to organize classroom activities: "Latinos, get your backpacks now."
Most readily expect such practices would increase — not decrease — children's racial stereotyping and prejudice. Gender labeling works in a similar way to increase children's gender stereotyping bias.
Too often, teachers use gendered terms in the classroom — boys, girls, men, women — without thinking about the impact of such words. New research suggests, however, that such language draws children's attention to gender — rather than other more important characteristics of individuals within classroom settings, such as their personalities or skills.
This practice also leads children to believe that teachers' are intentionally signaling the existence of important differences between genders — even when they are not. When teachers use noun labels rather than adjectives to describe any group of people — girls, Native Americans, Catholics — children are likely to believe the people in that group share meaningful and unseen characteristics. That, then, is how the seeds of stereotyping are planted.
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This shit is confusing enough for me. I can't imagine how confusing it must be for all children, transgendered or not, growing up in the Age of Information (is the Age of
TMI responsible for confusing the shit out of our kids to some extent?). It's really insane trying to compare my own childhood back in the 80s and 90s to the world today. That shit was practically "Little House on the Prairie" compared to now. And it never fails... Just when you think political correctness and tolerance has officially become as ridiculous as it's gonna get (...purple penguins!...) - somehow, somewhere - it always manages to reach a whole new realm of
what the fuck?. What's next?