Youmgest M to F TS?

[Helen MC]

I reproduce this article for today's UK Sunday Telegraph for your information.

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

Bojan Pancevski in Vienna, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 3:04am GMT 28/01/2007

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.
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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.

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[Joy Carter]

I wish Kim a long and happy life. :hugs: Thanks Hellen for this happy ending story.

[SusanTL]

Hi.

God bless her and I wish her a very long and happy life.

Susan

[Joy Carter]

Helen did you run this through "Snopes" ? I have been looking for this story and haven't found it.

[Kieron Andrew]

Helen did you run this through "Snopes" ? I have been looking for this story and haven't found it.
Its in an english newspaper this morning......http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/28/wkim28.xml

[Helen MC]

Snopes?

[Joy Carter]

Snopes?

"Snopes" Has researched many stories and events on the net to find out if they are true. So if in doubt you can plug just about anything in there and get an answer.

And Keiron that information goes on into the German press story a little farther than the one Helen so graciously posted for us. They interview her MD as well. Then there is two other stories about two adult males who went with sex changes. It was pretty enlightening to say the least.

I just want to add this, that I feel some day we really might just unlock the reason, why we are all the way we are. Wouldn't it be wonderful the know that ?

I Love You All :hugs: Joy Carter

[Kieron Andrew]

https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,462516,00.html

[Siobhan Marie]

Thanks for posting that Helen, I wish her a long, happy and successful life.

:hugs: Anna Marie x

[Helen MC]

Thanks Kieron. The Der Spiegel article does give a deeper insight. Let us hope that in years to come GRS will be considered as just another Surgical Procedure to repair a bodily defect as is a Hernia Operation or one to replace a damaged Heart Valve.

[CaptLex]

Thanks for the info, Helen (and Kieron). I think it's terrific - truly a testament that things are easier for us in this day and age than 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Not too long ago, that same little girl would have been put through all kinds of torture by well-intended parents and doctors who would have been convinced she was mentally ill. I wish her a happy life! :happy:

[eleventhdr]

I do wish tht some of us if not all of us could ahve ahd this done when we might have decided that that is haow we realy did want to be but never were allowed to do so!

Because it was not doen in a certain age and or time.
I do wish Ki a very long and properous Life as female instead of living some that is not to have been.

Still wish I could do that even now but.

Suzy!

[chris80]

according to the telegraph website kim is now pushing to have grs at 16 though 18 is the minimum legal age in germany

[JenniferMint]

according to the telegraph website kim is now pushing to have grs at 16 though 18 is the minimum legal age in germany

Could she just go to Thailand and do it? Or would Germany health insurance cover the cost if she gets it done with them?

[ToyGirl]

Most people at that age that want to be girl and are 'out' , end out to not be TS. I honestly hope she does not screw her life. Though with the information thats out there it might be easier for kids to get it right , that it used to be.

Though im still skeptical. There's a 12-14 y/o (tg)girl on you tube , who stole her mums CC and bought HRT from inhouse. She really seems intelligent and has a good understanding on it all.

[Joy Carter]

Most people at that age that want to be girl and are 'out' , end out to not be TS. I honestly hope she does not screw her life. Though with the information thats out there it might be easier for kids to get it right , that it used to be.

Though im still skeptical. There's a 12-14 y/o (tg)girl on you tube , who stole her mums CC and bought HRT from inhouse. She really seems intelligent and has a good understanding on it all.

Got a tittle for that one TG +?

[ToyGirl]

Got a tittle for that one TG +?

Sorry Joy i do not , i have searched you tube for 45 minutes to no avail.

[Calliope]

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.


I've been thinking lately, TS's are so dependent upon doctors and shrinks. Women, of course, have been at their mercy since, like, christ was born. It's a thread we have in common - this pull towards passivity and acceptance of (usually) male authority. I've been reading Inga Muscio's book C*** and I agree with her feminist assessment that such a relationship has got to go. It's cool Kim got what she needed, I just wanted to point out my frustration in that's there's always some Pope involved in the happy ending. And, of course, all the unhappy endings, too.

[melissaK]

Calliope, your comment confuses me a little. Can I divide your comment into two complaints - one, you are complaining of male dominance in the medical community; and two - you don't like the "gatekeeper" aspect of the medical/psychiatrist community? Either way, or both ways at once, your points are valid and fine with me.

Your complaint sort of ties into a thread a few days ago over benefits of therapy. You commented "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, here Kims parents took the view Kim's mind wasn't broke, let's just fix her body to match it. The story of Kim also talks about another person who was judged to have been "damaged" by sexual abuse and in need of counselling, not SRS. Apparantly they viewed her as having a broken mind that was fixable.

And underlying both Kim and the other girl are the "review" and "judgment" of a male dominated medical establishment. No self direction or determination allowed. They will judge what is what.

And I wonder who I would be today, if in the third grade I had been allowed to keep playing with the girls at recess and not literally forced to go play with the boys.

No doctors were involved in the events at my elementary school back in 1963. I was too young to be sure of this, but I don't think any men were involved in the decision - just a few women teachers who thought it wrong for a boy to be playing happily with their girls. I don't even think my parents were involved. Of course they were teachers in a school that raised the kids to function in the male dominated society that was America in 1963. So, men were present, albeit indirectly.

So, I have a few problems with authority figures who rob us of self determination - at any age. And the road to SRS is full of those authority figures.

Thanks for the thread Helen.

Hugs,
'lissa

[Calliope]

Calliope, your comment confuses me a little. Can I divide your comment into two complaints - one, you are complaining of male dominance in the medical community; and two - you don't like the "gatekeeper" aspect of the medical/psychiatrist community? Either way, or both ways at once, your points are valid and fine with me.


Well, reading Inga Muscio, I've been impressed by her stance, "Don't buy 'female products' designed and sold by men - they don't care and they don't get it." And, yes, there's a lunar mother 'be happy with your body' aspect to her feminism. Which is cool by me. I've been lead around, disappointed and frustrated by the whole HRT thing - the money involved, the power of the gatekeepers - and, extrapolating Muscio a bit, I'm thinking "If it ain't designed and sold by transsexuals, beware beware."

So, yes, I don't dig the male dominance involved. (They are usually the gatekeepers.) I don't wanna be, or have to be, a "good girl." I can be a feminist bitch if I wanna. Example: I don't have to grow breasts, why should I wanna spend all that money on providing guys with boners? I am staking out a claim on permanant transition here, it's my way of saying I will go only as far as I need - and, if I can get it together like a smart V-Warrior, I don't need to go much further than ... my own heart.

[melissaK]

Example: I don't have to grow breasts, . . . , I don't need to go much further than ... my own heart.

A well stated manifesto! And Bravo, too. Flat chested women the world over are applauding because "you get them"! My good gg friend Ruth (met her in a college Victorian Lit class) would be one of them. She never bought into needing anything more than her A- chest to be a woman, despite the message of Hollywood, and pop culture. And perhaps unfortunately here on these CD/TG boards I think it fair to say most just blithly assume their feminity requires at least a B chest.

The gatekeeper role is often criticized, and your logic that it oughta be controlled by those who live the problem makes a lot of sense. IMHO over the years the best voices on the HBIGDA board (I get those initials right?) or its successor, have been the TG members. The notion of HRT without SRS comes from TG members - not the medicos on the board.

If I can slant Helen's thread a little, I kind of like Bethany Girl's life story (a forum member) in that she just skipped all the surgery stuff and HRT stuff and presented en femme, just as any TG from before the era of modern surgery would have done.

The importance of that option, just live the role you want, and the failure of most CD/TG/TS to consider it, occurred to me as I read an anthropological history of TGism. We aren't new to the planet. There seems to be evidence that we've been around as long as recorded history. So, did all TG have to endure primitive genital surgery? I saw no mention of that. They just lived as variant members of the culture. (Admittedly not all cultures accomodated them in the past). So, in a way, isn't SRS almost an admission that we are somehow "broken" and "unacceptable" unless we are fixed to be presentable as one sex or the other? (Which coincides nicely with A cup gg's needing breast augmentation to be 'fixed up to be presentable' too - can't have flat chested women being mistaken for men! - I could so rant on that . . . )

That led me to reflect on the perhaps harmful aspect that SRS has played in helping CDers and TG find acceptance. So often its that all or nothing, black or white, kind of choice. The in between choices are rarely presented as options. Even in the young TG story of Kim which prompted this thread, Kim and the other person who was not a true TS, don't appear to have been offered any middle ground. Rather the slant of the article and quoted doctors was we will fix TS with surgery, and we will fix everyone else with therapy. What about just "accepting us" as is? What about telling young TG that you can just live like Bethany Girl - it's an OK option? Can't we do that?

Hugs,
'lissa

[Calliope]

A well stated manifesto! And Bravo, too. Flat chested women the world over are applauding because "you get them"!

[...]

If I can slant Helen's thread a little, I kind of like Bethany Girl's life story (a forum member) in that she just skipped all the surgery stuff and HRT stuff and presented en femme, just as any TG from before the era of modern surgery would have done.

[...]

So, in a way, isn't SRS almost an admission that we are somehow "broken" and "unacceptable" unless we are fixed to be presentable as one sex or the other? (Which coincides nicely with A cup gg's needing breast augmentation to be 'fixed up to be presentable' too - can't have flat chested women being mistaken for men! - I could so rant on that . . . )

That led me to reflect on the perhaps harmful aspect that SRS has played in helping CDers and TG find acceptance.

Wow - YES.

Naomi Wolf is another important piece of this.

Your 'broken' comment is VERY edifying! And, yes, I totally AGREE!

Myself, I ain't broke.

Do I need to have a cute butt?

Does Hillary?

I have to more to think, then write, on this topic - soon.

Thanks for stimulating my mind, Melissa!

[pocoyo]

Its in an english newspaper this morning......http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/28/wkim28.xml

:eek: wow 12!
They were just joking about it on tv! (Friday Night Project).

[janedoe311]

I would be upset in his place.

[JenniferMint]

Hope the kid was told he will never father kids

I would be upset in his place.

Given that Kim has identified as female all her life, I think fathering kids wouldn't be something she thinks of doing. Maybe she'd be upset at not being able to get pregnant though?

[Helen MC]

What's the big deal about Fathering Kids? In my teens I realised that such a role was definitely not for me and I will never do so. Now if the question regarding Kim had been "Hope the kid was told she will never give birth to kids and be a Mother" I could just about understand that as Kim having for as long as she can recall having wished to be a female she might possibly feel that conceiving, being pregnant and giving birth was part of that role and as the transplant of a uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries has not yet become part of GRS , (assuming it is even technically possible) this will not be a possibilty for her.

[Siobhan Marie]

What's the big deal about Fathering Kids? In my teens I realised that such a role was definitely not for me and I will never do so.

Helen, I realised the same thing when I was in my teens too. The hard part was having to tell my parents that they'd never be grandparents.

:hugs: Anna Marie x

[Calliope]

It's been my experience that raising children was (and continues to be) the most fem experience possible. Dialectics: without fathering (as the stay-at-home parent), I doubt I would have discovered just how TS I was. Also, there's hope for all parents wanting to be grandparents: adoption.

[Helen MC]

I didn't tell my parents anything and their wanting grandchildren didn't even enter into my considerations. I had MY life to live not theirs. Anyway, my sister Anne gave them grandchildren and is a gran herself now,

[MarieTS]

I have to say that you and I, MelissaK, shared similiar childhood experiences. In fact we would probably be living totally different lives now if we had families and support structures like Tim/Kim.

However, Melissa, I might be wrong, but based upon your post I'm not sure you understand "why" the TS (and GG's) need the physical enhancements you seem to consider unnecessary. I think it is because those physical changes/enhancements represent one of the key elements of true femininity.

Perhaps this is a gross oversimplification, but consider how challenged a pianist with only 7 fingers would feel. But then through some miricle of chance they are given the possibility of acquiring 3 more! It would truly be a life altering opportunity, and one they would undoubtedly seek at nearly any cost. How could we condem them for that, consider them as shallow, or accuse them of seeking nonessential surgical alteration? I certainly couldn't.

Getting back to Kim, I'm content knowing that somewhere in the world there is a young girl rescued from a life sentence of confusion and torment because she was blessed with the support neccessary to live the life she was truly intended to live. God bless the family and medical personnel who have come to her aid. And may the Lord be with everyone who encounters and struggles with this painful misidentification.

[melissaK]

I have to say that you and I, MelissaK, shared similiar childhood experiences. In fact we would probably be living totally different lives now if we had families and support structures like Tim/Kim.

No kidding? Well, then big hugs, because if 3rd grade left a scar on you like it did on me, you need extra hugs still.

However, Melissa, I might be wrong, but based upon your post I'm not sure you understand "why" the TS (and GG's) need the physical enhancements you seem to consider unnecessary. I think it is because those physical changes/enhancements represent one of the key elements of true femininity.

I think I understand the whys. I just think it needs to be a conscious choice. My feminist gg friends with A cup chests would never think it necessary to become C's or D's to be a woman. And I agree with them. But, I don't think ill of those who want them.

Perhaps this is a gross oversimplification, but consider how challenged a pianist with only 7 fingers would feel. But then through some miricle of chance they are given the possibility of acquiring 3 more! It would truly be a life altering opportunity, and one they would undoubtedly seek at nearly any cost. How could we condem them for that, consider them as shallow, or accuse them of seeking nonessential surgical alteration? I certainly couldn't.

I like your example. It also made me recall a M*A*S*H* episode (I am soo a child of American Pop culture) where Charles has to deal with a GI that was also a concert pianist, who had his right hand blown off and became suicidal. Charles found him classical piano music for the left hand - - - . The point is not that the GI wouldn't have loved to have his right hand back, just that we had made up a world that had social values so strong that a man with only a left hand couldn't even imagine he could still be a concert pianist. Charles reminded him he still was a concert pianist, and his belief that society's rules required him to have two hands were wrong.

I once got to work with mentally handicapped kids, there are a lot of parallel lessons there about the "unwritten" limitations we think society is placing on us, how many of those imagined limitations aren't justified, and what it takes to get over them.

Getting back to Kim, I'm content knowing that somewhere in the world there is a young girl rescued from a life sentence of confusion and torment because she was blessed with the support neccessary to live the life she was truly intended to live. God bless the family and medical personnel who have come to her aid. And may the Lord be with everyone who encounters and struggles with this painful misidentification.

Amen.

Hugs,
'lissa