Psychiatrist Says Kids Are Now Trying Out Transgenderism Just to Stand Out
A lot of kids today are confused about their sexuality, so much so that many are trying out transgenderism just to be "different" from their peers.
This was noted by psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Stathis, who runs a gender clinic. Stathis told the Courier Mail that girls who had been sexually abused in the past consider becoming transgenders because they mistakenly think that it would have saved them from from their abuser. "The girls say, 'If only I had been a male, I wouldn't have been abused,'" Stathis said.
The staff of the new statewide gender service at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia recently met with 180 children with gender issues, said Stathis. However, only a minority of them were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is the persistent feeling of identification with the opposite sex or discomfort with one's own gender.
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More often than not, the kids actually identify with their birth gender as soon as they reach puberty, Stathis said.
On the other hand, some kids try acting like transgenders to stand out. "One said to me, 'Dr Steve...I want to be transgender, it's the new black'," he said.
But this isn't healthy, said Stathis, because some transgender children have gone out of their way to block puberty by taking irreversible hormone treatments that in the end only harm themselves.
"I've seen genital mutilation, some who try to cut off their penis,'' he said. ''The thought of touching their genitals is so abhorrent [that] they don't wash them, [resulting in] infections.''
One transgender kid who made headlines recently is 9-year-old Avery Jackson, the first one to be on the cover of National Geographic. Many people are now viewing Jackson, who was a boy until 2012, as a trailblazer for gender identity. But Jackson insisted that "I really just wanted to be myself. I'm just a girl."
"By putting myself more out there, people will be able to know that I am transgender and proud and learn more about transgender issues," Jackson told USA Today.
