Trevor McGill

Mrs. Holl
English IV Honors 3rd
6, April 2015
"Is It Considered Child Abuse to Make a Transgender Child Change?"
First of all, there is no such thing as a "trans sex person or a transgender person. A
person's biological sex can never change. Gender, on the other hand, is a series of stereotypes
reinforced by a sexist patriarchy. Gender is something imposed upon people who need to
believe that men behave, feel, and act certain ways and women need to behave, feel, and
act certain other ways. It is, fundamentally, sexist. If a person is subject to the sexist notion
that their feelings of themselves do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes, they are
told they must be "transgender." That this movement has been seen as "liberal" is beyond me,
since it is extraordinarily conservative. Who cares if a man wears a dress and makeup? Who
cares if a woman wears a tux and likes power tools? Gender is confining and nonsensical.
Catering to it is merely catering to a sexist ideology; and calling parents who aren't buying
into it "abusers" is ridiculous.
Anyone who thinks that a child is not emotionally mature enough before the age of 18,
and perhaps not even at 21, to make life altering physical changes to their bodies and that
counseling by a non-biased, non-transgendered person should be mandatory for any child who
feels that they are the wrong gender before any physical action (hormone therapy, organ
removal) is allowed, is clearly ignorant of the science, as such, their opinion counts for
nothing. As stated in Medical Standards of Care v7 2011, "Treatment aimed at trying to change
a persons gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at
birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson,

1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly, 1965). Such
treatment is no longer considered ethical. Worse, some religious-oriented therapists don't
see the death of the patient as the least desirable outcome. As was said to one transgender
patient, "Now I am going to say something that may seem harsh but remember I am talking to
you about objective reality, where the rubber meets the road. It is better to die than to
offend God. It would have been better for you to have given your life to stay in obedience to
God, than to break His law and to drag along into sin your poor spouse (Crowder 2010). The
bottom line is, you can try conversion therapy, of course, but at the risk of damaging or even
killing the patient. We've known that for over 20 years.
It is understandable that someone with certain beliefs would be willing to do whatever
they deem necessary in order to keep things in line with the ideas associated with their
beliefs, but this is pure science. Testosterone production and the conversion of some
testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, which normally occurs between weeks 6 and 12 of
pregnancy, is critical for the initial development of (fundamental) male features, such as
the male genitalia, prostate gland, etc. (Bao 2006). In the absence of these male hormones,
female genitalia develop instead. Brain development, however, does not occur in earnest
until the second half of the pregnancy term, after the genitals have been developed, and the
continued presence of male hormones results in a brain which has subtle, but critical physical
differences from the female brain. The fact that the brain and the genitals develop at
different times in the womb mean that a misalignment between the genitals and brain may
develop, leading to either an intersex condition, when a person is born with a reproductive or
sexual anatomy that doesnt seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male (caused by a
variety of conditions), or a transgender individual. In conclusion, yes I do believe it is child
abuse to attempt to make your child change, or think differently. People dont choose
whether or not they feel as if they should be male or female; its all determined by our
genes.

References:
Bao, Ai-Min and Swaab, Dick F. Sexual differentiation of the human brain: Relation to
gender identity, sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders Frontiers in
Neuroendocrinology 32 (2011): 214226.
Coolidge, Frederick L., Linda L. Thede, and Susan E. Young. The heritability of gender
identity disorder in a child and adolescent twin sample. Behavior Genetics 32.4 (2002):
251-257.
Crowder, Austen. "Catholic exchange to trans woman: "It is better to die than to offend
God"" Bilerico Project. 24 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 May 2015.
Gooren, Louis The biology of human psychosexual differentiation Hormones and
Behavior 50 (2006): 589601.
Hare, Lauren et al. Androgen Receptor Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with
Male-to-Female Transsexualism Biol Psychiatry 65.1 (January 1, 2009): 9396.
Lentini, E. et al. Sex Differences in the Human Brain and the Impact of Sex
Chromosomes and Sex Hormones Cerebral Cortex 23 (October, 2013): 2322-2336.