my son wants to be a girl

This is a very long article  with lots of food for thought. I'm only commenting on one, relatively minor piece of it:  " Separation from the mother is an important part of the infant’s psychological development. However, the psychological and physical separation can be experienced as trauma. This in turn can lead to either a wish to possess the mother in some way, or a grievance toward the mother, as the infant finds it hard to give up the ideal relationship represented by the primary maternal preoccupation. In a recent paper entitled   Time and the Garden of Eden Illusion , psychoanalyst John Steiner describes the common fantasy of returning to an imaginary, idealized relationship with one’s mother.....   American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard coined the term autogynephilia to describe a male’s propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female. But even in cases where such sexualized impulses are absent, a trans woman may be impelle...

So now that my son wears typical boys clothes most of the time, why am I still occupying myself with this topic? Because I have a feeling that he is cutting off a part of himself. I've offered to buy him pink stuff, but he insists thats for boys. Last year for Purim (a bit like Jewish Halloween) I offered him a tutu skirt, although his dad was not in favor. He declined, and chose red lady bug wings instead, which i found a creative compromise on his part. But this year, he's asked to be Spiderman. (like at least 5 other boys in his class). So whats bothering me? I see that hes expressing his interest in girl fashion vicariously. As most immediately available female, he tries with me. I'm a jeans and ponytail kind of gal, but he often asks me to put on make up, he wants to style my hair, or tries to convince me to wear some of my formal occasion wear stuffed in the back of  my closet. His still plays princess at home with makeshift old clothing and headgear, althou...

One of the more successful pieces of my approach, has been to provide accurate and consistent information about the mechanisms of reproduction. Absent this information, it can truly seem arbitrary to have two different categories of people. My son knowns that one day his body will develop to look like his dad's, not like mine. And he knowns that part of that is that his body will create sperm. And that with that sperm he can, if he finds a female partner, create a child, that will have the same relationship with him as he does with his dad. He has a sort of understanding, if somewhat vague, of the concept of DNA. He sort of gets the concept of sexual intercourse. I've also told him about sperm donation, as he has a friend with two lesbian moms. (this derailed my program a bit, but we got past the hump) I began at age four, by trial and error, by what I thought he could grasp. I made mistakes- sometimes I had to repeat the same information a few months later. But at his ag...

We were attending synagogue with some relatives a couple of weeks ago, when a transman (a female transitioned to male) announced "children's service downstairs in ten minutes!" I happened to know she was trans; because I had seen her a few years ago leading a woman's group, and had been told as much (should a female presenting as male be leading a woman's group is a question for another time). At the time, she had looked like a teen boy, being small and slight, but with a masculine voice, hair and clothing, and very, almost exxaggerated, masculine mannerisms. She had still had a deep masculine voice and had grown some facial hair. She was wearing masculine clothing. She was still small and slight, but as her hair had begun to gray, it was obvious she wasn't a young boy. If you were looking, as I was,  you could detect the outline of a waist and hips.  I found it somewhat ironic that she was leading the childrens group, a position that tends to be ...

I had stopped blogging for a while, because the status quo as I last described it hasn't changed much. However, I decided that it is just to important to stop. The trigger for me to return to blogging about my son, and how he resolves his gender dissatisfaction, was a new book that came out, called growing with my child, or some such, by Mimi Lemay. I didn't even read the book, just and excerpt, but I sure debated about it on facebook. It seems that books or articles such as these are coming out these days a dime a dozen; and they all sing the same tune: A child who wants to be the opposite sex actually is the opposite sex, and your only choice is to affirm that or he'll die by suicide. Parents need to hear another tune. I'm not a great writer but perhaps I have what to offer them. And thats why I am returning to blogging. My son is 7. There is a long way to go to know how he will turn out as an adult. I don't know how well my uncharted path will help him or...

(This is in reaction to a comment I received online). A very common response to any discussion of gender non conforming kids is that that theyre going to commit suicide. From someone who doesn't know me, doesn't know my son. It's a way of pushing your point of view down someone's throat without having to actually discuss the issues. You better accept what I say because if not, your kid is going to die. Ugh. Not only doesn't my son have gender dysphoria, he doesn't have any sort of dysphoria at all. He's actually a generally happy child, enthusiastic about a lot of things. He has a struggle to deal with in life, that of things he loves, certain ways of being in the world  being off limits to him by society due to his sex. It's important but it is by far not the only thing going on in his life; not even the foremost. Secondly; I had gender dysphoria, and I'm still here. but more on that another time.

I've come to the conclusion that I have to be the one to expose my son  to the transgender concept I just have no clue when and how. He's definitely too young now but how will I know when he isn't? And what if I miss and I do it too soon? It has to be me and not society; and at the age when I have the ability to inoculate him somewhat against the pro trans propaganda binge that I've heard some young teens go through. It has to be me because I need to continue be a trustworthy source of information for him. My parents didn't talk to me about sex and lo and behold; when the time came I didn't talk to them. I suppose when he's old enough to have an intelligent discussion about sexuality? (He isn't now; I've tried and he doesn't get it).  Or is that too late? One thing I know is that its important not to talk about it with disdain. That would just close off communication. Actually its important for me to get rid of the disdain altogether at any...