Is There Such a Thing as a Transgender Toddler?

I'm not sure how many of you have read or heard about this five-year-old child in the media that was a girl,and is now recognized as a boy by her parents. I know that there are some social groups that are claiming this as their issue, but as a parent, I am claiming it as mine. This is child abuse.

Now, before you go and scream “bigot,” let me tell you why. At five years old, I don't think it's appropriate for her parents to reassign her identity. Even if they felt their daughter truly was a transgender, it's not their place to announce this to the world and help her transition into being a boy. They've singlehandedly carved out her social position and identity for the rest of her life. Isn't that what we get to do as teenagers and young adults?

A five year old should not be committed to something like that. It's like allowing her take out a loan on the house she's going to live in when she grows up, after deciding for herself what house that's going to be. Let's face it – at five years old she can't understand the financial agreement she's committing to, and her choice in houses is guaranteed to change. Honestly, I wouldn't even trust a five year old to decide on what they should eat for dinner, much less the social identity they want to maintain for the rest of their life.

Similarly, there's no way this little girl can understand or grasp what being openly transgender is going to mean for her in the years to come. She is not mature enough to make a decision with ALL THE FACTS. Deciding she's a boy at age two is impossible. She doesn't understand what “being a boy” is really all about. It also means being a teenage boy, and being a man. She can't grasp the responsibility that comes with that.

As I was watching this video of this little girl swimming in boy trunks and couple-dancing with little girls, all I could think was, “What about in the next 10 years when you start to grow boobs and decide who you're attracted to?” There are so many more formative years after the age of five – why do you have to put her in a box so young? What if this five year old goes on to change her mind? That she's really a girl after all? And she could – she has that right. Socially, she could decide that (if indeed she really does feel she's a boy) she'd rather just embrace her girl parts and be the girl that everyone else perceives her to be.

If given her privacy and the space to claim her public identity alone, she still may have claimed her female identity. What if she'd grown up and still identified with being a boy, but was attracted to boys? She could have very easily – and very understandably – decided to solely identify herself as a girl to the rest of the world. Her sexual preferences could have outweighed any other motive. Or maybe she'd simply decide that she doesn't want to fight the battle over which locker room she should be changing in, or on which sports team she should be allowed to play, or any number of issues that hinge on whether you have a boy's or a girl's anatomy (which, by the way, goes so far beyond whether you have a vagina or a penis).

But now, there's not really an opportunity for her to do that. At this point, if she's attracted to boys, her only option is just to come out of the closet and decide that she must also be gay, since she is attracted to boys, even though she has a girl's anatomy, so boys that are attracted to her are actually straight....Wow, is your head spinning yet? I can barely wrap my mind around these scenarios at 32. How can we expect a five year old to take all of these possibilities in stride when making a decision of this magnitude?

Why would parents do this? Well, the video that I saw talked about how the parents were trying to embrace and accept their child, citing that many transgenders try to end their life because of not being accepted. Well, congratulations parents – you just made this child's road 10 times harder! Not only could she potentially be dealing with gender identity, but now she will be the bullseye of political and social commentators for the rest of her life. As if puberty isn't confusing enough. Sorry sweetie - now you're a poster child for a whole movement, and you don't even know what “a poster child” means. Heck, I'm not even sure if you can tie your shoes or spell your full name.

This is so far outside the LGTB issue. To prove it, I'll even take the position that this child really is a transgender. If the parents wanted to be supportive and open to all possibilities, then why not just promote that environment at home? If the parents wanted to accept her for who she was, “no strings attached” as they put it, they could have done so without involving the rest of the world. They could have responded in so many other ways that still would have been supportive to the possibility that she really is transgender.

This was not an A or B scenario. There was a C, D, E, F and G option that wouldn't have brought this girl so fully into the spotlight, and so entirely into a social and political fight that she can't even decide she wants to be a part of yet – one she doesn't even know exists. But instead, they have unilaterally committed their child to this identity without the consent of her rational, mature weigh-in that won't actually come around for many years to come.

They're not freeing this child from a social role or proverbial box – they're committing her to one. If this was a teenage child, or a grown woman, this would be a LGTB issue. But the fact that this little girl is barely out of diapers makes this an entirely different discussion. And quite frankly, I'm horrified that it even has to be had.