By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
A 12 year-old boy who returned to school after summer vacation as a girl caused such an uproar in a UK school that teachers were forced to call an emergency assembly to deal with the problem.
According to a report appearing in London’s Sun, the parents say their child is about to undergo hormone treatments and is preparing for sex change surgery which could make him the youngest sex change recipient in the world.
His parents, who have already changed the child’s name to a girl’s, said they hoped his transition would go unnoticed because he was entering a different school where other children might not recognize him.
However, a few of his former classmates spotted him and the word soon spread through school, causing him to become the subject of cruel taunts.
Teachers quickly stepped in by calling an emergency assembly where students were threatened with disciplinary action if they failed to treat the child as a girl or call him by his new name. Some students were so confused, they burst into tears.
Parents reacted to the incident with outrage. “ . . .(W)hat has really upset the parents is that the school didn’t see fit to send us a letter first so we could explain it to our children in our own way,” said one parent.
“Kids are by nature immature and insensitive. It is not fair either for the child who is undergoing this change. The girl, as she now is, will go through hell because of how this has been handled.”
Another parent agreed. “They behaved appallingly by throwing this hand grenade into the room and then leaving the inevitable questions about it for unprepared parents. Maybe we could have explained sexual politics and encouraged our kids to be more sensitive if we’d had a chance to be involved.”
Apparently, the child has been telling friends for years that he wants to be a girl. He was known to wear a bikini instead of trunks to swimming lessons, dried himself on Barbie towels, rode a pink scooter to school and wore pink ribbons in his hair.
However, the principal at his former school said the child was always treated as a boy, in spite of his “girlie behavior.”
The child has not attended school since the assembly but the school fully expects that he/she will be back soon.
“His parents have accepted he has now chosen to be a girl, and that’s how he will be,” said an unnamed school source. “She has not come into school since the assembly. There were things that went on in the community which have been extremely upsetting for the family.”
David Hawley, a transgender counselor, told the Sun it was very unusual for a child of twelve to be that clear about what sex they want to be.”She has had a lot of support from her parents. So I imagine she was comfortable with herself before going to school and now she is discovering it can be a nasty world, which is hard at that age.”
In the UK, children are not permitted to receive hormone treatment until they pass the age of puberty. Depending on the timing of the child’s therapy and surgery, he/she may be on the way to becoming the world’s youngest sex change recipient, a title now held by 16 year-old German born Kim (formerly Tim) Petras.
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